Viral Video/Phenomenon Research
What is the secret to creating great viral content that will engage your audience?
"To improve your chance of going viral, it should also be visually gripping, intelligent, witty, and provided in context. Mixing these ingredients wiU compel people to share the content because it makes them seem smart by association. You are creating content for conversation - and knowledge is contagious."
"Viral content delivers by creating a connection between people, enhancing social capital through reciprocity and sharing, offers solutions to real problems, and satisfies the brain's need to know what happened."
"Marketers know that word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising. We respond to things that are sent by people we know. We assume if someone who knows us sent it, it is because they think it will have value and you will find it compelling, entertaining, or useful."
Going Viral: AU Videos Promote The Cause To A Brand New Audience
"When you get a familiar message out in a new way, it can be surprising how many folks who ignored it earlier suddenly pay attention."
Creating Social Contagion Through Viral Product Design: A Randomized Trial of Peer Influence in Networks
By Sinan Aral & Dylan Walker
"Viral design strategies"
"Viral product design involves incorporating specific characteristics into a product’s design to generate peer-to-peer influence that encourages adoption. A product’s viral characteristics are fundamentally about its content and the psychological effects content can have on a user’s desire to share the product with peers."
"For these reasons, one might suspect that personal- ized referrals are more effective than broadcast notifi- cations. But, although each personalized referral may be more persuasive (more effective per message), the pervasiveness of automated broadcast messages that do not require additional time and energy on the part of the user may lead to greater overall peer adoption."
What Makes Online Content Viral?
By Jonah Berger & Katherine L. Milkman
"The results indicate that positive content is more viral than negative content, but the relationship between emotion and social transmission is more complex than valence alone. Virality is partially driven by physiological arousal. Content that evokes high-arousal positive (awe) or negative (anger or anxiety) emotions is more viral. Content that evokes low-arousal, or deactivating, emotions (e.g., sadness) is less viral."
"Sharing online content is an integral part of modern life."
"Although it is clear that social transmission is both frequent and important, less is known about why certain pieces of online content are more viral than others. Some customer service experiences spread throughout the blogosphere, while others are never shared. Some newspaper articles earn a position on their website’s “most e-mailed list,” while others languish. Companies often create online ad campaigns or encourage consumer-generated content in the hope that people will share this content with others, but some of these efforts take off while others fail. Is virality just random, as some argue (e.g., Cashmore 2009), or might certain characteristics predict whether content will be highly shared?"
"This article examines how content characteristics affect virality. In particular, we focus on how emotion shapes social transmission."
"However, there has been less attention to its causes or what drives people to share content with others and what type of content is more likely to be shared."
"Word of mouth and social media are viewed as cheaper and more effective than traditional media, but their utility hinges on people transmitting content that helps the brand."
"We suggest that these differences in arousal shape social transmission (see also Berger 2011). Arousal is a state of mobilization. While low arousal or deactivation is characterized by relaxation, high arousal or activation is characterized by activity (for a review, see Heilman 1997). Indeed, this excitatory state has been shown to increase action- related behaviors such as getting up to help others and responding faster to offers in negotiations. Given that sharing information requires action, we suggest that activation should have similar effects on social transmission and boost the likelihood that content is highly shared."
"If this is the case, even two emotions of the same valence may have different effects on sharing if they induce differ- ent levels of activation. Consider something that makes people sad versus something that makes people angry. Both emotions are negative, so a simple valence-based perspective would suggest that content that induces either emotion should be less viral (e.g., people want to make their friends feel good rather than bad). An arousal- or activation-based analysis, however, provides a more nuanced perspective. Although both emotions are negative, anger might increase transmission (because it is characterized by high activation), while sadness might actually decrease transmission (because it is characterized by deactivation or inaction)."
"Self-presentation motives also shape transmission, and people may share interesting or surprising content because it is entertain- ing and reflects positively on them (i.e., suggests that they know interesting or entertaining things)."
