| Be Social and Multiply |
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| Written by Brian Epro |
| Monday, 14 December 2009 00:00 |
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Go viral by creating content that’s worth sharing and making it easy to share
In April of 2009, Susan Boyle, a relatively unknown and somewhat plain-looking singer from a small Scottish town, sang an unforgettable rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream" from the musical Les Misérables while competing on a TV talent show in Britain. Subsequently, millions watched her performance on YouTube—in fact, they were so enthralled they watched it again and again. Some cried, many cheered, and a great number of them forwarded the link to someone else. And those people watched it, too. Within nine days, Boyle’s video had been viewed over 100 million times.
What was the cost to produce and distribute the Boyle video? Almost nothing, since it was recorded live during the competition and later posted on YouTube. What was the cost of a 30-second ad spot during the Super Bowl two months earlier? About three million dollars or $100,000 a second and that’s not including the labor, materials, and time required to create the commercial.
Now which viewing experience do you think people found most memorable?
Make your content viral-worthy
Boyle’s story might be inspirational for singer wannabes, but you’re not on a talent show. You’re selling automotive products and services in a very competitive market. So, how can you recreate such viral success for your own company? No one knows with certainty which well executed idea will become the next word-of-mouth sensation, but here are three things to keep in mind when planning a viral campaign:
· Know your content. Create useful, engaging, and informative content. Be original; try humor; give something away; start a contest. In other words, create content that resonates and that people can’t wait to share with others. Rock their world with value-added content.
· Know your company. Whatever content you create must be true to your company and your brand. Cross-pollinate your campaign, offline and online, wherever possible. Make sure you have the executive buy-in and company resources to make it all happen.
· Know your audience. Do your homework and know which demographic is most likely to take your content viral. Identify the social media sites they use and how they exchange information. Give them incentives for spreading the word. Have a strategy for helping them to share your content.
Make the most of your contacts
With solid content created, you’ve already accomplished the most difficult part of the viral process. What’s next will seem easy by comparison. It will be easy thanks to Web 2.0 and social media tools. Today, “buzz” travels freely, and as fast and as far as passionate people want to take it. According to Forrester Research, 55.6 million adults in the U.S. (almost one out of every three adults) visit social networking sites at least once a month. Likewise, Nielsen Online reports that social networking now reaches more people than email.
Facebook and MySpace are the two most popular social networking sites, while LinkedIn, with 50 million registered users, is the most popular business networking site. A few services offer web bookmarking or content sharing, including Delicious (formerly del.icio.us), Reddit, a social news site, and StumbleUpon, which also allows users to discover and rate web pages, photos, and videos. Twitter offers a free social networking and micro-blogging service. YouTube is the premier video sharing site.
Make it easy
The real beauty is that any or all of these social media tools can help take your content viral and you don’t have to master the tools to take advantage of them. You just need to make your content available to your customers so they can easily share it with your networks.
For example, there are tools available for dealerships to include a “bookmark and share” invitation from their e-newsletters, inviting the reader to post articles and specials to their personal networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and so on. By encouraging readers to post valuable content to their personal profile pages, dealers are able to tap into the far-reaching influence of their customer base.
In addition to spreading content virally, the tool helps drive leads back to the dealership. Readers who click on posted content are connected back to the dealership e-newsletter and, if they submit a lead, an immediate Buy Signal™ is generated for follow up. Dealers capture prospects via each customer’s social network and are also able to track who’s posting their content.
Make it happen
Susan Boyle’s video delivered the goods. It was an amazing performance backed by an equally amazing personal story; her real-life fairy tale resonated and was destined to go viral.
Your first objective in going viral is to develop content that is both entertaining and enlightening, something of value people will want to share. Then, simply leverage the social networking tools they’re already using and sit back while they sing your praises.
Going viral enables you to achieve macro exposure with a micro budget. For a marketer, that’s not just dreaming the dream, that’s living it.
Brian Epro is director of automotive services at IMN Loyalty Driver. He can be reached at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or visit www.imnloyaltydriver.com.
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