how stuff spreads
DESCRIPTION
by Francesco D’Orazio, Chief Innovation Officer & Head of Face Labs, FACE, UKTRANSCRIPT
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Francesco D’Orazio@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
How Stuff SpreadsHow Video Goes Viral
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meme
“an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture”
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Back in March 2013, we started by mapping replica
memes, memes based on an original piece of content that spreads and gets replicated into variably successful
variations
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5% 1%
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We learned, updated the framework and repeated the experiment with
4 new types of meme: a music video, a citizen journalism video, an ad, a web series
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@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
Diffusion PatternsHow the meme gets passed on from person to person via tweets and retweets
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@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
SizeHow many people shared the link to the meme and how many posts did they generate?
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42,900Tweets
38,300Retweets
75,067Unique Authors / Active Audience
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38,700Tweets
26,200Retweets
62,324Unique Authors / Active Audience
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5,330Tweets
7,610Retweets
11,868Unique Authors / Active Audience
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5,680Tweets
24,600Retweets
27,993Unique Authors / Active Audience
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@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
NarrativeHow did the viral narrative develop?
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11-May 18-May 25-May 1-Jun 8-Jun0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
Launched at 10pm GMT on 12 May, & gets 11,400 Twitter shares in 2 hours
Peaks at 51,600 shares on 13 May
Within a week it's below 1000 shares per day (17 May)
Perfect power law decay – no spikes after launch after a big influencer finds it belatedly
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15-Apr 22-Apr 29-Apr 6-May 13-May 20-May 27-May 3-Jun 10-Jun0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
Continuing ripples even a month after a launch, as new communities and community influencers discover the video
600 people find & tweet/RT the video on 15 April, before Dove officially tweet it (@Dove_Canada on 16th)
Peaks on Day 3, the 17 April. Doesn't show the rapid power-law decay of the news-driven searches
Secondary peaks when it spreads into new communities & is noticed by new influencers. E.g. @DoveUKI on 19 Apr
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1-Jun 8-Jun 15-Jun 22-Jun0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
Very sharp decay for this news-driven video, which gained its value from showing events in Gezi Park when Turkish TV channels weren't.
Day 3: only 197 shares
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21-Apr 28-Apr 5-May 12-May 19-May 26-May 2-Jun 9-Jun 16-Jun 23-Jun0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
4,000
Unlike other videos this is serialised content. Peaks when(a) new video released(b) picked up by top influential Vine account
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@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
ShapeQuantifying virality. Which variables are best for identifying a viral phenomenon?
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Dove Real Beauty
Ryan Gosling
Cmdr Hadfield
Turkish protest
197%
194%
355%
435%
Coefficient of variation (%)
All memes are volatile
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1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 610
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
Commander HadfieldDoveTurkeyRyan Gosling
Days since video launch
1Day
1Day
3 Days 18 Days
Time to Peak varies (shares/day)
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 240
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000Commander HadfieldDoveTurkeyRyan Gosling
Diffusion Velocity varies (shares/hour on peak
day)
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Dove Real Beauty
Ryan Gosling
Cmdr Hadfield
Turkish protest
1,088
5,108
12,886
Social currency (shares per 1m views)
Shareability varies
View count not available on Vine
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Dove Real Beauty
Ryan Gosling
Cmdr Hadfield
Turkish protest
20
8
8
2
Lifespan varies (continuous period at 500 shares/day)
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Although none of the variables alone proved useful to identify a viral phenomenon, all of them
correlate around two main models of viral spread
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Spikers vs Growers
High VolatilityFast to PeakHigh VelocityHigh ShareabilityShorter Lifespan
Lower VolatilitySlower to
PeakLower
VelocityLower
ShareabilityLonger
Lifespan
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But what makes a meme spread along the first or the second
model? We looked at the audience of the memes to answer
this question…
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AudienceCan the audience composition explain why memes develop along one of the other model?
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
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Dove Real Beauty
Ryan Gosling
Cmdr Hadfield
Turkish protest
35
30
34
29
All memes are similarly amplified(average Visibility of a post containing the meme)
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75%
63%
14%
34%
Globality rate varies(% of shares from countries other than the top one)
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Since both Amplification and Globality seemed not to
correlate with one or the other model of virality we then looked at the demographics engaged with each meme
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30 Years
66%
34% White
Christian 55%
Jewish 36%
Students 9%
Journalists 9%
Web devs 8%
Senior Managers 7%Musicians 6%
@NASA@StephenFry@BarackObama@DalaiLama@Conan O’Brien
TechnologyScience NewsPhotographyMusicComedy
London 11%
Toronto 5%
New York 3%
Dublin 3%Vancouver 2%
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19 Years
21%
79%
White 81% BlackHispanic
Christian 67%
Muslim 24%
Students 15%
Sales 10%
Journalists 4%PhotographersArtistsStylistsAdmin Staff
@[email protected]@TaylorSwift@JustinBieber@LadyGaga@KimKardashian
ComedyMusicFashionTV/FilmHealth IssuesSports
London 5%
Toronto 5%
New York 4%Riyadh 3%
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26 Years
50%50%White 99%
Muslim 94%
Students 12%
Musicians 8%
Senior Managers 8%Web DevelopersJournalistsEngineersGraphic DesignerTeachers
@CemYilmaz@SertabErener@AbdullahGül@BarackObama@ConanO’Brien@WikiLeaks@Nytimes@BBCNews
PoliticsNewsTechFootballMusic
Instanbul 50%
Izmir 32%
Ankara 4%Bursa 1%
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18 Years
26%
74%
White BlackHispanic
Christian 84%
Muslim 9%
Students 33%
Musicians 13%
Actors 4%
@JustinBieber@TaylorSwift@KatyPerry@MileyCyrus@DanielTosh@SnookiPolizzi
ComedyMusicDatingExtreme Sports
NYC 6%
London 3%
Los Angeles 2%Chicago 2%
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As we couldn’t find any correlation between demographic traits and virality models we then turned to the structure of the audience by mapping the
social graph (followers/friends) of the people who shared the meme
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11.226.84
4.263.14
Audience connectedness (avg degree)
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Highly connected audiences (higher average degree in the audience network) make the meme
spread faster
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0.506
0.466
Audience fragmentation (modularity)
0.752
0.650
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High audience fragmentation into sub-communities (high modularity of the audience
network) makes the meme spread slower
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130 communities
3 connect up to 50% of the audience
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1356communities
8 connect up to 50% of the audience
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51communities
2connect up to 50% of the audience
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382communities
5 connect up to 50% of the audience
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130
51
1356
387
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But what is causing higher or lower fragmentation within an
audience?
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32, male, white, CAN/USA, into science, tech and comedy
30, male, white, UK, into tech, comedy and music
32, female, white, USA/NYC, marketing professional
16, female, white/hispanic, USA/LA, into teen pop and reality tv
25, mixed, white, Turkey/Istanbul, into politics, sports, web
21, mixed, white, Turkey/Izmir, into politics, sports, web
17, female, white/black/hispanic, USA/Texas, into teen pop and reality tv
19, female, white, Global, into comedy, music, tv
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High demographic diversity correlates with high modularity
and slower meme velocity
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Dynamics
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
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Trigger > Validation > Escalation
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Emotion is the trigger
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community relevance provides validation (topicality & timing)
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Gatekeepers activate the communities within the
audience and escalate the diffusion
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But it’s the social structure of the audience that
determines the diffusion model
Vs.
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Thank You
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com