Viral Cartography: what does a map need to have likes, comments and shares on social networks?

Abstract

The concept of Viral Cartography is still little debated and deepened by geographers. However, in contemporary times, viral maps are gaining more and more space on social media. Thus, this theme becomes relevant to geographic studies and opens up numerous possibilities for understanding and approaching the viralization of these contents on social networks. Therefore, the objective of this article is to conduct a theoretical analysis of the association of Cartography with viral content and to present and discuss the posts created by the pages of the “Viral Cartography” project on the social media platform Facebook and Instagram. As for the content produced, there are differences regarding posts with greater interaction, considering the two platforms, and it should be noted that Instagram is more suitable for quantitatively checking the viralization of a map, through its metrics. The map of Inverted America was the only content that was widely liked, shared and commented on, on both platforms. It was concluded that the theme is of great relevance for the present time and that it needs to be explored by the researchers of Geography and Cartography, since there were no studies found in Brazil that address the subject.