How to Make News Stories Go Viral

(By Mark Ramsey) How do you make a news story go viral? Also: Marriott ? it?s a hotel chain; no, it?s a film studio! And what that means for all brands. It?s episode 11 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth.

For our discussion on what makes news stories go viral ? the ?genome of sharable news,? check out this piece from Edelman. For our take on Marriott ? the hotel chain, er, film studio, take a look at this piece from Digiday. Tom rants about about the irony of a peaceful Pope who?s ready to throw a punch when someone insults his mother, and Mark rants about TV?s Celebrity Apprentice, which is setting back the discipline of marketing by 50 years.

Special thanks once again to our awesome producer! Jeff Schmidt ? Exciting Audio for Media. Don?t forget to subscribe to Media Unplugged at Stitcher or on iTunes (for you RSS jockeys, here?s the feed). And tweet us at @tomasacker and @markramseymedia using #mediaunplugged if you have any comments or content ideas.

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(SOCIAL) 8 Ways To Go Viral With Your Social Media

2-8-2013

How do you go viral in your market, or in general, with social media? Let?s take a look at how to set conditions to have your content spread like wildfire across the important groups of cheerleaders or passionate listeners and social media participators who will and can blow you up!

1. Of course, you?ve heard content is king. This is true in 2013 just as it was in 1985 or 1963. You must raise your standards on the individual words, style of posts, and rich level of creative content. Without regular high levels of content, it is unlikely you can ?start a fire? with content because you may not have a passionate base that truly values your content to begin with.

2. Be visual and focus on your ?entry visual? to make sure it truly is eye-catching.

3. People like to share content in social media that makes them look smart, clever, caring, or funny. Does at least some of your social media content rise to this standard? If not, this needs to be an area of focus for how you approach social media.

4. Make your content positive. Why is there no hate button on Facebook? Here is the reason:  It?s because Facebook became and continues to be successful by avoiding negativity and being interesting and positive. Your content should rise to this standard as well. People will always engage positive much faster than they will negative.

5. Be prepared and commit to creating high-quality content that evokes emotion as it is received. Emotion is a critical fire starter in social media (as it is on the radio or television or other platforms ? old and new ? that seek to spread content and develop a passionate audience).

6. If you want to generate engagement and especially comments in social media, slide right along with something that creates controversy. This is high ground for generating opinion that people want to share. Always keep in mind how your radio station wants to be perceived. Be careful not to break the trust of the listeners you want the most just to generate comments and engagement with controversy.

7. The great songwriters will tell you that the simple songs often are the most popular and spread the fastest. So your social media posts, pictures, and videos should communicate simply. This is the key to fast spreading content.

8. Highlight local, local, local content that rises to some or all of the standards above to hit a home run viral hit in your market. Don?t just go for the easy stuff. Focus on the audience you most want to impact.

These eight items can help you (along with having a strategic plan for social media) to generate emotion, engagement, fun, energy (yes, energy), and real results for your radio station you can measure in terms of being effective for your brand in your market. This isn?t about having a bunch of likes on Facebook. This is about really getting people to share you, your brand, and the essence of what makes your brand a great local choice for listeners.

When you are ready, gear up by setting a social media strategy, getting your ?team? together and on the same page, and pushing content and engagement that is really about the end user and not your radio station. This will make conditions very good to set the stage for some of your content opportunities to go ?viral.?

Loyd Ford is the direct marketing, ratings and social media strategist for Americalist and programmed very successful radio brands in markets of all sizes for years, including KRMD AM & FM in Shreveport, WSSL and WMYI in Greenville, WKKT in Charlotte and WBEE in Rochester, NY. Learn more about Loyd here:  http://about.me/loydford. Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE  Visit his Facebook radio social media page HERE

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(SOCIAL) How To Go Viral On FB. Should You?

8-5-2012

We could have called this ?How To Win Friends & Influence People,? but I will spare you that. What are the keys for radio content ?going viral? on Facebook? 

