When Going Viral: How To Plan For Riding The Wave Of Your Life

Can you imagine getting the opportunity to launch a viral product, campaign, or business. Not just any viral product, but rather one that sees its sales skyrocket, all while millions of people around the globe learn about your brand overnight. It’s like catching and riding the tidal wave of your life that surfers dream of. But what happens when that tidal wave crashes and your viral business isn’t prepared to handle the immense amount of traction it created. Well then, that leaves you with a whole cluster of problems that I like to call “When Going Viral Sucks!”

ABC News covering the Hoverboard catching fire

I have a special relationship with the lessons learned associated with viral marketing. I experienced a viral wave of traction and rode this wave for 14 months, only to then see the wave crash and burn on shore. Remember 2015’s Hoverboard product that literally and figuratively blew up? You know those two wheeled devices that every celebrity and 10 year old was riding around on? The device that would overheat when you charged it and then would explode resulting in people’s homes burning down? I was the cofounder of 2015’s most popular Hoverboard brand called PhunkeeDuck and our brand experienced all the positives and negatives of what happens when you go viral. We experienced virality in the truest sense the word has to offer, Now let’s discuss the startup lessons learned so that you can plan to ride the viral wave of your life, hopefully in a more sustainable fashion than I did!

Let’s start with what the definition of virality is and that is, “The tendency of an image, video, or piece of information to be circulated rapidly and widely from one Internet user to another.”  

There are various tactics that can be leveraged to have a business, product, or campaign go viral. In my opinion, and I hate to break the news, but there’s plenty of luck associated with going viral. Everyday thousands if not millions of people and businesses pump out new content, products, and features that they hope will trigger massive amounts of traction. The traction they wish to generate could be either measured in the form of likes, shares, purchases, or signups.  There are definitely best practices and strategies one can take to hopefully give themselves a higher probability of experiencing virality. Here are my top 5 must have characteristics that can trigger something going viral:

1. Timing and ensuring you’re capitalizing on a moment

2. Being first-to-market with whatever it is you are trying to provide people with

3. Having an eye-popping or jaw-dropping effect on those who interact with you

4. Very high emotional engagement

5. Whatever you’re doing needs to be mass audience worthy 

If you can pair these five characteristics up with some effective marketing tactics in different channels such as public relations, influencer marketing, or social media you’ll be heading in the right direction towards producing a viral promotion.

During my time in the Hoverboard game I learned first hand the serious downsides that come with not being adequately prepared for virality. The first-mover advantage PhunkeeDuck triggered and owned in the Hoverboard industry created a viral coefficient for our brand that small businesses and startup technology companies would only dream of. The viral coefficient is defined by the number of new users an existing user generates and as a result calculates the exponential referral cycle taking place for a business. Given how massive our viral coefficient was and the earthquake of traction that ensued, it would have been extremely difficult for any small business or startup to have properly planned ahead of time for this kind of tipping point. However there are certainly things that first-time entrepreneurs or those in the marketing world can do on the planning front ahead of actually going viral. Obviously every business, product, or campaign is different, but here’s my top 5 listing of the key things you need to either plan for ahead of time or be extremely mindful of, when going viral.

1. Guidelines or parameters around what you will and will not do to continue fueling your viral engine (ie. free product gifting)

2. A crisis public relations messaging strategy and talk track

3. Resource recognition and allocation towards departments directly tied to your viral growth (ie. customer service)

4. Definition and close monitoring of your red light warning signs

5. Have the right talent on your team with industry expertise capable of making critical decisions

Once you’ve started to experience your product go viral it’s time for your team to get on high alert. For us at PhunkeeDuck it was the consistent inbound demand for our product from ordinary people, mainstream media, and the largest celebrities on the planet that indicated we officially were going viral. When millions of people start seeing your product it will certainly provide you with plenty of positive momentum, but if you’re not careful the positives can quickly be overtaken by negative momentum. As a business you’ll need to be thinking about how you can maintain this viral traction while also managing it properly. Examples of managing virality range heavily but it could include everything such as keeping your team’s sanity in check, staying highly communicative with your suppliers, or replying to all the inbound comments and requests from people interested in what it is you have to offer. 

