What is it that makes the difference between a viral something and a flop? My guess, when it comes to creative virals, is that it is  the story about the story, and not the story itself. Think about it. When releasing something in the online sphere, you need to release it into a context. As the amount of content online is so vast and in many instances great, to simply focus on content quality is not merely enough.

The movie industry has been successful in doing this for years with “behind the scenes” material and story telling about the story. A good example is the latest Robin Hood movie where they have launched a full series of “epic proportion” PR releases that are being taken up by the tv-stations around the world to boost demand. The quality in the story about the story is almost as thoroughly produced as the story itself.

The Old Spice example
A good example of a commercial released lately that has a story behind the story is that of Old Spice. First the video was released. It was fabulous… it seemed as though everyone walked around saying “… look at your man, now back at me…”. The video jumped and got included in hundreds of blogs, newspapers etc. all over the world. Highly creative, great content and great scripting created an initial boost for the video.

However, the producers of the old spice commercial didn’t want to leave things to chance. They played out the story behind the story card when telling the world they had shot the full video in one shot. People now had to watch it 5-10 times more in order to be able to spot how the heck they did it. Naturally they released a behind the scenes version of the same commercial with “reviews” from the rest of the industry included into it, saying not only that this was a fantastic production, but the way they did it was fantastic as well.

An ad agency, such as the one I work for often focus on the story. The story behind the story is almost always looked past. Not only by the agency, but by the client and by the time frame of the project. This is a huge problem as the virality of a project becomes more of a game of chance rather than a game of skill. Yes, you can cheat, which most of the bigger productions do, but it just doesn’t feel right in the gut when you do. It is like winning a price but having no one to compete against.

I know I haven’t written in a while, and I know this post is not what you expect of me. However, the story about the story shall never be forgotten. I am working on a post which will get its story about the post itself… and so I wanted to share these thoughts with you as a quickie before my bomb falls this weekend.

//Jesper

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If there is one thing I know I’m good at, it is creating viral concepts. I started generating a new set of concepts once Facebook’s open graph was launched and I feel as though I can meet the future with not only methodology but with a big cradle of fun as well. Many people claim that you cannot create a viral reaction to a campaign. Some say that it all depends upon how contagious and killer the content is. Some people say that there is nothing called viral at all and that it is all cheating and playing with numbers. I say it’s all about the understanding of how a virus works.

I still have the “I Love you” virus on a disk. It sparked many processes in my brain that have continuously plagued me since. If you study it long enough you can almost see how its engineers thought of a social process such as the one we are now currently embracing online. There are some components in a virus, that you need to make a viral campaign. These components will not get you all the way, but they are a must. You need a carrier, you need a network, you need a trusted relationship and you need some kind of contact.

The Carrier

The carrier is the infected individual. In terms of disease this individual will carry the virus or bacteria as long as it chooses to stay in the body, or more accurately until our immune system refuses it. In terms of marketing, the carrier is the one person you manage to engage. In terms of spam, the carrier is the host you have managed to infect. Just like disease, a carrier when exposed to marketing is a lot more resistant to old viruses, ideas and concepts. However, this does not mean that you can find loyal carriers for old ideas or offers, just as there are weak immune systems that can get infected more than once.

The Network & Contact

The carrier needs to host a network or be connected to it. In the case of the “I love you” virus, your contacts got hi-jacked, in the case of Facebook’s Open Graph you allow it access. The network needs to be structured and there needs to be some kind of way to determine what the different data types represent. Just as with disease and the people who do not clean their hands before eating, you need followers or sloppy people who wants to spend some time in the network in order for your virus to be contagious.

If you have 100 people in your network, you only need a conversion rate of 1% to make a viral campaign spread at a ratio of 1:1 which means it will be shared in eternity.

The Trust

Really evil or well thought out viral campaigns adds the trust aspect as well. This is just like optimization of any marketing campaign. If you manage to tap into trust you can share the most malicious viruses or the most profitable viral marketing campaigns. Just as HIV is shared through unprotected sexual intercourse, which is an act based on a trusted relationship (or just simple, adulterated and shameless lust), a viral marketing campaign that builds upon trust between users will more easily extract the kind of data needed to make a real business case out of the data itself.

