Promoting content in social media is only half the battle. Once it is in the face of thousands of visitors, there needs to be some sort of emotional and psychological drive to get them to share that content with others. This is key in creating a “snowball effect” that will build perpetual motion to reach a much more pervasive audience.

I covered creating emotional “hooks” to lure people in to viewing content in The Anatomy of Linkbait, but that doesn’t necessarily provide a visitor with the same kind of emotions to want to pass the content along to an individual or mass audience.

Seven types of content sharing motives

To understand how to make content more shareable we must first understand what motivates people to share in the first place.

1. Self-expression

The biggest motivator in social media is self-expression. It’s great that there are so many different ways to do this in social media. When promoting content, use this motivator by providing easy ways for the visitor to express themselves, via social share buttons, comment threading, or some other form of engagement. If a person’s beliefs or interests are related to the content, then they will be glad to share it.

2. Affinity

Everyone wants to feel like they belong and that they’re a part of something. Sharing within communities helps meet that desire. This is an especially dominant motivating factor in niche related verticals or communities.

3. Validation

Confirming or approving something often times feeds the ego for many by making someone feel important. Content that provides personal validation will likely motivate someone to share with a wide audience.

4. Prurience

Obscene or lustful content can be highly shareable. Some people pass the guilt of consuming such content on to others to make themselves feel better about doing so in the first place.

5. Status achievement

Individuals like to be recognized for their efforts, especially publicly. If content or channels feature users who share the content, then they are far more likely to be motivated to do so.

6. Altruism

Benefiting others often times makes people feel better. Content can motivate visitors by giving them the opportunity to do something good for the community. For example, an environmental report to raise awareness can be a motivating factor to share it with others to get the message out.

7. Self-serving interests

Rewarding people for their efforts goes a long way. This can be done in the form of status achievement recognition, financial gain, free or discounted products or services, and so forth. Motivate people who share content by rewarding them if they do.

Sending vs. spreading

Viral sharing can reach many different audiences, hubs, and influencers. There are a few ways (and reasons why) people share content.

One-to-One

This type of viral sharing is most common via direct messaging through social networks, IM, or email. Dan Zarrella did a study on this and found that most people share in a one-to-one scenario due to:

• Personal Relevance (40%)
• Humor (16.4%)
• Utility
• Relationship Building (9.5%)
• Common Interests (7.8%)
• Sole Informant (5.9%)
• Reciprocity (2.4%)

One-to-Many

This type of viral sharing is most common on social networks and social content aggregation sites. Social media has created an outlet for this type of sharing to explode. Also in Dan’s study, he found that most people share to many others due to:

• Audience Relevance (18.6%)
• Increasing Reach (10.7%)
• Increasing Reputation (8.8%)
• Furthering a Message or Cause (8.6%)
• Utility and Usefulness (7.4%)
• Feedback (5.5%)
• Personal Networking (5.25)

Below is a chart showing the most popular social media sites for sharing content. As you can see, Facebook is the furious leader.

Four tips for creating content for viral sharing

1. Value

Trust me, I’m just as sick of hearing “create great content” and “content is king” as you are, but it really is the key to in getting people to share. By creating valuable, resourceful, and compelling content you will seek the approval of the masses.

2. Credibility

Make sure that your domain, brand, and author(s) are always seeking to establish credibility. Often times it comes down to the credibility of the source, not the content or message itself.

3. Usability

Making the content easy to share and driving them to do so with a call-to-action will do wonders.

4. Digestibility

Make it easy for people to consume your content. Whether it’s putting boring statistical data in a visual infographic, formatting the layout of the content, or chunking and segmenting content with headers and other methods, you are providing an easy way for the user to digest the content. If they feel the content and data is easy to digest they’ll feel comfortable sharing it with others.

The takeaway…

While many people might think that viral Internet memes happen on their own, the shocking truth is that most of them don’t. There is a large cycle of creative, development, deployment, and seeding that ensures success. By readying content and campaigns for viral success, you are taking the first steps in the cycle.

–Jordan Kasteler

Add to:

Does the prospect of creating Web video fill you with fear? If you’ve never done it before it can certainly seem overwhelming. But you can relax, because I’m going to walk you through the process.

Why should you be using video on your websites? Video is highly persuasive, and users have come to expect it. A well-produced video can deliver your message in a way that engages and persuades visitors to take an action that you specify. For example, my weekly WebTV show (www.HelpMyBusiness.com) attracts thousands of new viewers each week, many of whom buy various products and services I recommend to them. You can do something similar for your niche, regardless of your industry.

The number one key to creating an effective Web video is simple: Preparation. Unfortunately, most people dive in head first and end up with an awkward, disjointed mess. Preparation might not be the most fun part of the process, but it is critical to success.

Here’s a simple, 10-step process you can follow to ensure an effective Web video:

STEP 1: Decide on the primary purpose and objective of the video. Do you want to sell a product or service? Is it to educate the audience about a commonly misunderstood topic? Is it a product demonstration? The video must have a single overriding purpose — otherwise, the audience gets confused. Try to state your objective clearly in one sentence. For example, “the video will overcome any negative perceptions toward hiring new staff from an online employment agency.”

STEP 2: Who is your target audience? For example, based on previous buyers, how much do they know about the subject already? What are their backgrounds, languages and abilities to comprehend the topic? Are they naturally interested in the topic? You would make a very different video for children under the age of 10, than you would for lawyers who specialize in divorce cases.

