Tracking viral content
I’m not really fond of the word viral, at least as a noun. The call of ‘let’s make a viral’ is annoying, pointless and usually means the person only has a surface understanding of the hows and whys. Using it as an adverb is far better -things can spread virally if you do the right things and get some luck. Usually, using it as a noun means the speaker is thinking about making a video; video often has the edge because they are commonly used as examples as other people can track their spread, not just the owner of the content. The number of views on YouTube is there for all to see but the number of hits on your cool site is usually only open to you. As a consequence of the openness, there are a number of third party companies that track video hits and provide daily charts of what is doing well but the other types are less well served.
However, some companies are monitoring the whole landscape, such as Competitrack, who sent me a Press Release about their latest product of Online Viral Monitoring (at least in the US). It caught my eye because it does more than just videos, looking at games, microsites and social networks as well, plus both positive and negative messages.
Nothing is clearcut in the viral world, but our definition is simple: We look for online messages that are aimed primarily at attracting and engaging an audience, and secondarily at supporting a brand or product. The brand or product message is often quite subtle-sometimes even indiscernible. We also seek out negative messages that are circulating virally-user generated spoofs, parodies or satires which poke fun, or are critical of a brand.
There seems to be a large human element involved in the analysis, which means costs, which means that the service is actually subscription (no idea how much, it does not say). So I have no idea how good the service is and whether it is worth paying for yet, although I’m planning on getting a demo. I still think it would be great though if they offered up a top 5 or 10 in each category as a general service, no need for the analysis, just the highest ranked ones.
Tags: competitrack, product_message, Viral Marketing, youtubeRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Buzz Marketing, Metrics and Research, Viral Marketing
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