Is There a Way to Make a Video Go Viral?

First off, let me explain something: There is never a guarantee that a video that follows these steps exactly will go viral. But these tips will certainly help your chances of creating and sharing a viral video. In looking at the success this week of the viral videos in the Kansas University – Missouri University Border War, it’s obvious that an emotionally charged event like the upcoming last basketball games between 100-year college rivals is a good place to start. (Missouri plays host to the Jayhawks on Saturday night at Mizzou Arena, and the school is leaving the Big 12 for the SEC after this season.)

KU graduate Josh Dubois from Footage Productions, saw an opportunity and took advantage of it immediately. On Monday, a group of MU students posted a music video on YouTube called “We Are Mizzou,” that according to Yahoo! Sports, “was a lighthearted pro-Tigers, anti-Jayhawks rap anthem replete with trite lyrics, awkward dancing and lots and lots of Auto-Tune.”

Word spread quickly on Monday. According to the Kansas City Star, “the video has received a mixed reaction – as of Monday afternoon, it had 619 likes and 1,258 dislikes on YouTube, and comments for the video had been disabled.”

Dubois’ friend Jake Hills forwarded the “We Are Mizzou” video to him and suggested doing a response video. Dubois thought it was a joke. “I watched the first 30 seconds of it and honestly thought it was KU people dressed up in MU gear making fun of Mizzou. I was instantly fascinated with the fact that their video was really made viral by KU people sharing it.  It was pretty obvious this was happening because there were consistently double the dislikes as there were for likes on their video as I checked it all day, and they had comments disabled immediately — which is a terrible idea even if they are all bad comments.”

By 4pm the next day, Dubois, Hills, and Spencer Bergstrand had written, shot, edited, and uploaded the “We Are KU” video to YouTube.

I interviewed Dubois about his viral video strategy for “We Are KU” and this is what he had to say:

5 Elements for Viral Video Success

1. Ability to Shoot, Edit, and Upload Quickly – “I said we shoot tonight or tomorrow morning, this is on Tuesday, or we don’t do it at all. We have it edited the same day. I was even called by my buddy in Second City in LA as I was uploading the video because he was planning one with his Second City crew. I told him he was a bit late. Time of the day played a huge part too, but we were just lucky with that.  It was right at 4pm Central so everyone was wrapping up work and could watch (and share) a dumb video.

2. Timing – “Insanely important. We knew going in that we could probably even sacrifice a little story and a little of the comedy if it were released faster. Timing was just way more valuable than even those things and those things are really valuable. I don’t think we sacrificed too much in those areas because of how simple the idea was.”

3. Humor – “It needed to be funny and we didn’t have time to write and record a rap song. First, it was out of necessity in resources: I have even recorded about 15 rap songs in my life — no joke — but I knew we couldn’t do it.  It’s just like Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State: Use your weakness as an advantage! Only we were Will Smith, but in Fresh Prince gear.”

4. Length – Keep it Short! – “That is one of my only regrets. When I got home, I realized the high-five freeze-frame middle should have been the ending. It shouldn’t have been 2:30 even, but we got away with it. Theirs was like 5 minutes and I don’t think I ever even watched the whole thing. 1:30 would have been ideal for us.” (Ed. note – “We are Mizzou” is actually 3:34, even if it feels like 5 minutes.)

5. Aim at a Tech-savvy, Connected, Built-in Audience – “We released a picture of us on the bench just to friends and the response was hilarious. All our friends were very worried and super vocal about the fact that we could very easily make idiots of ourselves. We knew what they didn’t know though, which was that we were not about to rap. That fear built up quite a bit of anticipation in them which definitely helped fuel the immediate sharing. It was watched so many times so quickly that we initially broke the YouTube counter at 305 views.”

KU alum Mario Chalmers RTed the viral video link to his 438,000 followers the day the video was posted.

With all these things in place, Dubois had the perfect recipe for a viral video. Not long after the upload at 4pm Tuesday, things exploded.

