This is the presentation used in our Viral Video Webinar: Gangnam Style & The Harlem Shake. It covered:
-The two models of viral spread: Top Down vs. Bottom Up
-The 7 common characteristics of viral video
-Influencers vs. communities – which matter more?
-How to measure viral video performance
-And of course… How to maximise the shareability of your own video content
2. Contents
01
02
03
04
05
06
How do you study viral video dynamics?
8 ways to measure video performance
The two models of viral spread: Top Down vs.
Bottom Up
Understand the audience
Influencers vs. communities
Maximising the shareability of your own video
content
5. Why study these videos?
1. The most shareable content in social media
2. They're memes – ideas people creatively re-interpret,
not just share passively
3. YouTube is the 3rd most popular website in the world.
4. Truly global
5. Understand Twitter as a hub for sharing 3rd-party
content
7. What we did…
Gangnam Original
Waveya dance team
Deadpool
Britney on the Ellen show
YouTube Rewind
Original Dizasta
V1 South Coast Skate
V3 Office
Norwegian Army
Miami Basketball
Track the top 5 most-viewed videos within the meme:
Focus on Twitter content
9. We had to create our own video
sharing metrics
Content metrics
Shape Number of shares per video, over lifetime of the meme
Lifespan Number of consecutive days where people shared the meme
500+ times
Shareability Total Twitter shares per each million of YouTube views
Variation How much did attention to the meme vary day-by-day?
Audience metrics
Popularity Number of unique users sharing the meme over its lifetime
Amplification How influential were the people who shared the meme?
Globality How international was the meme?
Diffusion Network Hubs and nationalities who drove the spread of the
meme
11. SHAPE of the memes - the balance
between different videos
12. SHAPE of the memes
Model 1: Top Down
One dominant source
(e.g. Gangnam Original)
Spin-offs appear but only get a
fraction of the attention
Driven by old media – record
labels, TV, established sources
13. SHAPE of the memes
Model 2: Bottom Up
Non-celebrity creators
Copies out-perform the original source as the meme
gains awareness and interest
Meme can get picked up by established celebs &
influencers (e.g. Miami Heat basketball)
14. SHAREABILITY of the videos
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Original
Waveya
Britney
Deadpool
YouTube Rewind
OVERALL
Dizasta
Norwegian Army
V1 South Coast Skate
V3 Office
Miami
OVERALL
Twitter shares per million YouTube views
15. So is a celebrity-driven model is the
way to go?
16. LIFETIME of the memes
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
Gangnam OriginalTwitter shares
per day
17. Harlem Shake videos burnt out
quickly
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
2-Feb-13 9-Feb-13 16-Feb-13 23-Feb-13 2-Mar-13 9-Mar-13
Dizasta Army V1 Skate V3 Office MiamiTwitter shares per day
18. VARIABILITY How does the sharing
rate change day by day?
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
14-Jul-12 14-Aug-12 14-Sep-12 14-Oct-12 14-Nov-12 14-Dec-12 14-Jan
Gangnam Original Memes "spike" when they're
shared by a top influencer or
national media – sources with
massive reach, driving 10,000s
of retweets
19. VARIABILITY How do you measure
spikeyness?
= the standard deviation / mean
(unit: shares per day)
In plain English:
A ratio of the changeability day-to-day
Why?
You can "see" when a search is more
spikey – but it's useful to put a number
to it for benchmarking and accurate
comparison
The more spikey, the more top-down
driven a meme is
24. Internationalism
The majority of content for each
meme came internationally – not
from one country
How did they spread?
- Visual & audio content is more
international than text
- The "memetic" qualities are
kinaesthetic, i.e. movement-
based
So they transcend language
30. How can social media content give
people "social currency"?
It's got to reflect well on the person who chooses to
share the content:
First to spot "the next big thing"
Sharing a different perspective or a creative new spin
on an idea
Makes you look intelligent, creative, cool
Humour
Contrarian ideas
31. Memes need to evolve
Crazy song
from Korea!
Surprise
hit! Biggest
video ever!
Look at this
random
video!
Hey, here
's a local
one!
Wow, celebs
have done
one!