"Our findings also shed light on how to design successful viral marketing campaigns and craft contagious content. While marketers often produce content that paints their product in a positive light, our results suggest that content will be more likely to be shared if it evokes high-arousal emotions. Advertisements that make consumers content or relaxed, for example, will not be as viral as those that amuse them."
"By considering how psychological processes shape social transmission, it is possible to gain deeper insight into collective outcomes, such as what becomes viral."
The Key Elements of Viral Advertising: From Motivation to Emotion in the Most Shared Videos By Dr. Alberto Dafonte-Gómez
"Viral marketing has been based, since then, on two basic principles: offer free and engaging content that masks its commercial purpose to the individual and use of using a peer-to-peer dissemination system."
"What then is a viral video ad? First, it is a video produced by a brand with a direct or indirect commercial goal. This term is often generically used to refer to videos that have reached a high number of views, but this can be achieved through different means, such as paid content promotion, recommendations of similar videos on YouTube or the amplifying effect of TV broadcasting. If we are to be true to one of the main principles of viral marketing, viral videos must –necessarily– be shared by many individual users. What makes the difference in viral audiovisual content is, beyond the number of views –an important parameter, no doubt– the number of views achieved through mass dissemination by users who share a video across their contact networks of any kind. Despite the fact that a successful viral video may reach a large number of views, virals are so designed for their sharing, not for their views. In order to enhance content sharing, viral videos are stored and disseminated through a network."
"Sundaram, Mitra and Webster (1998), writing about WOM, highlight that we are more inclined to share information on products that we feel are useful for our community, and that we also preferentially share information about those products or brands we are proud to use or about products that we think that define our personality."
"However, beyond the motivations related to the construction and projection of the individual’s identity, the struggle for acceptance by their surroundings or the contribution to the knowledge of the community, there are reasons that have to do with the content itself and with the perception that the user has of it."
"They argue that generating emotions is a necessary requirement for a video to be shared."
"Dobele, Lindgreen, Beverland, Vanhamme and van-Wijk (2007) also consider surprise as the fundamental emotion that a viral video must generate to be shared. These authors’ research focuses on identifying the perception by spectators of the six primary emotions previously described by Ekman (1972) (surprise, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust and rage) in successful campaigns. Their conclusions emphasize the importance of surprise for the dissemination of viral content, but also that it is usually accompanied by some of the other five emotions, and that the combination of surprise with happiness or disgust (with a humorous outcome) increases the intention of sharing the content by spectators. However, the authors themselves indicate that the presence of emotions is not enough to force the content to be shared, and that a campaign that captures the recipients’ imagination in a unique or unforgettable way becomes a must."
"Once the analysis was started, we perceived that the item surprise could be subjected to a more precise delineation depending on the discursive element used to cause it. Thus, four different types of surprises were described in the units analysed... narrative surprise (this refers to the narrative turn used in many works of fiction to achieve an unexpected ending, such as those by Volkswagen or Budweiser in 2013)."
"Duration. Viral videos tend to last longer than most TV clips, with an average of around 03:05 minutes. However, we must highlight that in the sample taken, there are three videos of the same brand –DC Shoes– that increase the average significantly, as their durations are 09:52, 07:42 and 09:16. If we leave these particular clips aside, the average of the remaining sample ranges from 00:31 of the shortest video to 04:57 of the longest, and therefore the average in this second case is of 02:02."
"While the presence of humorous content in the analysed videos (based on content analysis of a sample of 25 viral video ads of proven success up till 2013) is high (58%), erotic (8%) and violent (16%) content is low."
What makes a video go viral? An analysis of emotional contagion and Internet memes
By Rosanna E. Guadagno, Daniel M. Rempala, Shannon Murphy, & Bradley M. Okdie
"What qualities lead some Internet videos to reach millions of viewers while others languish in obscurity?"
"Results indicated that individuals reporting strong affective responses to a video reported greater intent to spread the video. These results have implications for emotional contagion, social influence, and online behavior."
"Although viewers may have found the video’s content compelling, it also is likely that the visceral emotional reaction created by the images, music, mes- sage, and people in the video increased viewer interest and led them to forward it to friends and acquaintances."