There will definitely be problems when you go viral. As you can imagine it’s quite difficult to prepare ahead of time for every type of expected or unexpected collateral damage impact that can come from gaining huge amounts of traction in a super short time period. That said you want to put yourself in a position that when one problem pops up you can quickly and efficiently solve that problem. You also want to try and be able to plan ahead of time for a likely problem you’ll encounter and have a few solutions ready to implement when you encounter it. You don’t want to get into a position where you have multiple problems popping up simultaneously and by the time you solve one of those problems three new ones arise. That type of viral scenario is the one that will sink your business which is what we experienced with PhunkeeDuck. At PhunkeeDuck there are various examples of when and how this took place. For instance being on backorder from day one of launch, online fraudsters invading our website, or hundreds of daily inbound calls, and emails we received.  The key learning is that when you get bombarded with a multitude of problems all at once, it becomes really really difficult to solve all those problems simultaneously. Once you solve one of the problems three new ones tend to pop up shortly there afterwards. If as a company we would have thought and planned for critical mass traction problems, and their accompanying solutions we likely would have weathered the storm better. For instance having a dedicated fraud detection solution for our e-commerce website, or issuing laddering PO’s with our Chinese factory for more units and having an internal colleague on the ground in China overseeing our shipments. These are a few valuable solutions that we wished in hindsight to have implemented ahead of going viral. 

Max Ringelheim conducting his interactive Hoverboard workshop

Getting the opportunity to launch a viral business is one of the most thrilling and coolest feelings you’ll have in your life. For me being able to tell the story about launching PhunkeeDuck now 5 years later, and about being on top of the Hoverboard product fad and being responsible for initiating this product’s global adoption is something I enjoy doing through blogging, podcasting, and specifically my interactive learning and development workshops. This thrilling, one-of-a-kind feeling can unfortunately cast mirages in the heads of entrepreneurs and startups. When you’ve got Time Magazine featuring you as one of the year’s best inventions, and Jamie Foxx and Jimmy Fallon riding around on Hoverboards while name dropping you on national television it creates the illusion in your mind that everything is going really well when it’s unfortunately not. The way I like to think about these mirages is like a pizza pie. What’s happening is that on the surface of this pizza, the cheese and the sauce just look spectacular and delicious to eat, but underneath you’ve got dough and bread that is rotten and all discolored and fungused. What winds up happening is that the positive sensation at first of taking a delicious bite of pizza only lasts so long before the negative sensations from eating fungused pizza kicks in later (you get the picture). Which ultimately results in, “When Going Viral Sucks!”

P.S. - Big shout out and thank you to Michael Terwindt and Jonny Hudson at their awesome company Validation Run for giving me the opportunity to write this piece in collaboration with them. Truly appreciate the co-promotion and support!

#IStayHomeFor Challenge Viral Analysis - When Going Viral WORKS!

Actor Kevin Bacon announcing the #IStayHomeFor challenge

Over the last five weeks the entire United States and in particular New York has been battling against an invisible enemy in the coronavirus and unfortunately has been losing thousands of lives along the way. Government officials, along with the incredibly brave healthcare workers on the frontlines have been trying to fight back against this invisible enemy. As the battle continues there's also been some really interesting viral campaigns that have launched to help support the fight. 

Recently we documented how the coronavirus has essentially been the virus that went viral around the world. As a result of how fast and widespread this virus has become it's now well recognized that the only way to truly defend against coronavirus is for family, friends and people to implement social distancing in their lives. This means people are unable to see one another and interact with one another unless they are a minimum 6 feet apart from one another. This implementation of a mandated social distancing policy resulted in a variety of campaigns getting started online to help people acclimate and embrace themselves into this new never before experienced policy and lifestyle.

In particular the one campaign that seems to have gone most viral over the last couple weeks is the #IStayHomeFor challenge that originated on March 18th with the help of the famous actor Kevin Bacon. On March 18th Kevin Bacon posted a short 1 minute video to his instagram explaining clearly what the #IStayHomeFor challenge is and why others should partake. 

The premise behind the challenge is to allow for people around the world to express who they care deeply about in their lives that they want to avoid getting infected with coronavirus by embracing social distancing.  The results that have unfolded from the #IStayHomeFor challenge is certainly a When Going Viral Works moment for a variety of positive reasons. Below are some of the reasons why this campaign has been so successful in going viral while also covering the key metrics being measured to determine this campaign's success.

Reasons for Virality:

Emotional Content:  As the #IStayHomeFor campaign began to catch on in virality the emotional posts that were being published online about their loved ones began pouring in. People were communicating different emotional stories about their loved ones, such as diseases they were suffering from that weakened their immune system. Their weakened immune system put those same loved ones more at risk to pass away from coronavirus if they caught it. Others were posting on social media photos of their parents and grandparents who were over the age of 60 years old which naturally put them at risk due to the coronavirus having a more deadly impact on older people. People around the world were all of a sudden learning new information about others in their network that they never knew before. It created a feeling and sensation that everyone was on the same team and in this fight together. All of this built up emotion created an overflow of strong shareable content that people were continuously engaging in on social media.

