Article initially posted with the Title : 7 truths about viral content on Hypertext

Last week was Social Media Week in San Francisco, organized by our good friends at Beyond with some help from Text 100. And among the tons of fantastic conferences that took place over the week, one especially grabbed our attention: “The Truth About Viral.” It definitely seemed like one of the most ambitious panels of the week, but since it was presented by Andy Wiedlin from Buzzfeed (and since Buzzfeed definitely knows a thing or two about viral), we thought it would be a good thing to share a few of our learnings.

1. People just want something easy to share that allows them to connect

First things first – make sure your content is shareable (embeddable, easy to copy and duplicate, to make sharing as “frictionless” as possible, as David Hargreaves would say).
Viral content also needs to be super quick. The quality in end doesn’t necessarily matter, and sometimes a quick and dirty – but excellent – picture is far better than an overproduced video.

Look at for instance this “razorbombing” campaign for Schick. A simple idea, with simple pictures (most of the pictures are in fact taken with a smartphone). The idea is so strong that it took off and people not only shared but also participated, even outside the platform. Lo-Fi still works!

Visual content is more likely to go viral than text or written content, and if you plan to include text in your viral campaign be sure to keep it minimal. In some cases, a list format (e.g. “The top 5 solutions for XXXX”) can be successful in helping text content go viral, but be sure to get straight to the point.

2. Timing and relevance make the difference

It sounds pretty obvious, but viral content takes off because of certain factors that align in terms of time and relevance. Timeliness is a key element in the success of a campaign. Look at these campaigns for instance:

• Devastating pictures of the east coast earthquake
• Pepper spraying cop

Their virality is related to the events that took place. After a while, they also have a life of their own and become memes, but the initial take off is directly related to precise timing.

3. Make people look clever and cool

Sharing is an action where people can project their personality. They want to share something that will make them look “cool” with their contacts. Sharing says something about the people taking the action, who they want to be, and what tribes they belong to. Identifying groups, tribes, and communities to target also helps (ex: targeting Star Trek / Star Wars fans, the Lolcats fans, the Loldogs fans, etc. to leverage their sharing power).

4. It’s all about remixing

Great ideas are just remix of existing concepts. Not copies, but adaptations and transformations in a new environment. See for instance the memes. For more details about this, have a look at the Everything is a Remix video no3 by Kirby Ferguson.

5. Your goal shouldn’t be to hit numbers but to influence your culture

You don’t decide to make a campaign successful – people do it for you. Do something interesting first, and the click will follow. In the end, it’s not even about your content, but about relationships.

6. Want a big snowball effect? Then you need a big snowball

If you want to maximize the chance for your great content to go viral, and it fits the conditions of timeliness, group relevancy, creativity, etc. to take off, then you also need to think about the distribution. Great content still needs some help at the beginning by doing some outreach and having a strong distribution strategy.

7. The methodology is in fact very simple

1. Understand what people will care about
2. Think about great / creative / funny / shocking content
3. Think about distribution

There is often a lot of misconceptions and fantasies about “viral,” but in fact it all relates to authenticity and the relationships within your community. Andy’s full amazing talk (video) is available online. Disclaimer – Lolcats and ponies inside.

The second day of Social Media Week San Francisco included a hub on Social Technology and Analytics hosted by IBM and Razorfish. The day kicked off with a Keynote from Rod Smith, VP of Emerging Technologies who gave everyone a fascinating overview of how IBM is crunching social media data to do predictive analysis. Some of the more interesting case studies were the analysis of social media data to predict movie sales and communicate the occurrence of a natural disaster.

Next, came a discussion about big data and mining social media with Marie Wallace, Social Analytics Strategist of IBM Collaborative Solutions; Joe Davy, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of EvoApp, and Victor Balta, Managing Editor, CurrentTV moderated by Ed Elze. A lively discussion ensued with all the panelists making interesting points, including a comment by Victor who said, being able to effectively mine social media, was potentially the ultimate focus group.

The Social Media Insights Shootout between Erin Korogodsky, Social Strategist, Lithium Technologies and Chase Munson  Senior Research Analyst, Beyond and moderated by Mark Lewis  Group Strategy Director, Venables, Bell and Partners was next. The shoot-out was based on a brief, which can be found here. After a rousing game of rock-paper-scissors to determine who presented first, the shootout began. Chase, who relied on automated tools and human coders, went though his detailed result ultimately determining that the client should sponsor Tim Tebow. Erin Korogodsky who utilized automated tools on the other hand felt Tebow was too controversial, and would not make a great sponsor. Ultimately, there was a consensus that while the data was extremely valuable, other factors needed to be taken into consideration.

