Blue Helm

I’m sure by now you’ve either seen or heard of the BYU “New Spice” video. If you haven’t, here it is:

When I first saw this video it had only 350 views. 12 hours later there were over 350,000 views. Within a few days the video had been viewed over a million times and is now at about 1.9 million.  Not only have millions of people viewed the video, but it was covered on CNN, Time Magazine, in all of the local Utah media, huge blogs, and even the Huffington Post. Great PR.

The question is, why? Why did this video go viral? Why does any video go viral?

Timing – The BYU Harold B. Lee Library couldn’t have posted this video at a better time. Old Spice was right in the middle of its big YouTube campaign and millions of people were already searching for things that would pull up the BYU video.

Quality – Obviously the quality of this video was very high. If this had just been a home movie it probably would not have had the same impact. You can see the effort and professionalism put into it by watching the video’s Behind the Scenes update. The quality is what really galvanized not only BYU students, but other audiences as well. Mainstream media outlets and websites saw the video as more legitimate due to its high production value, thus increasing its viral spread.

BYU Audience – The BYU audience is pretty big. There are around 32,000 students and millions of alumni. These dedicated BYU fans pounced on the video, posting it on their Facebook Walls, Twitter feeds and blogs without hesitation.

So what can we take away from this? First, be aware of what’s happening in the social media world. If you’re on top of things you may be able to capitalize on the latest fad. Second, people appreciate quality. YouTube viewers are so used to seeing poorly executed knock-offs that when they see something of true quality they’re more likely to share it. Third, even if you’ve created an awesome piece of content, it will still need a boost. That boost can come from an existing base of people or even from using the powerful YouTube promoted videos feature. Lastly, you’ll need a little luck.

What are your thoughts on what makes a video viral?

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a huge disaster. I am sad for all of the damage to the environment. I’m sad for the massive economic repercussions this has and will have on the local and national economy . I’m sad that BP was not prepared to deal with something like this. It’s just a terrible situation.

While the actual oil spill has been terrible, the PR around the oil spill has been just as bad. I’m not going to talk about BP in this post; they have all sorts of problems I could talk about. Click here to read an interesting post about some things BP’s PR could have done better. Click here to see some parodies on BP’s response.

My focus today is on the Obama administration and their PR problems. People are upset, and rightfully so. They are mad at BP, they are mad at the damage to their beaches and businesses, they are mad at Obama, they are just mad. They don’t care who fixes the problem, they just want it fixed.

It’s been very interesting to watch Obama and his response. He is mad and wants to figure out whose “booty to kick” (he didn’t use the word booty, but you get the idea). He is very defensive of his administration and spends a lot of time explaining that he is very angry at what’s going on. I’m sure people are happy that Obama is mad, but the problem is that people aren’t seeing action.

So what should the government do? I believe they should better explain what they’re doing to stop this catastrophe. If they’re consulting with experts about how to clean oil spills, then tell us. If they are planning on sending resources to aid in the clean up, send out a press release. If Obama just gave an earful to the CEO of BP, then tweet about it. This is simple PR!

In this new age of communication, when people can find anything they want by typing it into their search engine, when people can vent their frustrations on blogs, Facebook and Twitter, good PR is a must. But it goes much further than having good PR. Your organization has to be willing to do and to change if necessary. If all you’re doing is talking, then people will call you out on it.

What do you think?

Before announcing new privacy changes, Facebook and the Death Star were synonymous.

After weeks of intense criticism and controversy, Evil Emperor Zuckerberg over at Facebook Corp. forsook the Dark Side (for now) and announced new and improved privacy settings that should arrive at our virtual doorsteps soon. Tech blogger Harry McCracken helps us by summarizing what exactly will change:

• Rather than having to wade through gazillions of granular settings, it’ll be easy to tell Facebook you want anything you post to be visible to friends only, friends of friends, or everybody. These rules will apply to future Facebook functionality that doesn’t exist yet.
• You’ll be able to make your Friends and Pages lists completely private.
• It’ll be easier to block apps on Facebook from getting at your information.
• It’ll be easier to block external sites such as Pandora which use Facebook’s new “Instant Personalization” from getting at your information. (Currently there’s no single place to go to do this, nor any way to block all sites with one click.)
• If users find these changes satisfactory, Facebook intends to avoid major changes to privacy policies “for a long time.”