Timing:   When Kevin Bacon made his #IStayHomeFor post on March 18th it was at a pivotal moment when the shift in seriousness was taking place towards the coronavirus. March 18th was exactly one week after the World Health Organization labeled the coronavirus a global pandemic and here in America the general public started to be on high alert about the virus. American citizens were taking notice of the outbreak of coronavirus in places like Spain and Italy and the major lockdowns those countries were going through. Americans were seeing how social distancing was taking effect in those countries and how this was essentially the only defense countries could have against the coronavirus. As they say timing is oftentimes everything in life and that is especially true for “When Going Viral Works” moments. Back in 2015 with my former Hoverboard company PhunkeeDuck our viral timing was impeccable as we ignited the Hoverboard movement at a time when no one had a clue what a Hoverboard was and we partnered with Kendall Jenner to inform the world about these incredible devices. The timing alignment of the #IStayHomeFor challenge in America was perfect as American's needed a reason to adopt social distancing and what better reason than to help save someone's life during a global pandemic. This combination of US citizens needing a reason to adopt the social distancing policy along with its close proximity in date to when coronavirus was labeled a global pandemic I believe also contributed to its viral effectiveness. 

Measurements of Success: 

Past Benchmarks:  When measuring the success of different viral campaigns usually teams will put in place some goals and benchmarks ahead of the campaign's launch. Certain metrics such as hockey stick growth or adoption of the campaign by people via engagement will be closely monitored.  Although I'm sure Kevin Bacon didn't establish any goals or metrics ahead of his Instagram post there's definitely a few things worth noting on the measurement and attribution front about his post. First would be the effectiveness of his post from an engagement and growth standpoint. In the prior 10 instagram posts on Kevin Bacon's profile ahead of the #IStayHomeFor post he was averaging approximately 755 comments. His #IStayHomeFor instagram post received over 2,900 comments! That kind of huge jump in engagement of 286% is a great leading indicator of the potential virality his campaign was going to have.

Week over Week Growth: People interested in creating viral campaigns also want to look at how much week over week growth takes place with whatever it is they're launching. In the case of the #IStayHomeFor challenge you've continued to see the campaign grow and sustain itself over the last four weeks since Kevin Bacon's initial post. On April 8th New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo helped fuel the #IStayHomeFor challenge by joining this challenge and essentially nominating all New Yorkers to join in this challenge when he announced the state’s participation at his daily news conference. This news conference of Governor Cuomo's has been receiving millions of viewers each day and has contributed to a wave of new #IStayHomeFor posts people have published since. His promotion of the campaign also resulted in various publications and networks covering the Governor's participation in the challenge which is fueling the campaigns week over week growth. Back in 2015 with PhunkeeDuck we experienced this same kind of fueling of viral week over week growth. For instance after Kendall Jenner promoted PhunkeeDuck online, then came Jamie Foxx, and then Wiz Khalifa, and then Business Insider and PLENTY MORE! 

Graph from University of Alabama showing flattening of the coronavirus curve

Anecdotal Evidence:  When measuring virality there is also anecdotal evidence that can support the case of how quickly something has gone viral. When thinking about the anecdotal evidence that would substantiate the #IStayHomeFor challenge the goal to be measuring that against is people actually staying home, not going out and the eventual flattening of the curve of coronavirus infections. The hope was that if people stayed home, as a country the US could flatten the curve of coronavirus infections, hospitalization, and deaths. Over the last 10 days evidence is now emerging that the US is flattening the curve of total coronavirus infections, and hospitalizations which is great news. There's been a major commitment from the general public to abide by social distancing and this has contributed tremendously to our defense against this deadly virus. This anecdotal evidence really shines a light on how successful the #IStayHomeFor challenge has been from Kevin Bacon's initial post almost four weeks ago.

During this surreal and scary time that the entire world is going through it's great to see these WHEN GOING VIRAL WORKS moments taking place to help save lives. Medical authorities around the world can categorically say that social distancing right now is our best defense against the coronavirus and to see a campaign like the #IStayHomeFor challenge help save tens of thousands of lives (if not more) is extremely encouraging, especially at a time when everyone really could use some good news. We hope some of the lessons learned from the #IStayHomeFor challenge and the measurement tactics for gauging the effectiveness of viral campaigns can assist business people around the world in creating upcoming viral campaigns in the future.

