s

THE SWEET SCIENCE OF VIRALITY

You Are Bad At It. We Are Less Bad. How luck, testing, math, luck, data, retesting, luck, and bullies can help you win the Internet. Sara Critcheld (@saracritcheld) & Adam Mordecai (@advodude) There will be pop quizzes, so pay attention, class. #GoViral @Upworthy #SXSW

 e e s
 o t
 s k n i l
 k c i l C
 ! d e z i m i opt hits!

Quiz In The Heart Of Texas!

POP QUIZ ALREADY?! CAN YOU HANDLE IT? Which headline gets more clicks?

A
A Hidden Camera Show Is Bafed When They Can't Find Any Bigots In Texas

B
A Hidden Camera Show Goes To Texas. They Did Not Expect To Find This.

Quiz In The Heart Of Texas!

B!
SEE IT @

What We Do: The Quick Version + + +

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+ =

sometimes
.

What Makes Us Fancy Experts?

Adam Mordecai
Viral Curator
Worked on the Dean campaign and maybe caused the scream? Had a Friendster account. Has a Facebook account. Uses It. Tweets once in a while. Can imitate muppets. Got 3,500,000 people to watch a spoken word poem on bullying. @
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Sara Critchfield
Managing Editor
B.A. in visual communications from Drexel M.A. in nonprot management from U of Penn Worked at MoveOn as community director. Was a DC lobbyist in international development. Teaches at Church Camp about tolerance. Got 1,000,000 people to watch a lab experiment with monkeys being paid unequally. @

Case Study: Zach Wahls

written
by
Text

Old Title: Zach Wahls Speaks About Family New Hotness: Two Lesbians Raised A Baby And This Is What They Got

Million Views

Million V
6

17

iews

1. Find amazing content. 2. Frame it for Facebook. 3. Promote it on Facebook. 4. ???? 5. PROFIT?!?! Invest in nutshells.

What We Do In A Nutshell
SEE IT @

Who The Hell Are We? Meet The Founders.

Eli Pariser

Peter Koechley

Chris Hughes
8 3

2
 h c r a M
 s e h c Laun

h,
2012 t 6

State Of The Up
500,000

15,000 Tumblr followers

1
year
la ter...

70,000 Twitter followers

Email subscribers

1,150,000
Facebook fans
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Were Off To A Good Start

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My Bosses Havent Fired Me

18,000,000 Page views 15,000 Facebook fans And I got 1,000,000 people to watch a bank oversight hearing. SEE IT @
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DISCLOSURE: I Am Dumb
In the last year, I predicted 100 of my posts would break 500,000 Page views.

5 did.

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5% Expert, 95% Not So Much

Anyone who tells you he can make ANYTHING go viral is denitely not telling you the truth. Or is really naive. Almost nothing will. Even if its great.

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Thats Why We Have This Instead

We test the hell out of everything. Then we test it again.

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Pop Quiz, Slackers!

A
A Journalist Goes Undercover As A Waitress. Guess Which Job Was Harder?

B
Watch A Diner Waitress Explain To A Wall Street Guy How Money Works In America

Which one did our audience totally want us to serve?

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Pop Quiz, Slackers!

B!

THE CLIC
SEE IT @

4X

KS!

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How Do You Make That One Thing You Made Go Super Viral And Stuff?

THE MOST FAQ

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What The Hell Is Virality?

Shares per View LOW HIGH LOW HIGH Clicks per Share LOW LOW HIGH HIGH

Viral?
Nope. Kinda? Not so much. Hell yeah!

To get clicks, you MUST focus on framing things perfectly.

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Will That One Thing You Made Go Viral?

START HERE Yes

Does it suck?
Yes

No Yes

Is it political?

Yes No

Is it shrill?

No No

Is it funny?

Yes No

Do you have a huge PR budget?

No

No Yes Yes

Good luck with that.

No

Kittens, puppies, babies, celebs, or Harlem Shake?

Yes

Is it REALLY funny?
No

YES!

Are you lucky?

You ask to share? Well See

Yes

No

I doubt it. Maybe?

No Yes No Yes

No Yes

Heartwarming?
No Yes

Easy to share?

Does it end well?

You sure its good?

Hero & villain?

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Why The Hell Do People Share?

Anger Shareable: I am angry, yet entertained. I must do something, right now. *click* Relaxation Not Shareable: Just chill. Were all gonna die anyways. *sigh* Sadness Happiness

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Where The Hell Do People Share?

good
luck,
if
 you
crack
it
you are
a
god.

slow
cook
it
to perfection. If
you
do
it
right, it
can
make
a
small
dent.

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The Social Part Of Social Media

Its not as much about having a conversation as it is about being conversational.

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Six Degrees Of Viral Bacon

EASY
Getting your audience to like.

