SLIDESHOW: If You Want to Go Viral, Start With These Essential Tips
History shows that Web surfers love pictures of cats.
They might be silly or over-the-top, but people love them just the same.
Countless individuals have attempted to gain overnight fame by uploading pictures of their furry friends. But even when those images go viral, it's not the photographer that becomes famous -- it's the cat.
In order to produce a video, a photo or story that goes viral, content makers will have to use more than felines.
Nicolas Boillot, CEO of HB Agency (an integrated marketing communications agency) and author of I Killed a Rabid Fox with a Croquet Mallet: Making Your Business Stories Compelling and Memorable, recently spoke with Benzinga about the art of going viral.
"Point number one should really be [that] it's not within your control," he said.
For better or worse, that's the beast of the always-fickle, rarely-predictable Internet. But there are certain things that content makers can do to greatly improve their chances of going viral.
Louis Bedigian is the Senior Tech Analyst and Features Writer of Benzinga. You can reach him at 248-636-1322 or louis(at)benzingapro(dot)com. Follow him @LouisBedigianBZ
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Timing is Everything
"[Make sure] you're timing well with what's going on in the rest of the world," said Boillot.
"For instance, we just did a presentation that went 'viral' on SlideShare.
"It was tailored to graduates leaving school, and we timed it to the May-June time frame.
"We didn't know it would go viral, but point number-one: let's make it relevant to what's going on in today's work."
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Success Breeds Success
One of the biggest misconceptions about viral success is that it can be achieved with a great story alone.
"You have an audience already or you don't," said Boillot.
For example, when a pop star tweets, that message is much more likely to be re-tweeted because he or she has already amassed a significant fan base.
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What it Means to Go Viral
"What's viral?" Boillot questioned. "To me, viral is when something goes way out of bounds for that particular medium."
Boillot said that the average SlideShare piece receives between 500 and 800 hits -- sometimes less.
"This thing [the one we made] is getting close to half a million," said Boillot.
That would be small potatoes on YouTube, but it is a huge success on SlideShare.
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Consumers Want it to be Easy
Boillot said that any and all items must be easy to share if they have any hope of going viral.
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Share Because You Care
"You have to share the hell out of it," said Boillot.
"If you're creating a piece of content and you think it has the potential to go viral, I think it's up to you to egg it along at the beginning unless you have star power or unless you already have a huge audience.
"Most people don't do that -- they do a half-a**** effort, they put it on one channel or one [form of] media."
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Get Everyone on Board
"We're a small firm, but if we make something that we think is good, we'll have every employee tweet about it," said Boillot.
"We'll ask employees to push it on Facebook (NASDAQ: FB). We'll try to deliver it through a variety of channels. We'll talk about it through a variety of channels -- just to see."
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Don't Be Too Broad
With The Lone Ranger, Disney (NYSE: DIS) tried to make a film for everyone.
Consequently, it made a film for almost no one.
"Be very clear about your audience," said Boillot. "This is a problem with marketing in the world today. If you try to make it appeal to everyone, it's not gonna work."
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons -
'Lone Ranger' is Not The Only Film That Flopped
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Posted-In: HB Agency I Killed a Rabid Fox with a Croquet Mallet: Making Your Business Stories Compelling and Memorable Nicolas BoillotEntrepreneurship Success Stories Startups Tech General Best of Benzinga
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