By Leigh Andrews If only one phrase sticks with you after reading this article, I hope it’s: “You can’t create a viral video; however, you can create a video and hope that it goes viral”. Viral videos are definitely the next big thing. Melissa Attree of GetOn eMarketing feels that ‘viral video’ is the most over-traded word of our time. If you have great content, people will love your video – but you can’t necessarily plan for this. Therefore, it needs to stop becoming the typical client request, as a viral video can’t be made, and can’t be planned. That said, she feels that Nando’s “can do no wrong” on the ‘humour’ front with the campaign and that it knew its Kagiso Lediga ‘CEO’ video would be a viral hit from the start. Lediga, formerly known as a comedian and creator of the Pure Monate Show, is now as big a brand ambassador as Trevor ‘Cell C’ Noah himself, as Memeburn states that the TV ad was viewed voluntarily online over 100 000 times within a week… Attree feels this is surreal for South Africa, where the viral video platform is only just starting to take off. At Newsclip’s February seminar breakfast presentation, Marketing Consultant, Amy Linnell, explained that viral marketing is another way in which new technology and communication platforms are rapidly growing in terms of increasing awareness of a product, service or concept. This is a clear example of how anyone can be successful online if they understand the medium and launch their campaign in the right way. A common misconception is that you can ‘make’ a viral video. However, for it to become viral, the video needs to be shared and spread by people like wildfire. As with most social media methods of spreading a message, something can easily become top-of-mind without spending a lot of money, as the key lies in creating good content that people will want to share. It’s been found that people will often continue watching a video for three times longer when it has been shared by a friend than if they had stumbled across it themselves. This hints at the trust element, and the fact that going viral involves a universal understanding of the joke. The content should be instantly identifiable, no matter where it ends up on the web. 31 APRIL 2011 COUP