Who should you be targeting? HARD REALLY HARD

Getting your Getting your audiences audiences friends friends to like friends to click. and share. Getting your audiences friends to share.
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My
mom

Getting your audience to click and share.

Getting @KevinBacon to like and share.

We Have Not Achieved Bacon... YET

365 days. Still no Bacon.

TL;DR
1. CONTENT: Find and/or create amazing content. 2. FRAMING: Optimize said content to be really clicky on Facebook. 3. TECH/UX: Optimize your site to be really good at sharing said content back to Facebook. 4. DATA: Never stop testing your zany theories. 5. LUCK: Capture a leprechaun and steal his lucky charms.
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STEP 1: FIND EPIC CONTENT

A Hero A Villain An Emotional Story Arc A Super Inspiring Meaningful Message The Right Time And The Right Place Charles Xavier & Cerebro
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How Hard Can It Be To Find Awesome Stuff?

66% of our posts dont break 20K views. 6% of our posts have reached 100K views. 3% have reached 200K views. 1.6% have reached 300K views. 0.9% have reached 500K views. 0.5% have broken 750K views. and

Tell
me
 more
about
how
 easy
this
is.

11 posts have broken 1,000,000 views.

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(0.42% for those playing the home game)

What Do The Top 10 Have In Common?

@ @ @ @ @

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Everyone Loves A Good Movie

@ @ @

High production value can work. You better have a good story though.

29

Everyone Likes To Learn Mind-Blowing Stuff

@ @ @

If you can give your audience some information that they are honestly surprised by, theyll share it.

30

Everyone Loves Raw, Human, Honest Moments

@ @ @ @

You cant fake authenticity. People love it and share it.

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Everyone Hates Bad Guys And Bullies

@ The viewer who called her fat The fed not doing his job @ Mitt Romney @ Extremist rhetoric guy @
The male-

dominated industry

The company with bad ideas

Every good story needs a villain.

All the bullies, EVER

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Everyone Loves When The Good Guys Win

@ A couple in love @
An eloquent news anchor An awesome gay military veteran

@
The President of Ireland A woman inventor & engineer

@ A funny feminist on the TV

A senator who does her job

Say hello to our heroes.

@
Astronauts & science

@
A poet talking about all of us

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Everyone Likes It When You Say What Theyre Thinking

@ Its time.
Stop attacking peoples looks.

@ Your position is wrong.

@
Stop poisoning the discourse. We should help girls succeed.

@ Seriously?

The feds need to do their job.

@
Our planet is the only one we got.

@
Bullying affects all of us. WHOA. FOR REAL?

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Moral Of The Story

Make or nd really amazing content that speaks to your audience in a human way. WHO KNEW?!

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STEP 2: Frame Em

It doesnt matter how good your content is. If you dont make it compelling enough to click and share, no one will know it exists.
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Social Headlines Need A Curiosity Gap

Too vague, and I dont want to click: A Guy Invented This Thing Youll Like Too specic, I dont need to click: Inventor Launches New 3D Printer At SXSW Ergo...

The Epic Thinger That Makes The Internet Look Like A Coloring Book
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Upworthys Editorial Process

1. You HAVE to crap out 25 headlines for every piece of content. 2.You WILL write some really stinky headlines. 3. Once you start getting desperate, you start thinking outside the box. 4. So you HAVE TO WRITE 25 HEADLINES. 5. #24 will suck. Then #25 will be a gift from the headline gods and will make you a legend. 6. Accept that not every headline will be perfect. 7. Then write 25 headlines. 8. With practice, youll be writing 25 in 15 minutes. Then I will give you permission to lower your limit.

SO PLEASE WRITE 25 HEADLINES

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Headline Rules
Dont give it all away in the headline. Also, dont give it all away in the excerpt, share image, or share text. Dont be shrill. Dont form an opinion for the end user. Let them do that. Dont bum people out. (Remember slide 11.) Dont sexualize your headlines in a way your mom wouldnt approve. And dont over-think it. Some of your headlines will suck. Accept it and keep writing. Which reminds me, my mom doesnt like it when you put the word sucks in headlines. Lastly, be clever. But not TOO clever.
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The Slide For Your Cheap Boss

Two Headlines. The Exact Same Video.
@ @

TOO R E V E CL

THE VIEW

100X
S!

10,000 Pageviews
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1,000,000 Pageviews

YOU WILL WRITE

HEADLINES!1!!!1
Otherwise, people wont click your links.
So Id write 25 headlines.
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25

FRAME ALL THE THINGS!

The Share Text The Headline The Excerpt The Share Image Your Mom*
Dont give it away on any of these, or you will prevent people from clicking. SEE IT @

. g n i h T
 m o M
 e h T
 t u o b A
 g n i k o J
 t o N
 42 e r e *
W

To Do List For Your Code Team

If you arent making the most of social media, you are wasting opportunities for massive trafc increases.

