research: what makes a successful viral campaign?

What makes a successful viral campaign? 

Taken from: http://socialmediatoday.com/adam-torkildson/1038526/top-22-viral-marketing-tactics-you-need-2013

1. If something is compelling enough, people will share it. You can't force people to share crappy content. Creating compelling content starts with understanding what compels your audience in the first place.
2. Facebook drives more traffic than any other social network. Seven times as much as Twitter.
3. Pinterest is on average the 12th largest traffic referring site to viral content.
4. If you want to be social, you have to be mobile friendly. 1 in 5 visitors are using a mobile device. Over half of these are iPhones.
5. Sites that are simple or seem "dumb" are anything but, they're accessible. If an idea seems simple, that's great, it means more people will be able to relate to it.
6. To capture attention
7. Provide an embed code directly beneath the infographic in your blog post for bloggers to quickly post the image on their site. Send an email to your customers and blog subscribers announcing the data and encouraging them to share with others.
8. Make a list of everyone who has some kind of interest in what you want to spread-people who have skin in the game. Do favors for people beforehand (like share their content) as a way to engage reciprocity. The day of release tell all of them, because of the calculus of the exponential spread, the way going viral works is that the wider your starting base, the quicker, and more likely you can go viral. Brad Hines
9.  A tweet from a celebrity - Celebrity endorsement on Twitter is the key ingredient for YouTube video marketing and can set a viral video ablaze
10. Hand out an award. 
11. Make it exclusive - Any offer must not be ubiquitous. If a user has seen the deal before, if it's in the Sunday circular, sharing becomes less appealing. One of the reasons people share is to be that person that shows their friends something for the first time. It's an ego booster.
12. Make it worthwhile
13. Make it available for a limited time - To motivate social media users to share, you must give a narrow window for the desired action to be performed. 
14. The content itself must be 100% factual. 
15. Target specific bloggers
16. Juice the views. There are a couple of different companies that you can pay to run your video or content piece in their network of high profile sites to increase your content’s page views to a critical point so that it then becomes an organic piece unto itself.

1. Passion/Lust

Individuals and companies with the passion trigger make fast connections with others and inspire a close relationship with customers. Do you remember the first time you walked into the Apple store and your mouth started watering over the latest Mac? That was lust. Humans get the same mouth watering physiological effect with food, sex and many other products/services that create an anticipation of pleasure.
For a marketer to use lust Hogshead tells us that you need to tap into the 5 senses; you need to tease people’s passions, to pique their interest. There is a need for constant adaptation as passions can quickly run dry. Be creative.

2. Alarm

Alarm is the instinct we all have that used to keep us alive in more primitive times – the fight or flight instinct – losing your child on a crowded beach or meeting Freddie Kruger late at night. People prefer to avoid problems, so the alarm trigger can be used to show people the negative consequences of inaction in order to inspire a fast action. FedEx has combined trust (another trigger) with alarm (it cannot be late!!) to create a winning business. Marketers should define consequences and then create deadlines. This is all about leveraging fear.

3. Mystique

Mystique is all about holding something back and not revealing it. There is curiosity in lack of fulfillment. Hogshead says that there are 4 ways to trigger mystique: spark curiosity, withhold information, build mythology, and limit access.
Mystique is about telling stories and not giving facts – the secret ingredient in Coca-Cola is hidden in a vault, and according to myth only 2 people know the whole list of ingredients.

4. Power

Sometimes people do not want to be in control; they want to relinquish control to others. A good example of this is the personal trainer at the gym. Another example is a digital marketer. Many small business owners want to concentrate on their core business and delegate their digital marketing to an agency so that they do not have to think about it. Another example is the sommelier at a fancy restaurant. We often relinquish control to others due to their status.

5. Prestige

Prestige is all about perceived respect. People often obsess over symbols of rank and respect. People aim to achieve high standards and tangible evidence of their success; this may be a high salary, a simple thank you or a present/gift. There are great examples of prestige on all supermarket shelves. Why do you pay more for the branded product than the supermarket own brand? Why can a Tiffany engagement ring sell for twice the price of a similar ring? In order to leverage the prestige trigger of fascination you need to limit availability, increase the price so that accessibility is decreased (although you have to live up to the promise in the higher price). This all takes nerves of steel and a long-term investment in your brand.

6. Rebellion/Vice

We all like to break the rules sometimes, to do things differently. Vice is the desire you get when you are told that you cannot have something. Monica Lewinsky managed to launch a handbag line following her flirtation with vice.

7. Trust

Trust comes through familiarity and predictability. Messages should be repeated and retold; they should be consistent, reliable and clear. McDonald’s has trust as their strongest trigger. Personally, I am not a fan but I do trust that I will get what I expect if I were to visit a McDonald’s restaurant. The same goes for Starbucks.
Eliminate all sense of uncertainty, chaos or surprise.
Hogshead’s research helps you to not only understand others, also to understand yourself and your business and how others perceive you. It also helps you to understand how to leverage the triggers of fascination to grow your business.
You can read more on the 7 Triggers of Fascination at Sally’s website howtofascinate.com/