Why content is not king, mass influencers do not exist, and how understanding the network is the key to creating popular content.

1. By James LaPorte
GOING VIRAL - Everything You've Been Told Is Wrong
@jlp

2. § Abstract…………………………………………..3
§ Content Isn’t King………………………………..4
§ Influencers Aren’t Influential...…………………15
§ Understanding Influence……………….………22
§ Understanding The Network………….……….31
§ Appendix………………………………………..42
CONTENTS

3. Every marketer has heard that
ABSTRACT
great content with a good
influencer strategy can lead to
virality.
This simply isn't true.
Virality is not dependent on
good content or
disproportionately influential
people; it's based on the
ability of content to spread
freely across a network.

4. CONTENT ISN’T KING

5. SO, WHAT IS CONTENT?
When I say content, I don’t
just mean a YouTube video or
a blog post.
Content can be an idea, a
product, a behavior, or a
service.
Content is anything you want
people to advocate for and
consume.

6. YOU’VE HEARD THE SAYING…
Content doesn’t actually
matter as much as you think it
does.
You can create the best
content in the world, but if
nobody consumes it, it is
considered unsuccessful.
This happens all the time.
Think of all of the products,
songs, movies, and other
content created every day.
Do you believe that all good
content becomes successful?
Or that all successful content
is good?

7. TIME’S TOP TEN VIRAL VIDEOS OF 2011
1. Rebecca Black – Friday
2. Man with Golden Voice
3. VW Darth Vader
Commercial
4. Lonely Island — "Jack
Sparrow”
5. Father-Daughter singing
“Home”
6. Webcam 101 for Seniors
7. My Drunk Kitchen – Brunch
8. Anderson Cooper Cracks
Up
9. Dancing Thom Yorke
10. Honey Badger

8. There are very few common
CONNECTING WITH CONTENT
attributes between these videos.
The content ranges from a Super
Bowl commercial to a father and
daughter covering a song sitting
on their bed.
There are millions of cover songs,
commercials, and music videos
on YouTube.
These videos did not go viral
because of their content, they
went viral because of how
groups of people connected
and reacted to the content.

9. THERE IS NO VIRAL FORMULA
There is no way to predict
what will go viral.
Common sense says that the
first step to going viral is
creating “great” content, but
that’s not possible.
So here lies our conundrum, it
impossible to define “great”
content without it already
being considered “great”.

10. THE MONA LISA DILEMMA
When we try to describe great
content, we run into what
Duncan Watts describes in his
book Everything is Obvious.
It’s not possible to define “great
content” without describing
what the content is.
What makes the Mona Lisa
Great? The subject matter? The
smile? The layers of paint? The
composition? None of these
things? All of these things?
The Mona Lisa is great because it
has the properties that make up
the Mona Lisa.
This is circular logic.

11. HE WASN’T THAT GREAT
A popular example we can all
relate to is The Old Spice Guy
commercials.
What made it great?
Most would say “It was
original, funny, and appealed
to their target”.
The problem is, there are
many commercials that set
out with the same goals.
It is only after the campaign
became popular that we can
peg its success to its
attributes.

12. THE MICRO / MACRO PROBLEM
Describing content as the
reason for success sets us up
for failure because we aren’t
looking at the whole picture.
We try to explain a macro
phenomenon, content
going viral, by explaining the
micro attributes of our
content.
When trying to understand
complex problems we
cannot look at individual
actions or attributes, we
have to look at the entire
system.

13. THERE’S MORE THAN JUST A MATCH
Think of a forest fire. We don’t
extensively analyze the
properties of a match to
understand why there was a
fire.
We look at the match along
with the dryness of the brush,
the direction of the wind, the
other trees in proximity… we
look at the whole network.

14. DON’T GET ME WRONG, CONTENT STILL MATTERS
It is still important that we
create groundbreaking
content, but if we focus on
content alone will we will
inevitably fail.
The issue is we tend to
correlate good content with
virality and this is a false
correlation.
Some may agree that
content isn’t that important as
long as you pick the right
mass influencers.
Sadly, this isn’t true either.

15. INFLUENCERS AREN’T
INFLUENTIAL

16. In marketing, the definition of an
HOW WE TYPICALLY DEFINE INFLUENCERS
influencer generally falls in line with
Malcolm Gladwell’s definition of
connectors in his book The Tipping
Point.
Gladwell defines connectors as
“People in a community who know
large numbers of people and who
are in the habit of making
introductions”. He goes on to say
“their ability to span many different
worlds is a function of something
intrinsic to their personality, some
combination of curiosity, self-
confidence, sociability, and
energy.”
This theory is false. There tend not
to be magical people who can
inherently connect a
disproportionate amount of
people.

17. Viral, as an adjective, is
FIRST, LET’S DEFINE VIRAL
something that is caused by a
virus.
A virus is an infection caused
by an agent through a
system.
By this definition a popular
song is a virus. A best selling
book is a virus. A fire is a virus.
A common cold is a virus.

