What do you think makes a marketing initiative go viral? Write a blog post around your choice of top five characteristics of a viral campaign (your opinion).
Having your marketing campaign go viral can be an instant ticket to success these days but it doesn’t just happen for no reason … ok sometimes it does and those are the gems that you need to look out for however there are a few characteristics that can work together to help garner that elusive “gone viral” title.
Content – Content is King! Without quality content that people are genuinely interested in you will have a tough time getting “everyone” to share it. The key to content is that people want to feel the need to tell everyone in their social feeds that this is something you have to see. Some people think their BLT is something that the world needs to see but unless that BLT is jumping over a speeding Aston Martin then I don’t think I need to see it.
Humor – When you have a humorous video or post there is a better chance that it will be shared amongst friends and throughout social media outlets. I can count how many times people have sent me links and said “hey check out this video, it’s horrible and your day will only get worse after having watched it” That number thankfully is 0! You can get lost in the rabbit hole spending time on website like CollegeHumor or FunnyOrDie and if you can capture the attention of viewers with funny content then its off to the races.
Originality – The funniest content in the world will sink like a rock if it’s been done before. You need your content to be original and something that no one has ever seen. Although it is not intended to be humorous by the poster, Chocolate Rain by Tay Zonday was an overnight explosion due to its . . . uniqueness? Just the third video on his YouTube channel posted 6 years ago, Chocolate Rain was different enough to get the world to say “you HAVE to hear this song” and 93 million views later you could say it was a viral success.
Excitement – Viewers need to feel excited about your content or they will move onto the next best thing. The Red Bull Stratos freefall jump with Felix Baumgartner was an event like no other. Jumping from the edge of space and freefalling to Earth all while the entire planet watched was just the thing to get eye glued to the monitors.
Sharing – The ability to spread the funny, original and exciting content that you’ve created is the single most important mechanic for your marketing initiative. Creating content that is easily shared across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media outlets is integral to it going viral. One person shows two people, who show four people, and one of those 4 people shows their 300,000 twitter followers and the sharing pushes your content out faster than you could ever do yourself. Soon enough it will reach Kevin Bacon’s doorstep in no time flat!
There are the flukes out there that go viral with absolutely no planning such as Charlie Bit My Finger which is just a pair of kids chewing on each other which garnered 535 million views then there are staged viral videos like the Gillette commercial where Evan Longoria bare hand catches a ball before it hits a reporter.
Either way if you want to go viral and have it be in a positive way the 5 characteristics listed above are a great starting point when you want to infect the internet with your content.
References
http://webmarketingtoday.com/articles/viral-principles/
http://mashable.com/2013/07/09/jonah-berger-viral-content/
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/viral-marketing-cheatsheet/?wide=1
http://www.t2social.com/social-media-case-study-old-spice/#sthash.rRUOcULw.2gBKKRQi.dpbs
Devin Van Balen 
Your statement ‘content is king’ is right on. If you don’t have strong, emotional, original or important content know one will care. Also, I think humor works incredibly well for viral marketing. Everyone likes to laugh and something that genuinely makes you LOL is more apt to be shared. Nice post, very insightful.
Devin thanks for sharing! The videos that you posted are awesome but the sport fan in me sucked me back in to see if Kobe actually did jump over the Aston Martin. The video was a huge plug for his Nike shoe and the Aston Martin brand. You are spot on when you say “Content is King”. With the right timing and content possibilities are endless for a marketing and branding team. Viral Marketing is all about sucking in the viewer in and attracting new viewers to the products like me today. Kobe created the surprise factor and an also reality TV feel as I was watching the video. Great work!