Coach Rob Mendez ESPN Award Winner - When Going Viral WORKS!

The Jimmy V Award for Perseverance presented during the annual ESPY's ceremony is awarded to a deserving member of the sporting world who has overcome great obstacles through perseverance and determination. In July 2019 the recipient of this award was an individual named Rob Mendez who is a junior varsity football coach at Prospect High School in California. Coach Mendez is no ordinary football coach though. Coach Mendez leads and coaches his student athletes on the junior varsity football team without any arms and legs which makes his story one of the most inspiring you will hear this year.

Rob's story went viral after it was announced he would be the winner of the Jimmy V award at the 2019 ESPY's. His story has stayed memorable in my mind ever since, and ESPN couldn't have found a more deserving recipient.

Rob was born in May of 1988 suffering from a condition called Tetra-Amelia. Tetra-Amelia is an extremely rare disease affecting new-born babies who are missing all four limbs. Individuals are born with no arms and no legs and are forced to live an extremely difficult life. In fact life for those suffering from Tetra-Amelia requires a constant caregiver who is needed at all times to help complete daily tasks such as brushing your teeth, putting on clothes and bathing. Trying to have a normal childhood becomes near impossible, however for Coach Mendez things were different.

Coach Mendez didn't live a life wanting people to feel badly for him. Coach Mendez would try doing things any normal child would enjoy doing growing up. There was one particular activity that Coach Mendez LOVED as a child and that was playing video games. In fact it was playing video games that lead to his true passion of football. Rob would play the popular football video game Madden and it was through playing Madden where he developed an understanding of the strategy behind different plays, game management, coaching and just overall became fascinated by the sport.

After gaining deep knowledge of the game Rob landed assistant coaching jobs over a 12 year period at five different high schools. This experience as an assistant helped groom Rob for a day he and no one else would have ever imagined. In June of 2018 Rob was offered and hired as the head coach for Prospect High School’s junior varsity team.

After Coach Mendez was hired his impact was seen immediately and the results quickly followed. Not only did the players respect him from day 1, but junior varsity player and captain Toa Tautolo was quoted as saying, "Although he may not look like a coach he definitely acts like one.” After losing their first game Prospect High Schools Junior varsity football team rallied off 7 straight wins. They out scored their opponents during this winning streak 151 - 32. This winning streak landed the team a spot in the West Valley League JV Championship game. Although the team lost this championship game just the idea of getting there was a previous afterthought. The JV football team at Prospect High School had many more losing seasons over the last 10 years and they had come a very long way under Coach Mendez's leadership.

Coach Mendez's mantra for the team and himself was a short phrase, “Who says I cant, nobody!” This rallying cry helped define the team during their championship driven season. It served as a continuous reminder that the team can accomplish anything they believe in, with their coach leading them. This given all the difficult circumstances and obstacles Coach Mendez had to overcome in his life.

So why did this story go viral? What makes this a “When Going Viral WORKS” moment? Below are two key reasons as I see it.

1. Jaw Dropper Effect: this story has a jaw dropping effect and I can't emphasize enough how important this is when it comes to virality. When you see a person without any arms and legs it’s very difficult for someone to not double take, and stare for a few moments to confirm what they are seeing is real. However when you see a person without any arms and legs COACHING A FOOTBALL TEAM your jaw drops to the floor. You immediately question, how is this person doing this? You then probably end up asking yourself this question five more times before the actual picture of what you're seeing becomes confirmed in your mind. This kind of jaw dropper effect is something that we experienced regularly during the PhunkeeDuck Hoverboard experience. Every time someone would look at me riding on a Hoverboard especially in the early pre-launch phase of Winter 2015 people would stare at me in awe for 1 - 2 minutes. They would question how I was stopping, going, turning, and gliding so effortlessly. I find the jaw dropper effect to be a leading indicator for certain businesses, and stories to go viral. When people are mesmerized by something it results in others experiencing this same feeling. With Coach Mendez when you not only are mesmerized by what you're seeing but then feel incredibly inspired and motivated by the story, context, and end result people feel warm and soft inside. They fall in love with people like Coach Mendez and can't help but share the story with their friends so that they too can feel this sense of fascination and appreciation.