“610 Sports and Nick Wright picked it up an hour and a half after it was uploaded which was awesome,” says Dubois. “He was probably responsible for the first and most important push. He talked about it on the radio when he was interviewing the guys from MU. Then the next big name was Mario Chalmers tweeting it to his 438,000 followers. We just retweeted and facebooked all the big-name stuff and that was our only involvement in promoting it after it launched. It then was picked up on KansasSports.net and Yahoo! Sports wrote an awesome article about it saying there has never been a more decisive victory in a video battle than this one. It was on Fox News in KC that night and then lots of big tweets the next couple days.  Yesterday I was contacted by ESPN about it.”

The “We Are KU” video as of 3pm Friday has 132,868 views, with 1,359 likes and 463 dislikes. The “We Are Mizzou” video as of 3pm Friday has 365,480 views, with 2,020 likes and 3,345 dislikes.

ESPN emailed Dubois asking for permission to use the video on both College Gameday and their site. It will be on their site for sure he said, but it might not be on Gameday now because the rights to the $10 stock music track in the background can’t transfer to ESPN. Yesterday, the big news was that the “We Are Mizzou” video would be performed on College Gameday, but it turns out that’s just a social media rumor.

To that, Dubois says, “I think it’s probably for the best. We have had a ton of good responses to our video from MU students and our other rivals K-State. By the way, I would happily challenge any of those bozos to rap battle any day of the week.”

Final Funny (Scary) Post Script: School rivalry runs deep, and people don’t like it when you make fun of them. (Always remember that anything social media is incredibly public.) Somebody contacted Dubois directly on Wednesday.

He explains: “I had my portfolio online with my phone number and so somebody called me the day after claiming to be my doctor. I knew it wasn’t my doctor though, because my doctor isn’t quite as homophobic.” The guy on the other end of the line was calling to let Dubois know that the test results were back — and he was HIV positive.

“I am not sure it was an MU fan, but one would only assume right? I don’t make people mad on a daily basis. I will say this, it’s incredibly hard to report a harassing phone call to the police. You can’t do it over the phone.”

Last week on American Idol, a man with long hair, black sunglasses, and a bandana sporting the word “Magic” played air guitar and sang two songs for Jennifer Lopez, Steven Tyler, and Randy Jackson at the Aspen auditions for the show. After much amusement, the judges walked out on Magic Cyclops, who responded by shooting confetti from a cannon strapped to his ass.

The next day on the Internet, a star was born. So to speak. Unlike William Hung, Magic Cyclops (real name Scott Fuller) wasn’t actually deluded enough to think that he’d have a chance at the show. He just wanted to make an impression. (He claims to be from Davenport, Iowa, but speaks with a British accent, after all.) The Magic Cyclops persona is one that has been carefully honed working in and around Colorado as a DJ, musical act, and during years of competition on the US Air Guitar circuit.

So why are two morning show DJs in the Quad Cities of Iowa trying to take credit for Magic Cyclops?

Have the DJs co-opted the Magic Cyclops brand and made him out to be a morning-radio show prank? They sure have. On Thursday morning they posted the following status to their All Hits B100 Facebook page:

“Americas been punked…by us…we finally got our friend Scott Fuller aka “Magic Cyclops” to give D-port a shout last night on American Idol…nice work!!!!! we owe you!”

Magic Cyclops has all kinds of merchandise. Witness the Magic Cyclops Paper Doll.

At the end of the Total Tech article, which praises the station for using social media to capitalize on the publicity, author Jason Howell says, “Kudos to Brian and Tony, I don’t know if it was simply for the fun of it or for the publicity…or even a combination. Either way, good job guys.”

Then the story gets picked up by The Quad City Times:

“The radio hosts and the comic had stayed in touch through the years, and when they heard he was going to be on “Idol,” Scott said, “We just bet him, ‘Say our name, we’ve got half a grand for you if it’s on network TV.’”

Fuller’s response on his personal Facebook page: “zero percent of this is true” and “i never heard of these guys.” On the Magic Cyclops Facebook fan page: “Tell these D’bags to stop taking credit for my A.I. appearance. I don’t know these jerks at all…” The Cyclops is now threatening legal action against the station.

Cyclops supporters tried posting on the station’s pages, but the comments from angry fans were deleted. Then, this morning, all mentions of either article disappeared from the morning show Facebook page and Facebook group. What’s weird is that the group still has the Magic Cyclops-Idol t-shirt design as their image!

