Need A Viral? Read The Recipe Here

Written by Eelke Mol on September 7th, 2010 | 2 comments

Extremely talented folks work extremely hard to create a viral that will blow your socks off and will dominate the world within 48 hours. Or so you think. Because the recipe for a viral is here. And it’s only 33 slides long.

Jonah Peretti Viral Meetup Talk

Jonah Peretti spoke about his theories at the New York Viral Media Meetup in August. And he is one credible speaker, being the founder of BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post. But is it really as simple as he portrays?

Peretti offers various strategies for making sure your story or video spreads virally. It all looks frighteningly simple and even though sometimes the thought ‘I never looked at it that way’ might cross your mind you are left feeling inspirated and full of hope.

But as I was saying, is it really as simple as 33 slides? I think it is. The strategies presented are not very difficult to implement. But the implications are not neccessarily simple. Take slide 6 for example where Peretti advises to create something “that is easy to understand, easy to share, and includes a social imperative”. This is very clear and easy advice, but has there not been lots of potentially viral material that measured up to these criteria and failed?

Making it easy to share does not mean the material will be shared. Even though Peretti talks about the Bored at Work Network, a group of people who will forward almost anything remotely interesting, I think a very important criterium is missing: relevance. If you don’t feel the vibe, you probably won’t send it on. A viral worth forwarding doesn’t need to tell the story of your life, but there has to be an aspect that speaks to you in a way it doesn’t speak to a lot of others. Don’t you agree?

All the strategies provided are definitely worth a read if you want to clarify your strategy to get your potentially viral message out into the world by itself. Do you reckon Perreti has created a complete overview or did he miss any important aspects you would have liked to be mentioned?

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