Anatomy of a Viral Post

Recently, one of my LinkedIn posts went crazy, and I had to find out why.

This post got 17x more views, 30x more likes and 85x more reposts than my median. (Gold star if you know why I chose median, not average. Answer below).

But I didn't expect the analysis to take three days. 😒

False start #1: Generic praise

First, I pasted the post into Claude and asked why it performed so well. Claude showered the post with praised, pointing out generic writing "best practices," but nothing specific to my audience.

False start #2: Fascinating but useless

Next, I tried to reverse-engineer the algorithm. 😏

Claude ran a regression analysis on my last 400 posts and found that 68% of reach comes from likes, comments and reposts. The other 32% is unexplained.

But I still need to know how to get those likes, comments and reposts – how to write content that resonates with my audience.

I needed to understand my readers. How could I read their minds?

The breakthrough

Then I realised, I don’t need to read their minds. They left 400 comments telling me exactly what they were thinking. 🧠 So I scraped the comments and fed them to Claude.

The post resonated on three levels:

1. Resonant Stories: 62% of comments mentioned elements of the story, such as the main character “Maya.”

2. Resonant Feelings: 56% of the comments had emotions, mainly hope and inspiration, plus a bit of worry.

3. Resonant Topics: 46% discussed AI's risks and benefits in society, and 16% mention parenting or children.

My takeaways: Choose topics my audience is already pondering, not just ideas I think they need to hear. And wrap my frameworks in real human stories with feelings.

The audience split was fascinating

The comments were a Rorschach test – they revealed more about the commenters than about my post. When I filtered by job title and connection degree, a pattern emerged:

My core audience (founders, senior growth leaders) engaged with systems thinking and nuanced comments, and appreciated my contrarian take. Distant connections projected their own anxieties about AI and focused on tactical details.

My takeaway: My core audience doesn't want oversimplified content. They prefer important questions over easy answers.

But why 85x more reposts?

What made people want to share this specific post? Eventually I noticed, many reposts quoted this line:

"The limiting factor won't be the tools – it'll be the questions I'm smart enough to ask."

I think re-sharing my post let people signal their own thoughtfulness about AI.

My Takeaway: My best content crystallises what people already feel, but struggle to articulate.

What this means for me:

1. Ship (thoughtful) contrarian takes before I have all the answers.

2. Wrap my frameworks in human stories.

3. Say what my readers already suspect, but can't quite put into words.

My formula: Curiosity hook that challenges an assumption → Personal story → Illustrates point → Actionable insight.

What this means for you:

Big breakthroughs often come from small observations – the feedback we already have, the outcomes we haven't analyzed, the audiences we think we understand. The method matters less than the mindset: treat every unexpected result as data worth mining.

What unexpected result in your business deserve a bit of curiosity?

I hope this helps!