Facebook Headline Field Facebook Excerpt Field Share Image Field Fancy AB Testing System
You have no one to blame but yourself if you dont do the rst three things.
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We Cant Afford That, Mr. Fancy Pants.

You may be thinking, Easy for them to say with their fancy development team.

Then click here. You can edit headlines and descriptions when posting.

PROTIP
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SEE IT @

ALL THE THINGS!

Lets Talk About Your Mom, Dude

FACT: No one likes to disappoint their mom. DOUBLE FACT: Middle-aged women are the biggest sharers on the Interwebs. ERGO: If you frame your content to not make your mom shake her head, you have a better chance of winning.
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You Arent A Bad Person (Probably)

Marketing is not inherently evil, hippie. Accept that if you get people to come see your important message, they might actually learn about how to help and stuff.
46

How We Sleep At Night

Curiosity-inducing headlines are manipulative, you say?

K 0 0 8 on

Views y SEE IT @ h t r o w Up

Guess what NYC is now being forced to investigate?

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Read it @ The Nation

Also...

Not sure if we mentioned this yet, but you should write 25 headlines unless you want the terrorists to win.

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The Quiz To Punch Your Boss In The Brain

A
A Public Service Announcement On Behalf Of All White Dudes

B
Put Yourself In A White Guy's Shoes. Comfy, Right?

Pick a winner, champ!

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See, I wrote 25...

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The Quiz To Punch Your Boss In The Brain

A

THE CLIC

32X
KS!
SEE IT @

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The Share Image Is Your In

@ @ @ @

Interesting
 celebrity
image
@

Curiosity-inducin what
is
happening?

@

The
cutest
thing
 in
the
world
@

People
love
 secrets
@

x
vs.
y

Heavily
annotated
52

PG-13

Obvious
screenshot

Facebook Just Made Images More Interesting

Thumbnails are now 600 x 600. You better start optimizing.

Their new feed is focused on visuals, so if you arent making your images big enough to be visual, your content ranking will probably suffer.
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Share Image Quiz For Your Thoughts?

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I Got This One Way Wrong

A!

SEE IT @

IC L C E H T
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1.6XKS!

We Cant Afford AB, Mr. Fancy Pants.

Your Wall + Bit.ly + A Stopwatch + Facebook Targeting 1. Create two Bit.ly URLs, one with URL?r=A and one with URL?r=B. 2. Find two cities with similar demographics and populations amongst your fans. Use one Bit.ly on each. 3. Time it. The most Bit.ly clicks wins. (Add a + to a Bit.ly url to see stats.)
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PROTIP
SEE IT @

I Know Your Boss Thinks Its A Waste Of Time

But I have an idea. You should write 25 headlines and make it easier to share. Then people will want to click on your stuff and bring trafc back to your website. Then your boss will nally get it.
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STEP 3: Lets Talk About UX, Baby

58

Optimize Prime
Your website is the gateway drug to sharing. Make sure it shares properly. You should always be testing, always adapting, always challenging what works.

Art by Tim Doyle of Nakatomi Inc

59

You Better Fix Your Share Buttons

Floating Hover Overlay Links + Links Above

SEE IT @

3 9 8 % MORE WIN
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Slide
SEE IT @

6 2 0 % E R O M BOSS

A slider pops out and asks you to like us.

STEP 4: Dont Stop Testing And/Or Believing

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Always. Be. Testing.

AB test constantly. -Katy Perry and Tim McGraw garnered twice as many clicks as Rihanna and Pink Floyd. - Test angry vs. passive, short vs. long, questions vs. statements, and anything else you can think of. Use Google and Facebook Analytics to see what people are interacting with the most. Always ask yourself, Is there another way to do this?

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You Can Always Do Better

SEE IT @

% 0 7
MO

16-second delay

! S K C I RE CL
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STEP 5: Go Get Lucky

You cant force something to go viral. Even if its good. Virality is tough to predict. Content you love wont always make it. Walk it off, and write 25 more headlines. More content = more chances for a huge hit.
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TL;DR
1. CONTENT: Find and/or create amazing content. 2. FRAMING: Optimize said content to be really clicky on Facebook. 3. TECH/UX: Optimize your site to be really good at sharing said content back to Facebook. 4. DATA: Never stop testing your zany theories. 5. LUCK: Capture a leprechaun and steal his lucky charms.
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Stay Classy, Austin

Sara Critchfield
Managing Editor
FINAL PRO TIP: Always make an ask. Ask us some questions... make sure to test things... and always write 25 headlines. Totally your call, but would you mind following us?

Adam Mordecai
Viral Curator

The Sweet Science Of Virality by Upworthy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://facebook.com/upworthy.

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