Content area
Full text
MARKETING
Do you know what the ALS Ice Bucket challenge is?
I'm willing to bet that you do, and for a very simple reason. It's the same reason that you know what a selfie is, and that you know how to pronounce the word "loi. . cat.
The simple reason you know all of this is because of the phenomenon of virality, The Oxford English Dictionary defines virality as the tendency of an image, video or other piece of information to be circulated rapidly and widely from one Internet user to another.
The power of virality can't be underestimated; ot's what makes the Internet a unique and indisputably important marketing platform.
User-to-user content sharing, which is responsible for virality, has proved to be able to bring content to 9 million viewers in a single week - for free!
This month I set out to explore what makes something go viral. First, let's consider these three concrete examples:
Ice Bucket Challenge
This summer, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge went incredibly viral as public personalities and everyday people posted videos of themselves pouring ice water over their heads. Every backyard in the country seemed to have been captured on film. The Challenge encouraged people to do this stunt in order to promote awareness of the disease, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, and to increase donations for research.
It was simple and powerful peer pressure, of a good kind. A lot of the excitement built because you had to be nominated by a...