Written by Mihai Dragan on Sunday, July 26th, 2009 ( One response )
Tags: bottled water, interactive, social media, start a lie, viral
*I don’t know if that’s what happened but it might be a lie. You can start one too at StartALie.com, a viral campaign started by Tappening.com. “If bottled water companies can lie, we can too” goes the copy and it seems like a nice way of using social media to spread some facts about tap water.
The website is clean and simple, with a big “twitter-esque” input at the top and the latest lies scrolling down. Users can spread the news about it on their favourite social network.
via Adverblog
Written by Mihai Dragan on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 ( Start discussion )
Tags: list, time, top 10, viral, viral videos
Time gathered the top 10 viral videos in this list.
First place goes to Matt Harding, the game developer that quit his job to go dancing around the world. Legend has it that his dance powered journey started in Hanoi, but he ended up visiting 42 countries.
Read the rest of this entry »
Written by Mihai Dragan on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 ( 3 responses )
Tags: campaign management, creative, interactive campaigns, viral, viral campaigns
Viral is one of those over-hyped web2.0 buzzwords.
You want a client’s approval on the budget? Just assure him it’s going to be “viral”.
You want funding for your internet start-up? Add the word “viral” in the subtitle.
You’ve lost that Webby award? But why? Your campaign was sooo viral.
However, viral campaigns actually work and engage users. Inspired by Brendan’s post on the Viral Effect, I thought I should post some of the things I know about making “it” go viral.
Target
Making something go viral without a purpose is just an waste of resources. Figure out what you want to accomplish with your viral campaign. Write it down. Find a target and sketch a plan to get to your target.
Concept
After you have the target and you know where you’re heading, assemble the creative team, brief them on the subject and start brainstorming. Write down everything you can come up with. Nothing is stupid, everything is doable.
After the brainstorm delete the least interesting/doable ideas. Now you have a concept.
Implementation
Perfection lies within details. Plan your campaign carefully. Assign the best people to the project. After you have laid out the plan start doing it. Be flexible. Ideas may come up along the way. Keep focused but open to improvements.
Testing
After your viral campaign is ready to go be sure you test it. You wouldn’t want your funky flash game dead after it reaches 10 000 users.
Seeding
Viral effects don’t just happen. People make it happen. Agencies make it happen. Be sure to target a certain message delivery channel (be it a video on YouTube, minisite, flash game or just a picture) and stick to it. You don’t want your users’ attention distributed in dozens of places.
Talk to the influential bloggers. Ask them to write about your campaign (first of all make sure it is interesting enough to write about). Try to get social media power users to mention it. Do this and more (this is where the magic actually happens).
Management
Viral effects are like hurricanes. Once they start you don’t actually know where they’re heading. The best you can do is watch carefully and correct the campaign when needed.
Analyze and report
So you made it viral. But how viral? Track the answers, the number of users that got caught up in the viral effect, blog mentions, twitter mentions and others. Find out how many of the users took the path you’ve suggested. Report it to the client. Understand what happened and do it again. Better and smarter.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 ( Start discussion )
Tags: gps, phone, pixon, samsung, social media, twitter, viral, widget
I’ve found here a cool new campaign from Samsung, promoting their new Samsung Pixon. You can access it at www.thephotographicadventuresofnickturpin.com .
Basically Nick Turpin (this is his real name) goes around London, taking pictures of interesting activity. Nick, of course, uses his shiny new Samsung Pixon to do that. Users can vote anywhere inside a picture to determine what will the street photographer shoot next.
You can follow Nick on twitter, by RSS, through an widget, by email or even on GPS (nice little touch here pointing out the GPS feature).
The website is multilingual therefore having a broader range. I love the social feeling on this one although the execution is rather rough around the edges.
Check out Creative Review’s take on this one.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 ( Start discussion )
Tags: interactive campaign, internetics, pirates, quest, viral
“Be the best pirate” they said… “See the world” they said… So I joined the pirate crew on the Internetics Quest.
What is this? The Internetics Quest is an interactive online game that dares you to “sail the seven seas” in search of clues on different sites. The quest changes nothing in the internet. The players surf online through text, images, videos and many many others to get the right password to finalize the miniquests.
But in the end there can be only one. The first one to solve all the riddles will be declared The Biggest Web Pirate and earn the big, big secret prize, hidden in a treasure chest on Web Island.
Yes, we like playful online campaigns.
*I don’t know if that’s what happened but it might be a lie. You can start one too at StartALie.com, a viral campaign started by Tappening.com. “If bottled water companies can lie, we can too” goes the copy and it seems like a nice way of using social media to spread some facts about tap water.