"Whereas a dyadic interaction can produce emotional contagion directly, forwarding existing information to another person also can involve shared emotion indirectly. That is, when people watch Internet video clips, they may experience the same emotions as the people in the clip, and by forwarding that clip, they anticipate that the receiver will experience similar emotions. When one is embedded within an existing network of likeminded individuals (e.g., online political organizations), this contagion can spur appropriate behavioral responses by a mass of people."
"Specifically, videos that are cute, humorous, or emotionally arousing draw more viewers."
"This is consistent with the findings of the Pew Research Center, who found that people were more likely to watch ‘‘comedy or humorous videos’’ than any other category. Berger and Milkman concluded that the increase in physiological response accompanying high-arousal emotions may facilitate action and a desire to share the content, while the decrease in physiological response accompanying low arousal emotions may promote the conclusion that the content is unexciting and, thus, unworthy of sharing."
"Besides emotional content, one factor that may contribute to the proliferation of Internet memes is social validation. Social validation is the tendency for individuals to look to others to see what others are doing to determine if a behavior is normative and appropriate. In environments where the correct course of action is ambiguous, people rely even more heavily on the cues provided by others. People are also more likely to follow the cues of others when the others are a member of their in-group and thus more similar to them."
A means to an end: Using political satire to go viral
By Elsamari Botha
"The “connection generation” craves interaction with and connection to vast social networks through the sharing of information, photos, opinions, entertainment and news. This sharing comes in the form of electronic word- of-mouth or eWOM."
"Viral marketing is a form of WOM, and a marketing communications strategy, that attempts to engage and affect consumers. These consumers, in turn, spread the communicated message further through different social media. With the ever increasing growth of the internet and the rise of social network sites, viral marketing has cemented itself in the marketing and corporate agenda."
"Others state that it is the extent to which the emotion is felt (or the intensity with which the emotion is felt) or the specific emotion, and not simply a case of affect."
"Finally, interpersonal justifications are concerned with the social motivations for the spread of content online, and suggest that passing along content online builds social networks and social capital, it is important for society, and that people anticipate that others would feel happy and grateful to them for sharing viral content."
"While the creativity of the videos played a key role in the selected videos going viral, not all content can be creative in nature. Marketing and Communication managers should rather focus on the one element that is present in all viral videos: the emotion that the video elicits. This paper shows that the emotional reaction that each video had on the viewer, as well as how intense that emotional reaction was, had a key influence on its online traction."
Getting Likes, Going Viral, and the Intersections Between Popularity Metrics and Digital Composition
By Daniel Wuebben
"This article explores how the virality made possible by shareable content and its popularity metrics – Shares, Views, Likes, ♥’s, Tweets, etc. – influences the composition, circulation, and assessment of digital texts. As popularity metrics are increasingly linked to sharable texts, the lines between content designed to inform, inspire, and educate, and the content designed to illicit clicks, earn likes, and proliferate are blurred."
"In their most recent book, Spreadable Media (2013), Henry Jenkins and co-authors Sam Ford and Joshua Green used the adjective “spreadable” in the title to signal their rejection of the viral metaphor (although their book cover does advertise the somewhat brash blurb, “If it doesn’t spread, it’s dead”). The term “viral,” they argue, implies that viewers and users passively transmit and infect others without conscious consent. The term “spreadable” suggests that we knowingly spread and keep alive articles, photos, videos, and other information by posting and sharing that which we believe will make a positive and advantageous impact on others and ourselves. Advocating for “spreadability,” the authors argue, reasserts “the importance of social connections among individuals, connections increasingly made visible (and amplified) by social media platforms” (p. 6)."
The emotions that drive viral video
By Karen Nelson-Field, Erica Riebe, & Kellie Newstead
"Content sharing is the fastest growing activity amongst Face- book users, with 7 billion pieces of content shared each week (Un- ruly Media 2012). This is in part the result of the unrivalled growth of social media in recent years, and in part due to the emergence of the ‘Connection generation’ that is said to crave interaction with, and connection to, vast networks like never before."
