Viral Ad Network

Originally posted by RoryA at Rubber Republic
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[Image courtesy of : Wendelboe on Flickr]

The *devil* in question was indeed the force of office evil that is Powerpoint, and Tom Alcott from the Social Network Company gave us a masterclass in how to keep presentations succinct, engaging and conversational while remaining in total control of your material.

His PechKucha style talk on social network analysis lasted exactly ‘6 minutes & 66 seconds’ and covered everything from a crash course in social psychology, the ambiguity of what being ‘connected’ actually means to mapping the *viral* spread of information within networks.

At the heart of it was that key question: Who is the most valuable node within any social network? The ‘hub’ (the most connected individual within a community). Or the ‘broker’ (the person who bridges between two communities and therefore allows that idea to spread to new audiences)?

Finding this overlap is something we are fascinated by, as it potentially allows the conversation to evolve and new participants to join. This was also a central theme to ‘Connected’ our last Rubber Book Club mail-out which explains the various ways information travels with some very entertaining illustrations.

So all good stuff and many thanks to Tom for coming in on a very warm and humid Friday afternoon.

Incidentally if ‘666′ is the number of the beast, does that make ‘668′ the neighbour of the beast?

Many people believe that the best way to spread your viral to niche interest groups in to manually target users within the niche themselves. But is this the best way to truly spread your [viral] content?

It’s a very controversial suggestion, as it goes against the perceived wisdom – but it’s not a new suggestion.

The concept was very heavily covered a few years ago in the business press (e.g. D.Watts – Harvard Business Review ‘07), although it’s been known of for far longer.

There are a couple of simplified examples in the video below:

So why do these examples work?

A social grouping consists of people who are connected to each other – assuming that your viral really appeals to that group, the task at hand isn’t being spread inside a social grouping – it’s reaching as many social groupings as possible.

You can only reach one social grouping by contacting someone inside it (if they are connected to another grouping then it’s all one grouping) – by elimination, the only option left is to target people outside of that grouping.

The great news here is that it’s cheaper to target those people – you don’t need the overhead of all the time spent searching for “the perfect seed”, you just show your viral to people.

Not only is it cheaper per viewer, but it’s almost always the case that there are more people closely connected to the grouping than there are inside it – so you’ve got a larger target to aim for with your seeding efforts.

Of course you can narrow down who you’re contacting – people are more likely to be connected to the target market if they’re in the same country, or speak the same language for example.

Other targeting methods can be used to help narrow down the target to people close to these groupings too – targeting broad categories of interests can be a very cost effective way of targeting this wider subset of people, rather than hand-picking site lists, which puts you firmly back towards only reaching the groupings around the sites you’re placed on.

That’s just about the scope of this blog post – hopefully you’ve found it interesting, feel free to comment below.

Below is a little presentation we have put together to exemplify our prowess in the football sector and how we are able to take your footie related ads to a footie loving audience. Ahem, this happens to be a coincidence that we’re so close to the World Cup; a stroke of luck if you will…

Please take a look, and let me know if you have any questions:

Great world cup ad from Carlsberg and Ignite London. Good script and some cracking cameos – quality stuff… and I’m a scot!

You can tell when an ad has really hit the bigtime when the UG spoofs start coming in. Here’s one for my fave ad from the past couple of months – Old Spice’s ‘The man your man could smell like’.

You’ve probably already seen the original, but it’s worth another look:

And now the positively fantastic reworking:

In the words of one of the comments by AveryHayes ‘ THIS KID WINS THE ENTIRE INTERNET.’
That is all.

Following Darren’s post on Rubber Republic’s blog entitled ‘RIP Internet meme’ , I thought I’d post this new Downfall parody where ‘Hitler reacts to the Hitler parodies being removed from YouTube’.

I hate cats!

Just wanted to point a bit of a nod towards our very own, brand spankingly new Viral brand chart:

http://www.nma.co.uk/resources/viral-brand-chart

We were assigned by the lovely people at New Media Age to help them report on the brand-funded virals that are taking the net by storm. The chart is updated weekly and features exclusively on the NMA site. It is also the first of its kind to report on UK specific trends, not that we’re ones to brag!

Our chart acknowledges important viral indicators on top of basic views. This includes activity in social areas like Facebook and Twitter to help understand the extent of a campaign’s effect on web communities. We aim to maintain this as a cutting edge indicator of what is trending online, as well as a useful tool for those interested in social media.

To accompany the branded chart and to make best use of the reporting system, we have also launched a weekly chart for user-generated content, to help understand current trends and favourites across the wider internet. If you’re a fan of acronymys and abbreviations, this could be classed as VAN’s chart on NMA to report on UK UCG on the interweb, OMG! See this here:

http://www.nma.co.uk/resources/viral-ugc-chart

Let us know if you would like any more info. Everyone else, please enjoy responsibly!

Gavin Strange a.k.a. Jam Factory, designer extraordinaire who worked with us to create our Viral Ad Network logo is featured in this months Digital Artist magazine.

He is interviewed about his role at Aardman Animations, his freelance work as Jam Factory (including his vinyl toy Droplets) and how he started his own design collective.

6 pages of goodness, and he even managed to get a nice big print of the VAN logo in the mix!

Nice one Gav!

I like this youtube video from Henrik Leichsenring. He has used hotlinks in the play bar to give the ability to mix music (and freaky rabbit dancing!).

Bit of a frustrating lag… but nice to see people using the medium for new things!

Happy Pancake Day!

What will you have on yours? I’m thinking maple syrup and icing sugar, followed by good old sugar and lemon.

This video is a classic, and definitely the most entertaining way I have ever consumed a recipe…