You’ve seen it happen. A piece of content explodes overnight while your carefully crafted post barely gets noticed. The difference isn’t luck or timing, it’s understanding what makes people hit that share button. Great content isn’t just pretty or well-written. It taps into something more profound, into the emotional triggers that compel us to spread ideas like wildfire. When you understand the psychology behind viral content, you stop guessing and start creating with intention. Here’s what actually drives people to share, and how you can use these emotional triggers to create content that resonates.
Why we share isn’t about the content
Before we dive into specific triggers, let’s reframe how you think about sharing. People don’t share content because it’s interesting. They share content because of how it makes them feel and what it says about them. Every time someone hits that share button, they’re making a statement about their identity, their values and their place in their community. This isn’t vanity, it’s human nature.
Research from the New York Times Customer Insight Group found that people share content for five key reasons: to bring valuable and entertaining content to others, to define themselves to others, to grow and nourish relationships, for self-fulfilment and to get the word out about causes or brands they care about. Notice what’s missing from that list? “Because the content was good.” The content is just the vehicle. The emotion is the engine.
Jonah Berger, author of “Contagious: Why Things Catch On” and marketing professor at Wharton, discovered through years of research that emotional intensity matters more than emotional valence. Content that triggers high-arousal emotions, whether positive (awe, excitement) or negative (anger, anxiety), gets shared more than content that triggers low-arousal emotions like sadness or contentment.
Awe: Make them feel something bigger than themselves
Awe is one of the most powerful sharing triggers because it expands our sense of perspective. When people encounter something that makes them feel small in the best possible way, whether it’s a breathtaking landscape, an incredible human achievement or a mind-bending idea, they want to share that feeling.
Content that triggers awe often involves scale, beauty or unexpected excellence. Think about the last time you watched a video that made you say “wow” out loud. That’s awe working. A time-lapse of the Northern Lights, a dancer performing an impossible move, a story of someone overcoming extraordinary odds. These pieces don’t just get views; they get shared because people want to give others that exact transcendent moment.
The key to using awe effectively is authenticity. Your audience can spot manufactured inspiration from a mile away. Find genuine moments of excellence in your industry, showcase real human achievement or reveal perspectives that genuinely shift how people see the world. When you’re moved by what you’re creating, your audience will be too.
Anger: Channel frustration into action
Anger gets a bad reputation, but it’s actually one of the most potent triggers for sharing when used responsibly. When people feel angry about an injustice, a broken system or a common frustration, they don’t just sit with that feeling. They share it to validate their experience and rally others to their cause.
The most shared content often taps into collective frustration. “Why does [common problem] still happen?” or “We need to talk about [unfair situation]” posts resonate because they name something your audience already feels but hasn’t articulated. You’re giving voice to their experience.
But here’s the critical difference between viral anger and toxic anger: viral anger points toward a solution or empowers action. Toxic anger just vents without purpose. If you’re going to use anger as a trigger, always pair it with hope, direction or empowerment. Show the problem, then show your audience they’re not powerless. That combination creates content people share because it makes them feel like part of a movement, not just an angry mob.
Anxiety: Name the fear, then offer the map
Anxiety-driven content walks a fine line, but when done right, it’s incredibly shareable. People share content about their anxieties for two reasons: to find out if others feel the same way (validation) and to get guidance on what to do about it (direction).
The content that works here doesn’t just scare people. It acknowledges legitimate concerns and then provides actionable insight. “Is [trend] going to make [your skill] obsolete?” followed by “Here’s what you actually need to know” gives people both the validation and the roadmap they’re craving. They share it because it helps them process their anxiety and because it might help someone else in their network who’s feeling the same way.
The ethical responsibility here is enormous. Never manufacture anxiety to drive shares. Focus on anxieties your audience genuinely experiences. Your job isn’t to make them more anxious; it’s to help them feel less alone in their concern and more equipped to handle it.
Joy: Create moments worth celebrating
Pure, uncomplicated joy is viral gold. When something makes people genuinely happy, whether it’s a heartwarming story, an unexpected act of kindness or a moment of pure creativity, they want to spread that feeling. Joy is contagious, and sharing is how we pass it along.
What makes joyful content shareable isn’t just that it’s positive. It’s that it feels earned, authentic and relatable. A video of coworkers surprising their colleague with a celebration for a milestone, a before-and-after transformation that shows real progress, and a creative solution to an everyday problem that makes life just a bit better. These moments work because they’re grounded in reality, not manufactured positivity.