The strategy from B-100 now seems to be “delete and run.” It’s one of backpedaling to pretend like they never took credit for him in the first place. This is a horrible social media strategy. It’s always best to own up to a mistake, issue an apology, and move on. The web is littered with stories of social media Facebook PR nightmares. I’m sure that in the short-term (because radio and social media can help spread false info fast), this helped the station get some publicity and more notoriety as being crazy morning-show dudes. But was it worth it?

At least they responded to me. I emailed the show about the controversy and got this response, signed by no one in particular:

Scott is great, this is great marketing for him, (and all about staying in character), as for him “not knowing us”, keeps his 15 minutes hot and will ultimately continue to make him (and his persona) even bigger, thats the goal! We, love the attention Davenport, has gotten too, despite some heat we’ve taken for loving the Davenport props from a few citizens that are pretty irate that “Magic Cyclops” is showin the love! Lets keep Magic alive!!

The wording the station now uses is very careful, even though they are still talking about Magic Cyclops. This is from the front page of the B-100 website:

Obviously B-100 is still happy to associate its morning show with Magic Cyclops for as long as people are still talking about him.

Just last week, Ekaterina Walter, a social media strategist at Intel, wrote a post about the two-way nature of social media that, in light of the #McDStories Twitter hashtag-gone-wrong, seems to be downright prescient:

With the growth of social media and all the two-way channels of communication open to organizations, brand identity is potentially stronger but more at-risk than ever. Losing control of your brand’s ‘voice’ can be hugely damaging.

Exhibit A

And Frank Eliason, SVP of Social for Citi, wrote this just about one month ago:

The first thing to recognize is that the brand image is owned by others and not the PR department or marketing. Both of these departments are important but they are no longer in the driver’s seat for brand image. I wonder if they ever were? Again, probably a post for another day. I am not sure things have changed in this regard but perception has. The masses, whomever they may be, control it.

Exhibit B

But neither the timely nature of these posts, nor the lemming-like reposting of the Twitterati have acknowledged what, to me, is obvious about this PR “crisis”; the whole thing is absolutely hilarious!

Exhibit C

Yes, I’m talking to you, Mr/Mrs “McDonald’s Twitter Hashtag Promotion, Goes Horribly Wrong” re-tweeter. Do you really think it’s news that McDonalds isn’t actually good for you? Do you really think the McDonald’s execs are in Def-Con 1 now that the “quality” [cough] of their menu has been publicly called into question? Do you really think a hashtag-hijack qualifies as a “gone horribly wrong” type of incident?

Here’s some perspective: San Ysidro is “gone horribly wrong.”

“The McRib contains the same chemical used to make yoga mats” is just funny.

Exhibit D

So lighten up, Twitterverse, and enjoy the humor. I know it’s shocking, but not everybody is on Twitter, and not everybody that is on Twitter knows about #McDStories, and not everybody that knows, cares.

Based on the number of cars in line with me at McDonald’s drive-thru this morning I’m guessing my fellow patrons either (a) didn’t get the #McMemo, or (b) just don’t care.

So it goes.

The biggest splash Jon Huntsman has made in the Republican primaries on the Internet so far this year is the one he made yesterday when he decided to drop out.

Ouch.

Here at Spiral16, we’ve been running an online study of all the GOP candidates since the beginning of the year. Our web monitoring platform searches social media sites, but it also indexes all other publicly available URLs as well (news sites, blogs, video, etc.) — so the results being brought back go beyond social media.

Last week, we looked at Rick Santorum’s presence on social media sites and the rest of the web (and discovered it’s all sweater vests and sex acts — ha!). Today, let’s turn our attention to Jon Huntsman.

Not Much Difference Between Iowa and New Hampshire

After his third-place finish in New Hampshire (where he famously told his supporters that his support in that state was a “ticket to ride”), you may think that the amount of web conversation would have significantly spiked.

Not so much.

On January 10 — the day of the New Hampshire primary — Huntsman’s volume on the Internet rose only 6% from its highest point.

The biggest spike in web results for Jon Huntsman in 2012 came when it was announced he would drop out of the GOP presidential race.

That previous high was recorded on January 4, the day after the Iowa caucuses, where Huntsman placed last. Clearly, he didn’t receive all that more of a boost in terms of web volume from his third place finish in New Hampshire.

