1. Facebook’s 25 Random Things Meme
If you were on Facebook last January, you no doubt saw, or even participated in a meme that swept across the social networking site like wild fire. The meme was basically a survey with rules as follows.
“Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If i tagged you, its because I want to know more about you. “
This simple concept became one of the most viral memes ever on Facebook, with very direct impacts on their traffic and user participation. Compete.com data shows that nearly 4 times the more people visited the “notes” section (the section utilized for the 25 things meme) on Facebook in January than the previous. This reached a high of 20million in January vs 4 million in October 2008. In addition to this, Facebook itself saw 15% overall growth in January, with 60% more profiles created in January than December. You can see the increases in general traffic, and the notes section reflected in the graph below. The meme eventually became so popular, it garnered mention in the mainstream news. Thanks to readwriteweb for the image and analysis.
Notable Features of the Viral
1. Specific rules for sharing: The rules mandate sharing with at least 25 other individuals. This is a HUGE reason why this particular meme took off and became so viral. By requiring tagging of others, this meme accelerated exponentially.
2. Appeal to vanity: Telling others about yourself appeals to vanity, given an excuse such as a meme that “everyone is doing” give people a chance to talk about themselves that they normally wouldn’t be able to discuss. This helped to make each participant in the viral meme feel a sense of ownership in it, adding to their desire to share.
3. Appeal to learning inside scoops: The nature of the viral was to share information other people didn’t know. This made the meme interesting to both participants and readers. This meant that even those who did not write a “25 things” p0st themselves, still acted as spreaders for the meme in that they talked about it with others both on and offline.
2. FakeBait – The Viral Lie
In May 2008, marketer Lyndon Antcliff, wrote a sensationalized and fictional article for his client money.co.uk. titled “13 Year Old Steals Dad’s Credit Card to Buy Hookers”. The story became popular on digg and was then picked up by mainstream news sources including News.com.au, The Daily Telegraph, and Fox News. The fake news bait resulted in over 2,200 links for his client. Even more exposure came when Lyndon exposed the article as a fake, gaining hundreds of links from reputable marketing blogs across the internet.
If looked at in terms of viral success, this was no-doubt a blockbuster, however there is more to consider here than simply the number of links that were built. This case should be seen as a both an interesting example, and a warning to those who might consider a similar viral strategy. Using a lie can result in a good deal of negative press, so one must be understanding of that risk, and asses negative publicity as part of the equation.
Notable Features of the Viral
1. Lies can make great Virals: The caveat to this is that they can damage a brand and its credibility. There are however instances where this might not matter, or strategies for dissociating the brand from the lie.
2. Sensational outrageous stories coming from legitimate sources result in viral success. The weirder or more bizarre, the better.
3. Viral success isn’t your only goal, if its a detriment to the brand, forget it.
3. Mappos – Viral Mashups
Mappos is a real-time google maps mashup that shows people buying shoes from the Zappos.com website in real time. As each customer buys a pair of shoes, that shoe pops up to the location corresponding to the buyers IP address. You can then click on the shoe and buy it! There is also additional functionality for voting for shoes you like, which gives users additional incentive to participate. While this particular example has yet to be a viral blockbuster, I felt it was worthy of mention for several reasons:
Notable Features of the Viral
1. Good viral content allows viewers to relate to a product in an interesting way (even when its something mundane like shoes) . This sort of mashup illustrates the sort of thinking that result in viral content that spreads the word not only about the content itself, but about the business/brand as well.
2. Good viral content can convey additional value of a product. This particular case demonstrates popularity. Only a popular site like Zappos could make an application like this, because only Zappos has the traffic and customers to make it work.
4. Blendtec
Blendtec is a company that makes high powered blenders. They are responsible for the “Will it Blend?” series of viral videos that began in 2006 and continue today. The premise of the virals is to take everyday objects and see what happens when you put them in a Blendtec blender. Things they have blended include: a rake handle, marbles, an Iphone 3G, Glowsticks, Cubic Zirconium, Hockey Pucks, Golf Balls, and many other items.
