Viral Content: How I Missed My Chance
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine walked up to me and said, “Thanks.” “For what?” I asked. He replied, “For the study guide.” “Interesting,” I thought, because I hadn’t given him a study guide.
I soon found out that he and others were studying for a test in an introductory geology course, a class which I had taken a few semesters back. When I took this course, I simply filled in necessary information in a brief study guide that the professor had supplied. My finished product turned out to be long and detailed, and consequently I was quite successful on the test. After the test, word got out that I had made this, and, as a result, for the next test some friends asked me if they could use a copy. In the following semester, I passed it along to other friends who took the course. Some of them asked if they could pass it on to a few others, and I agreed. Someone who I didn’t know even called me late at night to ask me to email it to him. At this point, I knew that this would not end soon. By my calculations, over fifty people (and potentially more) have studied with this guide to date.
All that to say, I learned something about the viral nature of content. If something is interesting, informative, or entertaining (or sometimes none of these) and the medium exists, it will spread. The real lesson that I learned was to prepare for this. Although it’s a somewhat silly example, I could have easily thrown the URL of my blog or personal site onto that study guide and received some new visitors from the people who used it. I did include my name on it (somewhat by accident, or maybe habit), but that will only get me so far.
Of course it’s not always possible or practical to prepare for this, and I learned this also. In these cases, be attentive to the trends. In my situation, when I received that phone call from the creepy guy who wanted the study guide, I knew that it would continue to spread. Unfortunately, I didn’t take action, and therefore I lost the opportunity. This second thought models more my realistic plan: just pay attention. I don’t have the time or willpower to continually be making study guides for every class, hoping one will catch on. I do, however, have one that did happen to catch on, and I could have taken action when it did. If I had done that, I’d be rich and famous…or at least have a handful more visitors to my blog. It’s alright, though: lots of people got something that helped them out, which is all that really counts. Leave your thoughts or experiences in the comments.
