1. Sarah Shelly
“It’s hard to make viral media, especially for serious topics.”
Sarah Shelly
Online Culture & Behaviour
BA (Hons) Public Relations
Bournemouth University
2,497 words
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2. Sarah Shelly
‘Viral media’ has become a buzzword as organisations seek to drive awareness by engaging the
widest possible audience for their messages (Weston 2014). The very nature of a virus is that it is
contagious, being transmitted from person-‐to-‐person through contact (Oxford Dictionaries 2014).
Similarly, audiences of viral campaigns are compelled to rapidly and spontaneously spread a text
through their online social networks by sharing (on Twitter, Facebook, reddit), emailing or blogging
about it (Zarella 2014)(McColl 2010). Viral media is actively spread by networks of people, as
opposed to passive consumption of messages spread by mass media as was traditionally the case
(Bonilla-‐Warford 2012).
Although viral media can be produced by anyone with internet access, YouTube, Reddit, Gawker,
The Huf[ington Post and BuzzFeed are recognised as the most popular aggregators of viral media.
BuzzFeed is a social news and entertainment website which analyses how we behave socially on the
web and tracks the virality of online content (BuzzFeed 2014a) Co-‐founded in 2006 by Jonah
Peretti, who is widely credited as the leading voice in decoding the science behind viral media, (Vice
2010) Buzzfeed claims to collate “the most shareable breaking news across the social
web” (BuzzFeed 2014).
This essay will address the following quote taken from BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti’s presentation
slides, shown originally at the New York Viral Media Meetup in August 2010 -‐ “it’s hard to make
viral media, especially for serious topics” (Peretti 2010). This statement re[lects the common
perception that to have ‘gone viral’ is a badge of honour reserved only for those who have cracked
the elusive code of virality -‐ transcending cultural barriers and causing rapid mass engagement
(Meetup 2013). Through empirical research of relevant literature, theory and several case study
examples, the essay will put forward a counter argument to the title statement. It will dispute the
use of the phrase ‘viral media’ before contending two main arguments; (a) it is not dif[icult to make
media for serious topics with viral potential, but (b) it is dif[icult to manage and control the process
of virality once released into the public sphere, especially with regard to serious topics.
Quantifying the point at which something ‘goes viral’ poses dif[iculties (Boynton 2009) but research
by TubeMogul (2010 cited by Rockett 2013) highlights that only 0.33% of YouTube’s videos have
more than 1 million views, and 83% have less than 500. Clearly the majority of the 100 hours of
video posted to YouTube every minute causes little stir (Youtube 2014), and diminishing advertising
budgets (Morgan 2012), mean organisations must learn to cut through the noise to rapidly capture
the attention of a mass audience. This dilemma is especially salient for non-‐pro[it organisations
with minimal budgets seeking to spread messages with bigger implications than simply invoking
humour and joviality.
In the title claim, Peretti (2010) states that “it is hard to make viral media,” implying that virality is a
static state. But, without an agreed quanti[iable point at which a text becomes ‘viral’, and with
online media in a constant state of [lux, surely viral media cannot be ‘made’, in so far as that it
cannot be possible to predict with certainty from the outset that a text will be shared to the extent
of achieving ‘viral’ status. Virality must instead be a process of designing media that can, at best,
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have a limited, calculated propensity towards viral success in combination with a sharing strategy.
With this in mind, the essay will discuss viral media as a process hereafter, and explore the extent to
which this process is hard to predict, design and control.
Bonilla-‐Warford (2012) postulates that the key components of viral media are high quality content,
distribution across an in[luential network and the careful use of promotion. McColl (2010) agrees,
stating that partnering with people with instant mass sharing power is vital for viral success.
Further, McColl identi[ies strong emotional appeal, original content and an immediate demand for
action (to visit a webpage/watch a video) as essential appeals for virality.
Research such as this, combined with readily-‐available metrics and analysis tools, is making it easier
for organisations to understand and make predictions about how audiences think and behave
online and inform the design of targeted media that compels its audience to share it (Southgate
2011). Peretti is among a growing number of experts, such as Jonah Berger and Kate Milkman, who
specialise in identifying strategies to maximise the ‘shareability’ of a text and engineer viral success.
Indeed, blog network, Gawker hired viral-‐expert Neetzan Zimmerman in 2012 to collate imminent
viral content from small-‐scale platforms and herd traf[ic to Gawker, boosting overall circulation
(Phelps 2012). Basic metrics tools such as YouTube Analytics, Google Trends and Kantar Video help
make data comprehensible, informing the initial formulation of relevant and targeted content based
on statistics, and tracking the reach of the published text.
Increasing accessibility to expert insight about how psychological processes affect social diffusion
means that organisations are beginning to move away from traditional persuasion techniques
focussed around the product, instead learning to accurately frame a brand’s image and messages in
an appealing way, with speci[ic consideration of the network of audiences (Berger & Milkman 2011,
Peretti 2013a, Rogers 1994). Moving from product-‐centric marketing towards message and
network awareness encourages social transmission by opening the [loor to discuss a wider breadth
of salient and interesting topics for the audience (Halpern 2014).
