A successful community event takes a great amount of strategy and planning. But what if you’re looking for more than just packing your venue to its capacity? How can you get people talking about your event online – even after it’s over?
One answer: Create compelling online content that holds meaning over time and is unique enough that people want to share it.
Now for the hard part: What makes something compelling enough that people will go out of their way to share it over….and over…and over again?
Visceral emotions have a lot to do with it. That’s the conclusion from Jonah Berger’s study entitled ‘What makes online content viral?’ His study found that content that evokes high-arousal emotions is more likely to be shared online. Interestingly enough, it doesn’t matter whether or not the evoked emotions are positive (like awe or excitement) or negative (such as anger or anxiety), so long as the emotions get a rise out of someone. For instance, BMW’s ad campaign that featured ambushes and hostage situations were designed specifically to create an anxiety in viewers. The videos were shared millions of times, and were said to be one of BMW’s most successful ad campaigns.
On the positive end of the spectrum, this video of motivational speaker Nick Viujicic, who was born with no arms or legs, has nearly 3million views. The video creates nothing but positive emotions of awe, inspiration and excitement, and continues to be passed around the internet for others to see.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOlTdkYXuzE&w=420&h=315]
Also, Foster Pepper, a Seattle law firm, created the following video to highlight the message from their recent community event focused on the importance of multicultural collaboration in Seattle.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlCDBY77AEI&w=560&h=315]
Creating inspiring content is the beginning. But to get the snowball effect rolling, and taking a video from obscure to viral in a matter of weeks, days, or even hours?
I’ll save that for my next blog post.