The art of viral video design

How did it happen? True, Invisible Children had a preexisting base of supporters willing to repost and retweet the video when it was released. And yes, a large part of Kony 2012’s success is the way it plays on our desires to be social activists, to make a difference in the world. But another contributing factor that we should consider, according to Samantha Grossman of Time magazine, is that “unlike some other videos whose creators or subjects might not have expected such explosive results…[Invisible Children] designs its campaigns with social media in mind.” That is, the video is designed specifically for social networking, designed to make us want to repost and retweet. It aims to enlist us, to reassure us that all it takes is the click of a button to make a difference in the world. This is not a video that spontaneously became viral. It was a premeditated hit.

And it worked. What Invisible Children has done, above all else, is figure out a way to effectively spread a message through the social network. Remember, it is not an aid organization; it is an awareness program. Its members have figured out how to harness social media to spread a message to unprecedented proportions. They have figured out how to get a large number of people to click the button, to take part in their cause. They have figured out how to completely saturate the Internet, and in turn more conventional media, with an idea in a short amount of time. They used the psychology of social media in selling us their cause in much the same way, as we all know, a commercial selling a product does. And, in many ways, that is scary.

For example, Invisible Children simplified its message in order to maintain our attention and get its point across easily, making its cause simple to spread. Indeed, this is one of the major criticisms against Kony 2012. Danah Boyd, a social media researcher, told The New York Times, “They create narratives that can be boiled down to 140 characters while still engaging people emotionally. They create action messages that can be encapsulated into a hashtag.” And they accept the cost at which that comes in order to promote Kony 2012.

There is no open-endedness to the film. It is presented as clear-cut — what is right, what is wrong, the three simple things you have to do. The organization has encapsulated the appealing simplicity Twitter uses in order to promote its cause to us.

In designing its campaign this way, Invisible Children persuaded so many people to simply repost or retweet its message without thinking twice. How many were so taken with the cause presented to them that accepted the film itself as enough, that they they did not feel obligated to learn anything more about the Lord’s Resistance Army and Uganda’s current state before sharing the video? True, this is not a problem confined simply to the spread of information through social media; ideas are often espoused in such a manner. The difference is how quickly and instantaneously that same message can take hold when transferred via Facebook or Twitter as opposed to via newspapers, magazines or general conversation.

Criticisms had to evolve in response to the video rather than in conjunction with it because, well, it only took about six days for just about everyone to see or hear about Kony 2012 anyway. Invisible Children figured out a way to override criticisms long enough to spread its message to the entire social network, as well as to sell $15 million of “action kits.”

Ultimately, the people behind Kony 2012 have tapped into us. They have figured out how to use social media, and how to use us using social media, to spread their message so quickly and effectively, almost blindly. They have harnessed the psychology behind social media in order to promote their cause.

When I first saw Kony 2012 spreading, I thought it was amazing. Not the message, not the film itself, just the simple fact that an awareness video could spread so quickly, so effectively, through social media, that it could saturate the Internet so well and then move outward to conventional media. But now, knowing how the film was designed and seeing how quick multitudes of people were to share the video, I am unsure. What happens now that a video can be designed to become viral, designed to get so many people to share its message without thinking twice?