The annual Movember campaign shows how viral success can be achieved by exploiting a deep
understanding of the interests of the target networks and tailoring brand image and messages to [it.
The Movember Foundation raises awareness about men’s health through encouraging men to
fundraise and grow a moustache through November to raise awareness of prostate cancer
(Movember Foundation 2014). In 2011, the campaign went viral, raising $126.3 million globally and
garnering celebrity endorsement from Justin Bieber and Snoop Dogg (Beuker 2012).
In a talk in 2013, Peretti stated that we like to share things about identity because it helps us to
express ourselves, and Movember satis[ies this by creating a sense of belonging through the shared
experience of expressing a visible and light-‐hearted af[irmation of support for Movember by
wearing a moustache and engaging with the #Movember conversation online (Maslow 1954).
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Peretti (2013) also discusses how audiences are compelled to share messages that they are proud
to spread. People like to share things to appear in[luential and to make themselves look good
(Joseph 2014). The entertaining and relatable nature of Movember’s YouTube videos make them
shareable, along with the pride induced by spreading a campaign that not only entertains but
carries a serious message that shows care toward their peers.
Male grooming is a common interest for Movember’s key audience of young men. Coupled with the
brand’s fun, light-‐hearted nature and fashionable image, Movember demonstrates that it is not hard
to promote discussion of a serious topic (men’s health and prostate cancer awareness) using
content designed for the target networks and which people will be proud to share.
In Peretti’s Viral Meetup slides (2010) he introduces the concept of the ‘Bored at Work
Network’ (BWN) -‐ bored of[ice workers seeking out and sharing engaging stories on social media/
news sites. Peretti postulates that the BWN now set the agenda for what becomes viral, so
organisations seeking viral success should cater to this group.
Peretti (2010) explains that the BWN respond to content which is “easy to understand, easy to share
and includes a social imperative”. Creating such content is not a challenge when an organisation has
the two items discussed thus far; expert understanding of the target networks and what appeals to
them. As a third contention that it is not hard to design media with viral propensity, the essay will
argue that audience engagement is easier to initiate than ever before, intensi[ied by the prevalence
of social media.
Kemp (2014) recently reported that global active social media users hit 2 billion, intimating that the
potential online audience for campaigns is constantly growing. Facebook’s ‘like’ and ‘share’ buttons
are hit 4.5 billion and 4.75 billion times a day, respectively on average, (Smith 2014) so, providing
the content and targeting is right, engagement should be a natural progression. Experts are
unlocking the secrets behind irresistible headlines that generate clicks, but clicks alone do not
equate to viral success. Sharing is key here, and it is therefore essential that this process is made as
simple as possible to entice mavens (Upworthy 2013, Kaplan & Haenlein 2011).
Button placement and visibility are simple considerations which can streamline sharing (He 2013).
A scrolling ‘share’ button located close to the headline, offering a suggested sharing message can
also increase the likelihood of a text being shared. Data from global social fundraising platform,
JustGiving, corroborates with this, suggesting that each Facebook share of a JustGiving page equates
to an extra $8 in donations (He 2013).
As discussed previously by Peretti, people like to share content which makes them look like a ‘good’
person, and Schutz (1966) agrees, explaining that people engage with one-‐another to express the
need for inclusion, affection or control. We are inherently sociable creatures and online social
in[luence is highly coveted, with tools such as Klout, PeerIndex and TweetWorth feeding our
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common desire to appear authoritative within our social network by playing us off in competition
against our peers (Waytz 2014).
This desire for in[luential superiority can be used to exploit our inclination to transmit content that
resonates with the concerns of our networks. When six-‐year-‐old Jack Henderson’s campaign to raise
money for the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh went viral in 2011, people were
compelled to share ‘Jack Draws Anything’ -‐ the story of a little boy offering to draw pictures of
anything for anyone across the world in exchange for charity donations (BBC News Edinburgh, Fife
& East Scotland 2011).
This home-‐grown campaign appealed to people’s desire to share ‘cute’ things that have a serious
and altruistic implication, allowing them to appear in[luential on serious topics. It quickly achieved
viral success; raising £64,000, netting Jack a book deal and seeing the campaign achieve television
coverage (Henderson 2014). ‘Jack Draws Anything’ was successful despite having a minimal budget
because it had universal appeal, and the call to action was simple -‐ request a drawing, make a
donation, share the story. This is also a prime example of Stratten’s (2012) theory that viral
messages display one or more of three main appeals -‐ humour, the ‘WOW’ factor or evoking emotion
-‐ as it evoked a strong emotional reaction.
Perhaps the most famous viral media to date is the KONY 2012 campaign. Crafted by charity
director, Jason Russell, the 30-‐minute [ilm hit 100 million views within six days of release and was
shared 11 million times on Facebook (Cadwalladr 2013). Seeking to bring unknown warlord Joseph
Kony to justice, KONY 2012 beseeched the world to spread the message, sign a pledge and donate to
Russell’s charity, Invisible Children. The call to action was simple and well-‐received, and KONY 2012
had all the ingredients discussed thus far of a campaign with great viral propensity -‐ carefully
targeted video tactics, strong emotional appeal and focus on the networks rather than the
organisation.
