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"Viral is one of the most overused buzzwords in the history of the web," says Kevin Allocca, YouTube's head of culture and trends, speaking at The Conference in Malmo. The word "viral" is confusing, he continues, as it's a word that gets used all the time, and yet many people don't really know what it means.

If anyone understands the meaning of viral it is surely Allocca, who studies this new behaviour the internet has given birth to as part of his daily job. He starts by explaining that viral is not the science that people -- and, in particular, big brands -- believe it to be. Rather, it's a behaviour that has been spawned as a result of a very simple formula -- free web platforms, cheap devices, increasingly better bandwidth and the ability to openly distribute content for the first time on a large scale.


The new and authentic voices that viral has spawned wield some surprising power, so no wonder brands want to get a piece of it.

But at the same time videos like Gangnam Style, to take one example, go viral, but it's exactly the kind of content no record company would ever have just taken a risk on. "It turns out when you decentralise the power to communicate the results are very unpredictable and impactful," says Allocca. It's important, he point out, that there is an entire community on YouTube who just post, watch and share videos about trains. Viral videos have helped us understand what was going on in Egypt at the start of the Arab Spring, and in Japan when the tsunami hit. We can now openly engage and participate in the media we consume.

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This engagement can be fairly passive, or it can be reflected in the discussions we have elsewhere. Alocca points out that the success of Rebecca Black's song Friday wasn't due to the fact that it was simply popular -- it was a pop culture phenomenon that people had opinions and discussions about.

Similarly, Kony 2012, which was directly posted to some of the most influential people on the web when it first appeared, was about much more than the video. The video's trajectory showed that its success was relatively short-lived, but it became a point of reference for a larger conversation about the cause.


Sometimes, Allocca adds, virality is not just about a single piece of content -- it is about collaboration. "Groups of people can create their own pop culture." The Harlem Shake resulted in 1.7 million videos being made, that collectively had more than 3 billion views. Even right now, the Ice Bucket Challenge has proved a similar success story, with public figures and celebrities including Martha Stewart and Bill Gates posting videos of themselves being doused in freezing water to raise awareness for charity. "Thousands of these videos are getting uploaded everyday," says Allocca. "Often this kind of collaborative participation can be fascinating to watch. It results something that's much more interesting in its collaborative whole."

From an inside perspective, he points out that it's not just kids involved in creating successful videos and then causing them to go viral. "We can see that no matter what our age and behaviours online we can see that this is something we're all adopting."

One thing everyone wants to know though is whether or not there is a secret. While there are definitely best practices that can be followed, Allocca says, he doesn't believe there can really be rules for a behaviour pattern that is so new.


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The best example he can offer in terms of a branded piece of content going viral is the video of strangers kissing that was posted by a clothing brand earlier this year. The company's aim when they made the video, was to create something worth sharing and something that would elicit a strong emotional response for a bored at work network who wanted to connect. It did this, says Allocca, by creating "a very simple moment, a very human moment".

Another thing brands also often overlook is that people don't react emotionally to good and well-made video -- that isn't the thing that makes them share, Allocca points out. "These thing needs to be unexpected and surprising."