"For marketers this provides an unparalleled opportunity to disseminate commercial messages to literally hundreds of thou- sands of potential brand buyers in a matter of days, without the cost associated with traditional mass media. Increasing clutter and audience fragmentation, however, offset such opportunity and pose challenge to those attempting to achieve message cut- through in an efficient manner. Thus marketers are increasingly turning to the diffusion of video as a way to gain cut-through and reach in the social media space."
"We find that an audience’s emotional reaction to video content does affect their propensity to share that material, but only when the emotion is highly arousing."
"While creating a positive emotional response over a negative one is still recommended, it is less important that the emotion felt be a positive one, than that it should be strongly felt."
Creating Buzz: The Neural Correlates of Effective Message Propagation
By Emily B. Falk, Sylvia A. Morelli, B. Locke Welborn, Karl Dambacher, & Matthew D. Lieberman
"Social interaction promotes the spread of values, attitudes, and behaviors."
"A large body of social-psychological literature focusing on per- suasion and social influence from the perspective of mes- sage recipients also speaks to the processes through which people may be influenced to adopt new ideas or recommendations (Asch, 1955; Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986)."
"First, for ideas that are destined to spread, communicators are likely to value the idea, either because they connect with the ideas or imagine that other people might. This process may recruit brain regions sup- porting reward and positive evaluations, such as ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Second, successful message propagation “hinges on the ability of the recommender to accurately predict the recipient’s interests and preferences”."
The Etiology of Social Change
By Kathleen M. Carley, Michael K. Martin, & Brian R. Hirshman
"Another critical factor influencing human behavior is the way in which information is sought after and provided. For example, humans gain access to information from other humans, from newspapers, the Internet, and a wide variety of other sources. The source of the message can be critical. Individuals may trust different sources to different extents and for different reasons (Kramer, 1999; McAllister, 1995). Further, even for the same type of source, such as a fellow human, some are trusted more than others; for instance, one might trust one’s best friend more than a stranger. Furthermore, some sources have greater reach and so interact with and send information and beliefs to more others."
By Alex Jutkowitz & Pamela Rutledge
"To improve your chance of going viral, it should also be visually gripping, intelligent, witty, and provided in context. Mixing these ingredients wiU compel people to share the content because it makes them seem smart by association. You are creating content for conversation - and knowledge is contagious."
"Viral content delivers by creating a connection between people, enhancing social capital through reciprocity and sharing, offers solutions to real problems, and satisfies the brain's need to know what happened."
"Marketers know that word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising. We respond to things that are sent by people we know. We assume if someone who knows us sent it, it is because they think it will have value and you will find it compelling, entertaining, or useful."
Going Viral: AU Videos Promote The Cause To A Brand New Audience
By Barry W. Lynn
"Can you really create a viral video, or do they just happen? There is considerable debate about this."
"Can you really create a viral video, or do they just happen? There is considerable debate about this."
"When you get a familiar message out in a new way, it can be surprising how many folks who ignored it earlier suddenly pay attention."
Creating Social Contagion Through Viral Product Design: A Randomized Trial of Peer Influence in Networks
By Sinan Aral & Dylan Walker
"Viral design strategies"
"Viral product design involves incorporating specific characteristics into a product’s design to generate peer-to-peer influence that encourages adoption. A product’s viral characteristics are fundamentally about its content and the psychological effects content can have on a user’s desire to share the product with peers."
"For these reasons, one might suspect that personal- ized referrals are more effective than broadcast notifi- cations. But, although each personalized referral may be more persuasive (more effective per message), the pervasiveness of automated broadcast messages that do not require additional time and energy on the part of the user may lead to greater overall peer adoption."
What Makes Online Content Viral?
By Jonah Berger & Katherine L. Milkman
"The results indicate that positive content is more viral than negative content, but the relationship between emotion and social transmission is more complex than valence alone. Virality is partially driven by physiological arousal. Content that evokes high-arousal positive (awe) or negative (anger or anxiety) emotions is more viral. Content that evokes low-arousal, or deactivating, emotions (e.g., sadness) is less viral."