After lunch, we were treated to a fascinating vision the future of persuasion from Jason Tester, Research Director, Human Future Interaction from The Institute for the Future. The report broke persuasion into seven forces: Digital  Mirrors, Network on my Shoulder, Telepathic Technologies, No-click world, Epic Win, Amplified Imagination, Awe-gmented Reality. And while Jason was only able to touch on the first couple of forces, he gave us an intriguing view of how technology is already impacting our lives.

Next, were two panels which focused on the details of what and why of social media analytics. The first was all about using behavioral analytics to understand the impact of social media. This is an area where a real impact is starting to be felt. Ben Straley of Meteor Solutions, Marc Sanford  of Razorfish, and Sree Nagarajan of Colligent all gave great examples, often using client data, of how they teased out certain behavioral data and are then imputing back into their systems or models to improve ROI.

The next panel, which took the form of a jeopardy game, focused on understanding value and importance of fans, likes and shares. Of course we all know all fans are not created equal, but it was fascinating to hear the panelists discuss how they think of fans, likes and shares.

Finally, Robyn Schwartz, Associate Director, Retail Analytics from IBM gave a wonderful talk (actually it was more of a discussion as the audience actively participated) where she discussed Watson and the future on using powerful computers to crunch the every expanding amounts of data.

All in all is was a really great day with lots of new insights and great speakers.

Writes Raanan:

“The idea of a Twitter RT (Retweet) or sharing a blog post to Facebook is something so common today, that you don’t really need to explain to people why and when they should do it — it’s pretty natural. But is it as effective as it could be ?

I’ve been thinking about that and where all this sharing behavior is heading to as part of the big Social Media Week that’s happening in San Francisco right now.

The challenge I see with today’s sharing model falls into four buckets…”

Find out what those 4 buckets are and what there is to be done here on his blog.

Hosted in the beautiful art gallery and lounge of Project One in San Francisco, we started the week with keynote speakers of the week, press, and social media aficionados, all while enjoying some tasty cocktails and live jazz, courtesy of the Glenn Richman Trio.

We especially want to thank our in-kind sponsors for providing us with an amazing atmosphere to begin our week long conference.

Glenfiddich set up a private booth for intimate scotch tasting for our guests. They featured their their premium bands and background information, leaving us all a bit warmer and a bit more knowledgable

Sledgehammer Zinfandel Wines, perfect for the masculine wine drinker, accompanied a more feminine Emma Pearl Chardonnay.

We’d also like to thank our global sponsor, Nokia, who donated 5 brand-new Lumia 800 phones which we award to the top 5 tweeters of the night!

Please join us tomorrow night for our closing night party at 111 Minna!

Click here to RSVP!

Magners Irish Cider was also on call at Trulia on Tuesday, and we have the photos to prove it!

Sure fashion brands still need to have stylish forward thinking designs and create enough marketing content to start, but consumers are devouring brands’ content and repurposing it in new ways across the social web at astonishing speeds.

Early last summer I blogged about the curation trend where I recognized Club Monaco’s CM Culture Club, a place where brand employees could share their favorite styles, food and people. I also recognized e-tailers including Rue La La and ModCloth who were allowing some of their pieces to only be sold by popular vote.

Today, social curation gives online users the ability to actually choose favorite fashion finds and share them on sites like Polyvore, Everlane, Pinterest, and Tumblr (the early site for social curation). Though it’s easy to get hung out on trying all the latest and greatest technologies, remember not every fashion brand needs a Twitter handle or Facebook page or to partner with bloggers. As usual in life, less can be more if done well.

Here are four things that incorporate the curation trend that could be used in a fashion brand strategy.

1. Build out your site to include user curated content.

A brand should let users do more than write reviews about items of clothing. Let brand consumers upload photos of themselves or create inspiration boards using your brand’s pieces. By doing this, you’re sparking creativity in your consumers with in a sense giving them a competition. Consumers will generally be more innovative as to how they put outfits together to try to be seen and talked about once others jump in too. And many fashion consumers love to say “look at me” once they’ve bought something new. Why not give them the ability to do this right on your site? ASOS, an e-tailer located in Europe is a great example of how a fashion brand can go about this. The only thing missing that another brand could expand upon? Making sure users who are curating content are actually focused on your brand.

2. Partner with startups.

This is an oldie but goodie, and means that brands must stay in the know about new online platforms and mobile apps hitting the markets. Polyvore, a digital collage like site that’s basically a veteran to the fashion social media scene at this point, is well known for launcing brand based contests, including partnering with such fashion brands like H&M. Polyvore technology is also available for brand websites (Charlotte Russe has incorporated it) and brand Facebook pages (Bergdorf Goodman has implemented this).