2. Earned Media Coverage: when any story, or sports highlight gets covered on ESPN you undoubtedly get thousands and sometimes even millions of views. However when you get awarded the Jimmy V award during the ESPY’s that is a whole new level of coverage and publicity. The ESPY awards ceremony has gained so much popularity over the years amongst sports fans around the world and has truly turned into an entertainment spectacle with popular appearances being made by the worlds top athletes, influencers and celebrities. The Jimmy V award has in particular turned into this monumental, and valuable award with all the history it provides since Jim Valvano's emotional speech during the 1993 inaugural ESPY awards ceremony. For Coach Mendez to receive this particular award resulted in instant viral traction. The Jimmy V award recipient gets coverage from so many different media outlets. Not only will obvious shows like Sportscenter cover the recipient but Coach Mendez also received his own special segment and documentary by ESPN about his entire story. Various other shows on ESPN and media channels within the ESPN family of networks will also feature the Jimmy V award recipient such as radio shows and CBS's the Rachel Ray show. This kind of earned media coverage can be so profound from a virality standpoint and surely applies here to Coach Mendez. We should all be inspired, motivated and feel lucky to have seen and heard his story reach the masses!

THE BROKEN HOVERBOARD SUPPLY CHAIN [PART 3: HOW IT TURNED SOUR] Published by Silicon.NYC

By summer 2015, it became evident that our company was in a mad-dash to stay atop the Hoverboard industry as the market leader. Everyone and their grandmother were looking for the “segway” hoverboard as cheap as possible. Demand for the product was sky-rocketing and in order to stay ahead of the pack we needed an abundance of inventory to be continuously selling.

We figured, okay well other companies are now competing with us, so all we have to do is sell more product than them. This was our second horrible decision since the company went viral, as we soon found out and learned the hard way.

Back in late 2014, we had the opportunity to personally meet the Chinese factory owners we were purchasing our units from. This factory had developed a Chinese patent around their device and so, as a reseller here in the United States, our company felt confident that we were purchasing and re-selling the highest quality Hoverboard on the market.

When we first ordered our 20–30 Hoverboard units from this factory, we experienced zero delays in shipment. In fact, ordering Hoverboard units at this time was no big deal, primarily because the world (on a mass scale) wasn’t aware that the product even existed.

This seamless ordering process changed dramatically however, by the time May 2015 came. By the end of May, millions of people had become aware of our Hoverboard product because of the massive reach celebrities like Kendall Jenner and Justin Bieber had on social media when they would promote our company. The general public was becoming mesmerized by the Hoverboard, day by day. People even started seeing an opportunity to make a quick buck by re-selling the product themselves.

Suddenly, there was a massive number of people in the States demanding Hoverboards. But these Hoverboards weren’t just being purchased for personal use but rather for re-selling. New companies each day were popping up on the internet such as Buzzwheel, Monorover, Uniwheel, Skywalker, along with so many others by the time June 2015 came around.

These companies were being started by one or two individuals who would order 10–30 units from China in order to flip them for a profit here in the States. This saturation of the Hoverboard marketplace suddenly resulted in a significant jump in demand, which then put major pressure on Chinese factories to produce and ship Hoverboards by the millions.

The Chinese factories weren’t the only ones feeling the pressure. We were feeling intense pressure of our own. We were getting hundreds of orders per week, but we didn’t have adequate inventory to fulfill the demand we were receiving.

When delays in shipment started taking place, we would contact our factory usually between 12 – 4 AM EST due to the 12 hour time zone difference, trying to find out the status of our shipment. We would get in contact with our factory having to deal with incredibly difficult language barriers and we would continuously hear some of the following responses from our factory:

1. "Sorry for the delay, we will get your shipment out tomorrow."

2. "We're finishing up production very soon, don't worry."

3. "There was a delay with the shipping company, but we're fixing the issue."

These responses from our factory were excuses. Oftentimes, they were simply lies. Our factory was clearly not in a position to ship us our Hoverboards, but they were denying this fact by coming up with various excuses for the delay in our shipment. They were so inundated with other companies ordering their Hoverboards that they couldn’t keep up with the rise in demand that had taken place.

Once our shipment would finally arrive, there would frequently be issues. Oftentimes, we would only receive partial shipments of our order to the office. For example, we would have a 500 piece order scheduled for delivery and only receive 200 pieces. Then it would take another two full weeks before we received the remaining 300 Hoverboards.

Other times, we would receive our shipment of Hoverboards, but the keys wouldn’t be in the boxes accompanying the Hoverboards. Our keys were shipped separately and our small team would have to manually match up the keys for each Hoverboard individually by serial numbers on each of the Hoverboard boxes. It was a big pain that could only be solved through sheer force of will (and manual labor).