Of course, even at third, Jon Huntsman had less than half the popular votes of the winner, Mitt Romney, so that could have something to do with it too.

Biggest Increase After Dropping Out

Even though he didn’t make the official announcement that he was dropping out of the race until today at a media conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, it was confirmed last night by a Huntsman aide that he would, in fact, drop out of the GOP presidential race.

The news last night was big enough to cause a 24% rise in the amount of Jon Huntsman-related posts on the Internet, his biggest volume gain of 2012.

So while he may have been a long shot from the beginning of the GOP presidential race, at least Jon Huntsman can say he dominated election talk for one day in 2012.

Image: Christian Science Monitor

As Google+ catches on, is your business keeping up with it?

Google+’s numbers during the last month of 2011 were up 55% compared to the month before. That kind of exponential growth bodes well for its long-term success. According to Experian Hitwise, “49 million visits were recorded in December 2011 — the biggest month to date.”

That’s not all. Here at Spiral16, we just picked up Chris Brogan’s new book called “Google Plus for Business” that’s already on the shelves now. In the intro on his web page, he states one of the biggest reasons any business would want to jump into Google+ with both feet:

Google+ is a game-changing social network insofar as it will tie together several disparate Google products that all serve businesses such that your efforts to learn the platform now will deliver strong rewards later. Google, the #1 search engine in the world, already ranks your public posts on Google+ quite highly in search results. As nearly 70% of people start the search for your business via Google, why wouldn’t you want to further influence people’s search efforts?

I’m sure we’ll post more about the learnings in that book as we go through it, but a new post by Kristi Hines explores five ways to ensure that your Google+ usage will help with your search rankings.

1. Get More Google+ Followers

2. Set Up Authorship With Your Personal Profile

3. Directly Connect Your Google+ Page to Your Website

4. Install Latest +1 Button Code on Both Your Individual Pages and Your Main Home Page

5. Fill in the Information for Your Profile and Pages Completely

There is a great amount of detail in Kristi’s post about why these steps are so important and how to carry them out, so definitely check out the original article here.

This is the one that intrigued me the most, however: “Google+ now offers a way for you to really stand out in search results by claiming authorship for articles you have written. This is something that is showing up in search results, even when people are not logged into Google+.” What this means is that somebody can add the author to their circles directly from search results — without even going to Google+ to do it! Powerful. And another good example of Google using their leverage.

These are the kind of shortcuts and functionality things that make Google+ stick out from Facebook and as they become seamless with Google’s search engine, it will be second nature to use them like we have gotten used to all the changes in Google’s search since its simple inception.

Remember, search still ranks higher than social when it comes to purchase intent. If you want to maintain a well-rounded web presence and appear in all of the places where people are searching for you and your business, you cannot afford to overlook search. That is why Spiral16 collects web data not just from social media, but from the entire web.

For a business to succeed in the digital space, it is important to look at the web as a whole rather than merely importing a couple social media feeds and calling it a day. Google+ knows this and that’s why it is a platform that looks to be here to stay.

Images: Amazon, Social Media Examiner

This Christmas season comedian Louis C.K. is counting on the goodwill of his fans and decency of an Internet culture that is used to pirating and downloading free albums and movies. It’s a bold move that brings up a lot of questions about how people will continue to receive entertainment on the web.

He has decided to self-release his new comedy special Live at the Beacon Theater and forgo the traditional methods of delivery to comedy fans. There’s no DVD, there’s no CD, there’s no TV special –  just a $5 download direct to him through PayPal with no digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.

Louis C.K. is taking quite a gamble on this. He paid for the production and online distribution of the special himself. On the upside, he doesn’t have to share the profits from this video with anyone else. On the downside, it probably cost quite a pretty penny to put together, and he’s hoping he can recoup. Whether that happens or not depends on how many people actually pay for the special rather than illegally downloading it.

If this digital distribution of Live at the Beacon Theater goes well,  he says he may do more stuff like this.

According to VentureBeat:

CK also preemptively asked his fans not to download the special illegally: “Look, I don’t really get the whole “torrent” thing. I don’t know enough about it to judge either way. But I’d just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without “corporate” restrictions.”

