This article is sponsored by the Bringing Blind People Downtown Indiegogo campaign, which aims to provide guidance, situational awareness and motivation for blind people.
In this
PandoMonthly interview, Jonah Peretii, the co-founder of The Huffington Post and Buzzfeed, shares some insights into how to create viral content and generate a buzz around your product or crowdfunding campaign.
Before getting into the world of startups, Peretti experienced two viral marketing hits. First, he created a highly shared email chain that featured a customer service interaction between Peretii and Nike.
Peretti wanted a customized pair of Nike shoes (a promotion at the time) that said “sweatshop” underneath the Nike swoosh. After receiving an email from Nike saying that they were unwilling to produce the shoe, a long chain of back and forth emails ensued on the touchy subject of Nike using sweatshop labor to produce their shoes. Once the conversation was over, Peretti shared the email with a few friends, who in turn forwarded it on to more friends.
Eventually, the email exchange began reaching labor activists and journalists. The phenomena culminated in Peretti going on the Today Show with Katie Couric and a Nike representative to discuss sweatshop labor.
Takeaways
“After that experience, I started to wonder how did this happen? I started to think of the ‘bored at work network.’ There are these millions of bored office workers and they sit at their computers for hours a day. Half the time they work and half the time they’re on twitter, facebook, and email passing stuff around.
If you can make something that those people think is awesome and want to share with their friends, you can reach more people than you could with a traditional broadcast network.”
The second time that Peretti experienced a viral hit was when he created a dating rejection service where men and women could give out a fake number if someone was hitting on them (and they weren’t interested). The automated rejection service would then nicely tell the caller they had been rejected. Again, the service took off within a week.
From these initial viral hits to the now highly popular website BuzzFeed, Peretti has built a career of creating viral sensations. Check out some of his tips below for increasing social media shares and gaining awareness online.
In order for an idea to replicate, it must be simple enough that someone can talk about it with their friends at a party. Not only should people be able to describe what the product or idea is, but also why it is awesome or useful.
Naturally, having a simple idea translates into great headlines when you get news coverage. A good headline also makes it easier to get retweets and shares through your own promotional efforts.
The world is becoming more saturated with information. Strangers will rarely take the time to delve deep into a new story or article. Be safe and convey your idea as simply as possible. Don’t make users work to understand it.
Why do ideas spread?
“Tie the idea into someone’s identity and focus on relationships.”
Find the people that really care about your idea or the benefits of your product. For example, when activists fighting for social injustice discovered Peretti’s email forward, they were likely to share it with other friends that were activists, because it was inline with the causes they were fighting for.
If you’ve spent a year developing a hardware prototype for a product that helps teach young kids engineering skills through hands-on experience, then contact members of the Maker Movement and education blogs. Find the people that are passionate about independent creation.
“We did a website called black people love us that featured a super white couple who were so excited about having black friends that they created this entire website about all their black friends. That website also played into people’s interactions with each other (race relations). Every black guy wanted to send it to his white friend and vice versa.”
You need to make a product or craft marketing materials that are inherently awesome and that people want to share. Many users also like to share new or novel concepts. You could try framing your message to resonate with this early-adopter audience. Finally, as another reason why you should create marketing that stands out, people might not want to buy a fashionable watch for themselves, but you may be able to inspire them to buy the watch for their husband or wife.
Pick something that is inherently social. In the automated rejection service example, people were willing to spread the idea because relationships and dating are topics that people spend a lot of time talking about naturally.
At the end of the day, there must be a reason to share the content. Make your content marketing about relationships and about identity. You don’t just want your audience read it, rub their chin and say “interesting”. It should make them think of another person they want to share it with.
Focus on the network.
A lot of people like to look at ideas or people when trying to account for viral success, but Peretti explained that many of his ideas spread because the network was a good fit and that it was early enough in the lifecycle of the story that the media would take notice of activity on that network.
In general, twitter is good for news, scoops, resource articles, and simple call to actions. You could use twitter to post blog articles, updates for your crowdfunding campaign, press mentions, and quotes. Twitter is a great way to begin engaging with your audience before and during the campaign. You can also easily discover strangers on twitter that might like to receive your messages. See: Marketing Your Kickstarter Campaign Using Twitter.
Facebook is good for content that emotionally resonates. This can include humorous posts, inspiring stories, or surprising news. The aim is to go for broad deep emotional appeal. Some crowdfunding campaign creators have appealed to the facebook crowd through wallpaper images and milestone updates.
Once you have some traction, you can take this to journalists with proof of social appeal. However, it’s important to frame your message to bloggers and journalists in a way that conveys why the story would work.
The media has been writing a lot about Kickstarter success stories and it’s beginning to get stale. How does your story stand out?
Peretti gave the example that in the early days of The Huffington Post, he emphasized that celebrities were now blogging on the platform. Up until then, the public image of a blogger was someone in their sweatpants at home sharing their personal thoughts. This new portrait was controversial and innovative, which broad attention to the website.
Conclusion
If you’d like to watch the full PandoMonthly interview, it’s about 2 hours long, but the first 30-60 minutes have most of the tips. Be sure to leave a comment below and share this post if you think it was helpful!
