how stuff spreads
DESCRIPTION
by Francesco D’Orazio, Chief Innovation Officer & Head of Face Labs, FACE, UKTRANSCRIPT
Francesco D’Orazio@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
How Stuff SpreadsHow Video Goes Viral
meme
“an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture”
Back in March 2013, we started by mapping replica
memes, memes based on an original piece of content that spreads and gets replicated into variably successful
variations
5% 1%
We learned, updated the framework and repeated the experiment with
4 new types of meme: a music video, a citizen journalism video, an ad, a web series
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
Diffusion PatternsHow the meme gets passed on from person to person via tweets and retweets
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
SizeHow many people shared the link to the meme and how many posts did they generate?
42,900Tweets
38,300Retweets
75,067Unique Authors / Active Audience
38,700Tweets
26,200Retweets
62,324Unique Authors / Active Audience
5,330Tweets
7,610Retweets
11,868Unique Authors / Active Audience
5,680Tweets
24,600Retweets
27,993Unique Authors / Active Audience
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
NarrativeHow did the viral narrative develop?
11-May 18-May 25-May 1-Jun 8-Jun0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
Launched at 10pm GMT on 12 May, & gets 11,400 Twitter shares in 2 hours
Peaks at 51,600 shares on 13 May
Within a week it's below 1000 shares per day (17 May)
Perfect power law decay – no spikes after launch after a big influencer finds it belatedly
15-Apr 22-Apr 29-Apr 6-May 13-May 20-May 27-May 3-Jun 10-Jun0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
Continuing ripples even a month after a launch, as new communities and community influencers discover the video
600 people find & tweet/RT the video on 15 April, before Dove officially tweet it (@Dove_Canada on 16th)
Peaks on Day 3, the 17 April. Doesn't show the rapid power-law decay of the news-driven searches
Secondary peaks when it spreads into new communities & is noticed by new influencers. E.g. @DoveUKI on 19 Apr
1-Jun 8-Jun 15-Jun 22-Jun0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
Very sharp decay for this news-driven video, which gained its value from showing events in Gezi Park when Turkish TV channels weren't.
Day 3: only 197 shares
21-Apr 28-Apr 5-May 12-May 19-May 26-May 2-Jun 9-Jun 16-Jun 23-Jun0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
4,000
Unlike other videos this is serialised content. Peaks when(a) new video released(b) picked up by top influential Vine account
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
ShapeQuantifying virality. Which variables are best for identifying a viral phenomenon?
Dove Real Beauty
Ryan Gosling
Cmdr Hadfield
Turkish protest
197%
194%
355%
435%
Coefficient of variation (%)
All memes are volatile
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 610
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
Commander HadfieldDoveTurkeyRyan Gosling
Days since video launch
1Day
1Day
3 Days 18 Days
Time to Peak varies (shares/day)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 240
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000Commander HadfieldDoveTurkeyRyan Gosling
Diffusion Velocity varies (shares/hour on peak
day)
Dove Real Beauty
Ryan Gosling
Cmdr Hadfield
Turkish protest
1,088
5,108
12,886
Social currency (shares per 1m views)
Shareability varies
View count not available on Vine
Dove Real Beauty
Ryan Gosling
Cmdr Hadfield
Turkish protest
20
8
8
2
Lifespan varies (continuous period at 500 shares/day)
Although none of the variables alone proved useful to identify a viral phenomenon, all of them
correlate around two main models of viral spread
Spikers vs Growers
High VolatilityFast to PeakHigh VelocityHigh ShareabilityShorter Lifespan
Lower VolatilitySlower to
PeakLower
VelocityLower
ShareabilityLonger
Lifespan
But what makes a meme spread along the first or the second
model? We looked at the audience of the memes to answer
this question…
AudienceCan the audience composition explain why memes develop along one of the other model?
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
Dove Real Beauty
Ryan Gosling
Cmdr Hadfield
Turkish protest
35
30
34
29
All memes are similarly amplified(average Visibility of a post containing the meme)
75%
63%
14%
34%
Globality rate varies(% of shares from countries other than the top one)
Since both Amplification and Globality seemed not to
correlate with one or the other model of virality we then looked at the demographics engaged with each meme
30 Years
66%
34% White
Christian 55%
Jewish 36%
Students 9%
Journalists 9%
Web devs 8%
Senior Managers 7%Musicians 6%
@NASA@StephenFry@BarackObama@DalaiLama@Conan O’Brien
TechnologyScience NewsPhotographyMusicComedy
London 11%
Toronto 5%
New York 3%
Dublin 3%Vancouver 2%
19 Years
21%
79%
White 81% BlackHispanic
Christian 67%
Muslim 24%
Students 15%
Sales 10%
Journalists 4%PhotographersArtistsStylistsAdmin Staff
@[email protected]@TaylorSwift@JustinBieber@LadyGaga@KimKardashian
ComedyMusicFashionTV/FilmHealth IssuesSports
London 5%
Toronto 5%
New York 4%Riyadh 3%
26 Years
50%50%White 99%
Muslim 94%
Students 12%
Musicians 8%
Senior Managers 8%Web DevelopersJournalistsEngineersGraphic DesignerTeachers
@CemYilmaz@SertabErener@AbdullahGül@BarackObama@ConanO’Brien@WikiLeaks@Nytimes@BBCNews
PoliticsNewsTechFootballMusic
Instanbul 50%
Izmir 32%
Ankara 4%Bursa 1%
18 Years
26%
74%
White BlackHispanic
Christian 84%
Muslim 9%
Students 33%
Musicians 13%
Actors 4%
@JustinBieber@TaylorSwift@KatyPerry@MileyCyrus@DanielTosh@SnookiPolizzi
ComedyMusicDatingExtreme Sports
NYC 6%
London 3%
Los Angeles 2%Chicago 2%
As we couldn’t find any correlation between demographic traits and virality models we then turned to the structure of the audience by mapping the
social graph (followers/friends) of the people who shared the meme
11.226.84
4.263.14
Audience connectedness (avg degree)
Highly connected audiences (higher average degree in the audience network) make the meme
spread faster
0.506
0.466
Audience fragmentation (modularity)
0.752
0.650
High audience fragmentation into sub-communities (high modularity of the audience
network) makes the meme spread slower
130 communities
3 connect up to 50% of the audience
1356communities
8 connect up to 50% of the audience
51communities
2connect up to 50% of the audience
382communities
5 connect up to 50% of the audience
130
51
1356
387
But what is causing higher or lower fragmentation within an
audience?
32, male, white, CAN/USA, into science, tech and comedy
30, male, white, UK, into tech, comedy and music
32, female, white, USA/NYC, marketing professional
16, female, white/hispanic, USA/LA, into teen pop and reality tv
25, mixed, white, Turkey/Istanbul, into politics, sports, web
21, mixed, white, Turkey/Izmir, into politics, sports, web
17, female, white/black/hispanic, USA/Texas, into teen pop and reality tv
19, female, white, Global, into comedy, music, tv
High demographic diversity correlates with high modularity
and slower meme velocity
Dynamics
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
Trigger > Validation > Escalation
Emotion is the trigger
community relevance provides validation (topicality & timing)
Gatekeepers activate the communities within the
audience and escalate the diffusion
But it’s the social structure of the audience that
determines the diffusion model
Vs.
Thank You
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com