A quick Google Search of “Louis C.K.” and “Beacon” shows that there are plenty of torrents out there already. Louis C.K.’s website makes it as easy as possible to download the file, though. Once you have paid the $5 to PayPal (no option to pay more, by the way, which seems like a bad move), you can download it twice and stream it twice. Once you download it, you can watch it on your computer or burn your own DVD.

I have two questions for you. First, is this a good idea? Will we see more artists relying on the loyalty of their niche fanbase to make them more money through direct sales? Are there enough of them? It would be interesting if each artists could find the magic number of people willing to pay for something they could get for free and rely on that to sustain them financially, but will that happen?

Secondly, is the Internet culture ever going to change? Will free access to something always override the want to support an artists by paying them SOMETHING, even if it is only $5?

(Here’s an outtake, released by Louis C.K. as a promotional tool — which by the way, is NSFW!)

What’s New for Social Media in 2012?

It’s reaching the end of the year and people will be looking to new studies that point the way to trends in social and business for 2012. Two recent studies point the way to some of the trends that companies should watch for in the coming year.

The new report from Pivot is called The State of Social Marketing 2011 – 2012 and it has some interesting findings. Along with The Hudson Group, Pivot surveyed 181 brand managers, agency professionals, and experts to find out how they plan to reach their social consumers in 2012. The results can serve as a benchmark for leaders to assemble their business strategies over the next year.

Pivot asked if respondents had a clear picture of who their social consumer is. According to the report, “an astounding 77% said yes.”

This is interesting because it is all perception on the part of the companies. This means that the majority of these professionals have some sort of web and/or social media monitoring tool and have set up a listening program to figure out what their customers are saying online. That step is absolutely essential. I’d also like to stress how your listening program should cover a wider perspective than simply what is being said on Facebook and Twitter. Organic searches and links from other websites are still driving more traffic to blogs than anything else.

Another one of the best ways to figure out who your social consumers are is simple: Ask them. When the Pivot team explored specifically if respondent organizations asked social consumers what they expect from engagement,  53% said they haven’t really asked. Almost 35% said they had asked, which is a lot different from the 77% who said they had a clear picture of their social consumers. Does that mean 42% of them are involved in web and social media monitoring?

100% of respondents say increased sales is a primary goal for 2012, but there are many other practical applications for social media that also ranked highly.

As business leaders plan next year’s social marketing programs, 100%, agree on the need to increase sales, but social media programs and campaigns can affect so much more than that. As we have found here at Spiral16, there are all kinds of ways that businesses get value out of social media. Not surprisingly, consumer engagement, lead generation and brand lift are also towards the top of the list. According to Pivot:

Influencing consumer behavior is at just over 60 percent, establishing points of influence at just under 60 percent, and discovering points of relevance shown at 40 percent spotlight how new touchpoints will play a role in driving desirable outcomes and experiences. The overall sense of the responses is a tilt away from “soft” benefits toward harder edged benefits that drive the bottom line. Surprisingly, improving customer service and support was toward the bottom of the list, but it is promising to see that the research does show that businesses are placing it in the upper half of 2012 planning.

My feeling is that one reason customer service ranked so low here is that many of the respondents feel like they are already addressing that concern sufficiently. Customer service is one of the first social marketing applications that active brands can do, especially if they have an active consumer base on Twitter.

Meanwhile, the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs published a popular study on B2B content marketing put out their B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Budgets, Benchmarks and Trends report, which looks at the specific kinds of content that B2B businesses are creating to attract customers.

Just as they found in last year’s study, “article posting and social media (excluding blogs) are the most popular tactics and are currently used by 79% and 74% of B2B marketers, respectively.” The tactics that are seeing an increased adoption rate this year are:

• Blogs (27% increase)
• White papers (19% increase)
• Videos (27% increase)

B2B businesses are seeing results from all kinds of different social content marketing tactics. Expect this trend to continue into 2012 as more businesses catch on.

It’s no surprise, all signs point upward for social marketing again this year and the studies show that more and more marketers and agencies are figuring out how to find value online. How far are you in your organization?

The social consumers are out there. Have you been able to make gains using social media? The first step in any program should be listening on the web – have you started?