So there you have it. I wholeheartedly support the new privacy settings, and I hope The Zuckster learned a valuable lesson from all this. He created Facebook to be a simple, intimate way for friends to share information. It’s grown into a ravenous information-hungry ogre. Bring the site back to its roots! Remember when U2 made that weird Pop album in the late 90s and everyone was like, Um, what band is this? Then U2 retraced its steps and released All That You Can’t Leave Behind, returning to the music that defined them as one of the greatest bands in history.

Yet again, Bono comes through with life-changing lessons.

Apparently, Hitler likes the 1982 Disney film, Tron.

I’ll admit that I liked a lot of the videos on YouTube parodying Hitler in the the 2004 film, Downfall. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something hilarious about one of world’s most villainous tyrants throwing a hissy fit over banal pop culture events such as Tiger Woods’ affair, Susan Boyle and the Twilight DVD.

But, as many of you savvy news junkies out there already know, the film’s distributor, Constantin Film, asked YouTube to remove all Downfall parodies from the site. Many are still up, but it irks me that such a large film production company (or any company) is so completely dim that it would attempt to kill all viral content celebrating one of its products. Sure the videos are parodies, but they still have the potential of driving thousands of people to watch the original clip, if not the original film. How, in this Viral Age, can companies still think they can censor or destroy user-generated content online?

Corynne McSherry, an attorney specializing in intellectual property and free speech issues, has already said that the parodies constitute fair use and aren’t infringing on any copyrighted material. It’s satire, which is protected speech. But regardless, Constantin Film should be embracing the free attention its film is getting from this huge online phenomenon. Don’t bight the hand that feeds you.

Needless to say, Hitler is not happy.

I have to admit I was a little surprised when I saw the following chart on Mashable the other day:

The lines in the graph that surprised me the most corresponded with LinkedIn and Twitter. LinkedIn actually had a better year than Twitter!

We’ve all heard about how Twitter is growing like crazy. Ever since Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN to a Twitter-off, Twitter has been all over the media. Celebrities, news shows, websites and commercials all promote Twitter in some way. As a result, Twitter has grown at an remarkable rate, but surprisingly, LinkedIn has grown more.

How has LinkedIn done it? Here are a few ideas I had:

1. LinkedIn is more robust – I love Twitter, but there’s only so much you can do with 140 characters and a few different symbols like @ or #. LinkedIn has all sorts of great resources to help you connect with other people. They have groups, they suggest people you may want to connect with, there’s the Q & A section and they have improved link sharing capabilities. Also, your profile says a lot more about who you are and you can recommend close connections. These features are attractive to someone who’s looking to connect and network on a deeper level.

2. LinkedIn is easier to use – This may sound contrary to my first point, but hear me out. First, Twitter is not easy to understand for a new user. They don’t know what a re-tweet is, they don’t know what a hash tag does and they don’t know what the heck they should tweet. Worst of all, Twitter does a terrible job of explaining all of the ins and outs of how to use the site. Twitter does have a 101 course, but it’s not easy to find. The 101 course should be a part of the sign-up process. Second, Twitter is very high maintenance. If you want to have a successful Twitter account you have to tweet a lot of great content, which is not an easy task for most people. Third, there are all sorts of spam on Twitter. People get tired of being followed by accounts who are following 300 people and have few or no followers. I have to delete spam every day on Twitter, while on LinkedIn I’ve never had to. LinkedIn on the other hand is very user-friendly. There is a side bar tool that tells you what you need to do to complete your profile. They have great tabs that are easy to understand. All of the updates are broken up into categories. Not only is LinkedIn clean and easy to use, but you don’t have to update it all of the time. If you update it once a week you’re doing great.

3. LinkedIn’s demographic is specific – LinkedIn targets business professionals. There’s no point for everyone and their dog to get on LinkedIn and clutter up the space. The only reason people are active on LinkedIn is to network with other professionals. On the other hand, Twitter is full of people talking about everything from Justin Bieber to Earth Day. It’s not easy to sift through all of the noise to hear what you want.

4. Twitter is helping to grow LinkedIn – I think all of the hype Twitter gets actually helps LinkedIn. Convincing people that they need to be a part of the social networking revolution has gotten a lot easier as more and more people hear about these sites in the news. Professional people keep up with news; as a result, they turn to a network that makes sense to them…LinkedIn.

Why do you think LinkedIn is outpacing Twitter? Do you think I’m way off base? Let me know.