As a senior manager, it is imperative that you
understand the most effective way to use content marketing to engage with
audiences and potential customers online. As a graduate student in the
Northwestern Medill IMC program, I have pinned down two articles that directly
address this challenge and offer insights into how to increase the chances of
your content going viral.
In the first article, “WhatMakes Content Go Viral”, Jonah Berger and Katherine L. Milkman of Wharton Business School. Following extensive experimentation, Milkman and Berger identify several characteristics of online content that make it conducive to social transmission. By controlling for writing complexity, author gender, article length, appearance in the physical newspaper, location of appearance on the home page, the timing of the article’s release and the author’s fame, Milkman and Berger were able to determine that content that stimulates high emotional arousal is more likely to go viral than content that stimulates low emotional arousal. Characteristics that stimulate high emotional arousal include awe, anger and anxiety, while an emotion that stimulates low emotional arousal is sadness. In addition, as a general rule, positive content was found to be more likely to go viral than negative content. While these findings may seem obvious, they have powerful implications in the marketing context. Content may be informative and eloquent, but if it fails to stimulate the viewer emotionally it will have a lower probability of being shared. The graphic below, taken from Berger and Milkman’s study, demonstrates this concept visually by showing his finding of the percent change in probability of being shared (via email list) for a one-standard-deviation increase in the emotional characteristic of an article.
Here, Milkman and Berger explain these results
in further detail:
“More broadly, our results suggest that while external drivers of
attention (e.g., being prominently featured) shape what becomes viral, content
characteristics are of similar importance (see Figure 2). For example, a one-standard- deviation
increase in the amount of anger an article evokes increases the odds that it
will make the most e-mailed list by 34%. This increase is equivalent to
spending an additional 2.9 hours as the lead story on the New York Times
website, which is nearly four times the average number of hours articles spend
in that position. Similarly, a one-standard-deviation increase in awe increases
the odds of making the most e-mailed list by 30% (Journal of Marketing
Research, 8.).”
In the second article that I examined, “The Secret Recipe for Viral Content Marketing Success”, Director
of Promotions at Frac.tl., Kelsey Libert, helps us to identify actionable ways to decrease the amount of time in
which a piece of content is consumed and subsequently shared. Libert maintains that
the goal of the content marketer should be to capture the attention of the
viewer, and then to engage them emotionally as
quickly as possible. “The faster and more deeply you are able to engage their emotions,
the more likely the viewer is to invest themselves enough in the content to
share it.” For this reason,
visually simplistic, easily consumed, and easily understood content is most
likely to go viral. One can decrease the consumption time by making sure
that the content is clear and concise. Images, for example are much more
rapidly consumed than a long form article or blog. However, it is crucial
that the emotional driver not be sacrificed for the sake of consumption speed,
as without it virality is inachievable.
From my analysis of these two articles and my
Social Media studies at Medill IMC, there are three action items you should
consider implementing immediately in order to increase the possibility of
social transmission.
1. Make your content emotionally engaging: This can be accomplished by making the
content interactive, by personalizing the content, or by focusing on delivering
specific emotions that are more likely to engage the audience such as anger and awe.
2. Decrease the consumption time and ease of
content sharing: This can be accomplished
by making the content visually simplistic in a way that does not compromise the
emotionally engaging aspect of the content. Including share tools within
your content can increase ease of sharing for your audience (Facebook, Reddit,
Pinterest, Tumblr, etc.). In addition it is crucial that these sharing tools be
set up in the correct fashion so that the proper default title and text will be
shared.
3. Know your target audience: It is essential that you know what kind of
content your target audience likes to consume, what topics are important to
your target audience, what excites them etc. You can increase your
understanding of your target audience through social listening. Some
great free tools that can get you started are SocialMention, Google Analytics, and Kurrently.
It is critical that senior managers grasp the
key drivers behind what makes content go viral. Content marketing is one
of the best ways to engage with audiences and potential customers online.
The ability to create viral content has the potential to spike sales, improve
search rankings, increase brand engagement, and even increase market
share. Additionally, the creation of a viral campaign, while not easy, is
an extremely economical proposition. To fail to examine opportunities in
viral content marketing will not only leave opportunity for future growth on
the table, but will also allow competition to enter into that space
unchallenged. For these reasons, as a senior manager, you owe it to your
company and to yourself to be actively building your content marketing skill
set.
Sara
Gutt - MS Candidate in Integrated Marketing at Northwestern University -
Specializing in Media Management & Digital Marketing. Follow her on Twitter
@SarabethGutt
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