How can a product achieve viral popularity?

Internet screen-sweeping phenomena emerge in an endless stream, and their related factors are complex and numerous. Their occurrence and trends seem difficult to control, but by reviewing many cases and breaking down the mechanisms behind them, we can still discover many common patterns.

Xin Ye believes that most of the messages that go viral cannot escape the following five paths.

01 Ripple type: same frequency transmission, infinite fission

Ripple propagation model

Ripple communication, in layman's terms, is viral communication and social communication. Information is transmitted and fissioned outward infinitely through the chain between people on social media until it reaches the detonation point. Just like ripples in water, the ripples spread from the starting point, transferring energy to a larger range step by step through the vibrations caused by the water waves.

Ripple communication is a decentralized communication method. Messages can be sent from anyone and, through forwarding, liking, and interaction on social media, form exponential fission. One gives rise to two, which gives rise to three, and three gives rise to infinity. This is the most basic and important communication channel in the Internet world.

For example, the "Ice Bucket Challenge" campaign that was popular all over the world attracted celebrities to @ each other and participate, bringing about a global charity carnival; this year's Lao Xiangji's local flavor strategy conference, with a budget of only a few hundred yuan, produced a video that received more than 100,000 views and more than 33,000 views on social media, becoming the biggest advertising winner during the epidemic.

The mechanism of ripple communication is mainly word-of-mouth effect. People share interesting things with their friends for the purpose of interpersonal communication, showing their self-image and gaining social recognition, thus achieving self-dissemination among people.

So, what kind of content has the most word-of-mouth value? The book "Go Viral" believes that content that meets the following six factors is most likely to cause word-of-mouth communication:

• Social currency: something that can be used as a topic of conversation after dinner, such as celebrity gossip, internet celebrity check-in spots, etc.
• Incentives: Stimuli in special situations and occasions, such as shared employment during the epidemic.
• Publicity: It addresses sensitive topics of public concern, such as housing, food safety, and economic issues during the epidemic.
• Emotions: such as anger, anxiety, fear, inspirational emotions, such as child abuse incidents in kindergartens, various chicken soups, etc.
• Practicality: related to the audience’s immediate interests and useful to them, such as local livelihood policies, health guidelines, etc.
• Story type: full of twists and turns, interesting plot: for example, the recent US election that has been reversed.

In addition to content, in order to achieve the ideal effect of ripple communication, the communication channels also need to be optimally designed, combining formal communication (such as official releases) with interpersonal communication (civilian revelations), centralized communication (such as celebrities, KOLs) with decentralized communication (amateur forwarding), to form a three-dimensional communication chain.

For example, if you want to detonate an event on Weibo, you can first have an amateur account break the news, then have a celebrity repost it, have the official respond, and have big Vs follow up with their opinions, etc., laying out the story step by step until it explodes; you can also have the official release the news first, have other celebrities and big Vs repost and comment, and have countless amateur accounts cooperate to create momentum; you can also first post it on TV or print media ads, and then follow up on social media such as Weibo and WeChat for further discussion and extension.

Of course, the specific operation needs to be decided in combination with the communication content and the overall advertising strategy.

02 Breaking the circle: Consolidating the foundation and breaking the circle

In the past television era, people gathered in a centralized, "square-style" manner, with people across the country watching the same TV station at the same time; but now in the Internet era, people gather in a more decentralized, "circle-style" manner. Especially the Z generation users born in the 1990s and 2000s, they tend to gather together based on interests and subcultures to form circles, such as the various furry circles, fan circles, valley circles, etc.

Analysis of Generation Z's Circle

In a circle-type audience structure, when a certain information becomes more and more influential within the circle, it may break through the original circle fortress and enter the mainstream mass population, allowing more people to know about it. This kind of communication can be called "breaking the circle communication."

Figure: Breaking Circle Communication Model

For example, Bilibili’s original user group was mainly composed of people in the second dimension, with typical circle characteristics. In recent years, Bilibili has been striving to expand its user base to more young people. The speech version of the "Houlang" video launched this year has effectively attracted many young people and even middle-aged and elderly people outside the two-dimensional circle. It is undoubtedly a typical breaking-circle communication.

Similarly, the Hanfu style, JK uniforms, and figures that have been popular on Douyin, Kuaishou, etc. in recent years have also shown signs of breaking out of the circle.