18. HOW VIRUSES REALLY WORK
We all know how a cold is
transmitted.
Pam is sick, comes into the
office, gets Andrew sick,
then Andrew goes home
and infects his girlfriend Sue.
There are not super
contagious people who run
around infecting their
connections along with their
connection's connections.
So why do we believe that
there are super influential
people who can virally
spread ideas?

19. MASS INFLUENCERS DO NOT EXIST
There are not super star mega
influential people in the world.
There are people who are
more influential than others
but not by an exponential
margin.
The key to spreading
information and creating
virality lies in understanding
the structure of social
networks and creating
content that will spread freely
throughout those networks.

20. But what about Opera
THE OPRAH DELUSION
Winfrey? You know, the talk
show host who, at the mere
utterance of a product, could
incite mass hysteria. Isn’t she
exponentially more influential
than most?
No, no she is not.
Take away her television
show, her magazine, her
twitter account, and her
media empire and see how
influential she is.
When you remove her from
her network she is no more
influential than you or I.

21. THE MIDNIGHT RIDE OF… WILLIAM DAWES?
Most of us have heard of the
midnight ride of Paul Revere.
Revere was an American
revolutionist who rode through
New England alerting
minutemen that “The British are
Coming”.
Chances are, you haven’t heard
of William Dawes. Dawes also
alerted colonial minutemen in
New England, but he took a
different route.
Was Revere more influential than
Dawes? Or was it the fact that
they traveled on different
networks?

22. UNDERSTANDING
INFLUENCE

23. THE MISSING TARGET
Typically, when we create
content, we research our
target and make sure our
message reaches them.
This assumes that everybody
who would consume our
content can be influenced by
us directly.
Influence does not always
work this way.

24. WHO INFLUENCES WHOM?
Social networks are
comprised of strong and
weak ties.
Strong Ties – The people you
are directly connected to.
Weak Ties – These are friends
of friends; people who can be
reached through other strong
ties.

25. Common conjecture tells us
THE WEAKNESS OF STRONG TIES
that if we target our passionate
fan base they will help us
spread our content to infinity
and beyond.
This assumption is flawed.
Strong ties are usefull for calling
people to action, but not for
spreading information.
Our challenge is that
homophilous groups tend to be
incestuous, i.e., information
tends to stay within these
communities.
In order for information to
transfer from one group to
another it is important to
activate weak ties.

26. According to sociologist Mark
THE STRENGTH OF WEAK TIES
Granovetter, activating weak
ties is imperative for spreading
information between groups.
Weak ties are the bridges
between separate strongly
connected groups.
In order for information to
spread we must create content
that can easily move from one
group to another through these
loose social ties.

27. THREE DEGREES OF INFLEUNCE
Did you know your friends
friends friend can make you
fat?
A study by Nicholas Christakis
and James Fowler found that
people up to three degress
away from you could affect
how happy you are, what you
purchase, your political views,
and even your body weight.
This means that the shirt your
wearing, the TV show you
watch, even the phone in your
hand could have been
influenced by somebody you
have likely never met.

28. Your decisions can, on
average, influence up to three
THE CASCADE EFFECT
people directly.
This may not seem like much,
but when put in the context of
a network, one persons
decision can influence the
choice of thousands of people.
Not because they are
exponentially more influential,
but because of the cascade
effect.

29. HYPERDYADIC SPREAD
Hyperdyadic spread is the
tendency of things to spread
from person to person to
person.
This is what we call “going
viral”.
The decision of one person to
share something could create
a cascade effect unwittingly
influencing thousands of
people to change a behavior
or to consume content.

30. A REVELATION
Once we realize that the
spread of content isn’t solely
attributable to great content
and an influencer strategy, it
becomes clear that we have
to look deeper into what truly
causes virality.

31. UNDERSTANDING THE
NETWORK

32. THINK NETWORK(LY)
We tend to think of societal
behaviors in terms of
individual people – If we
understand the parts, we can
understand the whole.
This is not necessarily true.
People are not individual
actors acting on a
predictable chain of events.
People belong to dynamic,
self organizing, emergent,
complex networks.

33. In their simplest forms, social
HOW SOCIAL NETWORKS ARE STRUCTURED
networks tend to be made up
of many homophilous groups
tied together through strong
and weak social ties.
For example, Brian has a group
of friends from school, a group
from work, and his family. Brian
is the social tie that connects
his school and work friends.
If a rumor were to start
amongst his school friends, the
only way it could get to his
work friends would be through
him.
The rumor can reach his work
friends through Brian (strong tie)
or by proxy (a weak tie).

34. Viral ideas are contagion that
HOW IDEAS SPREAD THROUGH NETWORKS
travel through our social
networks. They are spread
similarly to viruses.
For ideas to spread far they
must travel through many
groups of friends.
These groups of friends tend
to have different
demographics,
psychographics, and
geographics.

35. As most groups are
NEW IDEAS FLOWS THROUGH WEAK TIES
homophilous, they tend to
speak about and share the
same information.
Typically, it takes somebody
from outside the group to bring
new information to a group.
This is especially evident in a
country like North Korea. The
lack of weak ties due to
dictatorship has lead to a lack
of advancement and new
ideas.
Weak social ties are the key to
virality.

