Reply Mining: The System Behind Pre-Validated Content

Welcome back to Viral Examples.

Today (in 2 mins or less) we're diving into why your best posts get buried while mediocre content takes off.

A creator we follow posted a thread last month that flopped. 84 impressions. Two likes. One was his mom.

But buried in the replies of a competitor's viral post that same week, he spotted a comment with 200+ likes. It said, "I tried this but my audience is too small for it to work."

He wrote a post answering that exact frustration. It pulled 400K impressions.

He stopped guessing what his audience wanted. He started listening to what they were already telling him.

This is Reply Mining. And the best creators do it every single day.

The system takes 30 minutes. Here's how it works.

Step 1. Find the goldmines

Identify 3-5 posts getting heavy engagement in your niche. You want 50+ comments. Bookmark them. This is your research pool for the day.

Step 2. Read the replies like a researcher

Scroll past "great post!" and "love this." They tell you nothing. You're hunting for three specific signals.

Signal one. The direct question. "How do I actually do this with a small account?" Every question with multiple likes represents hundreds of people who wanted to ask the same thing.

Signal two. The "I tried but" reply. "I tried cold DMs but my response rate tanked after week two." They've identified a gap between advice and reality. Your content fills that gap.

Signal three. The "what if" comment. "What if you're in B2B and your buyers hate social media?" This person is telling you exactly which angle the original post missed. That missing angle is your next post.

Step 3. Build from the reply

Take the strongest signal and build a full piece around it. That reply already proved demand. Real people engaged with it, liked it, responded to it. You're writing content with a built-in audience before you hit publish.

Say you find a popular post saying "Post every day and you'll grow." And the top reply says, "I posted daily for 6 months and gained 200 followers." Your post writes itself. You already know it will hit because hundreds of people validated the frustration in real time.

Most creators stare at a blank screen waiting for inspiration. The best ones spend 30 minutes in the comments and walk away with a week's worth of ideas, each one backed by proof that people care.

Start tomorrow morning. Five posts. Hunt for signals.

Let’s Go Viral

There’s two parts to getting results from posting content:

1. High quality content

2. Relevant distribution

Megaphone, the team behind Viral Examples, helps with both.

1. Our writing team works learns your voice and delivers weekly batches of content for you to post.

2. Our creator network helps get your posts in front of the right audience.

Grab time here or just reply to this email to learn more.