In the first of our two stories on ‘going viral’ Mary Hamilton (@newsmary) gives a comprehensive rundown of the editorial, technical and psychological ingredients that make a story spread. Here are some of the qualities she lists:
Identity – what people share isn’t the same as what they consume. The things they share are chosen because they reinforce they way they want to be seen by others.
Honesty – one of Buzfeed’s strengths is that it’s headlines are totally unambiguous: if you see the headline ’53 Cats That Don’t Like You’, that’s exactly what you’ll get.
Easiness – remove all possible design and user experience barriers to sharing.
Quality – make it good, and don’t try to take any shortcuts.
She finishes with a great piece of advice: “remember that people are just people, even in aggregate on the other end of an anonymous internet, and what people like isn’t all that hard to predict, if you’re honest with yourself.”
The second story is from Twitter. Their post says that there are no rules for making something go viral, but instead provides three case studies (and beautiful accompanying visualisations) which show the different ways video can spread on the network.
Ryan Gosling won’t eat his cereal – this Vine clip went viral as a result of careful seeding with key Vine Influencers. (Perhaps we should start calling them Vinfluencers?)
Commander Hadfield’s Space Oddity – this spread quickly with 90% of shares happening in the first three days. Hadfield himself was the source of majority of the shares of the video, rather than third parties.
Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches – this spread very differently to the first two videos; there was a long-tail of sharing as different groups discovered the video, with a few influencer-induced spikes.
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In the first of our two stories on ‘going viral’ Mary Hamilton (@newsmary) gives a comprehensive rundown of the editorial, technical and psychological ingredients that make a story spread. Here are some of the qualities she lists:
We’re pleased to welcome two new people to the Brilliant Noise team: Ruth Oliver, who joins us as Office Manager and Community Manager and Social Moderator (she’s a woman of many talents), and Patrick Samson, our new Digital Consultant and resident UX expert.And before we go, here are a few more brilliant reads…Toyota creates ‘outdoor’ website for Rav4Turning content marketing into content ROIDove’s Photoshop Trojan horse