Our company took a big hit due to these problems that we simply didn’t have the ability to fix. This lack of consistency really damaged our reputation, as our company was on a high following the viral success of not only Hoverboards, but our company as the place to go for them.

The four week delay in shipment started creating miserable experiences for our young startup. It resulted in our customers calling our office, yelling and screaming at us trying to find out why their Hoverboard, which they had just spent $1,500 on, still hadn’t arrived.

Most importantly, the problems we had with our Chinese manufacturer made the simple task of fulfilling orders very difficult. This four week delay gave consumers the impression that our company was a scam, which a young business simply can’t afford. When customers didn’t receive their Hoverboards anywhere close to when we told them they would, they logically started concluding that our company had stolen money from them. It was at this point where things started to take a massive turn for the worse. These customers started calling their credit card companies complaining, and the results of these complaints resulted in one thing, disputes!

Stay tuned for Part 4, on Why Going Viral Sucks…

Big thanks to the team over a Silicon.NYC for allowing me to begin contributing to their publication. This was my first article published on their site and you can definitely check out this story and plenty more other exciting technology oriented stories over at Silicon.NYC.

POPULARITY EXPLOSION OF THE HOVERBOARD [PART 1: HOW IT WENT VIRAL] - Published by Silicon.NYC

Viral marketing is a daring strategy that can yield extremely potent results for a company that produces something revolutionary. As a serial entrepreneur, I’ve had success with viral marketing, and have faced the challenges that it can bring.

HOW WE WENT VIRAL

Back in Fall 2014 our team had discovered an interesting new product in China and at this point in time no one was really even sure what to call the device. When we initially brought some units back from China into the United States it was apparent early on that this device was going to be a hit as people’s jaws dropped when they would see us riding one.

Initially we planned on selling the units wholesale to various larger retail stores throughout 2015 and especially for the holiday season. We were under the expectations that we would be one of a handful of other companies re-selling this device since we were lucky enough to discover it very early on. But our strategy changed rather quickly once we started to see the mass appeal of the product for celebrities.

During the course of 2015, there was one product, the Hoverboard, that captivated the entire world on a daily basis. This once innocent (eventually notorious) two wheeled device was appearing in every media publication, news outlet, and government press release for all sorts of positive and negative reasons. One of the initial massive forums where the viral success of the Hoverboard can be attributed to was The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.

The Tonight Show has always been famous for its curtain call introductions, which introduces the special guests featured on each episode while they are standing behind the massive blue curtain while the live band plays the different jingles and tunes as the crowd gets hyped for the celebrity to appear. In May 2015, one of these curtain call introductions was just a little more special than the standard “wave hello to the audience and sit in your seat next to Jimmy Fallon.”

Many of you probably know who Jamie Foxx is and, let’s be honest, that guy has always known how to make a grand entrance. In his most recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, his curtain call introduction was epic. In front of a crowd full of America’s finest Marines, Jamie rode onto the stage on a Hoverboard. At the time of the show in early spring 2015, no one in the audience (including Jimmy) even knew what the hell a Hoverboard even was or even seen one before.

First it was Jimmy asking Jamie,  "Hey Jamie what are you doing, and what the hell is that?"

That was then was followed by Jamie name dropping our company on national television. Finally, Jimmy went ahead and got on the Hoverboard and tried it out for himself!

Millions of people around the world saw the skit that night and plenty of other celebrities did as well. The following morning our email inboxes were stuffed and phone lines were ringing off the hook. Hundreds of customers and more big name celebrities were reaching out to our company asking to promote our product similarly to what Jamie Foxx did.

Seeing this kind of demand, direct outreach, and real desperation for our product proved to our team two things.

Our viral marketing strategy was working.

Continuing to work with Hollywood celebrities was the right path to continue down.

When people like Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, Wiz Khalifa started asking for our product, we decided to give them one for free. We did this in exchange for their support and promotion across all their major social media channels so that our brand name could continue to lead the Hoverboard market forward. We knew that competitors wanted our market share, so keeping our brand name relevant was a must.

This worked out brilliantly for us. Soon, these new celebrities along with at least 30 others were regularly promoting or product and, specifically, our brand. All of a sudden we were just two months in from our launch and we had already eclipsed 7 figures in sales, had all the major mass media publications reaching out to us for a story, and had powerhouse programs like Shark Tank asking us to apply for their show with our product. Even Kendall Jenner, who has been widely successful by promoting brands, used our Hoverboard on her Instagram video.

