What Drives Viral Content on Social Media?
There are a few elements that make up social media, referred to as ‘requirements’ by Albarran (2013). These include content, conversation, integrity, unfettered discussion, and of course, performance. As Abidin (2018) explains, influencers too, are a product of performance and perception. Having said that, we need to understand how social media marketing drives businesses and individuals like influencers, to produce viral content.
Where branding is what we call a marketing scheme done by businesses and organizations, self-branding is the same thing executed by an individual (Marwick, 2013). For instance, we can consider how influencers follow to use the elements of social media (Albarran, 2013) and fuel it with self-branding schemes to create virality.
To understand how influencers and individuals have replicated the pattern of viral marketing for businesses, let us go through the case of a viral ad which made its debut in 2010 on the YouTube channel of MyCrazycommercials. With flickering imagery and distorted sounds like that of a VHS tape recording, people perceived it to be from the 80s.
The Lots-o-Huggin Bear Commercial (Youtube, uploaded on April 20, 2010, on MyCrazycommercials)
Due to the reputation of previously uploaded vintage ad videos by MyCrazycommercials, the authenticity of the ad was not initially questioned. Eventually, though, the audience became curious because there was no brand logo in the video. Some people also noticed that the school bus steps shown in the video didn’t match with the buses of that period and that the little girl’s school lunch box wasn’t in tune with the 80s style.
Further fast forward into 2010, the audience’s doubts were proven correct. The Lotso bear appeared in front of the audience in the Toy Story 3 film for the first time and, it was proved that the viral ad was sourced by Disney Pixar. The viral Lotso bear ad was not what it appeared; it wasn’t vintage at all! By November 2012, the video had recorded nearly 1.4 million views.
John Lasseter, a chief creative officer of Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, then came in an official Disney Living YouTube video, saying that the idea of Lotso was there at the time of the first Toy Story film, but it made it into Toy Story 3 (Albarran, 2013).
The term “influencer” has been used in business studies to describe a model of marketing and advertising that targets key individuals who exert influence over a large pool of potential customers. (Abidin, 2018)
For Disney, MyCrazyCommercials was a potential hub to spark curiosity and attract millions of people to make the content go viral and sell the bear as a classic toy, like the toys in the rest of their films. This example is relevant in contrast to influencers, as they too adjust their content like Disney Pixar did for a ‘classic perception’. And although Disney Pixar’s logo wasn’t up there on the surface, it was fuelled by Disney Pixar to cause influence via a third party– a viral marketing tactic indeed.
References
Abidin, C. (2018). Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online (SocietyNow). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Albarran, A. B. (2013). The Social Media Industries (Media Management and Economics Series) (1st ed.). Routledge.
Marwick, A. E. (2015). Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age. Yale University Press.
