Viral By Design:

A Framework For Creating Viral Messages Behind the FirewallA White Paper by Linda Dulye, President/Founder, Dulye & Co.

How do I create viralcommunications insidethe walls of my company?

As communicators chase elusive notions of employee engagement in thenew social media landscape, we happen upon this even more elusivenotion of viral communication and wonder how we might inoculate ourcommunication programs to drive attention and conversation among ourcommunities and business organizations.

Do you know how to create viral communication? Have you wonderedhow to instill your communications with that certain infectious quality thatmoves them to pass it on to friends and colleagues? “Check this out; theyfinally got it right,” or “You have to watch this,” they may declare, as thelatest viral message makes its rounds.

This paper's objective is to guide you in the process of developingeffective viral communications for the corporate communicationenvironment.

What is a Viral Communication?

The term viral is usually associated with visual media, particularly videoand pictures. The barrier to creating and sharing affordable digital HD-quality video was lowered with the introduction of the Flip Mino videorecorder. The Flip has been a tremendous tool for creativecommunicators, and there are many great examples of using viral video todrive employee engagement. The Deloitte Film Festival(http://bit.ly/CoNgT), an employee contest that showcased employeeaccomplishments in the workplace, comes to mind, as does Zappos’ 10Core Values (http://bit.ly/1aN01K) video, which featured entertainingemployee stories about why they love to work for the company, andcomments about corporate culture from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.

Viral videos run the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous—to thedisgusting. When did you first see Susan Boyle (http://bit.ly/TnRKo)? Howabout the Comcast Cable Technician (http://bit.ly/gO6kT) caught nappingon a customer’s couch for an hour? When did you first see the Domino’screw (http://bit.ly/N36ml) doing disgusting things with food—before or afteryou heard it on the news? Many videos receive their

About the Author:Linda Dulye is thepresident and founder ofDulye & Co., a leadingchange managementconsultancy based inWarwick, NY.

A team of 18 experiencedprofessionals locatedthroughout the country,Dulye & Co. specializesin Spectator-FreeWorkplace ™ Solutionsfor some of the world’smost admired companies,including LockheedMartin, Cardinal Health,Tyco, DRS Technologies,Progress Energy andNovo Nordisk. The firmhas received two GoldQuills and a Silver Quillaward, including work forThermo Fisher Scientificand Rolls-Royce.

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Viral communicationalways involves authentic,compelling content—something easily digestibleand then passed around.

Viral communications normallyuse short-form content.

15 minutes of fame by accident. These powerful segments beg thequestion put by communication professionals:

How do I position my communications to encourage their viral spread?You Tube is nice, but how do I create viral communications here—behindthe firewall—inside the walls of my company (or with your externalaudience if you’re in a public relations role)? What makes this buzzhappen? This leads to a discussion about the definition and commonelements of viral communication, and then incorporating these practicesinto corporate communication strategy.

What Makes a Communication Viral?

By definition, a viral communication is information that gets passed aroundinformally—the message could originate with mass distribution, but itsdefining quality is the way it is then forwarded from friend to friend orcolleague to colleague as an item of interest.

Viral communication always involves authentic, compelling content of somesort. The term viral is usually associated with video, or a series ofpictures—something easily digestible and then passed around, featuringcontent that is remarkably interesting or topical, raw—or evenshocking—and that grabs the reader’s attention immediately.

What Are The Elements (Checklist) of a Viral Communication?

The following elements may function as a kind of helpful checklist forcreating communications positioned to achieve viral dissemination:

Easily Digestible Content. A common quality of viralcommunication is easily-digestible content that can be quicklyconsumed, including a catchy or quirky headline—teaser text—thatdescribes the video content, and what you what you may get out ofwatching it.

Short-Form Content. Viral communications normally use short-form content. They should be designed to run about the length oftelevision commercial. This is good guidance in terms of attentionspan. The communication could be shorter, or as long as it takes toget your point across.

Break Up Long Clips. Anything other than short-form contentshould be broken up into smaller clips. You can view entireepisodes of South Park here (http://bit.ly/bXBvtG), or view theepisode guide and watch smaller clips of the show. Notice the abilityto blog is built right in—we’ll come back to this. Breaking up longerclips works particularly well with executive speeches, humanresources benefits communication, and change communication,where employees may want to drill down to certain excerpt ortopical area that pertains to them.

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Trying to “sell” too earlyhas an adverse effecton viral quality.

Viral communications musthave easy access to othersocial media platforms thatenable conversation andtwo-way engagement.

Leave Selling or Branding Message To The End. The messagemust engage effortlessly and stand on its own. Trying to “sell” tooearly generally has an adverse effect on viral quality. The contentmust have intrinsic value and be entertaining or vitally interestingwithout any manipulation —your call to action/branding should bereserved until the end.

