Lessons from Book Quote’s Viral FB Meme

The Book Quote Game Goes Viral in Facebook

Virally speaking based on watching my own response along with others in my social graph, a clever little meme called the “Book Quote Game” is exploding over on Facebook. Over the weekend a quick challenge gambit  appeared in my Facebook socialgraph and I took it. I responded in to a friend’s post asking me to find a random but specifically-placed quote from “a book near me.”

What followed surprised me: within 12 hours 18 others added their quotes–more comments than my FB posts usually get; their socialgraph represents 3641 people and inspired another 23 comments. I didn’t crawl their comments to see the network effect in added reach, but if we use the averages based on mine, the echo would include another 9300 in reach. With an average friend duplication of 7.75% you still reach over 10,000 people per post in the first two generations of the meme. Because the active socialgraph/profile will bury this meme, it needs to reappear at different times, which it does as others replicate and comment. I expect to see this meme come back around many times in the coming months.

More surprising is that this isn’t even a Facebook application. It’s an activity that’s as catchy as an application but relies on The Groundswell to crawl all the SocialNetwork’s carriers to produce the Metacalfe effect. So, without any programming and low-production content you can create a viral campaign by following the best practices of The Book Quote Game.

I’ll give more evidence and details then see if there are best practices that can be applied for Marketers. Please add your reactions below in the comments area as well.

Little Known Fact-In Case You Missed It

Twitter search results on Little Known Fact Sarah Palin

Starting Friday and over the long Labor Day weekend the twitterstream was full of a new meme, “Little Known Fact, Sarah Palin” It was a gambit that started to fill in the lack of information on the new McCain ticket running mate, Sarah Palin, with disinformation and humor. Within three hours of the announcement the meme started, and thousands of tweets were submitted by every corner of the twitterverse. It was a spontaneous gag that kept getting better or worse, depending on how you view the sophmoric humor. It was a “Saturday Night Live” skit that took off with the collective contributing at a furious pace. In most cases it kept to the humorous bend, but ranged from critical to fawning. Here are some selected tweats; where attribution is missing they were pulled from PalinFacts.com:

Brand Promise (bringing it back to digital marketing for a second)

@podcastmama Little known fact: Sarah Palin softens your hands while you do the dishes.

@diabolos: Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin isn’t qualified for VP, but she did stay in a Holiday Inn last night.

@MovableHype: Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin knows how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.

@kevinbinversie: Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin knows what’s in her wallet.

Sarah Palin will pry your Klondike bar from your cold dead fingers.

Strength/Endurance

@JonHenke – Sarah Palin’s enemies are automatically added to the Endangered Species List

When Sarah Palin booked a flight to Europe, the French immediately surrendered.

Sarah Palin plays Whack-a-Mole with her forehead, and always gets a perfect score.

Omniscient:

Sarah Palin knows who was on the grassy knoll.

@stuartturner: Little known fact: There is no ‘ctrl’ button on Sarah Palin’s computer. She’s always in control. Too bad McCain doesn’t have a computer

@podcastmama Little known fact: Sarah Palin know’s what it’s like to be the sad man behind blue eyes.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin knows how old the Chinese gymnasts are.

@markaiken: Little known fact: Sarah Palin IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU

Chuck Norris Comparisons (follows the “fake Chuck Norris” meme format and consumes it)

@DarkAdapted: Little known fact: Chuck Norris backs down from no man. He does back down from Sarah Palin.

@brennanm: Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin blows her nose with Chuck Norris.

@steezydeezy: Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin and Chuck Norris together in one room would create a black hole!

@miketrap: Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin once kicked Chuck Norris’ ass, just because he thought about looking at hers.

@conblog: Little Known Fact: There are only 2 forces Chuck Norris recognizes: brute force & Sarah Palin. He practices one & lives in fear of the other

Pop Culture

@neoskeptic: Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin’s milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. She could teach you, but she’d have to charge.

cheesie_67: Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin is the last daughter of Krypton.

@wolfcat: Little known fact: Sarah Palin will eat the twitter fail whale for breakfast if elected

@I_aint_Eddy: Little known fact: Sarah Palin is never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.

Political:

 

@cscan:Little known actual fact: Sarah Palin has been governor for less time than John McCain has been running for President.

@YooPlaceTop: ★ Little known actual fact: Sarah Palin tried to ban book …http://tinyurl.com/5e6ke3

@Trudaluck: Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin is simply the best….better than all the rest

@fpaynter: Little known fact: Sarah Palin shot the state trooper, but she did not shoot the deputy.

Sarah Palin’s finishing move in the VP debate will be pulling Biden’s still beating heart from his chest & taking a bite.

 

Impact:Like a lot of internet memes and one-hit-wonders, this one lived strongest for about 24-36 hours getting discovered at varying points by MSM and bloggers. I wouldn’t be surprised if this catches fire a few weeks from now when another media discovers it. I’m also confident that these results will game the search engines and take over top search results, perhaps even influencing some votes. The good news about these memes is that they eventually fizzle out. They’re the equivalent of Sunday Funnies for those that remember, or a good Sienfeld/Simpson’s line that crept into popular culture. They serve their entertainment purpose for the moment, then need to go away.

If you liked any of this, you might also like:

http://sarahpalinisyournewsegway.com/

 

Transformers and Me–More Than Meets the Eye

I’ve got a lot of robots and Transformers in my office. The quick explanation is “they’re cool.”

The more involved version follows.

