Virology Series - types of viral content

What happens in a user's head when they click the share button? 

What is going on in social networks when the electric impulse travels like wildfire? 

Social scientists and marketers alike would love to decipher the hidden behaviors and understand the key characteristics of content that generates virality (side note: I know this isn't a term technically, but it needs to be - so it is now).

HECK, I would love to crack the code. I wish this very blog post would immediately overpower you with an overwhelming urge to click the share button (no, but really feel free). Anyone online who says differently is crazy - who doesn't check their Klout.com score every now and then? (read: every five minutes). So I have created this blog series to address this very important topic in digital marketing. This will be the first of many posts that analyzes the science of digital virology - how content spreads the globe. 

Without further ado...

Viral Content Strands (A) and (B)

There are two prominent strands of viral content which can be found online. Each strand type can be easily identified with proper training. Both strand types are very powerful, but each spread the web in a specific recognizable pattern, infecting new viewers at different rates and periods. 

Strand Type A - Single Strand Viruses

Have you ever watched a single video that had over a million views? Most likely that was a single strand virus. They are single strand because in comparison to "type b" they spread from a single, central content piece (video, song, game etc.). This means that they are more likely to have a single url address that spreads through social networks. In their nature, single strand viruses spread more slowly then their "type b" relatives because it takes time for new users to adopt the content, process it (watch it, read it, play it), and repost it. Type A viruses can travel insulated inside certain digital communities and not spread further until they reach a social bridge (an influencer or ordinary person that stretches across several specific social communities). After crossing the bridge it begins to explode again in a new social circle and a new cycle.

These viruses spread more slowly as they rely on sharing-novelty where users believe they are the first adopters of content and first sharers of content in their circle. As this virus travels in cycles with its novelty being reborn from bridge to bridge, it has a longer shelf life. Psy's Gangnam Style is a perfect example of such sustained growth and social bridge usage. The video held remarkably high view rates averaging 9 million views a day. 

At the same time, single strand viruses are also subject to early deaths. If they do not reach their bridges to infect new social circles or if they cross large bridges too early (such as mass-media and television where the novelty value is rendered mostly inert) they die out. 

Can you identify these successful single strand viruses?

Rebecca Black - Friday

Charlie Bit My Finger

Psy - Gangnam Style

Strand Type B - Multiple Strand Viruses

In comparison, multiple strand viruses are born out of a digital habit or behavior - more so than a single, specific identifiable source. As such they can spread quite rapidly with no focal point, as all users across the spectrum in all social circles can embrace the phenomenon at once. These viruses can arise more suddenly and mutate to suit each user's taste, being highly relevant to certain groups. If your own university creates a harlem shake, for example, it is very relevant to you and spreads infectiously within your own university's digital borders. However, the mutated form of the virus cannot travel outside these borders, unless other users adopt the idea - at which point it mutates again. 

Single strand viruses can also become multiple strand as users pick up content and imitate or edit it for their own usage. Just try googling "Rebecca Black Friday Spoof", I'm sure you'll find something. 

The weakness of this strand type is their much shorter shelf life. These viruses catch on fast but burn out quicker. Once you've seen one harlem shake you've seen them all. Novelty is mostly lost. Their short shelf life is also due to their formless nature. They are inherently harder to track and follow, as there is no central point. While you can check to see how many youtube views Psy has, how do you check photobombing? 

 Can you identify these successful multiple strand viruses?

Harlem Shake

Lolcats

Photobombing

Strand A/B Hybrid Super Virus

As far as marketing is concerned, the strongest type of viral content is one that embraces both strategies. Psy's content is hybrid because everyone in the world now knows his dance (and perhaps uploaded a video or two). So marketing agencies should focus on creating content that starts off as a single strand but has a very high potential to mutate into multiple strand. Translation: campaigns should be strong, followable, trackable, centered and they should also  be replicable, user-generatable, spin-off-able, adoptable.  How can you go about doing this? Come back later in the series to find out!!

Next in the Virology Series - The Economics of Viral Content (stay tuned)

Evil Marketing Tactics & Organ Donation

The Dark Side of the Force

Is marketing evil? 

Over the weekend I read an article by Michael Serazio about "Why Marketing has become like Guerrilla Warfare" In the article he talks about how marketing has become more covert and underground. He argues that the line between content and advertisement has been blurred - it is no longer separate (TV Show vs. TV Ad) 

“Much the same is now happening in marketing. Thanks to a confluence of technological change, commercial clutter, and audience habits, the old advertising-media model for campaigns has been falling apart in slow motion. Consumers are more adept than ever at avoiding anything that looks like advertising. And whether or not agencies and corporations want to admit it, the necessary recourse has been to create content that doesn’t look like advertising.”

— Serazio

He talks about the marketing warfare metaphor "conducting marketing campaigns". I have to take pause, as this is a very dangerous argument. I talked about this linguistic phenomenon where certain metaphors are built into languages in a previous blog post.  In my argument I made a connection between the English of "time being money" (spend time, waste time, buy time) and American culture. I however understood the limitations of my argument. The marketing as warfare linguistic metaphor argument raises many questions: Is this metaphor only built into English? Was this metaphor created before guerrilla style tactics existed? Is this metaphor more a symptom of the business as warfare metaphor in English - with marketing being one department?

Serazio also bemoans the ever popular online content curation platforms such as huffpost. Their popularity has come at the cost of the "more trustworthy" hard copy resources, he gives the example of Newsweek going out of business. 

This article left me wondering - is marketing evil? Is guerrilla marketing evil? 

