This awesome little infographic from Voltier Digital examines the art of viral content marketing. From the importance of understanding virality and the power of social networks through to the anatomy of viral content & sharing and tips on self promotion, the all important ‘secret sauce’ for any viral hit.

This is more than just a well-timed escape from the drudgery of the British Winter,  (although we can’t argue that the sunshine isn’t a definite added perk of the job). Chris and the team are spreading the kitten love a little further afield and on Wednesday they’ll be holding the first ever Aussie #KittenCamp in Sydney, followed by a special Christmas themed event in Melbourne in December.

You can grab your Aussie #KittenCamp tickets  here now…

Sydney – Wednesday 23rd November

Melbourne – Thursday 8th December

UK based kitten fans fear not, we have more fun goodies a bit closer to home for you with the London #KittenCamp Xmas Memetacular with our lovely friends at The Reel on 12^th December and the Bristol #KittenCamp Xmas Spectacular on the 14^th December.

Keep your eyes peeled here for more updates to follow soon!

And, more exciting news for fans of the NMA Viral Chart… launching this week will be our new chart of totally awesome viral cool on Ad News. We’re quite excited and we’ll be shouting about it as soon as it’s live so listen out!

(If you’re not on the map this time and feeling sad about it then let us know and we will do our best to reach you next year!!)

Here’s a few quick tips to maximise the effectiveness of your Viral video campaign.

Bigger isn’t always better.

People have a short attention span online, so keeping your video short is the best tactic. By all means have a long version of the Viral that the most engaged viewers can seek out, but use a concise version to take to the masses. We reckon a minute is a good target to aim for.

Be entertaining / interesting

If your content interests people, they’re far more likely to keep watching and ultimately engage with your brand. Seems obvious, but it’s amazing how many people will create a ‘viral’ that is actually just a dry sales message. Whilst this approach can work for TV advertising, online viewers will just stop watching if they aren’t engaged. Online video campaigns generally work better for branding campaigns rather than explaining your newest product’s features.

Start with a BANG!

Get your key message across in the first 10 seconds of the video. People will make up their mind pretty quickly if they are gonna keep watching, so its key to grab their attention from the start. You should also plan for a drop out towards the end of the video.

Leverage the Love

If people have enjoyed your video they will be more open to engaging with other marketing content. Include a call to action at the end of your video – drive traffic to your FB page, YT channel or website. You can also offer a click through link in the video description (or as part of the VAN viral player)

(image via http://thingsthataretotallyawesome.wordpress.com/)

One of the most interesting insights we’ve pulled out of our Viral Brand Chart infographic is the near trebling of Facebook shares in the second half of the year (in comparison with the first half), and the associated increase in *average-views-per-viral* accordingly – meaning that if now your campaign goes *viral* it’s more likely to sustain its virality for longer due to the wider extent of sharing within Facebook.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this infographic – which is based on weekly data from Rubber Republic’s Viral Ad Network. And if you’d like any more info, we’re @Rubber_Republic

from @Rubber_Republic thanks to the www.ViralAdNetwork.net

Although online video has the potential to organically generate massive engagement and millions of views, this is definitely not guaranteed. Setting a realistic expectation of return is something that is vital, but often missed when pitching the idea of branded video to a client.

There is the potential of free views! By uploading content to multiple video networks like Youtube or Vimeo you can achieve some free views. The bonus of this is that it’s quick and easy to do and in some cases, where the content is highly shareable and the brand is lucky enough to strike the right chord at the right time, it can be very successful.

However, with the growing mass of videos out there, this is becoming an increasingly risky tactic for distribution as your video may never even be discovered. Making a video, uploading it to youtube and then just sitting back and waiting for views to roll in is a common mistake, and one that often results in an unhappy client!

You can eliminate the risk of that awkward client meeting by including paid seeding in your proposal. This will not only raise your chances of a viral smash, but will also give a safety net of returns for your client.

The chart below show the rough costs and returns of a small video campaign with and without an included media spend.

In part 4 – see how you can use video as an ongoing communication channel for your brand client, and an ongoing revenue stream for you.

(Disclaimer: these numbers are estimated and may not necessarily reflect real-life results, which will depend on individual campaigns)

The proposition of the Viral Ad Network is a pretty simple one. We get your viral content, make it compatible with our network, then target it to the most relevant viewers in our audience for their enjoyment and consumption. We then pay our publishers for each time an engagement is made by a user on their site.

Below is a little tale of a campaign we worked on with our friends Cosmic Station & Associates to help launch the video assets that accompanied a wider PR campaign for the launch of the LG Crystal Mobile last year.

The presentation exemplifies how VAN works to launch, execute and report on your campaign and the type of results that can be achieved from a potent mix of good content and effective distribution.

Take a look, add a flake and pass around to your pals who have ace content. We’ll help give it an audience:

Some SEO basics

• – Google loves content

• – Google loves relevant content

• – Google loves well-structured content

• – Google loves very focused content

• – Google loves content that is loved by other people (i.e. content that is linked to)

• – Google loves content that is loved by popular people

• – Google loves content that is connected to other popular people

What this means when you blog – 11 tips on optimising for SEO

• 1) Write content that is very focused and relevant.

• 2) Make sure your blog post has a tight focused title – always thinking “what terms / question / phrase would someone search for?”  For example, if you’re wanting to target keen bloggers, then they’re always interested in finding out “how to optimise the seo of my blog” – so give it as the title of your post!

• 3) Make sure that the link of the blog post (which is often auto-generated from the title of the blog post) contains the relevant search terms.

• 4) Make sure the opening paragraph repeats those key phrases – as the opening 30 or so words are the ones are judged as being particularly important.

• 5) Make sure you you link key words / phrases in your blog, to key pages in your site.  For example if you write “Viral seeding is an effective way to gain brand awareness“.  Link the words “Viral seeding” to the relevant page in your site you’re trying to optimise.

• 6) Keep repeating key phrases and terms throughout the blog post, and remember to do the relevant linking.  Don’t go over board though – as this may look like SPAM to Google’s bots.

• 7) Include other relevant content in your blog posting – so maybe include a relevant YouTube video, or post a relevant (and tagged) image.  This all adds to the richness and relevance of the blog.

• To show your blog post is connected and influential, drop is some links to other more influential sites.  e.g. You may link to the Brand Republic site, if you’re talking about advertising – to indicate that you’re connected to other sites.

• 9) Once you’ve written your blog, make sure it’s linked to by other sites.  N.B. the more influential the site linking to you, the better.  So for example, Digg the blog via Digg.com, or link to the blog from another blog – e.g. the Team Rubber blog.  To do this you might do a weekly blog round up of the best Team Rubber postings.  You should also obviously Tweet the post – to optimise the opportunity for the blog being picked up by others.

• 10) Finally – remember to write interestingly and well.  After all, much of the success of your blog post will be down to the how people enjoy and share your blog / content.  If people think it’s great, then they’ll do the link sharing for you!

• 11) Finally #2 – consider how someone might find your post out of context, and make sure it ends with the right kind of call to action – e.g. you might write an end line along the lines of “If you’re interested in this, then you may be interested in the Viral Ad Network, which provides great fun ads for the best blogs and sites.  Check it out our Viral Ad Network here!“