STEP 3: Decide how you will present the topic. Will you use a documentary style? Will it be dramatic or humorous, sensitive and factual, or light-hearted and lively? There are other considerations too. Should there be a presenter on screen, or an unseen narrator? Also, try to achieve a balance of information and persuasion. Do you want to appeal mainly to intellect or emotion? At one end of the spectrum you could present the information like an instruction manual — purely factual. The other extreme is to persuade the viewer by feelings, emotion, and entertainment. A balance of the two is usually best.

STEP 4: Plan the structure of the video. It’s helpful to think of your video as a story — it must have a beginning, middle and end. The introduction must grab the viewer’s attention, the middle should balance emotion and facts, and the end must contain a powerful call to action that can not be ignored.

STEP 5:Work out the best duration for the video by boiling down the essence of the message and conveying that in the shortest possible timeframe.

STEP 6: Decide who will “own” this project and follow it through to completion. It’s no use assigning it to a staff member who is already over-stretched with other work.

STEP 7: Set a deadline. It might be a few hours or days for a simple video, or several weeks for a complex production.

STEP 8: Research and acquire information and elements to include in the video. Do you own any existing footage that could be used? Other elements might include artwork, logos, graphics or music.

STEP 9: Write the script. A script is the blueprint for your video. It includes not only spoken words but a detailed description of the visuals and music that accompany the words. Don’t expect to sit down and write the finished script in one session. It will evolve.

STEP 10: It’s time to record. Find a proper setting within the theme of the video and eliminate distractions and ambient noise.

Preparing your Web video will ensure a smooth recording process and a polished finished product. Users are viewing more video than ever on the Web and they are becoming discerning viewers. Stay ahead of the curve. A properly prepared video will always achieve better results than a haphazard effort.

–Peter Prestipino

Add to:

Response to article by Andreas Roell, The ClickZ Network, Sep 30, 2008 – Article Posted below.

All good points. But, it is much more sophisticated that he explains. The primary driver behind a video is the production of the video itself. Specticle is usually the driving force behind this component. Most of the videos gone viral are simply capitalizing on shock value. If ever there is a subsequent video to this, the specticle must innovate at the same level or beyond the original. If not relying on specticle (or in addition to it) emotions must be moved – strong emotions, like fear or hope – look at the presidential candidates now!

The second component is visibility. You can place a fantastically compelling video into a network like Youtube and get no results because its buried in a mountain of wanna-be viral videos. Aside from proper tagging and titling (from a search marketing and publicity perspective) the video must be promoted and distributed to networks that swing towards appropriate demos. Furthermore, promotion within social bookmarking sites are essential for enabling virality. Digg and Stumbleupon are our favorites.

The last components are timing and luck. There might a current event that you could be leveraged with keywords. There is no guarantee that a video can go viral, but there are certainly best practices that position a video for maximum potential.

Response to article by Andreas Roell, The ClickZ Network, Sep 30, 2008 – Article Posted below.

While there is absolutely no formula to produce an effective viral video, there are some common themes. Here are two.

An obvious component, but difficult to manufacture, is to create a video worth talking about. A viral video is like the one play of a game that I talk about first. Whether it’s a touchdown pass thrown by a running back or a walk-off home run by a rookie, a viral video needs to show something novel to rise above the rest of the field. It needs to grab attention, be memorable, and ultimately make viewers feel duty bound to pass it on.

For marketing purposes, the video also needs to allude to the brand or product of focus in an unobtrusive manner. The risk of not including a branding message, even if it’s subtle, is that everyone will share the video but not be able to give credit where credit is due. On the flip side, very few users would pass a commercial on to their friends. To be most effective, a viral video must straddle the line between advertisements and CGM (define).

The most difficult part of crafting a viable video is that what internal teams find amusing, interesting, and attention-worthy might not be shared by their user base. To overcome this, marketers must attack a viral campaign from a user-centric perspective. EA Sports’s marketing team got it right with its response to a YouTube post exposing a glitch in the 2008 version of “Tiger Woods PGA Tour.” The glitch occurred occasionally when players hit a shot into a water hazard; Woods was able to walk on water, make the shot, and continue on. In response, EA Sports released a YouTube video that parlayed the original negative video to promote the 2009 version of the game. Using Woods himself, the video showed the golf legend actually walking on water to hit a shot off a lily pad. The closing line was, “It’s not a glitch. He’s just that good.”

The video has generated more than 2 million views to date. I attribute its success to communicating with users in a meaningful, unexpected way. The video would probably have been less successful if EA Sports didn’t include Tiger Woods in its response or if the video’s tone was less playful and clever.

Tackling a viral video campaign can seem like a futile effort since more times than not they fall short of expectations. I do think, however, there’s always value in thinking about a campaign from users’ perspective. With a broader audience on the online horizon, adapting a user-centric perspective will only become more important as advertisers plan their online video campaigns to reach users.

Add to:

We’re preparing a campaign of serial videos to promote products online. In doing a little research, I came across some great examples of ads gone viral. Here are a few of them.

1. Blendtec’s “Will it Blend”. Amazingly viral and a brilliant product driven series. This iPhone video has over 5,100,000 Youtube views.

2. Quicksilver’s amazing, low-pro Dynamite Surfing video: 700,000 Youtube views

Jonathan

Add to: