Thinking

Want to Go Viral? Channel your Inner Disney Princess.

As someone who spent far, far too much of my childhood learning how to perfectly imitate every single Disney princess of my generation, I am kicking myself for not creating this video. Jon Cozart, who must now be a shoe-in for a guest appearance on Glee, created (apparently single-handedly?) a video that has been blowing up my Facebook and Twitter feeds for the past 2 days, and which I finally sat down to watch today. And I loved it.

Of course, the video is funny. And most people are passing it around because it’s funny. And, as is so often the case with a piece of content that breaks through, I heard about it from my friends first. Then saw it on Huffington Post, then saw it on FastCo. It’s a textbook study in video virality. At Free Range, we’ve been lucky enough to make a number of successful videos ourselves and shared much of what we’ve learned in our recent book. But watching a young whippersnapper do it himself...we’re re-inspired!

More questions than answers: Kony 2012

It’s been fascinating to observe the phenomenon that is Kony 2012. Here at Free Range, we’re no stranger to being asked to make media that will ‘go viral.’ Our response over the years has been that there’s no guaranteed recipe for big numbers on a video campaign. What you can do is make sure you’ve got a solid idea/story/message; a clear understanding of your target audience; an action step or ‘ask;’ a great outreach plan to pound the ether-pavement and get folks ready for your launch; and a sense of the zeitgeist — an instinct that the world is ready to hear and act on the story you have to tell.