|
The Myth of Virality The current social strategy of many Marketing and Ad Agencies goessomething like: "It doesn't matter if the content is good, as longas we get a celebrity to tweet it, the thing will go viral!" The prevailing consensus is that if a Kim Kardashian or JustinBieber tweets your content out to their followers, the inherentsize of their audience will cause a viral loop, exploding thecampaign into the news feeds and inboxes of everyone and theirgrandmother. This fallacy is perpetuated by the "hip," "disruptive" agencies asthey focus on buzz words like "share-ability" and "social" (read ina loathing, sarcastic voice while I make air quotes). If a campaignhas a presence on every social network in the known universe, withcustom widgets that all connect to each other, then its success isjust a matter of turning a key and watching the crowd swarm. Right? Wrong. This strategy is not only absurdly lazy, but is ineffective,irresponsible, and even a little offensive to the intelligence ofyour desired audience. And yet, campaign after campaign saturatesthe Internet, towing along promises of fame, virality and ubiquity. Any producer or agency that has had an Internet hit will tell youthat content s value, not "share-ability," is the most importantkey to virality. A Case Study Our company, Mischievious Studios , recently joined the short list of ad agencies that haveexperienced true viral success. What contributed to this success,you may ask? A young Canadian artist by the name of Justin Bieber. Our longtime client Smule , a leading iPhone app company and frequent innovative marketer,came to us with a simple proposition: "We want a video that will doa million views and introduce our product to 13- to 17-year-oldgirls." Our first thought was to attempt to crack Justin Bieber's ironcladgrip on the teen girl demographic. Yet any attempt to market tothese hyperactive, frenzied, texting balls of estrogen would berejected and loathed. How could we sneak under the radar, find away to jump into the conversation they were already having ratherthan force them to change the topic? Simple. We parodied his new single the week it released and tweeted the video to his followers. Whathappened next was the stuff of Internet legend. A Viral Explosion The "Biebettes" took to the video and made it their own. Theyspread it within their circles, posted it on their Bieber Blogs andfan sites and tweeted it to the Biebs himself. Hundreds of tweetspoured in, asking @JustinBieber if he'd seen the video yet. Ten days after releasing the video, I sat down at my desk andstarted my computer. I was immediately bombarded by a wall ofTwitter notifications from "Beliebers" who were tweeting the video.The volume of tweets seemed slightly heavier than our recent flow,so I went to the YouTube page to investigate. Top Comment: AHHHHH!! Justin tweeted this! It's soooo funny!! A rush of adrenaline coursed through my veins. I threw my dooropen, and screamed for my partners to come in. They rushed in tofind the tweet pulled up on my screen. They gasped. The mostpopular guy on Twitter had just tweeted our video to his 22 millionfollowers. As the celebrations and high fives commenced, I decided to checkone more thing. I pulled up Justin Bieber's Facebook page, andBOOM. There it was, on the top of his timeline, embedded, watchableand being published out to 44 million fans -- our parody. Yet the journey only began with Justin's tweet and post. Whathappened next was far more interesting. A Community of "Beliebers" You see, Justin's promotion of the video was only the beginning.The tweet and Facebook post only resulted in a 330,000 view spike-- a nice number, but nothing in the Viral Video world. The truekey to the video's viral success would be in the ones who gotBieber's attention in the first place -- his diehard fans. We had placed ourselves in their shoes when writing the concept.What would we want to watch and pass on if we were teenage girls,obsessed and in love with Justin Bieber. Our answer? A video abouta teenage girl, obsessed and in love with Justin Bieber. Our parody had featured a headgear clad teen girl who kidnapsJustin and makes him her boyfriend. Seeing their undying fantasyacted out in front of them, especially to the tune of his new hitsingle, struck a chord with his followers. It gave them a feelingof "This is SOOO me!" or "OMG my friend is just like this." And they shared. My god, did they share. They posted it on their walls like a badge, laughing with theirdigital friends that this video was totally just like them. Or theyused it as a gift, sending it to a friend, strengthening their bondand status in that friend's social circle. We hadn't just created a funny video; we had created a currency. Avaluable item to be shared in exchange for a feeling of connectionwith a group of one's peers. And that currency has continued togain value. At the time of this writing, our Justin Bieber "Boyfriend" Parodyhas blown past 4 million views in a little under two months, andcontinues to see the exponential growth indicative of a viralsensation. Neither Mischievious Studios nor our client Smule havehad to spend a penny marketing the video, yet it has generated over25,000 downloads of Smule's Magic Piano app through a link in the video description. Conclusion The moral of the story for advertisers and marketers alike? While it helps to have a tastemaker like Bieber kick-start yourviral growth, that growth will not occur unless the content itselfhas value to the audience and can be used as currency within theircircles. Justin Bieber often shares videos that see no growth afterthe initial 300,000 view bump. Kim Kardashian gets paid $10k pertweet to give minor bumps to ideas that have no chance of virality.Ad.ly is making a business off the fact that advertisers thinkInfluencer = Virality. The key to virality has, and always will be, value. Create contentthat is valuable to an individual, a group, or society as a wholeand they will spread it faster than any marketing campaign orcelebrity endorsement ever could. Give them what they want, andthey will give you what you want. And maybe, just maybe, if we all create valuable content, and stoppaying celebrities to tweet, advertising will be more fun, KimKardashian will be gone, and this world will be a much betterplace. You can see our video here . The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as PCB Screw Terminal Block , China Through Panel Terminal Blocks, and more. For more , please visit High Current Terminal Block today!
Related Articles -
PCB Screw Terminal Block, China Through Panel Terminal Blocks,
|
