So what makes a great viral movie?

No – I am asking you!  Sorry but I really have no idea. I know the ones that I like. I know there are some that have been hugely popular that frankly, I just don’t get. If you’re looking to use one as a stand alone or part of a campaign and you are looking on here to find out how best to do it – then please – don’t do it to yourself! You only have to go to a site like viralmeister.com to see that what once looked like an exciting and cost-effective platform for creating word of mouth and buzz advertisments is actually a blackhole of confusion and frustration.

If you don’t know what a viral movie is, it’s not something that will infect your computer like a Trojan virus… actually don’t quote me on that, but Viral Movies are usually a clip that has some sort of quality which enables it to spread  worldwide via various digital channels – emails, blogs, IM, social networks sites etc. Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool. Famous viral videos that might have ended up in your inbox include Leave Britney Alone, The Landlord and The panda bear sneeze.

The John West Salmon ad was groundbreaking. Released on November 20, 2000.

Obviously the parallels you can draw between these 3 videos are… um… ok there are no real obvious ones. One is some emo nerd crying over Britney Spears’ cruel treatment by the world, one is a well scripted and well produced skit, and the other is just some a baby panda bear sneezing scaring it’s mum. The one main factor the ties them together is that they are entertaining. There’s no brand being shoved down your throat, there’s not even a call to action at the end of the clip. They are entertainment. And it’s common knowledge that most successful virals are humorous.

The trick to most viral movies is that they usually capitalise on a current event, hot topic, or the likes.

To gain viral status, the viral movie (or “agent”) needs to be seeded quickly to enough people, and have enough appeal for them to forward it on, so that it reaches what is called the tipping point – “the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable”. Unfortunately, determining what people will and will not forward on is not easy to determine. Great creative does not mean it will be a great viral.

I have only done a couple viral releases, but my tips for creating a viral video (if you really are hell bent on doing one) are these: if you are not wetting yourself or your jaw is hitting the ground watching it – forget it, determine your results by your goals and not by your traffic, don’t jam your brand down people’s throats, in fact don’t make an advertisment to send that out because people will hate you for it, it’s beter to keep it low-tech and un-pretentious, keep it small in size.

Good luck with that – and hey – if you do work out what makes a great viral movie, make sure you remember to let me in on it!

**** edit. fixed up some typos. i have fingers like beef sausages.

5 tips for quickly Spring cleaning your website

It’s been a long winter here and after months of eating chips on the couch watching movies, I have decided to get fit for summer. I was just at a spin class before, and in between thinking I might actually be sick and pass out, I thought now might be a good time to quickly whip our company website into shape as well. A Spring clean if you like.

Here’s my 5 tips on how to quickly Spring clean your website and freshen it up without undergoing a whole redesign.

1. Opening Paragraph of your home page. If it says “Welcome to our company, please have a look around our site” give yourself a slap. They know it’s your company and they already are looking around your site. How about you tell them what you do! Much better to lead with  “Our company is based in this town and we specialize in this, this and this.” It will help your search engine rankings and it will let users know straight away if they should go any further into your site. If your company has added a service or slightly changed it’s focus, be sure to reflect that early on in your content.
2. Our People  Section – Your most important asset are your people. Make sure your new staff are added promptly and staff who have left are taken down.
3. News Section – do you have a news section – when was it last updated? Time to get honest with yourself, are you going to make the effort to stay on top of it or is it just too hard. Or is there no news!  If the content is over a month or two old – it’s not news any more. Archive the news and get rid of that section, because it is just making your company look like nothing ever happens there.
4. Images on the home page. Well – images site-wide actually, but especially if you have static images on the home page that could be freshened up, do it. It makes a huge visual difference and gives users a sense of things happening within your company.
5. Check your links. Content may have been moved or links to external sites might now be irrelevant or pointing to pages that are no longer there.  Make sure there are no dead links on your site – that is a bad look. It’s also bad for your SEO – so get it sorted now.

That’s it. And unlike my spin classes, it won’t take very long at all to get a good result.

Getting sorted with card sorts.

X Sort is a great little free card sort application for macs

I just worked on a project lately that required us to use a card sort. Now, I often talk a good card sort to clients, but seldom do I actually need to do one. But if you are interested in implementing user-centered design then a card sort should be part of your information design phase. If you’ve not done a card sort before, or don’t know what it is, it’s a technique for determining your information architecture. The card sort involves sorting a series of cards which contain a passage of content or a bit of functionality into categories or groups of where the user would expect to find them.

There are 2 main types of card sorts; an open card sort where there are no groups/categories provided, and a closed card sort where group categories are already defined. As I understand it, open is better for determining new hierarchies, while closed is better for adding existing content or refining an open sort. I have found that if you are short on time and need data fast, a closed card sort with a category for “unsure” is a good way to pick up any ambiguous content.

The one tip I would offer in doing a card sort is that you should try and keep the content you use in the card sort to be as similar as possible in its specificity so the user can easily put into groups.

If some of the content is very broadly focussed and some is extremely specific it will be hard to form intuitive relationships between them.

A card sort is considered pretty low tech, which is a bonus for a me for start. But even better, there are some great little card sort tools out there to help you. I am on a mac and I found X-Sort – “a free card sorting application for Mac OS X”. FREE people!!!! It uses an easy drag and drop method for sorting the cards and provides some great metrics and reports.

So if you are looking at getting some fast feedback in your information design phase, i definitely say give card sorting a go. Give the power back on the user – make them choose the overall site structure!