1. Content, content, content. Believe me, I know it seems the experts are saying this until they are blue in the face, but you CANNOT FAKE this step. You must have great content that is focused on the listener -- not your radio station. Listeners will share what makes them look good to friends, family, and co-workers. Think about content that does that for the ?sharer? and you will be a winner. Ask yourself if your content is truly entertaining. Ask if it truly has value that is worth sharing. And if the passion is not high, chances are the sharing will be low.

2. The name or headline of your content is critical. We?ve all been around. You know that listeners have less time than ever. They are more distracted than ever. Want them to share? Have a headline that shocks, startles, promises something unique and compelling, and is quick to grab onto. The headline may be almost as critical as the visual.

3. Growing your relationship with listeners on Facebook. This is much more than getting someone to hit ?LIKE? on your Facebook page or sending them spam posts about how to win free concert tickets or even cash. Anyone who only spits out content (especially contest-heavy content) and does not engage listeners, are losers. To build a relationship, you have to nurture it through content that matters A LOT to listeners you want to attract AND by commenting on their posts and reacting to their lives. This can only be truly done over time, but the payoff can be large. A simplified version of this might be known as ?you scratch my back, I?ll scratch yours.?  Try it -- it works.

4. The more listeners you engage on Facebook, the more likely you are to boost participation and go viral with your message, photo, or video. Of course, you can boost participation on your Facebook page by talking about it on-air, in listener email, and through your street presence. However, please remember that our goal at radio is to get more people to use your radio station by pumping up the occasions they listen and listening longer. So, it is okay to participate in growing your ?LIKES,? but you must recognize that ultimately the only true payoff for your radio station is more occasions of listening and longer sets of listening (especially at work if you are an adult formatted station). Give yourself reason for growth on Facebook by managing your content to bring people back to you again and again and encouraging them to share good content.

5. Don?t be fake. Be yourself. If you are trying to be someone else, your content is much less likely to be share-worthy. Listeners can ?smell? authenticity and they can surely smell a fake. Be real and focus on sharing authentic content that informs and entertains to get to maximum sharing levels.

6. Yes, you should have a ?share? button on content on your website. The numbers of Facebook users in your market are probably larger than you think. The word ?share? means more than the word ?Like.? It is asking for the order. If you don?t make it easy to share your off-Facebook content on Facebook, you must ask yourself why. If you don?t ask listeners to share your content on Facebook when it is appropriate, you should give some additional thought to your plan on Facebook.

7. Be visual and understand how people share. This can be photos or video, but the basic idea is to catch attention with a photo or video worth sharing. Information is what is most shared because of links. In other words, your link is more likely to be shared if it has strong information that makes your listener look good. Video and photos are heavily shared when they are entertaining. Focus on entertainment when sharing videos or photos and focus on great or important information listeners will feel makes them look good when they share it, when you want to go viral. Knowing how listeners share is as important as knowing what content to use in an attempt to go viral.

Finally, let me say that everything is not something you want to share on social media like Facebook. Remember when I said, ?And should you? at the top of this article? Let?s be honest. Everything isn?t share-worthy. Nor should it be. If you don?t have controls on the content you are sharing (meaning each TYPE OF CONTENT you share and when), you may be making big mistakes. In fact, you may be BORING. Don?t be boring. Develop a social media plan that includes what kind of content you post by percentage and when. Develop your plan and make sharing part of it (but don?t try to make everything go viral).

Give yourself the best opportunity for going viral by providing listeners targeted information and entertainment that is unique to your brand and really gives them something valuable to share. Make sure you have variety in your posts, but always keep the value of your content high. Do this and you will find that your social media will help you with your true objective:  great listener engagement with your radio brand!
Loyd Ford programmed very successful radio brands in markets of all sizes for years, including KRMD AM & FM in Shreveport, WSSL and WMYI in Greenville, WKKT in Charlotte and WBEE in Rochester, NY. Learn more about Loyd here: http://about.me/loydford. Reach out to Loyd via e-mail HERE

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