Specifically, communication breaking the circle can be divided into three types:

• The first is to break the circle from professional to the general public. For example, the spread of coffee culture started from the professional hand-brewed coffee circle, then broke through the circle into the circle of senior coffee lovers, and finally broke through the circle into the ordinary coffee drinkers.
• The second is to break the circle from a specific class to the general class. For example, in ancient times, luxury goods such as jade and mahogany furniture were only owned by royal nobles and wealthy families, but now they have broken through the circle and entered more classes. There are also jeans, which were originally worn by miners and cowboys in the American West. Later, after being modified, they became popular clothing and became popular all over the world.
• The third is to break through the circle from subculture groups to mainstream population. For example, subcultures such as two-dimensional culture, street culture, COSPLAY, and ancient style have been integrated into China's popular culture and are loved by more and more people.

The mechanism by which breaking-circle marketing occurs is the “reference group” effect. In order to integrate into society or highlight their individuality, people will find a reference group and imitate their behavior. For example, the middle class will imitate the upper class and buy luxury goods that are more representative and reflect social status; young people will imitate the interests and hobbies of their peers with personality in order to make themselves stand out.

To do a good job of breaking the circle marketing, you must grasp the rhythm of communication. In the book "Diffusion of Innovations", a classic communication model is proposed: new things need to first attract early adopters (that is, seed users) who like to try new things, cultivate and motivate this group of hardcore users, let them influence the early majority of people, and finally expand to the late majority of people, so as to break the circle.

Diffusion of Innovation Model

For example, before Xiaomi started, it relied on the first batch of hardcore users, most of whom were veteran users of mobile phone forums. Xiaomi invited them to participate in the design, development, and feedback of MIUI, and established good loyalty and reputation.

With the help of these seed users, Xiaomi achieved a "cold start" and at the same time established a sense of participation through offline forum exchanges and "Xiaomi City Meetings", attracting more "Mi Fans", and then breaking out of the circle and spreading to a larger group of enthusiasts.

03 Co-creation: Everyone participates and celebrates together

Co-creation communication is about "mobilizing the masses" and calling on the audience to participate. Everyone has fun together and creates content together. Communicators and users jointly achieve the entire communication and even jointly own the products and brands.

Co-creation communication model

I think the organization that is best at co-creative communication is Xin Shi Xiang. The "Subway Book Throwing Campaign" they initiated, calling on everyone to leave a book on the subway, at stations, etc. for others to read, sparked discussion across the Internet; there was also the "4-Hour Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou" event, calling on white-collar workers in first-tier cities who wanted to escape to rush to the airport immediately so that their air tickets could be reimbursed, which immediately caused a screen-sweeping and discussion on WeChat Moments.

In addition, NetEase Cloud uses users' heartfelt comments as subway advertising materials, "Adopt a Cow" encourages consumers to adopt milk and invites them to visit the ranch, the whole nation imitates the "Nezha Head" initiated on Douyin, and China UnionPay's "bank POS machine" purchases left-behind children's poetry works for one yuan, which are all classic examples of co-creation marketing.

The communication mechanism of co-creation marketing is to provide a sense of participation. The audience feels that they are respected, seen, and have a happy experience of participating in the content. They are more likely to share spontaneously and form a deep interactive relationship with the communicator, thus establishing lasting loyalty.

To build a broadly embraced sense of participation, the following conditions need to be met:

• First, it is simple and easy to operate. For example, the "Food on the Head" charity event initiated by Tianyukong and Amway, and the "One-click to Cartoon" video application on Douyin are both very simple, so as to minimize the threshold of participation and let everyone have fun together.
• The second is to give people motivation to share. Co-creation communication not only aims to attract participation, but more importantly, to attract people to forward the content. Activities that can enhance one's self-image and make one feel that one can benefit society with small actions are more likely to be shared.

For example, the "Upload photos to create your own military uniform photos" H5 initiated by People's Daily is very immersive; and for high-value tea products like Nayuki Tea, consumers voluntarily take photos and share them in order to highlight their own taste and image; participating in the "No Talking Today" campaign to care for autistic children satisfies the self-actualization psychology of helping society.

04 Dandelion Style: Sparks spread all over the prairie, unstoppable

The so-called dandelion model is to allow communication channels or communication events to be continuously replicated, deriving many secondary communication units, taking root in every corner, thus forming a vast situation of full coverage, thus achieving the detonating effect of "sparks setting off a prairie fire".