With all this promotion we felt like we were on top of the startup world. We had viral marketing buzz, tens of thousands in daily sales, and A-list celebrity endorsements. What could wrong?

Well, shortly after our viral launch we started to notice some other competitor Hoverboard companies sporadically popping up on the web. Recognizing this, but understanding that we had to stay focused on our own viral company, we decided to continue moving as quickly as we could in order to stay ahead of the competition. As a result we continued to work with A-list celebrities who could generate maximum exposure for us.

GOING VIRAL HAS ITS DRAWBACKS…

Going full steam ahead with this strategy turned out to be one of the first major mistakes we could’ve made. We started noticing very quickly that this maximum exposure was creating massive catch 22s for our business. It also resulted in serious and complex problems arising for the industry as a whole to have to solve, but yet had no real control in actually solving.

Viral marketing made us, and our great success can be attributed to it. But, we learned that it wasn’t necessarily the correct strategy for sustained growth. If you believe that viral marketing may be the correct strategy for your business, knowing the positives and negatives of the strategy are critical. Use it for as long as it is reasonable to do so, then shift your marketing priorities towards long-term and sustained growth.

Stay tuned for Part 2, on Why Going Viral Sucks…

Big thanks to the team over a Silicon.NYC for allowing me to begin contributing to their publication. This was my first article published on their site and you can definitely check out this story and plenty more other exciting technology oriented stories over at Silicon.NYC.

HUGE “When Going Viral Sucks” Weekend For Trump

Over this weekend some videos of Donald Trump were released by the Washington Post from 10 years ago that truly defined a “When Going Viral Sucks moment,” in relation to politicians. 

Donald Trump was video taped on an Access Hollywood bus saying some extremely vulgar, rude, and demeaning comments about women to then former Access Hollywood co-host Billy Bush. Since the videos release the mass media has been eating the story up. Over the last few months Trump has been receiving the title of a “Women hater,” and this video only fueled those allegations.

I don’t want to go into the specifics on the political impact this will have on Trump’s presidential candidacy other than saying it looks damaging. However instead I’m going to examine why this is truly a “When Going Viral Sucks,” moment for Donald. 

When I saw this story break I knew the video was going to go viral in a “bigly” manner as Mr. Trump often likes to say. It was evident that this was going to be the only thing the general public, and the media talked about for the following week, and presumably the remaining 4 weeks until the election. There was no doubt the video was going to be shared millions of times on social media and be replayed on a loop hundreds of times by each of the major Television networks. It was going to have Trump being portrayed in the media for ALL the wrong reasons and that’s exactly what happened.

Below are some of the reasons I’ve recognized as to why this video went as viral as it did. I would love to hear from readers if they agree! :) 

1. Women vote struggles — Over the last 3 months or so Hillary Clinton and the media have been hammering Trump on his treatment and respect for women. Although plenty of the rhetoric I’m sure is stretching the truth, there certainly have been comments made by Trump (prior to this video’s release) that definitely were not politically correct and also displayed forms of sexism by the presidential candidate. With the election less than 4 weeks away and the numbers mattering more and more each day this video just provided more evidence that the proof is in the pudding, with what will be Trump’s struggle to win the women’s vote. The video doesn’t help Trump AT ALL in re-claiming any portion of the women population vote in this year’s election and from a polling, forecasting, and prediction standpoint it fueled the Nostradamus’ of the world to continue to feel this way.

2. “We’ve been right all along” — News pundits who have been accusing Trump of being sexist against women had their time to shine this weekend. These talking heads were brought in to speak on all the major Television stations to continue their ripping of Donald Trump and to make the general public aware that, “They were right all along.” Whenever talking heads get the chance to prove that they were right in their claims they are going to seize that moment. With a story this important, at such a critical time in the election cycle, you knew that egos were going to soar in a viral manner as each of these news pundits had their chance to claim victory.

3. Star power — The people featured having a conversation in the video are not only Donald Trump but also Television star Billy Bush who is the nephew of the former 41st president of the United States George H.W. Bush. Billy has had a successful Television career over the last 15 years being a guest correspondent and then main co-host of various shows like Access Hollywood, and The Today Show. He also has been seen doing some of the main interviews at the largest red carpet events in the world such as the Golden Globes, Grammys, and Academy Awards. When you have two stars in this case partaking in the lewd commentary seen in the video as opposed to simply just Trump, it allows for the story to receive double the amount of coverage it would normally receive. 

