Want To ‘GO Viral’: Don’t Put Your Count Before Your Content

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Want To ‘GO  Viral?’ Don’t Put Your Count Before Your Content!

One night, shortly after midnight, I got a call from a man in Shanghai who struggled to explain to me through his thick accent, that he wanted to commission me for a viral video. When I asked him to explain the focus of his story, he said he was looking for a music video that would expose the affair his wife was having with a Vegas Restaurateur.

Maybe I’ve watched The Godfather too many times but upsetting anyone who lives within the city limits of Las Vegas makes me nervous. For the record, I respectfully declined to write the song about the alleged affair.

When you create content that explodes in popularity and becomes YouTube-viral, the viewing analysis behind what makes it a ‘hit’ can be distilled: There are others who don’t care ‘how’ it happened, they simply want to enjoy it. Then, there are those believe a viral video can be as easily created as ordering a hamburger at McDonalds. My friend from Shanghai had recently viewed United Breaks Guitars, and he wanted a burger.

While I don’t believe a viral video can ever be guaranteed, when creating successful social media material, content is still King.  Worrying more about how many people will watch it before you focus on what they will experience is like putting the cart before the horse, or in this case, the count before the content.

Prior to releasing United Breaks Guitars, my social media strategy relied upon three things that defined what a successful video looked like to me. A video would need to:

1. Look Good
2. Sound Good
3. Make People want to tell their friends about it

That was it. I could focus on the content quality to ensure I met those three goals.  Before anyone else could like it, I had to like it first myself.  It had to look good and sound good to me, to be share worthy by my standards.

It’s no coincidence that the most successful commercial and artistic thing I’ve done to date came on a project I cared little about. Yes, I took great care in the craftsmanship, but cared little about what others outside the project might think during the creative stage.

I recall it being fun and refreshing to write and create UBG.  There were no expectations or demands, except my own. And without rules, I allowed myself to think freely and outside the box.

This is why the video succeeded. While anyone can capture content that goes viral by having a camera at the right time and right place, there’s nothing like the experience of watching something you create explode on social media.

One of my key take-aways from this experience has been the reminder that putting the cares of other people ahead of your own stifles creativity. Create first for yourself, and never put your YouTube count before the content.

 

Dave Carroll
Musician behind United Breaks Guitars,
Singer-Songwriter, Speaker, Author, Social Media Innovator

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Email: dave@davecarrollmusic.com
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Air Canada Dropping the Ball (and our luggage)

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Air Canada Dropping the Ball (and our luggage)

Last week Air Canada was thrown into crisis mode when a passenger caught AC baggage handlers on video dropping luggage from the top of an outdoor staircase to a luggage trailer 20 feet below.

http://bit.ly/1hcvAQd

Rather than walking the bags down the stairs, as one would hope, the team felt that recreating Galileo’s gravity experiment in Pisa a more fitting plan.  What’s worse, these were carry-on bags; the ones people pack with their most fragile and important travel items.

The incident after only 3 days has been viewed over 750,000 times.  Air Canada has since apologized and may very well fire the workers.  Although I truly believe that saying “I’m sorry” is sometimes the least expensive option in a PR crisis, AC will have to do more to make this go away.

Firing the workers is a strong move in the short run.  It serves as a warning to other employees that this behavior won’t be tolerated, and it distances the company from what they will say is an isolated case.  The fact is that consumers believe this video captures more of a norm than an exception and I’m left with questions that only management can answer.

When Air Canada joined many other carriers in charging passengers extra for checking a suitcase, it caused passengers to pack as much as possible into their carry-on bags, which fly for free if you put them in the overhead bin inside the cabin yourself.  As a result the boarding process has become a race for overhead bin space and, when those are full, many bags are forced to be removed from the cabin, left at the gate and hand delivered down below.  It doesn’t cost the passenger any more but those bags were never meant to be handled, not to mention mishandled.

This process of transferring the carry-on luggage below takes time and, in the airline business, time is money.  Why then, with all this extra revenue does AC not pay for a solution to a problem it created?  Yes you can fire these employees but the problem won’t go away.  Why doesn’t Air Canada concede that the solution lies in a faster, safer and more efficient system of getting bags that won’t fit inside the cabin down to baggage handlers below.

I’ve seen luggage slides that are attached to these outdoor staircases at other airports.  I’ve often seen elevators near the aircraft that lift these extra bags to the gangway for disembarking passengers.  To be safe, a worker should carrying only one bag at a time down a staircase while holding the handrail to the bottom.  At best they can carry two but that’s a waste of time and it puts the worker at risk of tripping.

I’d like to think that all baggage handlers care about the belongings in their care but the truth is some simply do not.  In my opinion however management is more responsible in this case. The employer needs to give employees the tools to do their job effectively and efficiently. Maybe these specific baggage handlers should be terminated but until management addresses the bigger issue, we can only hope the camera’s keep rolling and Air Canada is held accountable as a company.

 

Dave Carroll
Musician behind United Breaks Guitars,
Singer-Songwriter, Speaker, Author, Social Media Innovator