I have had a particularly hard time determining what content will become popular on [Reddit](http://www.reddit.com). While some argue that Redditers like Politics, others argue that Science is king. But sometimes, the content that becomes popular can completely catch you off-guard.
Have a look at the following three submissions:



All three submissions link to images of snow in incredibly large quantities. Who would’ve thought that snow could go viral? As you can see this was clearly a meme started by the first submitter and followed by two more. All of the stories received substantial attention, and even though the overall votes for the subsequent submissions weren’t as high as the first one, they were all made popular on Reddit’s home page.
This shows two things and is partly responsible for a popular phenomenon on socially driven sites. When a certain kind of submission reaches the front-page, it means that people are obviously interested in that kind of content, so other people try to submit similar stories in the hopes of them also becoming popular. While this works sometimes, most of the times the subsequent stories don’t get as much attention as the first post.
Furthermore, the success of these posts is partly due to the comparison that the context creates. So if you have content or are offering a service, always think of it in terms of other content/services that your audience could alternatively subscribe to. By putting yourself in the larger context, whether it be other sites in the blogosphere, or other companies offering similar services, you can better appeal to your prospective audience by showing them how you are providing more value than your competition. Or conversely how you have more snow than any of them.