Understanding Viral Videos!

I've been racking my brains to try and figure out how I can help people using social media. The answer has always been right in front of me - people power. But it wasn't until recently that I realised the true potential of it! When a few months back, the song 'Why This Kolaveri Di' went viral, I realised the real power of social media. But I still need to understand what makes something 'go viral'. What's that one thing that made over a million people around the world watch a video of a song in a language many would not even have understood? And then why did they share it? Forget the rest of the world, why did I share it?

People may wonder, being a digital marketing student, how can I be saying that I don't understand what makes a video go viral! Well the fact is, if anyone knew the secret to make every video go viral, then there would be no questions! But fact is, the same formula seldom works twice! Despite using 'recommended' tactics to promote NGOs and non-profit organizations, they don't gain the popularity that some accidentally viral videos do! This is the point I want to understand! Why is it that 44 million people watch this video, but not half of them will watch or share videos about missing dogs or animals being rescued, etc?



I myself showed at least 3-4 people the video, many of them showed it to 3-4 people and so I helps spread the word. So how is it that the same effect is not seen when people share information about animal rescue or any other social cause?

The questions have been ticking in my mind like the timer of a time bomb!! I still have no answer. I guess some of us liked the use of the south Indian accent. But was that the only reason people watched it so many times and made so many versions of it? No, it's not possible. Trying to understand what makes a video go viral, made me think of another video which had gone viral ages ago. Some of you might remember it, 'The Badger Song'?

Can you imagine the number of views on this video? Around 13 million when I embedded it here! But how? If anyone can solve the riddle of 'why' videos go viral, he/she could call himself the viral guru! One might say 'comedy', 'interactiveness of the video', etc. Fact is, it could be all of these plus more! The 'more' here is the mystery!

At present I'm experimenting with using the power of social media and viral videos to  promote awareness so that people will take responsibility of helping animals around them. Whether it is for helping animals or helping people, or any other purpose, understanding what makes videos go viral will make sure we can easily spread the word on important issues!

So tell me, why would you share (or have your shared) these videos? 

So I made my first web-series a few days ago. I know last time I wrote about starting a travel blog, and I have, though I have not gone public with it just yet!

The video above is my first shot at seeing how I can use webisodes for marketing purposes. Since I am a student, I do not have the liberty of splurging money around. That is why I have started using YouTube's Video Creator Apps. The best thing about it is that I am just getting to know the app. I love the fact that there are different kinds of videos that can be created using the apps.

Some provide animated characters like the ones I used above. However, there are also other kinds of videos which are more useful for people who want to make video presentations.

Fact is that while doing my report for my digital channel, I had to explore the world of webisodes and mobisodes. That was when I realised it. A picture says a thousand words, then a movie?

Every Little Bit Helps is a series about young adults who are trying to change the way people around them think. This episode starts showing the hostility and attitude a large number of people have to the very concept of CSR.

As of now, this video was released on 31st January, 2012 and has received 73 views. I realise that the number may not be extraordinarily high, but nonetheless, at least it reached that many without any advertising (apart from the few tweets and facebook posts). I have till now, not spent a penny on my NOAH campaign. But have managed to get around 205 followers (of which I only worked at getting the first 120 or so)!

If NOAH does well, I will definitely be on cloud no 9! I just need to put in a bit more effort!

A New Beginning...

It's been 2 weeks since my second module at Hult started off! But the holiday spirit somehow doesn't seem to understand that! However, as all good things must end, so will the holiday spirit (now that our projects have started)

This term our projects are a step ahead of what they were last time...

...while in Module A, our projects focused on how quick and creatively we could think of marketing ideas, this term seems to focus more on how we use data to plan the future... whether it is in Strategy or Project Management or Customer Conversion, the theme of 'finding out what we don't know' seems to be a hot favourite! But then I suppose that is how real marketing projects are! You need to know and understand the client before trying to create an out-of-the-world marketing strategy for them!

In retrospect, we did analyse our clients even in the first term. However, that was never really our 'main goal' (if I can call it that). I guess we learnt at that time that we needed to understand them in-depth and therefore have now welcomed this module far more easily.

Most people would say that logically, we should first be taught how to build the strategy and understand the client and then be given assignments dealing with marketing them. To be honest, I thought so too.

Nonetheless, thinking of it now, as students, we seem to be far more enthusiastic to show our creative side than to want to waste time learning of the client's past/present. This is probably why the school used (should I say) reverse psychology on us and made us first realise WHY we needed to learn Project Management and Strategy and then taught the subjects to us!

Personally I am now happy to be learning it since I already know how projects would have been without such knowledge!

'We learn from our mistakes'... absolutely true! Now when we are being taught about these subjects, we can co-relate topics with what we did (or did not do) in Module A...

But this does not go to say that during Module A we would not have done a good job! Our projects at the time were such that they focused more on the plan; it is while working on the plan that we realised that we needed to understand other subjects too! The projects then focused on what customers liked, didn't like, and how we could use our knowledge of digital technology to rope them into things!

Now back to work, more on Module B later!