The next thing to remember is that many fashion startups are actually mobile based apps. With the drastic increase in mobile fashion apps in recent years like ShopNear.me and Snapette, fashion brands have even more resources nowadays to reach out to consumers. ShopNear.me, an app that lets retailers list their merchandise and any upcoming sales or other updates per location, really giving a true integration between brick and mortar stores and new technology. Snapette, another mobile app, gives users the chance to upload photos taken at retail stores to show other shoppers their local finds. This app too is building the link between traditional retail and technology.

3. Work with bloggers not against them.

Integrating the newest thought leaders in fashion, the bloggers, will only strengthen brands’ relationships with consumers. Why? Because many bloggers started blogging as a hobby and have already generated their own reader base. What brand doesn’t want to reach more consumers? By choosing to partner with a fashion blogger, a brand is giving those blog’s readers a taste of how their brand fits into the blogger’s life. With the staggering number of bloggers out there, fashion brands can have their pick at the type of online voice they want a blogger to have as well as choice audience that’s already in place! Rebecca Minkoff is a great example of how to partner with fashion bloggers, having done so for a few years now. After initially reaching out to a few bloggers, the Minkoff brand began calling this group of thought leaders “Minkettes” and has since built a blog on the brand website that gears toward the true fanboys and fangirls of this brand. Now “Minkettes” is a cute term that everyone in fashion correlates with the Rebecca Minkoff brand.

4. Embrace social curation.

What’s the most fun you can have second to having fun? Talking about it. With technologies from startups like Pinterest, there’s a whole new way of sites that let users sign up and share any images they want from the web in their own collections. Social curation is definitely the perceived golden ticket to social media success for fashion brands this year, with brands like Kate Spade, ModCloth, Michael Kors, and Kmart. The true standout from this list of brands is Kate Spade. It’s the Kate Spade brand who’s quickly updating photo boards on Pinterest with behind-the-scenes glimpses and inspirations of the new Spring 2012 campaign. Social curation sites (forget exact site names for a moment) give socially curated content a place to thrive. Within seconds of posting, fashion fans and consumers are able to glimpse into their dream world and to curate their own content using brands’ content in ways that make sense to them.

Why all the hype of fashion and new technologies now? The hype isn’t really that new. Sites like Mashable, the New York Times, WSJ, and WWD have been coving this growing convergence for a few years now. New technologies just continues to really leveling the playing field in terms of who is a fashion trendsetter or even thought leader in this space and it’s really anyone’s game in terms of online popularity.

——————————————————————————-

Ashley Laurel is the founder of Pretty-Innovative, a blog about the convergence of fashion and technology that covers topics like digital marketing trends in the fashion industry, related event recaps, and wearable technology.

She’s worked in online marketing for more than three years and is currently a social media analyst at IDG focused on top tier B2B technology clients.

Join us at gyro, Thursday, February 16th at 10am for “In Search Of: 1-on-1 with Google’s Rikard Steiber“.

Steiber, Google’s global marketing director of mobile and social will be chatting one-on-one with gyro San Francisco president, Robert Ray.

“As both a search and technology leader, Google is constantly blazing new digital trails,” says Ray. “I’m looking forward to the opportunity to talk to Rikard about what everyone is wondering: what’s next.”

gyro is also our Media Hub host. If you don’t have time to drive to Palo Alto or San Jose, stop in and charge your laptop as we watch the top morning sessions from our South Bay locations. View the schedule here: http://socialmediaweek.org/schedule/?venue_id=1935

Join SAP on Wednesday, in person at SAP’s Palo Alto office – and online via a live stream.

Beginning at 9:00 am (PST), SAP executives Jonathan Becher, Mark Yolton, Brian Ellefritz, and Timo Elliot will deliver keynotes and lead panels with speakers from Adobe, eBay, Wells Fargo, Constellation Research, Social Media Group, and Jive Software, among several other companies.

• Get live Tweeter updates: @SAP and @SAPCommNet

• Help expand these conversations – and read about the critical issues shaping the evolution of social media: SAP’s Social Media and Social Networks blog.

Welcome to San Francisco and the Bay Area’s largest ever Social Media Week which starts this morning at 8am PST.

Our theme for all the events is “Shareonomics: The Growth of the Sharing Economy.” With over 100 events taking place across Northern California, there is almost too much to choose from. So, we thought we would pull together a summary for you.

If you haven’t yet registered, you can see the entire schedule and register here:

http://socialmediaweek.org/schedule/?locale_id=19

Monday:

Social Data and Analytics at Adobe in Silicon Valley 

Social Commerce from eBay in Silicon Valley

Social Central from Trulia in San Francisco

Recommended Sessions:

Social Data is a Crystal Ball at Adobe
by Jeremiah Owyang

Your Employees are Your Best Social Recruiters at Trulia
by Ken Shuman

Future of Mobile Wallets at eBay

Tuesday:

Social Data and Technology at Razorfish in San Francisco

Social Enterprise at Cisco in Silicon Valley

Recommended Sessions:

Social Insights Shoot-Out at Razorfish

The Road To Becoming a Social Business at Cisco

Wednesday

Social Enterprise at SAP in Silicon Valley

Social Good at San Francisco State University, Downtown Campus in San Francisco

Recommended Sessions:

Building a Social Culture at SAP

How Non-Profits Can Leverage Social Technology for Growth at SF State
with Tech Soup Global, Charity Blossom, San Francisco State University, VolunteerMatch, and the San Francisco Zoo.