Yesterday I wrote about Alec Baldwin getting kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to stop playing the online game Words With Friends on his iPad while the plane was still on the ground. Less than 24 hours later, Alec Baldwin deleted his Twitter account by changing its name to @deactivated001.

I asked the question: What would you do if you were American Airlines’ PR department? What I forgot to ask was, “What do you do if you are Words With Friends?”

Well, score one for Words With Friends. Check out this “Let Alec Play” screenshot that that Zynga, the company that makes the game, created as their “official statement,” cleverly @ing both @AmericanAir and @AlecBaldwin. I would say they created this especially for Alec Baldwin to retweet, which he did:

Note the score in the lower left hand corner (also note how big the name of the company is):

A Baldwin 1

American Airlines 0

That’s pretty funny. Zynga also sent a tweet that sided with Alec Baldwin, and spotlighted the absurdity of the situation: “Hey @AmericanAir, don’t ground @AlecBaldwin for playing. A.B.S.U.R.D. is worth *at least* 11 points in @WordsWFriends.”

To their credit, American Airlines did the responsible thing and DMed Alec Baldwin: “@AlecBaldwin Mr. Baldwin, we are looking into this. Please DM us contact information,” the airline tweeted.

But it was Words With Friends made the most out of this unique social media PR opportunity to do something creative that utilizes their product and gets their name out there at the same time. Did you know who created Words With Friends before today? I didn’t.

In the meantime, @AmericanAir has been responding to individuals who tweet them negatively about the incident with a canned message: “Our flight attendants were following federal safety procedures on electronic devices when aircraft door is closed.” If the comment is on their side, they get a more personal response.

How do you measure each company’s reaction to this absurd situation?

For his part, Alec Baldwin must have gotten overwhelmed with all the attention and new Twitter followers he was getting because he appears to have left the social network, at least temporarily. First, he tried to get everyone to mass unfollow him. That didn’t work, so he changed the name of the account to @deactivated001, and now appears to be trying to get Twitter to deactivate the account completely. Maybe he didn’t like being turned into a Zynga spokesperson.

What is he, Ashton Kutcher?

Either way: Well played, Zynga.

UPDATE: Alec Baldwin has deleted his Twitter account. Zynga 1, American Airlines, 0.

Leave it to Twitter to give us up-to-the-minute important news as it happens! –like this:

Alec Baldwin was kicked off an American Airlines flight earlier today for refusing to stop playing the popular game “Words With Friends” on his iPad.

Former MTV president and COO Michael J. Wolf tweeted  from aboard an American Airlines flight en route to LAX that Alec Baldwin had just been removed the plane. Twitter business coach Grant Cardone, who was in the LAX Admiral’s Club and heard employees talking about the incident, said Alec Baldwin was kicked off for “abusive conduct.”

40 minutes later Alec Baldwin tweeted that he was “reamed out” by a flight attendant for playing “Words With Friends” while the plane sat at the gate, not moving.

Wow. Well, news travels fast on Twitter.

The LA Times wrote about Alec Baldwin: “No investigations have been opened into the matter, law enforcement sources said, but that could change if American Airlines chooses to file a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration.”

Well, wait until American Airlines sees what he tweeted after the airline found him a seat on a 3pm flight:

From @alecbaldwin: “#theresalwaysunited Last flight w American. Where retired Catholic school gym teachers from the 1950′s find jobs as flight attendants.”

Wow! I guess Alec Baldwin has never been one for holding back.

Two questions for you all:

1. Do you sympathize with Alec Baldwin? Do you feel there is a good reason for turning off your cell phone or electronic device while flying? Or even before the plane has left the ground and is sitting on the tarmac?

2. And perhaps more importantly for our livelihood as marketing people and communications professionals: How do you react if you are American Airlines? How quickly do you react? Is this a classic case of crisis management or does Alec Baldwin make himself look like enough of an ass?

Either way, its terribly funny.

UPDATE from The Wrap:

Reacting to the growing story, American reached out across the Twitterverse to Baldwin to let him know they are on the case, and that they would appreciate his assistance in resolving the matter.

“@AlecBaldwin Mr. Baldwin, we are looking into this. Please DM us contact information,” the airline tweeted.