I have a small collection of 1950s-60s space/atomic era rockets in part because I love the naive notion that “science will save and lift us” and the object lessons this notion offers.
I added robots—some original and replicas—to my “save and lift” collection.  FWIW, I share the starry-eyed optimism in all pursuits. And I have enough experience to know that there’s another pole to that perspective.

 

 

A Real Brand Can Stand Parody, Flattery

A great idea usually inspires other great ideas, even if in reaction to them. You see a fair amount of parody, imitation and adoration when searching brand terms on YouTube, Flickr, etc. That’s merchandising for Real Brands and can be an opportunity to listen, respond, stunt (IMHO, Marvel’s Cease & Desist to Techblogger Arrington re: Iron Man screening was just that) and maybe even innovate. The mega-benefit of posting + parody + commenting + rating + @replying + blogging + sharing is trust for consumers and the search algorithms that crawl all this activity. In terms of the latter, that means better organic placement.

So, if you see something out there about your brand that you don’t like, consider all your options for response and remember that your customer is smart enough to tell the parody from what’s real, even in your actions. A Real Brand can stand parody and even benefit from it. Who knows, you might even have your next big seller, as in this video for an innovation-on-innovation violation (consider watching with sound on mute if in shared office or if potentially offended by lyrics):

Dramatic Chipmunk Resurfaces

Awhile back I spoke about one Dramatic Chipmunk (later identified as a prairie dog) that held it’s 15-minutes of fame as a break-out hit on YouTube.

Was thrilled to see it resurface at a Google/YouTube agency day, where participants were encouraged to create their own User Generated Content. Look closely and you’ll see Jeb and Deirdre from our NY office showing off their mad acting skillz. Keep the day job, please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daRHja4Bdzg

Good Use of Video to Reposition Brand

Baby Einstein hired Real Branding to re-position their line through the digital channel. As you can see from the ”before” shot to the left, we repositioned from a product towards a brand, from functional benefits to emotional in a few simple videos. These videos also serve to demo the product versus the static image you see on most ecommerce sites.  Our challenge was to take highly functional transactional requirements and marry them with equally demanding emotional expectations. This isn’t a TV spot or a print ad, but consider for a moment how much information is conveyed within your first three clicks.

There are also great tools for selecting the right products based on age, stages, fancy or fascination through simple exploration. And we’ve invited parents to share their experiences at every touch.

Without opening up the strategy completely, we’re moving the brand to a “smarter” place which parents intuitively understand: that the most powerful learning happens within their arms and intimacy, where Baby Einstein has always advocated and delivered.

Mad props to the team that delivered business-changing engagements in a transactional website for a Real Brand.

Didn’t Pay to Shout Mouth Off, but…

Good spot from our creative department. Here’s what you run when you can’t spend $2.6m on a Super Bowl spot even if you want to…you bad mouth from the new medium in a truthful voice:

Could The Best Spot Be One You Can’t Find?

The Fox promotions machine was brilliant wrenching every ounce of value out of a declining medium during a writer’s strike. My sources tell me the most dvr-proof content includes live events–like the Super Bowl–and news (when it’s old you don’t need to record it). Still, let’s assume many people are using dvrs for replays, bio breaks and other conveniences. Before breaks and in those premium info-graphic areas Fox was promoting their www.myspace.com/superbowlads/ directory which was largely anemic during the game–you could find a lot more of these ads on youtube and other places as a result. Lost opportunity, but the promotional thinking was great.

 But some of the best ads, IMHO, were the promotional bumpers for the Terminator, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, airing tonight on Fox. Consistent with the original debut of the campaign, the spots enter through the element of surprise. Gigantic info-graphic CGI footballbots provided blingy bumpers between the game and commercials. On the way out to commercial, recaps were accompanied by a “metallic” collosus that victory danced. During a couple of the breaks a classic Terminator leapt from behind the graphics to tackle and battle the footballbot. Surprising, entertaining and a little scary. And TiVo-proof. In the world of interruptive messages, this one did its job well: if you have to demand my attention with interruption, at least add some value.

I’m guessing that these “spots” cost about as much as the cheapo Dorritos efforts but got 10x the attention. And, none of the TV spot analysis seem to track these. Why? The future of mankind, if not the medium, is at stake here people.

I haven’t been able to find these bumpers in my searching. If you do, please post in the comments area below. In the meantime, here’s a promo spot that has equally good interruption and integration. Perhaps the revolution will be televised…

Preliminary Superbowl Ad Recaps

A couple of links, and an embed…

• My twitter stream of consciousness from during the game
• Bob Garfield’s vlog recap
• Twitter Bowl by Jeramiah
• Calacanis racism debate
• USA Today Polls
• The link Fox promoted all evening

Added: Neal Stewart recaps at the Denver Post
And a little ad that might appear if the player works–the secret spot from www.budbowl.com –if you can’t view it here, click the link, get through the age-gate and enter “1982″ into the right hand sidebar to view a scatalogical wonder. Thanks DG for forwarding.

Milkshake Meme

A Friday Milkshake snack:

 

Here are some links on the “I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!” meme catching fire online:

http://www.mahalo.com/I_Drink_Your_Milkshake

excerpt: Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, yells the line “I drink your milkshake!” in a pivotal scene from director Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film There Will Be Blood. The quote has become an Internet catchphrase.

Check out the hilarious “how to use” article on NY Mag where the comments are as good as the original post:

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/01/i_drink_your_milkshake.html

happy weekend. sssschlrp. cheers! silva