"Sharing online content is an integral part of modern life."
"Although it is clear that social transmission is both frequent and important, less is known about why certain pieces of online content are more viral than others. Some customer service experiences spread throughout the blogosphere, while others are never shared. Some newspaper articles earn a position on their website’s “most e-mailed list,” while others languish. Companies often create online ad campaigns or encourage consumer-generated content in the hope that people will share this content with others, but some of these efforts take off while others fail. Is virality just random, as some argue (e.g., Cashmore 2009), or might certain characteristics predict whether content will be highly shared?"
"This article examines how content characteristics affect virality. In particular, we focus on how emotion shapes social transmission."
"However, there has been less attention to its causes or what drives people to share content with others and what type of content is more likely to be shared."
"Word of mouth and social media are viewed as cheaper and more effective than traditional media, but their utility hinges on people transmitting content that helps the brand."
"We suggest that these differences in arousal shape social transmission (see also Berger 2011). Arousal is a state of mobilization. While low arousal or deactivation is characterized by relaxation, high arousal or activation is characterized by activity (for a review, see Heilman 1997). Indeed, this excitatory state has been shown to increase action- related behaviors such as getting up to help others and responding faster to offers in negotiations. Given that sharing information requires action, we suggest that activation should have similar effects on social transmission and boost the likelihood that content is highly shared."
"If this is the case, even two emotions of the same valence may have different effects on sharing if they induce differ- ent levels of activation. Consider something that makes people sad versus something that makes people angry. Both emotions are negative, so a simple valence-based perspective would suggest that content that induces either emotion should be less viral (e.g., people want to make their friends feel good rather than bad). An arousal- or activation-based analysis, however, provides a more nuanced perspective. Although both emotions are negative, anger might increase transmission (because it is characterized by high activation), while sadness might actually decrease transmission (because it is characterized by deactivation or inaction)."
"Self-presentation motives also shape transmission, and people may share interesting or surprising content because it is entertain- ing and reflects positively on them (i.e., suggests that they know interesting or entertaining things)."
"Our findings also shed light on how to design successful viral marketing campaigns and craft contagious content. While marketers often produce content that paints their product in a positive light, our results suggest that content will be more likely to be shared if it evokes high-arousal emotions. Advertisements that make consumers content or relaxed, for example, will not be as viral as those that amuse them."
"By considering how psychological processes shape social transmission, it is possible to gain deeper insight into collective outcomes, such as what becomes viral."
"Viral marketing has been based, since then, on two basic principles: offer free and engaging content that masks its commercial purpose to the individual and use of using a peer-to-peer dissemination system."
"What then is a viral video ad? First, it is a video produced by a brand with a direct or indirect commercial goal. This term is often generically used to refer to videos that have reached a high number of views, but this can be achieved through different means, such as paid content promotion, recommendations of similar videos on YouTube or the amplifying effect of TV broadcasting. If we are to be true to one of the main principles of viral marketing, viral videos must –necessarily– be shared by many individual users. What makes the difference in viral audiovisual content is, beyond the number of views –an important parameter, no doubt– the number of views achieved through mass dissemination by users who share a video across their contact networks of any kind. Despite the fact that a successful viral video may reach a large number of views, virals are so designed for their sharing, not for their views. In order to enhance content sharing, viral videos are stored and disseminated through a network."
"Sundaram, Mitra and Webster (1998), writing about WOM, highlight that we are more inclined to share information on products that we feel are useful for our community, and that we also preferentially share information about those products or brands we are proud to use or about products that we think that define our personality."
"However, beyond the motivations related to the construction and projection of the individual’s identity, the struggle for acceptance by their surroundings or the contribution to the knowledge of the community, there are reasons that have to do with the content itself and with the perception that the user has of it."
"They argue that generating emotions is a necessary requirement for a video to be shared."
