According to an article on socialtimes.com, Internet celebrity (they called him a weblebrity which should lead to the discussion of how the internet is changing communication by creating new words and definitions but I will leave that for another time), Kevin Nalty, stated that a video has gone viral if it gets 5 million views in a 3-5 day period. That is not all though. The article notes that just having a large number of views does not constitute a viral video. There are some other measures that must happen in order for something to be considered viral. The other three things that are necessary are; buzz, parody, and longevity. Buzz is the idea that everyone is talking about the video, parody constitutes that others are copying the content and longevity is the idea that a video is still popular years later.
With all of this it is not surprising that companies would want something of theirs to go viral. If a video goes viral they get a huge amount of exposure for their product or idea and people everywhere are talking about them. However, if a viral video is so important then it would make sense that companies would spend a huge amount of time and money trying to make one video that would go viral. Companies like Hubspot that deal with social media strategies would encourage time spent on trying to make a video go viral. However, Hubspot wrote a guide for leveraging social media and there was no mention of trying to specifically try to force something to go viral. Instead, they laid out a plain on how to best manage your social media and how to best communicate. Their plan was very methodical and it showed that to best utilize social media it is important to be strategic with how you communicate.
This is a screen shot of my Twitter account. I do not have a lot of followers yet but through a good social media strategy and consistency I can grow. Follow me @jolmstead84 on Twitter.
I think the issue that comes with depending on something going viral as opposed to having a strategy when it comes to social media is that videos that go viral depend on someone else. In his TED talk, Kevin Alloca, called the people who viral videos depend on "tastemakers." So, rather than it being a calculated move on a company's part, for a video to go viral it must have someone else who has a strong online presence mention it. This is why I would suggest that it is better to be the tastemaker rather than trying to get a video to go viral.
I think to understand why it is more important to be a "tastemaker" rather than have a video go viral we must look at what social media is exactly. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, social media is, as defined by Wikipedia, "media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques [and] web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues." Social media is really not that different from a traditional form of doing business in the sense that people are still doing the technological equivalent to a "handshake" deal. The only real difference is that the deal is done on a global scale and not using face-to-face communication. I am not suggesting that businesses make large deals over the internet or on Twitter and yet, they do.
Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was on a discussion panel board at the 2012 Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo with Brent Spiner (who played Data) and LeVar Burton (who played Geordi) and discussed how he got the recurring role as "Evil Wil Wheaton" on the hit television show, "The Big Bang Theory." He is huge into using Twitter and one of the producers from the show followed him. Wil mentioned on Twitter how much he loved the show and because of that mention on Twitter was invited to be on the show. Taking this and the multitude of homecoming dates with celebrities and other exceptional instances of the power of social media, it is clear that people use social media to form relationships.
Because of this, it is a lot like High School where you may have your one moment of glory (e.g. a viral video) or you are the Prom Queen. People become the Prom Queen because of a consistent working of a social structure that is in place. The Prom Queen's values and ideas are accepted by the school because she has spent the time working to promote them. This is what I believe that companies should do. In the same article from the Harvard Law Review it states that this social connection is grown strategically by branding yourself, engaging your peers, and learning from instant feedback. This is what I was referring to with the idea of being a Prom Queen rather than the person who gets one moment of glory. The person's moment depends upon the acceptance of the Prom Queen whereas the Prom Queen does not become that way due to just one moment.
With all of this in mind, I do not believe that a company should depend on a viral video. They should be ready to harness that social media currency should it happen but it is better to be consistent rather than lucky.
Social Times article
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