Simple Tips for Viral Marketing

‘Viral Marketing’ is one of those trendy phrases that has been floating around the Internet for the past couple of years, but it’s definition has often been murky. Is it simply a funny video, designed to be passed around offices up and down the country, or should it be used to define only those videos selling a product? Should brand it’s promoting be displayed loud and proud, or try and sneak it in when the viewer’s not looking? Well… these are all definitely questions…

Luckily the Viral Video Club approached us via Twitter and directed us towards a viral marketing event they would soon be hosting at Cargo in Shoreditch.
We arrived and, after propping up the bar for a few minutes, sank in to the over-sized beanbag chairs covering the floor and prepared to soak up all the knowledge from the line up of speakers. These included representatives from Unruly Media, ST16, EBuzzing, The Viral Factory and the king of the mash-up, Cassetteboy himself.

It was not a seminar or master class in the art of cracking a viral marketing campaign but more of an informal discussion around the topic. The speakers were good, apart from the slightly painful awkwardness and over-sized sunglasses of Cassetteboy – but we’ll forgive him because he makes a darn entertaining video.

I thought it might be useful to list some of the tips they gave us and these apply for any viral video content.

DO - Use Your Contacts

 

Any of your contacts could be good for distribution. You never know who just might know someone else, or is the cousin of someone’s brother-in-law’s aunt, so share share share - Within your own group of friends, contact lists and colleagues.

DO - Contact Influential Tweeters and Bloggers 

 

Often celebrities and influential members of the online community can be relied on to display your content to their many thousands of fans. Stephen Fry, Perez Hilton, and Lord Alan Sugar are amongst some of the most influential Twitter users online today and have a very high click-through rate.
Some of these celebs may be willing to do you a favour, especially if you already have a professional relationship with them, others however will definitely be hitting your wallets.

DON’T - Rely On Celebrities As Content 

 

Just because you have a great celebrity in your contact list does not guarantee a viral hit. For example when David Arquette & Courteney Cox featured in a viral campaign against domestic violence for The Ocean Park Community Center (OPCC), they came under a huge media and audience backlash who did not agree with the tone at all.




The moral of the story, make sure your content is targeting the right audience and tone before even considering which celebrity you should shoe-horn in.
Also take the Old Spice adverts for an example, no celebrity endorsement was needed but it currently has over 42 million views!

DON’T - Think You Have To Be Funny

 

Some great video pieces have been produced that raise awareness for different subjects, such as this one for Sussex Safer Roads. It is visually beautiful and thought provoking without needing humour.




At the end of the day it’s about getting a reaction from the viewer., do you want them to interact, laugh, cry, be amazed – probably you want them to buy something too. Granted, humorous videos are often the post popular and highly shareable but videos featuring public stunts and great cinematography can do just as well. And it goes without saying that viewers love a good shock proposal or surprise wedding too…

DO - Provide Value For Your Viewers 

 

People often share videos because it represents a viewpoint of character trait that they want others to know they have.
So if a viewer shares a funny video, they want their friends to know that this is their type of humour. If it’s a Cassetteboy mashup of David Cameron, then it is likely that they dislike his style of leadership. Often the most shared videos are large scale stunts, such as the Sony Bravia (Bouncy Balls) advert or public flash-mob style events, like Push For Drama.
The sense of disbelief you feel when watching them, the ‘omg-I-can’t-believe-they-did-this!’, makes you want to pass it around so others can also witness the epic feat and validate how they did it or whether, indeed, it is real.

DON’T - Limit Yourself On Time 

 

Commonly it’s thought that virals should be short and sweet, although it’s maybe good to think under 2 minutes, if you have a great idea that needs more time then hopefully the content should still keep viewers engaged.

Take for example one of the top viral ads of all time, DC Shoes: Gymkhana, which runs to 7 minutes 42 seconds, just enough time to make a cup of tea.


   

I realise there will always be exceptions that break these rules, but it's about trying different techniques and different types of content until you find a formula that works for you. And don't be afraid to fail - if you don't try, you can't succeed.

Keep watching this space as we continue to delve further in to the muddy waters of viral marketing!

Transmedia Heaven: Beginnings

After some effort and thought over the weekend, has one our fictitious characters, Lesland, reached 30 likes on his Facebook fan page. 