 

Touch People's Hearts - One Way To Go Viral For All The Right Reasons

Travis Rudolph eating lunch with autistic middle schooler Bo Paske

Too often the corporate mass media promotes senseless stories that not only go viral but literally take up the airwaves for weeks. You know, those absurd stories that make your head want to explode like the infamous Balloon Boy and Octomom from a few years ago that you might remember? These absurd stories clog the airwaves so frequently that it’s such a relief when you finally get to see the mainstream media report on a positive, and heartwarming story that deservedly so, causes viral disruption around the world. 

This past Thursday I became inspired by one of these stories and in my opinion this story was a “When Going Viral Works” moment. This was a story that was being communicated to millions of people overnight for all the right reasons. It wasn’t just the end result of this heartfelt story that inspired me, but as some readers might be able to guess it was the different reasons why the story went viral that motivated me to write today’s post. As this story showed sometimes the reasons for virality are so subtle, simple, and literally elementary that you would never think these kind of simplistic moves could make so much positive noise in the world. However sometimes it is these characteristics of ones actions that are the most effective and influential means for creating viral disruption. 

The story I’m referring to happened last Tuesday with a collegiate athlete from Florida State University. Star football player and Wide Receiver Travis Rudolph made an autistic child’s dream come true in the most spontaneous unplanned manner possible. Travis decided to join local middle schooler named “Bo Paske” for lunch in the cafeteria after seeing first hand and learning that the autistic youngster was frequently left sitting alone with no friends by his side to talk to. 

Even Travis didn’t realize how this simple and kind gesture of his (for one of his youngest fans) would have virally materialized. Travis was quoted by the Washington Post saying, “I didn’t even recognize that it would be this big, It just became really viral, and I just wanted it to become aware that everyone is the same, and one man can make a difference.”

Pretty understandable to see where Travis is coming from. I mean why would anyone think that such a small simple action could produce such pronounced results? Let’s take a closer look and try understanding the reasons for why this story went as viral as it did!:

1. Simplicity: how often do you hear the phrase “the more simple the better?” I imagine plenty of times and when it comes to making something go viral this statement surely applies. When you want to see something resonate and grow with the public from a viral marketing standpoint you can’t have this “something” be confusing for people to understand. The public has to “get it” instantly and in this case the action of having lunch with a lonely autistic child was something that people instantly understood and appreciated. 
2. Everyone Can Relate To It: a majority of people on the planet grew up and went to some sort of elementary school. This same majority of people also had lunch time in the cafeteria while attending elementary school. This 60 minute period which was usually combined with recess, holds a special place in people’s hearts even as you enter adulthood. When you have a story that everyone can relate to personally, the odds of the story going viral increases dramatically. As a result exponentially more people are able to relate to the story and think back to their own childhood days of eating lunch in the cafeteria, and this gives you a much larger population of people to have the story resonate with.
3. Feel Good: this kind of story makes people feel very good inside and it also makes the public as a whole feel hopeful. See when people’s emotions get involved for the better, the chances of there being a viral effect increases. If you feel good about a story the odds of you wanting to share this story with your friends and family increases so that they can experience this same heartfelt feeling as you did. Positive stories usually have a much greater chance of gaining traction and going viral, over negative stories and this example clearly displays that.
4. Local Star Player: this entire unplanned event took place at a local middle school near Florida State University. Travis Rudolph is a superstar in that geographic area of Florida near the state capital Tallahassee. Although Travis wasn’t a nationally recognized figure last week, the fact that this event took place near Florida State University, gave the story a larger foundation for viral traction to be catapulted off of. 
5. Authenticity: this action by Travis was unscripted and as he even said himself he had no idea people were taking pictures of him eating lunch with Bo. When it’s easy recognizable how organic ones actions are as opposed to looking completely scripted the chances of this action going viral increases because people can see that authenticity. Usually scripted actions can easily be depicted and as a result people will usually be less willing to want to share a story or piece of content that seems fake.

Many of the reasons this story went viral as explained above I experienced first hand with my former Hoverboard company. For example when it came to authenticity, it was very apparent how organic the love for the Hoverboard product was when people rode one. There was no scripting the smiles, joy, and fun millions of people were having when they rode a Hoverboard and as a result millions of other people wanted to experience that same feeling. 

I think this story in particular can demonstrate to entrepreneurs that oftentimes creating more simple marketing campaigns for your company can end up producing the largest results. If young entrepreneurs can keep in mind some of the concepts and strategies above they should be able to see some of their own companies go viral, but for all the right reasons!