{"id":4263,"date":"2017-05-01T07:37:43","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T13:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chrissniderdesign.com\/blog\/?p=4263"},"modified":"2017-10-25T08:13:43","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T14:13:43","slug":"teach-students-create-viral-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrissniderdesign.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/01\/teach-students-create-viral-content\/","title":{"rendered":"How I teach students to create viral content"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can you manufacture viral content? That’s one of the questions I like to address in my Social Media Strategies class at Drake University.<\/p>\n

Although the better question is, “What can we learn about creating better social media content by studying things that go viral?”<\/p>\n

We use information from the Johah Berger book Contagious<\/a> to try to understand why information spreads. Then students try to make content that will go viral – at least on a small scale.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Berger says there are six principles of viral content:<\/p>\n

Social currency:<\/strong> People want to seem smart, cool and in-the-know.
\nTriggers:<\/strong> Grow your product so that people are triggered to think of it.
\nEmotion:<\/strong> When we care we share. Appeal to emotion.
\nPublic:<\/strong> Design products that advertise themselves.
\nPractical Value:<\/strong> Useful things get shared.
\nStories:<\/strong> Information spreads through stories.<\/p>\n

Berger has great videos on his website that explain viral principle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We learn about these principles and try to apply them to making content that will spread fast. This semester, two groups tried to make content that would go viral at Drake and two groups tried to create content that would go viral in Des Moines. The goal was to see how far the content would spread in seven days.<\/p>\n

My students’ viral attempts<\/h2>\n

Here are results from each of the four groups…<\/p>\n

Viral Drake Content – Group One<\/h3>\n

The first group decided to create a Facebook video that showcased the athletes that were coming to Drake for the Drake Relays.<\/p>\n