Marketing is Inherently Empty

I think that Serazio makes a couple good points. Marketing has changed - become covert, clever, gone underground. The line between advertisement and content has indeed blurred - look at the new "sponsored" Facebook posts that show up in your newsfeed.  I know that the word "evil" needless boils down or simplifies Serazio's argument - however is this method inherently evil?

At the end of the day, marketing is inherently nothing, zilch, goose eggs. Marketing is simply a vehicle that assumes the traits the the driver, nothing more. It is a medium of communication. 

Here is a great example of how the nature of marketing depends on its subject. 

Organ Donation: Ogilvy Brazil

Problem : Thousands die each year in need of an organ transplant

Behavioral Resource : Brazilian sports fans are known the world over for their fanaticism, dedication and craziness

Solution: Utilize this natural resource to re-ochestrate the discussion on organ donation

Tactics: Guerilla marketing

Outcome: Higher donation rates

Watch the video. 

Confira os resultados da campanha de doação de órgãos. Ação foi criada pela Ogilvy & Mather Brasil.

This campaign is amazing and really demonstrates the potential of marketing - especially in achieving altruistic goals. While not all marketing is so wholesome in the sense that it touches such humanitarian goals, it shows that marketing is inherently empty. However is marketing ethically required to be overt, to let you know of it's existence? I think not. Sometimes in order for marketing to be effective it needs to blur the lines and sneak up on you - it just shouldn't lie to you in the process.

Marketers are in the business of adding value to life, marketing is not about deceiving or hiding the truth - such marketing is unethical. A good ad should not tell you lies and state facts that are otherwise blurred or untrue. Marketing is in the business of finding that little bit of perceived value hiding under your nose and taking the fullest advantage of it.

We would find that in a world without marketers we would all have the same goods, the same relationships and the same amount of money - but we would all be a little bit poorer. True marketing is not black magic - it is a little extra service that benefits us all. 

“Marketers are the bankers of perceived value. We are happy to deposit in your account everyday because we have our own set of economic rules. In the perceived value economy there is no inflation and supply is unlimited. We can print money out of thin air - the sky’s the limit. Demand is only driven by our customer’s imagination and in this economy we can all be prosperous at no extra cost to anybody. ”

— Me

50 Tweets = Ability to Scientifically Predict Personality and Buying Behavior.

I will be saying this till I'm blue in the face - linguistics is a great tool to impact marketing, branding and segmentation. What you say - more specifically how you say it, describes a lot about your own personality. This article I found suggests that just by capturing 50 tweets companies can analyze and predict what products or services you are more likely to buy.  

But how? Let me describe a little bit of the science behind tweet psychology. 

The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us

By James W. Pennebaker

"The quick foxed jumped over the mean lazy brown dog."

Ok. Now, you ready? This is going to be very, very, very hard. Pay attention. Please keep reading this sentence a bit, maybe this word "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" - I just need you to get further down this paragraph so you can't see the first sentence. GOOD - Don't look up! Now, how many non-verb/subject/adv/adj words were in the sentence about the fox from above. If you said 3, you're a super-freak - No, JK, you are normal however the point of this exercise is to demonstrate the transient nature of pronouns (and all other words that aren't verbs, adjs, advs or nouns for that matter).  Your brain is programmed to strip away this non-essential information like meat from a bone. Pronouns and all of these filler words (because, that, we, up, therefore, she, besides, however) are parsed out of normal conversation and forgotten. Your brain remembers the: Who, What, Where, When and Why - the meat. 

When in doubt, follow the crazy people

Pronouns and Nouns/Verbs/Adj/etc are filed in two completely different sections of the brain. One way to prove this is to study the effects of brain damage and speech. There are actually two different types of studied medical injuries that are a result of brain damage in two separate parts of the brain - the two injuries would speak thusly: 

“You know, that stuff where those things move up and down and even though things come out”

— Patient Bud Abbott

“Mary knows keyboard keys help people print documents”

— Patient Lou Costello

You'll notice that Bud Abbot has a hard time using anything but "filler words" (pronouns, prepositions) while Lou Costello  can't seem to find one single filler word - he only uses proper names and verbs. This is because Bud Abbot has received damage to the Nouns/Verbs/Adj/etc processing center of his brain while Lou Costello has received damage to his filler "social words" processing center.  

Twitter pronouns are key to marketing

So, now we agree that filler words, compared to nouns and verbs, are contained in different boxes in the mind? Would it surprise you to hear that pronouns and fillers are kept in the very front, youngest part of the brain - the "social" box? (which makes sense as they are social referents). Nope? Moving right along, how you use these social referents tells us a lot about how you live in a social world. For example, do you use the "I" pronoun more than the "we" pronoun? DID YOU KNOW - men use the pronoun "I" slightly more often then women, while women use the pronouns "You /He/She" slightly more often than men.

So users that tweet "s/he" more often and use causal words (because, cause, on account of) are more likely to be rational, logical, social thinkers - who would obviously gravitate to a certain kind of product or experience. Now the game is over. BAM, once the company has you profiled they can market to you more effectively.

Research has already shown that these traits link to buying behaviour. Agreeable people prefer Pepsi to Coke and if you link your product messages to excitement and adventure, it will appeal to the extroverts.

All well and good, but how can brands find out the psychological profiles of their potential customers? After all, no-one is going to go through a long personality test to give marketers the information they need to harass them.

The answer is via social media, specifically Twitter. IBM’s research has used software to analyse three months data from 90m Twitter users, matching the words people use against their values and needs. It took just 50 tweets to get a reasonable match for their personality and a very good fit from 200.