32. Charles Duhigg
'The Power of Habits'
A movement starts because of the social
habits of friendship and the strong ties
between close acquaintances
It grows because of the habits of a
community, and the weak ties that hold
neighbourhoods and clans together
And it endures because a movement's leader
gives participants new habits that create a
fresh sense of identity and a feeling of
ownership
33. There's a balance to be struck…
Influencers…
Big audiences
Build reach, fast
…But can burn through
audiences quickly
…Risk of becoming
overexposed
The crowd…
Lots of them!
Close relationships with
friends
Looking for what's new &
cool to share
….Can be hard to get their
attention
You need both
34. Takeaways
1. What does your audience communicate by sharing
your content? How are you making them look good?
2. How is your content going to evolve?
Invite collaboration
3. Stay flexible and seize opportunities
Be prepared to surprise people
4. Influencers give great reach – but they burn through
their audiences fast. They can't be the only tool you use
5. For sustained interest, seed with communities first
35. How to measure your own video
performance
Content metrics
Totals Total YouTube views and total shares per channel
Lifespan How long the video stays "active" (e.g. 500+ shares per day)
Shareability Total Twitter shares per each million YouTube views
Variability How much did attention to the video vary day-by-day?
Audience metrics
Popularity Number of unique users sharing the video over its lifetime
Amplification How influential were the people who shared the video
Globality How international was the video's spread?
Diffusion Network Hubs and nationalities who drove the spread of the
video
Gangnam Style was the biggest video meme of 2012Record breaking 1.5bn YouTube viewsScores are for the top video – Norwegian Army for Harlem Shake. Figures from April 2013
Most shareable content in social media – understand what's got "social currency"They're memes – ideas people creatively re-interpret, not just share passivelyYouTube is the 3rd most popular website in the world. 722m unique visitors per year. The social life of video needs more analysis
What's the equipment you need for the job?A social media research platform that can track URLs, not just keywordsBuilt for Big DataWith Datasift's functionality for "unbundling" shortened URLs
More data available:URL unbundlingMetadata to analyse, e.g. followers, Klout, visibility, retweets. All this is essential to measure the network effects of how content moves from person to personHistorics
The question – which works best?
Three main points:The most shareable videos are the most news- and influencer-driven, e.g. Britney and Miami HeatOverall the shorter-lasting memes
So hang on… The meme with the lowest sharing-to-views rate also has by far the longest lifespan (and the biggest volume of shares overall)Less shareable because:Known quantity: your friends knew it, you didn't need to tell them about itSeeing it on TV – big media spendBut it's also led by Psy as a leader and a focal point for the story
The Miami Heat meme – late to the Harlem Shake partyHuge interest
We noticed some memes were much "spikier" than othersImpact of influencers
As the Gangnam Style meme spread to such a huge global population, the influence level went downYou can't just be shared by "influentials" if you're going to go truly global
Only 5% of Gangnam Style shares were from messages with >100 RTsMiami Heat even lower – 1%So retweets of a few "hero" messages only provide a smaller part of spreadSome people see it and manually retweet, or share without acknowledgingMore people are seeing it from peeers
673,000 YouTube views before the advert started on TVThe red nodes are individual Twitter accounts.The black edges represent reactions (retweets) to the sharing of the YouTube link by each individual.The further from the centre the greater the influence of the node, as measured by the number of reactions generated.
Videos are visual and audio – text content wouldn't spThe specific "memeish" features are kinaesthetic, i.e. movement-basedGangnamhorseriding danceHarlem Shake 'shake'So they transcend language
Gangnam Style was quite internationalWith an exception of some countries (e.g. Turkey, Red), the shares are a mix of USA (blue), UK (purple), Brazil (green).Harlem Shake was much more nationally fraRemember this was a video in Korean! No-one knew what the words meantDon't underestimate the appeal of good content – audiences round the world will shareSeen same pattern with Dove 'Real Beauty' adverts, or Commander Hadfield 'Space Oddity' video
It's a great example of how different videos can be while being part of the same series:Same musicSame structure of individual dancing, then the group joining inWeird costumes, including masked
Built off ideas from French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who coined the term "social capital"social capital is the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition."Access to symbolic capital gives people "prestige, honor, attention"So a meme or piece of content has "social currency" if it contributes to people building up a store of "social capital"
Gangnam Style Story of its surprise global spreadStory in there for The Atlantic & broadsheet media about what Psy was saying about the Gangnam area of SeoulMeta-story of how it went so viralHarlem Shake- Meta-story of how memes evolve
Gangnam Style ultimately had "leadership" and that's why the meme had a longer duration