The Story Behind Dove's Mega Viral "Real Beauty Sketches" Campaign

via fastcocreate.com

Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” campaign has officially gone viral: The YouTube video has over 8.6 million views at the time of this writing and has inspired commentary in tons of outlets, including the New York Times, ABC News, this very site, and in the Huffington Post, where a positive piece about the campaign has been shared almost 40,000 times on Facebook. It has inspired a parody of the original, and now even the blogger backlash to the ad--which complains that it focuses too much on a narrow definition of beauty--has itself gone viral. It’s a real mark of Internet success when even your backlash gets press.

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How do you follow up 'Gangnam Style'? Psy's new single hits 32 million views in one day

via theverge.com

Can Psy pelvic thrust his way back to "Gangnam Style" success? That seems to be the strategy behind the South Korean singer's followup video, "Gentleman," which has gathered 32 million views on YouTube since Saturday. It once again features Psy dancing and wreaking havoc across South Korea, and thrives off of the singer's dance moves and goofy charisma. That blend of humor and catchy beats helped "Gangnam Style" become the first video to pass 1 billion views on YouTube, and played a major part in bringing K-Pop to the US.

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The Science Of Going Viral - Video

via businessinsider.com

What's the secret formula behind why the Harlem Shake and Gangnam Style went viral? How do you land a spot on the New York Times' "Most-Emailed" articles list?

Wharton Marketing Professor Jonah Berger set out to answer these questions in his new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

"It's not luck, it's not random, it's not cats," he says. "There's a science behind it. We have to understand the psychology and the social transmission process."

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Tricks of Web Design that Would Make You Site Go Viral

via instantshift.com

The importance of web design is known to almost all entrepreneurs who are looking forward to venture in this swarming market. Be it in any field, the level of competition is skyrocketing thick and fast. In order to keep up with this volatility, entrepreneurs are in a constant endeavor to improve their online presence.

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How Code.org’s ‘Learn To Code’ Video Starring Zuck And Gates Surpassed 12M Views In 2 Weeks

via techcrunch.com

You probably wouldn’t exactly expect a short film about computer programming to be a blockbuster hit, but that’s exactly what’s happened with the ‘Learn To Code’ short film that computer science non-profit Code.org debuted last month.

The film, which is in both five minute and nine minute versions and was directed by famed documentary producer Lesley Chilcott, features Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey, Drew Houston, Tony Hsieh, Miami Heat player Chris Bosh, and others talking about how knowing to code has brought them the success they have today.

According to numbers released today, Code.org’s film has been viewed well over 12 million times in the two weeks since it was released. And the response was incredible particularly in the first several days, noted investor and Code.org co-founder Hadi Partovi tells me. Within the first four days of the film’s debut, the video had exceeded 10 million views — and that does not include views that occurred on Facebook, some of which can’t be tracked. It’s fair to estimate that the actual number of times the film has been viewed as of today could be in excess of 20 million.

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The Science Behind Why The Harlem Shake Is So Popular

via techcrunch.com

A five-minute video? Ain’t nobody got time for that. Not to watch one, or to make one. But Harlem Shake dance videos are capped at 30 seconds. That’s why we’re so willing to watch just one more incarnation, and why it’s easy to recruit friends to make them. The result is one of the most pervasive gags in history. A “Symbiotic Meme,” the Harlem Shake has a lesson to teach all content creators.

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Is Viral Marketing a Myth?

via socialmediatoday.com

I have long been skeptical when it comes to viral marketing. That’s not to say that I believe that the concept of an idea spreading in a viral way is wrong, merely that I don’t believe it’s something that we can predict or control. I posted a piece back in 2011 about some Harvard research that cast doubt on the traditional notions of how ideas spread through a social network.

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17 Of The Most Viral Facebook Photos In History

via businessinsider.com

Which photos have gone the most viral?

We turned to Likester, a social-media analytics company that tracks Facebook engagement. It has tracked more than 10 million Facebook photos, tallying the number of likes and comments for all of them.

They shared the 100 most viral photos with us. Most were from 2012, which makes sense since Facebook now has more than 1 billion users.

We screened the collection for photos that were, in our opinion, spam—for example, any photo whose caption explicitly asked someone to like or comment on the image. By eliminating those, we winnowed it down to pictures that were truly liked by millions of people.

All of them evoke some sort of feeling. Many were accompanied by emotional stories.

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Airport Pianist plays Viral Internet Songs

via youtube.com

At Chicago O’Hare International Airport, David Macdonald (aka “aSongScout”) shot footage of a pianist playing viral internet songs like “Never Gonna Give You Up,” the Nyan Cat theme (slow version), and more.

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The 20 Most Viral Ads Of 2012

via businessinsider.com

According to Unruly Media — which tracks not only what videos people watch but also what they share — the most viral ad of 2012 was a 30-minute-long spot for Kony 2012. People shared the controversial ad 10 million times, which is more than twice as much as people shared VW's "The Force," the most shared ad of 2011.

Other highlights included TNT's real-life stunt in which chaos rained down on an unsuspecting public square in Belgium (see how they did it here) and PBS's auto-tuned Mr. Roger's mashup.

In total, the top 500 ads of the year were shared 113 million times, 21 percent more than 2011, Unruly says. This year's top 10 ads alone were shared 28 million times, which is 10 million shares more than in 2011.