The key to using joy as a trigger is specificity. Generic happy content doesn’t travel. But specific moments of genuine delight, especially ones that connect to shared experiences, get passed around endlessly. Find the small, authentic moments of joy in your space and highlight them. Your audience will share them because they want to be associated with spreading good feelings, and because they know someone in their network needs that lift.
Surprise: Break the expected pattern
Our brains are wired to notice and remember things that violate our expectations. When content surprises us in a delightful or thought-provoking way, we share it because we want to give others that same “wait, what?” moment. Surprise doesn’t mean shock value. It means presenting something familiar in an unfamiliar way or revealing something unexpected about a topic people thought they understood.
The content that harnesses surprise well often follows a formula: set up an expectation, then flip it. “Everyone thinks [common belief], but actually [surprising truth].” Or present information in an unexpected format. A serious topic delivered through humour, a complex idea explained through a simple visual or a common frustration solved with an unconventional approach.
What makes surprise shareable is the feeling of being in on something. When someone shares surprising content, they’re essentially saying, “I know something you don’t know yet, and you’re going to want to know this too.” You’re giving them social currency. Just make sure the surprise delivers real value, not just novelty for its own sake.
Validation: Mirror their experience
Validation might be the most underestimated sharing trigger. When content perfectly articulates something your audience feels but couldn’t quite put into words, they share it immediately. Not just because it’s relatable, but because it makes them feel seen and understood.
This is why “Things only [specific group] understands” content performs so well. It creates instant recognition and belonging. When you name a specific, previously unnamed experience, you give people language for their reality. They share it to say “Yes, exactly this” and to signal their membership in that group.
The secret to creating validating content is specificity, again. Generic relatability is forgettable. But hyper-specific observations about your audience’s daily experience, their unique challenges or their insider perspective create powerful moments of recognition. Interview your audience, pay attention to their language and observe the details others miss. When you can describe their world better than they can, they’ll share your content to save them the effort of explaining themselves.
Usefulness: Give them something they can use right now
People share valuable content for a beautifully simple reason: they want to be helpful. When someone finds content that solves a problem, answers a question or provides a tool their network needs, sharing it makes them look good while helping others. It’s a win-win that drives massive amounts of sharing.
But usefulness alone isn’t enough. The internet is full of helpful content that never gets shared. What makes applicable content shareable is clarity and immediate applicability. Can someone take what you’ve taught them and use it today? Can they clearly explain the value to someone else in one sentence? If yes, they’ll share it.
The most shared applicable content often follows this pattern: identify a common problem, provide a clear solution and make it immediately actionable. “Struggling with [specific issue]? Here’s the exact three-step process that works.” Notice how that makes sharing easy. Your audience knows exactly who in their network needs this and why. You’ve done the framing work for them. Learn more about creating actionable content in our guide to building your social media strategy.
Combining triggers for maximum impact
The most viral content rarely relies on a single emotional trigger. It layers multiple emotions to create a richer experience. A piece might start with anxiety (naming a problem), add surprise (revealing an unexpected solution), deliver usefulness (providing actionable steps) and end with validation (showing others who’ve succeeded with it).
Think about the content you’ve shared recently. Chances are, it hit more than one emotional note. That layering creates depth and gives people multiple reasons to share. Someone might share primarily for the valuable information, while another person shares for the validation it provides: duplicate content, different emotional entry points.
A study published in the Frontiers in Psychology found that content combining practical value with emotional resonance achieved 34% higher share rates than content relying on a single appeal. The key is balance. Too many emotional triggers in a single piece can feel manipulative or overwhelming. Choose one primary trigger and let one or two secondary triggers naturally support it.
If your main goal is to inspire awe, a touch of surprise can enhance that. If you’re validating an experience, adding usefulness gives people a next step. Let the triggers serve your message, not overshadow it. For more on creating content that balances emotion with strategy, explore our guide to authentic storytelling on social media.
Creating content that feels something
Understanding emotional triggers doesn’t mean manipulating your audience. It means recognizing that humans are emotional beings who make decisions based on how things make us feel, then justify those decisions with logic. When you create content that genuinely connects on an emotional level, you’re not tricking people into sharing; you’re giving them something worth spreading.
Start by getting clear on what you want your audience to feel. Not what you want them to know or do, but what you want them to feel. Once you see the emotion you’re aiming for, you can craft content that authentically triggers that feeling. Then make sharing easy by being crystal clear about the value and who needs to see this.
The content that travels furthest isn’t always the most polished or the most cleverly written. It’s the content that makes people feel something real, something they want to share with their community. Give your audience content that resonates on an emotional level, and they’ll do the rest of the work for you. Ready to put these principles into practice? Check out our content creation toolkit to start building shareable content today.