"Dobele, Lindgreen, Beverland, Vanhamme and van-Wijk (2007) also consider surprise as the fundamental emotion that a viral video must generate to be shared. These authors’ research focuses on identifying the perception by spectators of the six primary emotions previously described by Ekman (1972) (surprise, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust and rage) in successful campaigns. Their conclusions emphasize the importance of surprise for the dissemination of viral content, but also that it is usually accompanied by some of the other five emotions, and that the combination of surprise with happiness or disgust (with a humorous outcome) increases the intention of sharing the content by spectators. However, the authors themselves indicate that the presence of emotions is not enough to force the content to be shared, and that a campaign that captures the recipients’ imagination in a unique or unforgettable way becomes a must."
"Once the analysis was started, we perceived that the item surprise could be subjected to a more precise delineation depending on the discursive element used to cause it. Thus, four different types of surprises were described in the units analysed... narrative surprise (this refers to the narrative turn used in many works of fiction to achieve an unexpected ending, such as those by Volkswagen or Budweiser in 2013)."
"Duration. Viral videos tend to last longer than most TV clips, with an average of around 03:05 minutes. However, we must highlight that in the sample taken, there are three videos of the same brand –DC Shoes– that increase the average significantly, as their durations are 09:52, 07:42 and 09:16. If we leave these particular clips aside, the average of the remaining sample ranges from 00:31 of the shortest video to 04:57 of the longest, and therefore the average in this second case is of 02:02."
"While the presence of humorous content in the analysed videos (based on content analysis of a sample of 25 viral video ads of proven success up till 2013) is high (58%), erotic (8%) and violent (16%) content is low."
What makes a video go viral? An analysis of emotional contagion and Internet memes
By Rosanna E. Guadagno, Daniel M. Rempala, Shannon Murphy, & Bradley M. Okdie
"What qualities lead some Internet videos to reach millions of viewers while others languish in obscurity?"
"Results indicated that individuals reporting strong affective responses to a video reported greater intent to spread the video. These results have implications for emotional contagion, social influence, and online behavior."
"Although viewers may have found the video’s content compelling, it also is likely that the visceral emotional reaction created by the images, music, mes- sage, and people in the video increased viewer interest and led them to forward it to friends and acquaintances."
"Whereas a dyadic interaction can produce emotional contagion directly, forwarding existing information to another person also can involve shared emotion indirectly. That is, when people watch Internet video clips, they may experience the same emotions as the people in the clip, and by forwarding that clip, they anticipate that the receiver will experience similar emotions. When one is embedded within an existing network of likeminded individuals (e.g., online political organizations), this contagion can spur appropriate behavioral responses by a mass of people."
"Specifically, videos that are cute, humorous, or emotionally arousing draw more viewers."
"This is consistent with the findings of the Pew Research Center, who found that people were more likely to watch ‘‘comedy or humorous videos’’ than any other category. Berger and Milkman concluded that the increase in physiological response accompanying high-arousal emotions may facilitate action and a desire to share the content, while the decrease in physiological response accompanying low arousal emotions may promote the conclusion that the content is unexciting and, thus, unworthy of sharing."
"Besides emotional content, one factor that may contribute to the proliferation of Internet memes is social validation. Social validation is the tendency for individuals to look to others to see what others are doing to determine if a behavior is normative and appropriate. In environments where the correct course of action is ambiguous, people rely even more heavily on the cues provided by others. People are also more likely to follow the cues of others when the others are a member of their in-group and thus more similar to them."
By Elsamari Botha
"The “connection generation” craves interaction with and connection to vast social networks through the sharing of information, photos, opinions, entertainment and news. This sharing comes in the form of electronic word- of-mouth or eWOM."
"Viral marketing is a form of WOM, and a marketing communications strategy, that attempts to engage and affect consumers. These consumers, in turn, spread the communicated message further through different social media. With the ever increasing growth of the internet and the rise of social network sites, viral marketing has cemented itself in the marketing and corporate agenda."
"Others state that it is the extent to which the emotion is felt (or the intensity with which the emotion is felt) or the specific emotion, and not simply a case of affect."