(Figure: Dandelion-type communication model)

There are some IP-style activities with common themes and formats, which are then continuously replicated in different cities, eventually achieving the effect of taking root and flourishing in all aspects.

For example, when Uber first entered China, it relied on a series of “one-click calling” events to trigger a frenzy of attention in major cities. Beijing's one-click call for rickshaws, Shanghai's one-click call for helicopters, Chengdu's one-click call for rowboats, Qingdao's one-click call for yachts; each city copied the basic form of the activity but adjusted it to suit local culture, ultimately converging into a powerful voice that swept across China.

Another form of the dandelion model is to coordinate many molecular channels in addition to the core channels in the communication channels, so as to form a multi-array full coverage effect.

For example, the public account "Foodie Squad" has thirteen sub-public accounts, including the Toronto Foodie Squad, Bay Area Foodie Squad, Los Angeles Foodie Squad, Vancouver Foodie Squad, and Boston Foodie Squad. It is quite influential on the WeChat platform and has won the favor of more than 1.2 million fans across the United States.

Another example is Fan Deng Reading Club. In addition to the official APP, they also edit the official video materials into small clips and package them to send to agents in cities across the country. Many agents are allowed to open accounts on social media platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou to publish this information. As a result, the Internet is flooded with video content of Fan Deng’s Reading Club, creating an omnipresent exposure effect.

The mechanism of dandelion-like transmission is matrix synergy. Numerous transmission units form a dense array, supporting, complementing and responding to each other, which can achieve an amplifying effect of 1+1 being greater than 2. This is similar to the intensive store opening channel expansion model of 7-11 convenience stores, and the "nationwide joint promotion of tens of thousands of stores" strategy of some brands.

05 Trumpet type: concentrated detonation, becoming famous in one fell swoop

Loudspeaker-style communication is to concentrate advertising resources, use big media, big stars, and large investments to intensively expose the information, thereby quickly triggering the event.

Horn propagation model

Loudspeaker-style communication is a centralized communication model. In the era of traditional television and print media, many brands spent a lot of money to bid for CCTV prime time, or advertised on major satellite TV stations simultaneously in a short period of time to achieve national exposure. To this day, brands like Guazi Used Cars and David Mops are still using intensive elevator advertising to carry out bombardment-style promotions, which can also be considered as loudspeaker-style communication.

In the Internet age, loudspeaker-style communication has not actually disappeared. It’s just that compared to the one-way output in the past, there is more real-time reverse interaction and sharing, which makes secondary communication possible.

For example, collaborating with celebrities to promote products, finding top KOLs like Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya to promote products, or focusing on posting a large number of promotional diaries on Xiaohongshu like Perfect Diary. These are all examples of loudspeaker-style communication, and their effects can obtain instant feedback from the audience.

The mechanism of loudspeaker-style communication is herd mentality. When we see that people are using a certain product or discussing a certain brand on Xiaohongshu, Douyin, WeChat, Weibo, and even the entire Internet within a short period of time, we will think that this brand is very strong and that everyone is buying its products, so we will follow the trend and buy some.

However, loudspeaker-style communication also has its limitations, which is that it requires sufficient budget support. Although the focus of loudspeaker-style communication is on media and coverage, in the specific implementation, we must also find ways to make the content of the communication as interesting and informative as possible in order to stimulate the audience to spread it for the second time, which will have a better advertising effect.

Making advertising more like public relations and incorporating topics that can be discussed into advertising is a feasible way to enhance the effectiveness of loudspeaker-style communication.

For example, the "France wins the championship, Vatti refunds the full amount" incident that swept the screen during the World Cup a few years ago, and NetEase Yanxuan's "I advise you not to watch ads" road sign advertisement during this year's epidemic, as well as NetEase Yanxuan's recent "withdrawal from Double 11" operation, all incorporated public relations elements into the communication and sparked extremely high discussion of the topic.

06 Summary

From the traditional era to the mobile Internet era, the communication environment has been constantly changing, and screen-sweeping methods have emerged in endlessly. In this case, we should not only learn from communication cases, but also grasp the principles and models of communication so that we can respond to ever-changing situations with constancy.

Summary of 5 Internet Communication Models

The above five basic models each have their own advantages, disadvantages and scope of application. We need to combine the purpose and strategy of communication to match the most appropriate solution. Finally, I wish you all 100,000+ views every day, and keep scrolling until your hands cramp.

Author: Brand Xin Viewpoint

Source: Brand Xin Viewpoint