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WATCH: The 5 Best Viral Videos of November

via newsfeed.time.com

Goodbye Thanksgiving, and hello holiday season. As we flip the calendar to December, let’s give thanks for a month that brought us new music by the folks behind Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” the five Harvard students who launched a burger into the great beyond and a convincing explanation for why MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore. These and more are our favorite viral clips of the month.

While you probably don’t need a calendar to tell you that Christmas comes after Thanksgiving, 12-year-old singer Nicole Westbrook thought we, as a society, could use a bit of help. She released “It’s Thanksgiving” earlier this month, her first foray into the world of music. If this bubblegummy ode to turkey and stuffing sounds familiar, it’s because it sprang from the mind of Patrice Wilson, the same impresario who brought us Rebecca Black’s gloriously bad 2011 tune “Friday.” And Westbrook has clearly chosen the seat right behind Rebecca Black’s. While her song didn’t make quite as many waves – or annoy as many YouTube users – it still managed to give us some comedic relief from the holiday craziness.

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10 Marketers Who Nailed It With Hugely Viral Facebook Posts

via businessinsider.com

Sometimes the most effective advertising on Facebook is the free kind. Brands are constantly scrambling to engage users on their walls — these are the 10 most successful examples.

Track Social, an analytics firm that monitors 10,000 brands' social media activity in real time, told us which specific brand-produced Facebook posts got the most likes in October.

So whose branded posts did the best?

While posts related to big marketing campaigns did well, Red Bull actually wasn't the only company to get massive likes for Felix Baumgartner's outer space skydiving stunt, sometimes simple posts did better.

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5 Common Characteristics Of A Viral Web Video

via hongkiat.com

Viral videos can be so useful on many fronts, from being an effective marketing device (e.g. Honda – The Cog) to a tool for championing social causes (e.g. KONY 2012). When delivered in a proper manner, viral videos can have a more significant impact to people than being purely a source of entertainment. Before it can do that, it must reach out to as many people as possible via the networking effects of the Internet.

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'Gangnam Style' Cracks YouTube's All-Time Top 10 For Views

via mashable.com

With 432 million views since its July 15 release, “Gangnam Style” has catapulted well into YouTube’s list of 30 most-viewed videos. Psy’s Korean electronica dance hit cracked the top 10 this week at number nine.

The clip previously broke the Guinness World Record for most YouTube “Likes.”

A month ago, when talent manager Scooter Braun had signed Psy to the same record label as fellow viral sensation Carly Rae Jepsen, “Gangnam Style” had been watched 105 million times.

The 327 million additional views since the beginning of September have spawned partially because of countless parodies and Psy’s TV appearances on Saturday Night Live, Today, Ellen and the MTV Video Music Awards.

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Simple Guide To Making A Viral Video [Infographic]

via bitrebels.com

There are more and more people uploading photos and videos to the Internet every day. We all know that photography has become really popular, and the photo apps and sharing services have increased exponentially. One thing people seem to forget is that there are plenty of video services on the Internet, and they are growing quite fast, if not faster than the photo sharing services. YouTube, with its over 50 clones, is flooded with videos each and every day. I am a huge YouTube fan, and I probably watch 20-30 videos a day while I work. There are new viral videos spawning on a daily basis, but is there really a sure way to create a video that will go viral when you upload it? Maybe this simple guide will put you on the right path.

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15 YouTube Videos That Changed The World

via readwriteweb.com

“The Innocence of Muslims,” a trailer for an anti-Islamic film that has served as both an excuse and a spur for the latest round of unrest in the Middle East, is only the latest example of a longstanding YouTube tradition. The Google-owned company has been redefining activism, for better or for worse, since its inception. Here are 15 similarly Earth-shaking videos.

There's no denying the twin impacts of YouTube as a global video distribution network and the cellphone camera as a tool of citizen journalism. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million.

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30 Creative Ads That Can Go Viral

via topdesignmag.com

Print advertisements are a sure catch if they are attractive or funny. It was proven long time ago that the fastest way to convey the message to the audience is to design clever and unique ads. This post contain only top ads that can go viral.

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The Anatomy of Going Viral [Infographic]

via inspirationfeed.com

The key of having a successful viral campaign lies in really understanding the targeted demographic. The use of music, facts, comedy and sex will only help the campaign if it;s appreciated by that desired audience. But how does a video go from one view to millions?

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New Digg Vs. Reddit Vs. BuzzFeed: Your Mind On Viral Content

via techcrunch.com

For three straight days in early August, unintentional gay porn innuendos of Olympic men’s swimming reigned supreme in traffic on Buzzfeed, the breakout curated newsite of viral content.

Buzzfeed’s closest competitors, Reddit and the newly relaunched Digg, each featured dramatically different stories, from the Syrian rebellion to video game history (and, of course, plenty of cats).

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The Ultimate Guide To Creating Viral Content

via blog.kissmetrics.com

All of us have witnessed the phenomenon of the viral video first hand. From the days of the Numa Numa guy on YouTube to the latest Volkswagen ad, we now know that there is value to be had if our content is viewed by large numbers of (hopefully interested) people.

But video is not the only kind of content that can go viral; there have been many blog posts, forum comments, infographics and images that have traveled virally too.

Every marketer understands the potential that exists with the internet, but creating content that travels virally is no easy feat; it depends on a large number of humans having a related emotional reaction to your content.

Many marketers have been quick to point out that it is impossible to “create” viral content and that virality is not a product in itself but an effect. A viral reaction to an image/blog post or a video can occur, but the content cannot be viral through its very nature.

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