Going Viral

Have you ever had that moment when your posting a tweet, an Instagram picture, or maybe a YouTube video, and you say to yourself: “Oh yeah, this is great.  This is totally going to go viral!” And than your post gets little to no response on it.  Well, if your like me and have had this moment where you think you’re funnier than you actually are, then you’ve experienced disappointment about not going viral.  Every day we see things on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. blow up online.  Some times its viral for a few days, and then it passes.  And then they are other time where it gets so popular that the creators get to go on Ellen! (Yes I’m talking to you “Damn Daniel” guys) How is it that people get their content to become extremely popular online?  While there are a lot of different ways to create a popular post, and how to track it.

In Chapter 4 of Social Media Enduring Principles, Ashlee Humphreys talks about measuring social media and how it can be effective for companies and people.  Humphreys talks about three concepts that are critical to a message being made popular online: attention, engagement, and conversion.  She defines attention as the amount of exposure the message gets through page visits or views.  Then she defines engagement as the “attempt to represent how involved or responsive the audience is to a particular message.” (Humphreys 48) Simply put, engagement tries to represent how engaging the original message is to an audience.  This is the key to tracking how popular a message is on social media.  Humphreys has a great chart that demonstrates how this works.

The amount of liked, shares, or retweets that a message receives directly effects how popular a message gets.  This leads to conversion which “describes some action taken on the part of the user that the sender of that message desires” (Humphreys 49).  In the chapter she mentions the Kony 2012 campaign as a perfect example of how these three concepts are utilized.  The Kony 2012 campaign was a movement started by the organization Invisible Children, as an attempt to spread awareness about the LRA and its leader Joseph Kony.  The organization released a video online detailing all of the gruesome acts done by the LRA and overnight the video spread like wild fire.  The video received millions of views, likes and shares, and because of its clear call to action, received millions of dollars in donations.  Because of all of the engagement and the donations the video and organization received, respectively, the data was easily measurable and allowed organizations to clearly see how successful it was.

So how to we get popular on the Internet?  As simple as it sounds, having a clear and engaging message is the best way to have a social media post or video go viral on the Internet.  The post has to attract a large audience who feel a call to action to share that message or video.  Or maybe the best way is to just share funny memes and cat videos.  Those have been pretty successful in the past for a lot of people too.

Sources:

Humphreys, Ashlee. “Measure Social Media.” Social Media: Enduring Principles. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016. 43-63. Print.

SpongeBob gif: http://www.reactiongifs.com/the-internet-2/

Kony 2012 photo: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/kony-2012

 

 

Content Creation: Where’s My Money?

When the era of Web.20 started, the biggest component was the emphasis on user-generated content.  Humphreys defines this in Chapter 5 as, “The textual, visual, or structural material produced by users and user groups.” (Humphreys 294)  It’s the foundation of the Internet that we know and love today.  Social media platforms depend on user-generated content to provide the content on those platforms.  Without the users, the platforms become empty spaces.  But the question becomes, if we’re the ones creating all of this content, should we, as users, be paid for it?  Just imagine if you got paid for every post, tweet, or photo you put on social media…

There are some social media sites that pay you to produce their content.  Instagram and YouTube are two famous examples of how creators of their own pages and channels were able to make a living on their content.  According to Forbes, the YouTube star Felix Kjellberg, or PewDiePie as he’s known by, made over $15 million in 2016.  In fact, the top ten wealthiest YouTubers of 2016 made over $70 million collectively according to Forbes.  A lot of the income that goes to these YouTubers comes from the brands that they sponsor in their videos and from the ads that come before their videos.  Most of the highest paid YouTubers have creating content since the beginning of YouTube in 2005.  When YouTube soared in popularity, companies saw the value in the website and pounced on the opportunity to spread their product to large audience.

Instagram followed suit with a similar idea with their popular users.  Having their users take photos using their product in some way was a good way to market to the user’s audience.  The idea here is that, if you follow this person and they wear a type of clothing or use a type of makeup, then you might be persuaded to go buy that product.  According to the Huffington Post, “some brands pay between $5 to $10 per thousand followers, others offer $100 per 100 followers and still others pay only in free swag….companies across all industries combined spend between $1 billion and $1.5 billion per year on sponsoring content on the platform”  One of the most famous examples of using popularity to sell products on Instagram, is through the Kardashians.

Kim Kardshian is able to market the brand Lipsy London by taking a photo of their products and promote their Instagram account.  Now we can’t all be the Kardashian’s and have as wide of an audience as they do.  But today, user-generated content on social media platforms makes it easier than ever to earn a living by creating content for that site. Simply by taking a photo with the product, wearing it, or using it in some way, you can make a living.  Creating content should not be all about trying to make money off of what you make.  Humphreys said that there are “nonmaterial rewards from co-creation… sense of esteem and respect from others” (Humphreys 72)  Creating content should be about creating something that you are passionate about or publishing something to a site that you love.  But if  you can get paid too, well that’s not too bad of a deal.

Sources:

Bereznak, Alyssa. “How Instagram Photographers Can Make Serious Cash (Hint: It’s Not Instagram Who’s Paying).” Yahoo! Yahoo!, 20 Feb. 2015. Web. <https://www.yahoo.com/tech/inside-instagrams-unofficial-lucrative-ad-111500129214.html>.

Berg, Madeline. “The Highest-Paid YouTube Stars 2016: PewDiePie Remains No. 1 With $15 Million.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 07 Dec. 2016. Web. <https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2016/12/05/the-highest-paid-youtube-stars-2016-pewdiepie-remains-no-1-with-15-million/#1cf77b657713>.

Humphreys, Ashlee. “Chapter 5: User Interaction and Co-Creation.” Social Media: Enduring Principles. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016. 63-81. Print.

Ma, Alexandra. “How To Make Money On Instagram.” The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, 30 July 2015. Web. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/make-money-on-instagram_us_55ad3ad6e4b0caf721b3624c>.

Photo/Gif Credits To

Squidward Gif: https://www.tenor.co/view/money-squidward-spongebob-payday-gif-4512595

Breaking Bad Gif: http://giphy.com/gifs/breaking-bad-money-comfortable-X8omQqfFyeq1a 

Kim Kardashian’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/uoPqjCuS5A/?modal=true

Obama Gif: https://www.tenor.co/view/obama-money-gif-5205899