Some other thoughts

Now, as I said, there is more to virality than the components above. You need triggers, you need concepts and you need content that is suitable for a scalable campaign that will run at a steady state over time. You don’t want your viral campaign to kill your servers (a positive acceleration), nor do you want it to blast and go past (a negative acceleration), but you want it to have constant returns to scale. For each person that joins, you want them to infect one other person. Think about it. It won’t take that long to get the whole world in on the modern, social web.

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Since I turned to the buyers side, I sort of meet this kind of social media guru guy every single day. In some way I can relate. I mean sometimes I’ve just been soo eager to say the words – “I am going to point you in the direction of using some common fuckin’ sense…”

And especially when I listen to some people out there with big mouths who have nothing to show for it, who have never made ANYTHING work… for the future.. all I will do is pick up this blog post, sit back and laugh!

Enjoy!!

//Jesper

The title of this post might induce some critics, but I am used to them, and they teach me stuff they don’t even know about. So, I like the self indulging “ultimate how to” phrasing as it is exactly what I am going to tell you.

So simple, yet one of my biggest secrets. The viral campaign has allways been an element in my basket of tricks to pull out when I want to make something profitable. Some people are talking about viral videos, some people are talking about viral content. All they are really talking about is content that someone has either 1. got really lucky to get a lot of visitors too, or 2. something of quality that someone has payed someone to bump in order for the rest of us to enjoy. Actually, most of the videos that go viral and that have a commercial undertone are bought. There are several clans that both push stuff on digg, watch stuff on youtube or spam people on twitter. If you have good content enough, and you want guaranteed results in your campaigning.. then spam is not a bad idea to start from.

However, this how to is not about spam. This how to is how you get mediocre, highly commercial content to get shared between users.

Still doing the E-mailing thing
A couple of years ago the only thing available was e-mail. At least when working with viral campaigns. I was fortunate to hook up with some rad people back in the days that understood two things. 1. people can be bought and 2. they can tell others about it if you give them incentive enough.

Fiiine said I. Quite naive at the time, I asked: “But don’t people see through your greed and start disliking you?”, the reply was simply; “Well not if you give them enough value for themselves”. The bottom line was that everyone is willing to spam everyone given the right incentive.

I know… I am using the word spam. But in fact, that is what it is. If you are a friend of someone and they have not agreed to recieve commercial messages from you, then you are in fact spamming them if you send them such a message. However… we would never think of suing a friend, no matter how many quizes or “join my group” requests they send our inboxes.

E-mail was king back then and e-mail is king right now. Until Google Wave is fully launched, I think viral e-mail campaigns are about as profitable a campaign you can make. There are too many surveys about it. When recommended by a friend to do in a certain way, people comply. Ie. if a friend recommends me to do something, I am much more likely to do it, then if a company recommends me to do the same thing.

E-mail just happens to be the most outspread social network around, and thus, it is the best one to use.

Facebook Connect, and Twitter
To the toolbox, the past two years has added some new great techniques to add on the magnificent share possibilities of e-mailing.

Facebook Connect gives you the posibility for users to easily log in and share your stuff, where ever they are, and how ever they want. At least by messaging on Facebook or posting stuff on their Facebook wall. Be it your offer, content or promotion, or perhaps just their own comment, or reflections on what you are doing. I have been too lazy (or to busy) to put Facebook Connect on this blog. But it is really worth while to do so.

Another thing is Twitter. What twitter really does is that it gives you the possibility to set up waves of news flowing all over the world in just minutes. It is amazing how people are willing to RT their friends content given there is a well enough written Tweet… Ie. the title.

So, what are the secrets to a viral campaign?
Basically there are a couple of rules you should follow not to fail.

1. Allow people to share what ever you want them to share (doh.. just put it in here for the idiots)
2. Allow for people to load all their contacts from MSN when sending e-mails
3. First give a person a reason to join, then give them a reason to share
4. Allways, I say… ALLWAYS have two values. One fixed and guaranteed, one that is not fixed and dependent upon performance
5. Spend loads of your time on the subject (it doesn’t matter what it says as long as it looks good in most inboxes or twitter clients)
6. Use active language on all the buttons (“claim your invites” instead of “share this”)
7. Use the words “max”, “private” and “increase”

If your viral campaign does not comply to the seven rules stated above. It is upp to lady luck if you succeed or not.

For now that’s all I want to share

//Jesper