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When you need content to build links, use social proof of concept

Ryan Sammy 4 years
Ryan Sammy Contributor
Ryan Sammy is director of strategy at Fractl, a growth marketing agency that helps Fortune 500s and boutique businesses improve backlink portfolios, brand awareness and organic traffic through high-quality content.
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Before tackling a new content idea, it’s comforting to have evidence that it’ll go off without a hitch.

Of course, that’s not possible.

You can never know 100% that a piece of content will meet your objectives. But you can get a better sense of whether it’s likely to succeed.

We call it “social proof of concept.” This strategy is often used by marketers as a way to gauge the promotional viability of what they’re going to create.

Let’s examine what it is and how to use it to create compelling content.

What is “social proof of concept”?

“Social proof of concept” is one of the many ways you can come up with content ideas.

It essentially means a similar piece of content has performed well in the past, meaning it’s likely that something in the same vein that’s better will perform even more impressively now.

By exploring content examples that got a ton of social engagement, you can ask yourself:

  • Are people talking about the topic?
  • What was it about this content that might have made it so successful?
  • Is there something missing that we can add/improve upon?
  • Is there something about the methodology/design we can learn from?
  • What conversation is happening around the topic that you can contribute to now?
  • Is there an idea that complements this content and contributes to the discussion?

When you can identify what’s been successfully engaging in the past, you can start with a much higher chance of creating something that really resonates with people.

Where do I find social proof of concept for my ideas?

My favorite places to look for social proof of concept is on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube and others. I’ll walk through my process for vetting potential topics and methods of finding inspiration for new, related ideas.

Reddit

Reddit dubs itself the “frontpage of the internet,” and for good reason. A lot of content that performs well there ends up shared all over the web.

This makes Reddit my go-to for finding social proof of concept for a campaign topic. I have used it many times to vet an idea and inspire more.

Searching Reddit can be done in a few ways:

  1. A general Reddit Search of the entire site, where you can use the advanced search operators to find related submissions.
  2. A search for specific communities based on a keyword. If I am having trouble with a topic, I usually try to find a community around it, then look at top posts from that year or all time to get insight.
  3. Exploring Reddit’s trending communities to see topics or ideas people are coming together around. This page also allows you to see top communities by category using the filter options in the left column.

If you have an idea for a topic but don’t know what exactly to do, try looking through the following communities to get an idea of what people are talking about and if it relates to your topic:

  • /r/AskReddit/ — Find shared experiences around a topic, common subtopics mention, tangential discussions, etc.
  • /r/legaladvice/ — Gives you insight into legal woes people face but provides insight into various parts of people’s lives, like their relationships with coworkers, neighbors, etc.
  • /r/Showerthoughts/ — Provides insight into what people consider “whoa” moments, which can inspire content ideas that produce a similar effect.
  • /r/explainlikeimfive/ — Find topics that confuse and interest people. You can use this subreddit to prove people are interested in learning more about a topic but looking for that explanation to be simplified.
  • /r/videos/ — Find interesting videos that can be used to prove a campaign topic. Maybe someone created a simple video explaining the basics of the topic that ended up getting tens of thousands of views. Your content campaign can go deeper into the topic, leverage comments for subtopic insight, and use the popular video as an example for publishers that the topic has viral potential.
  • /r/NoStupidQuestions/ — See which concepts or topics people are faking they know about but actually need more information about.
  • /r/relationship_advice/ — Search for discussions around your topic to see how people handle the topic as it relates to human relationships.
  • /r/coolguides/ — Find out if your potential content has already been covered and what questions people may have. Sometimes you can find inspiration in the comments for tangential or complementary pieces.
  • /r/todayilearned/ — Find topics people are interested in but don’t have much knowledge around. Normally, a popular TIL can highlight how little people knew about it and just how much interest there is around the topic.
  • /r/Futurology/ — Find out what future trends excite people, and if there is an opportunity to create content around a future topic that would be interesting to the masses.
  • /r/theydidthemath/ — Get content inspiration or read about interesting methodologies that could be applied to your own content projects.
  • /r/confession/ — Find topics or behaviors people don’t want to talk about, which could lead to an engaging, not-often-explored content angle.
  • /r/DepthHub/ — Get links to discussions you might not have come across or been able to surface with search.