36. MAPPING SOCIAL NETWORK
In order to understand our
social networks we must map
them.
Mapping entails figuring out
who is connected to us, who
they are connected to, who
they are connected to, and so
on.
This will give us a good idea of
the structure of our networks
and how information will best
spread through them.

37. THE EMBEDDEDNESS OF NODES
Embeddedness is the degree in
which a person is enmeshed
within their social network.
People who are more
embedded tend to be in the
center of their network and
have more connections to
others within their network.
This plays a crucial role in how
influential a person is likely to
be.
The more embedded a person
is in their network, the more
likely it is that they can spread
information.

38. Through mapping we can
HIGHLY EMBEDDED NODES
identify the most embedded
nodes. These people are our
true influencers, but they are
not inherently influential.
They are influential for who
they know and who they
don’t know. They are
influential because where
they are located within the
network.

39. Social networks are enormously
IT’S NOT THAT EASY
complex, dynamic, living
entities.
People add, remove, and
amend links in their social
networks everyday. The
network we map today could
be irrelevant tomorrow.
Even if we perfectly mapped
the people who are most able
to spread our content, it does
not mean we have solved the
virality equation.
We should not make the same
mistake we currently make;
expecting a simple idea such
as “highly embedded nodes”
to solve a complex problem like
virality.

40. THE SECRET SAUCE
There is no secret sauce. If
there was we wouldn’t have
jobs.
What we can do is create
content that activates strong
ties to call people to action
and weak ties to spread the
content through the network.
Starting with the people who
are most centrally embedded
within their social networks is a
good start.
Anybody who tells you
otherwise is lying.

41. THANK YOU
By James LaPorte
@jlp

42. APPENDIX

43. SUMMATION
- Good content is important, but it is not possible to plan for.
- Focusing on content alone will not lead to virality.
- “Mass influencers” do not exist.
- Some people are more influential because of where they are located in their social network.
- Strong ties tend to call people to action and weak ties tend to transmit information between groups.
- The actions of one person can affect the actions people up to three degrees away.
- The single decision of one person can cause thousands of people to unwittingly follow suit.
- The more central a person is within their social network the more likely they are to be influential.
- There is no secret sauce to creating popular content.
- The best we can do is create content that can spread through weak and strong ties and seed it through
the most centrally located people in their social networks.

44. PHOTO CREDITS
Slide 1: Kheel Center http://www.flickr.com/photos/kheelcenter/5279081507/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 2: http://wallpapersup.net/sunset-hot-air-balloon-evening/
Slide 3: Wayne Large http://www.flickr.com/photos/havovubu/7583004344/sizes/l/in/set-72157630603658564/
Slide 5: NS Newsflash http://www.flickr.com/photos/62693815@N03/6277209256/lightbox/
Slide 6 Digitopoly http://www.digitopoly.org/2011/11/26/betting-on-content-is-king/
Slide 8: Austin Even http://www.flickr.com/photos/austinevan/1225274637/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Slide 9: Please Request (missing)
Slide 12: Pierre Guinoiseau http://www.flickr.com/photos/geekounet/4629143188/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 13: Please Request (missing)
Slide 14: Avixyz http://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/188684627/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Slide 16: Benson Kua http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensonkua/4944413700/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 17: jez.atkinson http://www.flickr.com/photos/cloppy/5099531956/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 18: Twenty_Questions http://www.flickr.com/photos/twenty_questions/2192450204/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 19: Wayne Large http://www.flickr.com/photos/havovubu/3728604649/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Slide 23: Clif1066 http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/3137422976/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Slide 24: Horia Varina http://www.flickr.com/photos/horiavarlan/4329180541/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 25: Please Request (Missing)
Slide 26: Please Request (missing)
Slide 27: Nicholas Christakis, James Fowler
Slide 28: RFDuck http://www.flickr.com/photos/rfduck/433211875/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 29: TheSeanseter93 http://www.flickr.com/photos/theseanster93/2525458030/
Slide 30: Luke Peterson http://www.flickr.com/photos/lukepeterson/7179857175/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 32: Didbygraham http://www.flickr.com/photos/didbygraham/334447437/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 33: Zigazou76 http://www.flickr.com/photos/zigazou76/5809831758/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 34: Yuliya Libkina http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliannehide/1117286012/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Sldie 35: kyz http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyz/2619488564/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 36: Tristam Sparks http://www.flickr.com/photos/friendly-fire/1303196553/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 37: Marc_Smith http://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_smith/6584205737/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 38: josullivan.59 http://www.flickr.com/photos/97373666@N00/3264396897/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Slide 39: Wayne Large http://www.flickr.com/photos/havovubu/4073705024/sizes/o/in/set-72157625812552599/
Slide 40: Wayne Large http://www.flickr.com/photos/havovubu/3734804839/sizes/l/in/set-72157621562337479/
Slide 41: Anna Tesar http://www.flickr.com/photos/spanner/3025145676/sizes/o/in/photostream/