Invisible Children made it easy to become an advocate, through simply clicking ‘share’ and pledging
allegiance. However, two weeks after release, there was a huge backlash relating to the charity’s
[inances and Russell had a public breakdown. The video was accused of promoting ‘slacktivism’ and
‘white saviour industrial complex,’ (Jenkins 2012, Sanders 2014) suggesting that even the most
meticulously planned campaign cannot be fully controlled once it is released into the online public
sphere. Although KONY 2012 achieved unprecedented viral success and did effectively spread a
very serious message, this was undermined by the heavy criticism and marked the charity’s
reputation irreversibly. This leads onto the second branch of the essay, which will contend that
although media with a calculated propensity towards viral success is not necessarily hard to create,
it is dif[icult to manage the viral process after release.
As the internet gets larger and more accessible, people across the world are gaining true freedom of
speech -‐ to add to, comment on and create new content across the web. As a result, organisations
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must monitor, respond to and manage a wealth of interaction that didn’t occur before the
prevalence of the internet.
Public editing power online can lead to the intended messages becoming skewed or lost in the
noise. While mass media would traditionally set the public agenda, this power is shifting into the
hands of the BWN, (Peretti 2013) as Sonderman (2012) states that audiences increasingly use social
media as a primary source of daily news.
The back[ired McDonald’s sponsored hashtag campaign, #McDStories (2012) illustrates consumers’
power to manipulate online content and the limited control organisations hold over how, where and
who media is spread to once it appears online (Erickson 2013.) Intended to encourage audiences to
share positive personal anecdotes relating to the brand, #McDStories was quickly hijacked and set
in motion a viral backlash of negative hashtag engagements, causing McDonald’s to remove the
paid-‐for promoted tweets within two hours of posting (Mondalek & Nisen 2013).
As well as message manipulation, organisations can [ind it dif[icult to retain ‘ownership’ of online
media, especially on social media as message senders and receivers share power over the diffusion
of a text. This issue could in part be attributed to our fundamentally narcissistic approach to
transmitting media (Joseph 2014). Consumers tend to be more concerned with sharing content to
bolster their own image and social in[luence than with accurately transmitting a message.
This control limitation makes managing the online viral process dif[icult because organisations are
unable to enforce guidelines on engagement with and transmission of texts. A recent example of this
is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge which went viral in 2014. The campaign was not engineered by an
organisation and instead grew through organic ‘nominations,’ boosted by the participation of
celebrities such as David Beckham and Richard Branson (Marrins 2014). The ALS Association
published guidelines on how to engage with the campaign, however, adherence could not be strictly
enforced due to the scale of the viral process so the intended messages often got lost amongst the
buzz (Clarity 2014).
Further to this, Macmillan Cancer Support was accused of hijacking the campaign, de[lecting
attention from its initial associations with raising awareness of ALS (Lepitak 2014, Culzac 2014).
Because the viral campaign grew organically through user-‐generated content on social media, there
was a negative reception when organisations such as Macmillan attempted to claim ownership over
it and enforce guidelines on how to engage with the campaign. Despite this, the campaign raised
over $100 million for the ALS Association (Diamond 2014), and successfully raised awareness of a
serious topic by engaging audiences of all ages with a campaign that transcended cultural barriers
and allowed participants to share a text that made them look good to their networks.
In conclusion, the essay has substantiated a counter argument to the title claim that “it’s hard to
make viral media, especially for serious topics” (Peretti 2010) by contending that virality is a [luid
process, and presenting evidence that it is not dif[icult to design media for serious topics with
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reasonable propensity towards virality, but also highlighting the dif[iculties in managing the viral
process once media is released into the online sphere.
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Allocca, K., 2011. Why Videos Go Viral [video, online]. TED. Available from: http://www.ted.com/
talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation?language=en [Accessed 2 Nov
2014].
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Applications. Journal of Advertising Research, 47 (4), 388–411.
Anderson, C., 2010. How Web Video Powers Global Innovation [video, online]. TED. Available from:
http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation?
language=en [Accessed 3 Nov 2014].
Ho, J. Y C. & Dempsey, M., 2010. Viral Marketing: Motivations to Move Forward Online Content.
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Week. Available from: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?
personId=46640669&privcapId=46607363&previousCapId=46607363&previousTitle=Contagious
%20Media,%20LLC [Accessed 3 November 2014].
Lasica, J., 2010. 14 Free Tools to Measure Your Social InSluence [online]. US: Socialbrite. Avalable
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[Accessed 6 November 2014].
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Lilach, 2013. What Are The Best Tools to Measure Social InSluence? [online]. US: Socialable. Available
from: http://www.socialable.co.uk/tools-‐to-‐measure-‐your-‐social-‐media-‐in[luence/ [Accessed 6
November 2014].
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[Accessed 27 October 2014].
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Reason Digital, 2012. 5 More Social Media Campaigns That Have Boosted Fundraising [online].
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Skogmo, M., 2013. What it Really Takes for Video Content to Go Viral [online]. US: ReelSEO. Available
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