If there are specific subreddits around your topic area, subscribe to those, as well, and keep tabs on what people are sharing and asking so you’re aware of what’s interesting in your vertical.

Twitter

Twitter is a great place to find discussions that are actively happening. Since their search only goes back seven days, it’s tough to look at topic trends over time.

However, I still use it to find conversations occurring around topics, identify gaps in content I’m creating, and determine if my content will add to the discussion happening or repeat what’s already well-known.

Twitter can also act as a place to inspire tangential content and come up with unique angles for a saturated topic.

You can use the advanced search and operators from this list to filter tweets that are relevant to your research.

I also use a few other tools to help search for relevant tweets.

  • Hashtagify – Explore popular hashtags, related hashtags and who is tweeting about those topics.
  • Trendsmap – Discover geospecific topics or highlight where certain topics are being discussed.
  • Twitscoop – See what people are talking about by country.

In general, follow relevant people and hashtags in your industry to keep up with conversations and get inspiration on a daily basis.

YouTube

Looking at popular videos can help you find out how people are covering a topic, what’s already been covered, what angle of the topic people find most interesting and more.

If you’re looking for geospecific views of trending topics, you can modify their trending URLs to explore what’s popular in other countries.

You can also use this search query: site:https://www.youtube.com/feed/trending?gl=US + [country] in Google to find a specific country’s trending feed.

I also like to use YouTube Search to find videos specifically around my topic to help gauge interest, what’s been covered, and general discussion around the topic. You can find videos that prove your topic’s popularity or inspiration for unique angles around a topic that may be oversaturated.

Other options

Looking for more sources for social proof of concept? Try these.

Pinterest

The Pinterest community is a great way to explore social curation around your topics. You can use their search to explore your topics and view collections people have built on their boards.

These collections can give insight into what people are interested in exploring as it relates to the topic.

Pinterest also offers a monthly insight report where they highlight the top 100 searches on the site.

Memes

Memes are a huge part of modern digital culture and a great way to find insight into topics people are finding interesting, especially shared behaviors, beliefs and more.

I sometimes explore popular memes to see how they’re being used to relay a popular concept or topic. Some places to explore, outside of your personal social media feed are:

Facebook via BuzzSumo

Facebook is another great source to find popular social content. However, it’s a bit difficult to search without a third party tool.

You can use whichever you like, but I use BuzzSumo. You can search popular topics by keyword and then sort them by social media channel to find out what’s trending on this network.

What’s an example of using social proof of concept?

Now that you know what it is and where to look for it, I’ll walk through an example of how our team has used social proof of concept to come up with a content idea.

For a content strategy we were creating for a client of ours, we wanted to explore the categories of beauty and health, which was tangentially related to our client’s brand. Our goal was to find a topic that was both useful to their core demographic and would be interesting and shareable for a wide audience.

I first went to Reddit and dug through popular post in the r/pic’s community when I came across an Imgur submission of a project by someone named Esther Honig.

Esther Honig – Make me look beautiful

She had taken headshots of women and sent it to designers around the world, asking them to make her beautiful with no other instructions. The image series went viral and made its way to many other Reddit communities.

The topic of beauty is something nearly everyone has opinions about. Back then, we saw a lot of social posts discussing Photoshopping bodies and how detrimental the practice had become.

During an ideation meeting, it clicked: Why not expand further on a proven viral concept and see what designers from various countries would do to a model given the same instructions?

Perceptions of Perfection was born, in which we asked people from 18 countries to Photoshop a model to fit their countries’ beauty standards. The project was originally shared on BuzzFeed and exploded from there, being shared in many countries, and covered on YouTube.

We went to communities where we wanted our project to be shared to see what those potential sharers were talking about. We examined what content excited them, and dug through the comments to better understand what they liked about it, what they hated about it and what they wished would have been covered. That social research helped to inspire not only this one viral campaign, but many campaigns for this client.

Starting with a blank slate is always an intimidating task. But remember: There are countless pieces of content out there that can provide ample inspiration and some peace of mind in terms of what’s likely to succeed and what isn’t.

Look at what type of topics, methodologies, designs, etc. have performed impressively in the past, learn from what they did and didn’t do well — then create something even better.