As of June 21, 2009, the Blendtec series of videos had collected a total of 83,238,033 views (an average of 967,884 views per video) on YouTube. The viral videos became so popular, Tom Dickson, the companies founder and star of the videos, found his way onto television several times including a feature on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In 2007, Blendtec announced that their viral marketing campaigns with the “Will it Blend?” series had improved sales numbers by a staggering 500%.
Notable Features of the Viral
1. The viral succeeded in being interesting, and at the same time demonstrating value of the product. If you’re goal is to build brand awareness through a viral, it is necessary to make sure you’re viral marketing idea somehow conveys the benefits of your product. Blendtec does this spectacularly by showing the durability and strength of their product in a very interesting, and viral way.
2. Packaging is important to legitimacy. If you watch the “Will it Blend?” series, you will notice the care that went into the videos, the professional quality, the set, and the overall production value. This is an important element. In many cases the presentation is almost as important as the content. Presenting something professional and pleasing to the eye encourages sharing, and adds value and legitimacy to both the product and the viral content.
5. AVirginsPlea.com
I wanted to mention this particular viral because its really a combination of three that have already been mentioned (Savetoby.com and Ex-Girlfriend Revenge, Viral Hoax). The site was set up with the premise that if 5 million visitors came to AVirginsPlea.com in 30 days, a girl had agreed to sleep with the sites owner. That back story included the fib that the author was a virgin whose fiancee cheated on him six months before their wedding, ruining the next three years of his dating life.
The hoax took off and Matthew Gamble, the creator of the site, did more than 20 interviews with news programs before finally being exposed as a fraud. The viral had no monetary goal, and was not used for the viral promotion of a product or service, but is still interesting as a concept for virility.
Notable Features of the Viral
Matthew Gamble commented that the idea “worked too well”. In my opinion, this is because it included several elements that had proved successful before. These include:
1. Telling an outrageous story that people find share-worthy.
2. Giving readers a scenario they can empathize with.
3. Giving readers an incentive to share (in this case sex, but also altruism)
4. Definitive goals to reach (5 Million Visitors)
5. A Time Limit (30 Days)
Sometimes I like to think about the Internet as one big high school. A high school that has every imaginable clique or type of group, from the nerds, to jocks, to stoners, to cheer leaders, to political enthusiasts, to goths… Each of these groups comes with a certain amount of social pull, a level of ability to sway general perceptions and spread ideas. In a real high school, the group of students with the most influence are usually known as “the cool kids.”
Reddit is a social news site where users submit content (articles, images, videos, comments, etc.) and the submissions are ranked by popularity based on the total number of votes given to the content. The largest demographic on reddit are males between the ages of 18-35. Topics redditors care about include: atheism, marijuana legalization, science/technology, programming, net neutrality, Jon Stewart, gay rights, and hating Glenn Beck.
Digg is similar to reddit but somewhat more popular. It’s demographics are similar to reddit but tend to be more moderate and more focused on gaming/news/and pop culture. There are what are called “power users” on digg who have high success rates with promoting content to the front page of the site where it is seen by millions.
Something awful is a very large paid forum. Members have developed a unique community with its own specific subculture. In many ways it is similar to 4chan in that it’s main visitors are young males with raunchy/gross out type senses of humor. Many memes have originated there including “all your base are belong to us” and goatse.ce.
IGN forum is the companion forum to IGN.com, one of the largest gaming sites on the Internet with over 6 million unique visitors per month. The demographics of the forum are similar to the site itself, mostly young males. Content on the forums is similar to what you will find at 4chan or Something Awful consisting of picture posts, offbeat news, contests, pop culture, geek culture, gaming talk, hot chicks talk, and obscure Internet references/memes.
4chan.com is the web’s most popular image board. It was created in 2003 by a 15 year old from NYC who called himself “moot”. Before starting 4chan, moot was an avid somethingawful forum member. The boards started as primarily a place to discuss anime and manga, but has since become a hub of Internet culture that has been responsible for starting and spreading TONS of viral content and spawning dozens of memes.