"Finally, interpersonal justifications are concerned with the social motivations for the spread of content online, and suggest that passing along content online builds social networks and social capital, it is important for society, and that people anticipate that others would feel happy and grateful to them for sharing viral content."
"While the creativity of the videos played a key role in the selected videos going viral, not all content can be creative in nature. Marketing and Communication managers should rather focus on the one element that is present in all viral videos: the emotion that the video elicits. This paper shows that the emotional reaction that each video had on the viewer, as well as how intense that emotional reaction was, had a key influence on its online traction."
Getting Likes, Going Viral, and the Intersections Between Popularity Metrics and Digital Composition
"This article explores how the virality made possible by shareable content and its popularity metrics – Shares, Views, Likes, ♥’s, Tweets, etc. – influences the composition, circulation, and assessment of digital texts. As popularity metrics are increasingly linked to sharable texts, the lines between content designed to inform, inspire, and educate, and the content designed to illicit clicks, earn likes, and proliferate are blurred."
"In their most recent book, Spreadable Media (2013), Henry Jenkins and co-authors Sam Ford and Joshua Green used the adjective “spreadable” in the title to signal their rejection of the viral metaphor (although their book cover does advertise the somewhat brash blurb, “If it doesn’t spread, it’s dead”). The term “viral,” they argue, implies that viewers and users passively transmit and infect others without conscious consent. The term “spreadable” suggests that we knowingly spread and keep alive articles, photos, videos, and other information by posting and sharing that which we believe will make a positive and advantageous impact on others and ourselves. Advocating for “spreadability,” the authors argue, reasserts “the importance of social connections among individuals, connections increasingly made visible (and amplified) by social media platforms” (p. 6)."
The emotions that drive viral video
By Karen Nelson-Field, Erica Riebe, & Kellie Newstead
"Content sharing is the fastest growing activity amongst Face- book users, with 7 billion pieces of content shared each week (Un- ruly Media 2012). This is in part the result of the unrivalled growth of social media in recent years, and in part due to the emergence of the ‘Connection generation’ that is said to crave interaction with, and connection to, vast networks like never before."
"For marketers this provides an unparalleled opportunity to disseminate commercial messages to literally hundreds of thou- sands of potential brand buyers in a matter of days, without the cost associated with traditional mass media. Increasing clutter and audience fragmentation, however, offset such opportunity and pose challenge to those attempting to achieve message cut- through in an efficient manner. Thus marketers are increasingly turning to the diffusion of video as a way to gain cut-through and reach in the social media space."
"We find that an audience’s emotional reaction to video content does affect their propensity to share that material, but only when the emotion is highly arousing."
"While creating a positive emotional response over a negative one is still recommended, it is less important that the emotion felt be a positive one, than that it should be strongly felt."
Creating Buzz: The Neural Correlates of Effective Message Propagation
By Emily B. Falk, Sylvia A. Morelli, B. Locke Welborn, Karl Dambacher, & Matthew D. Lieberman
"Social interaction promotes the spread of values, attitudes, and behaviors."
"A large body of social-psychological literature focusing on per- suasion and social influence from the perspective of mes- sage recipients also speaks to the processes through which people may be influenced to adopt new ideas or recommendations (Asch, 1955; Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986)."
"First, for ideas that are destined to spread, communicators are likely to value the idea, either because they connect with the ideas or imagine that other people might. This process may recruit brain regions sup- porting reward and positive evaluations, such as ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Second, successful message propagation “hinges on the ability of the recommender to accurately predict the recipient’s interests and preferences”."
The Etiology of Social Change
By Kathleen M. Carley, Michael K. Martin, & Brian R. Hirshman
"Another critical factor influencing human behavior is the way in which information is sought after and provided. For example, humans gain access to information from other humans, from newspapers, the Internet, and a wide variety of other sources. The source of the message can be critical. Individuals may trust different sources to different extents and for different reasons (Kramer, 1999; McAllister, 1995). Further, even for the same type of source, such as a fellow human, some are trusted more than others; for instance, one might trust one’s best friend more than a stranger. Furthermore, some sources have greater reach and so interact with and send information and beliefs to more others."