Thought You Might Enjoy. Pre-populating the subject and contentof a viral message you want forwarded with “thought you mightenjoy;” “mail to: fill in friend’s name,” is another practical tip you maywish to incorporate.

Use Two-Way Dialoguing/Comment Capability That Caters toCorporate Culture: As mentioned earlier with the South Park video,viral communications must have easy access to other social mediaplatforms that enable conversation and two-way engagement. Isinstant messaging the communication tool of choice at yourcompany? Does video communication on the company portal orintranet hold sway, or how about wikis or blogs? Furnish quick andeasy access to these channels to seed viral engagement.

Message Forwarding: As opposed to mass messages, viralmessages are usually forwarded on from friend to friend orcolleague to colleague. Know your audience and try to find the“what’s in it for me” content value proposition. Use your ownjudgment: Would you want to forward this message on? Why wouldyour audience care to forward this message on?

HTML E-mail Delivery/Distribution with Embedded Video Link.The html e-mail provides required formatting capabilities neededand not normally available through text, such as the ability to embedvideo links.

Video Still Frame. Visually, the html e-mail must feature aninteresting video still frame picture with an embedded “play” arrow.The video is not to play inside the e-mail, but should link seamlesslyto a web-landing page, where the video may be viewed.

Stimulate Two-Way Dialogue Through Strategic Call to Action:Although calls to action are normally left to the end of the viralmessage, a request to reply back to the sender—a call to action tovote or provide an opinion— tends to make the message morepersonal and tends to build rapport. This must be fine tuned andcalibrated to your organizational culture, using the two-way socialmedia tools at your disposal, such as blogs, micro-blogs(Twitter/Yammer), IM, or the intranet.

Seeding Comments to Start the Buzz: Message or line ofbusiness champions may sometimes influence the viral quality ofmessage by weighing in themselves on a posted video or set ofpictures. If it would be inappropriate for you to weigh-in, then don’t.But it’s something to consider. Your honest enthusiasm andvibrancy about the message could be contagious and help get theball rolling.

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Gauge the effectivenessof your viral campaign bycustomizing the links used forevery communication channel.

Where Can I Get More Help Creating a Viral Communication?

Founded in 1998, Dulye & Co. is a change management consultancyspecializing in high-impact workplace communications, including socialmedia and intranet communication solutions that drive engagement andbottom-line results. Our experienced professional can guide you through theviral communication process to deliver a customized solution that worksbest for your organization.

Research and experience tell us that most corporate organizations are filledwith untapped potential and misdirected energies due to inconsistent,infrequent and unclear communications within and between layers, locationsand departments.

Our Spectator-Free Workplace™ solutions and tools have dramaticallyimproved workforce performance by increasing knowledge, trust andemployee engagement—in turn, helping our clients achieve measuredresults in service delivery, quality, retention and productivity.

Please contact us for a cost-free consultation concerning yourcommunication needs.

A Word About Metrics and Viral Communication

Metrics: Establish a single location web landing page to post viral content.Concentrate as much if not all of the traffic to a single web landing page topull down analytics. Similar to the way URL shorteners such as bit.ly work, youshould ensure that all traffic goes to the same measurement place. Concentrateall viral attention on a single web page.

Metrics: Use html e-mail marketing metrics to track click-throughs. Youoriginal e-mail list may have only 206 recipients. By using e-mail marketingcontact management systems like iContact you can view click-throughs(tracking the recipient’s e-mail id) to know who passed the message on.Identifying who passed it on provides a view to who is engaged—and moreimportant, helps identify the influencers in your organization.

Metrics: Create unique URL crafted for each internal communicationchannel to track effectiveness of distribution. When using variouscommunication channels like IM, micro-blogs (Twitter/Yammer), and intranetportals, you can gauge the effectiveness of your viral campaign by customizingthe links used for every communication channel. It may be the same message,but did they access it via e-mail, through an embedded IM or through a Twitterlink? You’ll know how many people viewed the message and by which channel,so you’ll know which ones work best.

Metrics: Facilitate forwarding in a subtle way that enhances measurementand metrics. This concept is embodied by the Share on Facebook button/linkat the end of most blogs. Again, this action will vary by corporate culture—itmay be Share on IM (embed link inside IM post), or Share on Yammer (embedthe link inside the micro-blog post). Optimize e-mail and web landing pages foreasy sharing. Build buttons that makes it easy to share via email and IM. YouTube, for example, makes this easy and they capture the additional metric ofhow many people shared the viral communication on Facebook. You can do thesame.

For more information youmay contact us via chat fromour website at www.dulye.comor through e-mail atcontact@dulye.com, orphone at 845-987-7744.Please consider sending anote about how this paper hashelped you.

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