A small milestone, but none-the-less we have now unlocked the insights feature on Facebook (you must have over 30 likes) so we can see who is consuming what, when and how frequently. We can delve into the darkest places of our characters fans base, yes all thirty of them, and analyse their media consumption rates. I feel like I am working at MI6 and have infiltrated a cell… of some description.

Ladies and gentlemen we have ventured into transmedia! And we're going to keep you updated on our experiences throughout the process, the things we learn, the things that don't work so well, and everything in between.

For those of you who don't know, transmedia is the technique of delivering a story or creative idea across multiple digital platforms and formats. The idea is to create content that permeates the audience's daily lives so they can engage with it on varying levels and using different platforms, and in this way be a part of the action, and in many cases even control the flow of the action.

We thought long and hard and came to the conclusion that this transmedia world is so new that if you have imagination, and determination, you can make an impact. We have listened to and read so many opinions on this topic and the average attitude is that the whole idea is so new that lots of things are still untried. But that’s good enough for us, we have lots of ideas that we want to build on and share. This will enable us to start to learn and perhaps share the process and results with our clients in the future.

On our research travels we have found some wonderful and unique examples people embarking on their own transmedia journeys. A nice example is Screw*d, a reality-based campaign for Craftsman. It featured Alan Weischedel, a tool-clueless guy on a mission to become a real handyman. Weischedel’s immediate goal was survival, he was put in situations and environments he had no experience with and was set challenges. It was streamed live and viewers were able to give suggestions, via Twitter and Facebook, to help Alan out of various scrapes or give information on what tools would be useful to build things etc.

 

 

An amazing thing happened today. We uploaded a video to Lesland’s fan page on Facebook and more people saw it than Lesland has fans! I know – incredible. It was ‘available’ to 42 people, he only has 36 fans. This means that if we create great, short, witty, grab-you-by-the-throat videos, we will grow an audience! Creator and audience in some kind of symbiotic relationship.

We are at the point of deciding the level of interaction with our new audience. All 40 fans of Lesland have liked him for some reason or other. How much will they want to take part in his life and adventures? What will the level of engagement be?

How can we get people to enjoy taking time out to spend with a fictitious person?? What do we know about these people? You might think very little at this point. Well not exactly. We know that these people are happy to press the like button and sometimes they will add a comment to a piece of video. Can we engage them in a story where they can be submerged in to our world?

The character Lesland is a Police Community Support Officer, a PCSO. Whilst ‘on duty’ he found a suspicious-looking single glove, so he placed a picture of the glove on his fan page and asked if anyone had any information about the owner or the suspect circumstances regarding it’s abandonment. Well blow me down! People bought into it. They added to the story of the glove’s owner, helping us to take the story in new direction. One person even uploaded an image they themselves had created to add to the digital silliness. The power of story reached out with its smooth porcelain hand and said “this way my child to the digital tomorrow”.
 

Not only do you get a response from real people it is actually fun to do. You feel like you are in the operation room of life. An altered ‘anything can happen’ life. I want more…

CowBird - Putting the Feeling Back in to Social Media

Working in a place like ours, from producers to designers, you are dealing with stories everyday and trying to communicate them in the best way possible through video, motion graphics and scripting. Throughout my day I'll always look to Vimeo to see how other people are telling their digital stories too, whether personal or professional.

The lasting effect of an engaging narrative can be rare but is always one that I want to share with others, so you can imagine my delight when I came across this little gem - CowBird.com
A site dedicated to very short personal stories and not just one off statuses. There's a different lead topic everyday and anyone can contribute. Mostly they are remarkably compelling and heartfelt given their length and the writer's anonymity.

The brains behind the site, Jonathan Harris, talks about his motivation to set up CowBird.
He's got a pretty interesting back-story too which he doesn't mind sharing.

Harris states that the idea came about on his 30^th Birthday. He began running an experimental project, posting photos he thought were interesting to his personal site, number27.org, and adding an accompanying short story about each one. This small project then took flight and became CowBird.

Harris is also the designer behind 'We Feel Fine' which scans blog posts for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling", the idea being that in recent years, with the boom of social contribution sites such as Twitter and Facebook, people are posting increasingly distanced and unemotional content to the web. 'We Feel Fine', and now Cowbird, attempts to return to the emotional core of online social diaries and the digital footprints that we leave.

It's an incredibly beautiful site simply on a stylistic level but I urge you to check it out for some soul baring snippets.