Facebook Page Virality: most posts never “go viral”
There is definitely a connection between viral phenomena and social media platforms. Social media are essentially about sharing. Facebook in particular is very prominent as a sharing platform, with Twitter coming in as a close second. Facebook is especially suitable for spreading interesting content, because shared material can show up for a number of days in your network’s news feed, making its shelf life much longer than in the ‘easy come, easy go’ environment of Twitter.
Facebook defines Virality as "the number of people who have created a story from your post as a percentage of the number of people who have seen it."
According to EdgeRank Checker, 61 % of Facebook Page Posts have a virality rate of 2.5 % or less. The median rate came out to 1.9 %.
The conclusion? Very few Pages leverage incredible Virality rates, however the ones that do are experiencing tremendous success in terms of exposure.
Understanding virality: Metcalfe’s Law
From Understanding viral content marketing infographic @ problogger.net:
Metcalfe's Law is a way to calculate the value of a network. The network effect says that the value of each potential sharer is proportional to the number, N, of other individuals he or she can connect to. [...]
The more interconnections and ways to share between people, the more easily, quickly and widely information can be shared.
Viral marketing is an attempt to get value that goes above and beyond cost. By tapping into the network effect, a marketer can gain far more value than cost. That's because while cost is still a constant, value grows exponentially based on the number of people whom the "viral" touches.
See also:
- Going Viral Visualized @ mashable.com
- Going viral: 7 best practices from the Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet @ conversity.be/blog
Going viral: 7 best practices from the Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet
Viral phenomena are the unicorns of the internet. Some famous examples are:
> Burger King’s ‘The Subservient Chicken’ (2004-2007)
> Cadbury’s ‘Dairy Milk Gorilla’ (2007)
> Cloverfield’s teaser trailer (2008)
> Blendtec’s ‘Will It Blend’ series (2007-2010 and beyond)
> Old Spice’s ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ + Responses (2010)
More here:
Like a virus, viral campaigns are successful if they are able to replicate themselves – sometimes by changing the objects who are exposed to them into copies of itself.
Unfurtunately, crafting a succesful marketing campaign is more difficult than it looks. It requires careful planning and research. Seven golden rules from the Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet:
- Stop being neutral
- Do something unexpected
- Don't make advertisements
- Make sequels
- Allow & promote sharing
- Connect with comments
- Never restrict access