Thursday

Social Central at San Francisco State, Downtown Campus in San Francisco

Social Lifestyle at AOL in Silicon Valley

Recommended Sessions:

How Our Social Circles Influence What We Do, Where We Go, And How We Decide at SF State
by Paul Adams, Facebook and author of Grouped

Online Content is Broken at AOL
by Alexia Tsotis, TechCrunch

Friday

Social Media and Entertainment from thismoment at Adobe in San Francisco

Recommended Session

The Future of Social TV at Adobe SF
with Bite Communications and GigaOM

If you want to find out where all the parties and free drinks are, check out the schedule.

To make life easier as you navigate you way through Social Media Week download one of the mobile apps here: http://socialmediaweek.org/mobileapps/

To keep in touch with everything that is going on as it happens, check out the realtime infographic here: http://ig.socialmediaweek.org/

On behalf of Beyond and the extended team that has curated a fantastic program of events to help you get more out of social whether at work, at home or at play, we hope you have a fantastic week and enjoy all of the events.

Don’t miss these additions and updates to the Social Media Week San Francisco schedule!

Monday, February 13th

eBay Townhall
2161 North First Street
Town Hall – Building 12
San Jose, CA

2:00pm – 2:50pm

Social Commerce and Rewards, with BlogHer co-founder, Lisa Stone

Also featuring: Stephanie O’Dea (stephanieodea.com), Beth Blecherman (Cool Mom Tech), Ana Picazo (Bonggamom), Richard Brewer-Hay (eBay Inc.)

3:00pm – 3:50pm

The Future of the Brand: what does social commerce mean for brand development?
With Tara Hunt, CEO, Buyosphere

Trulia SF
116 New Montgomery St
Suite 300
San Francisco, CA

11:00am – 11:50am

Star Wars: Finding and Keeping Top Talent 
With Morgan Missen, Head of Talent, FourSquare

2:00pm – 4:00pm

Email and Social Media: The New Rules of Engagement 
Sponsored by Constant Contact

5:00pm – 5:50pm
Sex, Race, in a 2.0 World

Tuesday, February 14th

Razorfish
2001 The Embarcadero
San Francisco, CA

10:00am – 10:50am

Social Big Data Analytics: Current Challenges, Future Opportunities 
With Marie Wallace, Social Analytics Strategist of IBM Collaborative Solutions; Joe Davy, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of EvoApp, and Angela Morgenstern, Sr. VP, Digital, CurrentTV

1:00pm – 2:15pm

Keynote: The Future of Persuasion
With Jason Tester, Research Director, Human Future Interaction, The Institute for the Future

Thursday, February 15

AOL
395 Page Mill Rd,
Palo Alto, CA

1:00pm – 1:50pm

Identity Shift
With Allison Cerra, Vice President, Marketing, Communications & Public Affairs – Americas Region, Alcatel-Lucent

2:00pm – 2:50pm

@mat and @shellen discuss
with Jason Shellen, VP of Product, AIM and Mat Honan, Senior Reporter, Gizmodo

3:00pm – 3:50pm

Online Content is Broken, with Alexia Tsotis, TechCrunch

4:00pm – 4:50pm

Enterprise Gamification: Whoever Figures Out Motiviation, Wins!
With Rajat Paharia, Co-Founder and Chief of Product, Bunchball

Friday, February 17th

Adobe SF (sponsored by thismoment)
601 Townsend St.
San Francisco, CA

10:00am – 10:50am

Is Social Saturated?
With Matt Rozen, Senior Social Media Strategist, Adobe; Chris Buchanan, Vice President Business Development, thismoment; Maria Ogneva, Head of Community, Yammer

3:00pm – 3:50pm

Music: The Original Social Media with Soundtracking, Turntable.FM, & SoundCloud

The Ninth Street Film Center
145 9th St
San Francisco, CA

1:00pm – 2:50pm:

Screening: The Wrecking Crew 

3:00pm – 4:50:

Screening: Life in a Day

In the year 2062, a bunch of elderly hipsters are interviewed about the good old days of social media.

Created for Social Media Week 2012, this video captures interviews with octogenarian hipsters as they take a look back on what social media and digital culture were back in the day.

www.futurehipsters.com