Rising to Stardom research study: what makes some YouTube videos go viral

About three years ago, my colleague Yuping Liu and I were curious about how some YouTube videos gain popularity so quickly while others never get a second look. At this time, videos like "Charlie bit me" and "Chocolate Rain" were rising everyday people to stardom. What made these videos stand out more than others? We set out to answer that question by studying the user-generated content on YouTube.  

I'm pleased to announce that today, our research paper, "Rising to Stardom: An Empirical Investigation of the Diffusion of User-generated Content" was published in the Journal of Interactive Marketing. Here is the full-text article.

Abstract

With the explosive growth of online user-generated content and the desire by marketers to better utilize this space, it is beneficial to understand the viral diffusion of such content and to identify messages that are most likely to achieve popularity. In this paper, we combine network analysis and the diffusion literature to study the spreading of user-generated videos online. We identify three groups of factors that affect diffusion outcomes: network structure, content characteristics, and author characteristics. Using a proportional rates model, we analyze the diffusion of a sample of videos on YouTube. Our results show that it is preferable to have many subscribers who each has a few friends than to have a few subscribers with many connections. Furthermore, a curvilinear relationship exists between subscriber network connectivity and diffusion rate such that diffusion is at its highest under moderate connectivity. Examining content characteristics, we show that entertainment and educational values affect diffusion but production quality does not matter. Moreover, we find that quality as manifested by user ratings influences diffusion more than innate content quality. Not surprisingly, an author's past success carries over to the current content, and content from younger authors is more popular.

We collected a random sample of over 100 user-generated videos newly uploaded onto YouTube over the course of a week. We tracked each video for a period of two months, recording the number of views and the average user ratings each day. We also collected a large number of characteristics for each video, including those related to the video content, to the video author and to the network of users connected to the video author. We had study participants rate each video on its production quality, educational value and entertainment value. Here are some highlights of our findings. 

• Diffusion rate is at its highest under moderate network connectivity. Authors with a large number of subscribers who each has only a handful of friends are in a better position than authors with a small number of subscribers who in turn may have a large number of friends.
• Influence rather than reach facilitates the diffusion of user-generated content, demonstrating the value of opinion leadership.
• Entertainment and educational values positively affect diffusion, whereas production quality did not matter.
• User ratings had an impact on a videos successful diffusion. Increasing the average rating by 1 star can lead to as much as 13.5% gain in diffusion rate.
• Younger users’ contributions are more likely to be popular.
• An author’s past experience and success positively affect diffusion of new videos. 

We hope that marketers and public relations practitioners (as well as other content creators) will find this information useful in more effectively predicting the success of user-generated content and planning successful online campaigns. We also hope this study offers a stepping stone for more research on the topic.

Let's meet at BlogWorld!

In just a week, fellow freelancer Amber Karnes and I will be heading to Vegas, baby. Vegas! It will be our first time attending BlogWorld, so we wanted to say hello and introduce ourselves with this video. Beware the social media snake oil salesman!



Amber and I have been working together for over five years. During that time, we've given many social media training sessions, got a Fortune 500 to believe in and embrace social media, and worked for a forward-thinking education professional development company, Powerful Learning Practice. What makes us different is we didn't just learn social media for the sake of selling it to our clients. First and foremost, we blog, tweet, post and share because we love it. We apply our personal experiences as users and content developers to consult our clients on how to genuinely communicate using social media.

I know there are more people like us out there, and I want to meet you. So here is who I'd like to connect with at Blogworld. If this is YOU, let's meet up!

• Cool people: PR practitioners, marketers, writers, freelancers...anyone who wants to toss around creative ideas. I live in a small beach town in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and work from home, so BlogWorld is one of my only opportunities to meet other people passionate about social media in person.


• Kind, green people: I recently launched a social good blog, Greater Good Life, where I share ideas about simple living, being green and giving. I would love to meet people interested in social good who could inspire me with ideas and creative direction. I want to write and do more freelance work for causes and green organizations. I'd also love to guest post on similar blogs and invite bloggers to guest post on Greater Good Life.


• Prospective clients and job opportunities: As a social media consultant, I hope to meet people from forward-thinking organizations who need help implementing all the social media ideas they walk away with at Blogworld.  (And I'm not selling snake oil!)

Does this sound like you? If so, let's get in touch! Also, please leave some feedback about our video. What did you think?

Adventures in taking a Fortune 500 social

My client, Norfolk Southern Corporation, recently announced it is actively engaging with stakeholders on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, as well as offering RSS feeds and links to all its social media pages via the corporate home page. While this may not seem like news relative to what consumer businesses have been doing for years, this is unprecedented in the railroad industry and for many other Fortune 500 companies in the B2B sector.

I have been consulting with Norfolk Southern for several years on developing their social media communications strategy. It's taken a lot of training to get the corporate communications department on board. I put together several social media 101 presentations and training sessions with along with Amber Karnes of Chop Chop Design (Norfolk Southern's Webmaster at the time).

Shortly after, the company put together a New Media Team, composed of employees across the company to advise the company's social media and new media strategies. Karnes and I offered more training sessions and presentations, and with the support of the New Media Team, launched these social media initiatives.

Our biggest challenge was not gaining the buy-in from management (the widespread adoption of Facebook and Twitter eventually made that case for us), but ensuring the legal department there would be no problems. The best way to handle that obstacle was to approach social media cautiously and show success through baby steps. For example, Norfolk Southern's first YouTube video was a 30-second commercial that had aired nationwide on television. Once the lawyers could see there was little need for concern, we began slowly posting more content.

Check out Norfolk Southern's social media profiles, for a first-rate example of how social media can work for a large B2B organization. The Thoroughbred of Transportation is taking the lead on social media engagement in the freight rail transportation industry. So far, NS has more than 9,000 fans on Facebook, more than any other railroad. We're engaging with rail fans across the country, and this is just the beginning as we are continuing to set forth a strategy to enhance our community outreach. In fact, Norfolk Southern has recently added a position to the Corporate Communications department that handles Community Outreach, both online and offline. I look forward to sharing more as Norfolk Southern continues engaging stakeholders online.

Studio Rio: how radio publicity is enhanced through social media

Last year, I helped Studio Rio, a women's-only gym in Virginia Beach, Va. that offers pole dancing classes, enhance their marketing and public relations efforts. During that time, they developed a new Web site, established a blog and developed a Facebook, YouTube and Twitter presence.



This week, the local radio morning team at WNOR FM 99, Rumble and Shelley, started talking about pole dancing on the air. When Studio Rio heard they were mentioned, they quickly responded to invite the morning team in for a free private pole dancing class. The morning team took them up on the offer and had a blast. The morning show hosts shared their experience with listeners this morning and it was hilarious and entertaining. Studio Rio could not have asked for better publicity.

But it does get better. The morning team has uploaded a YouTube video of their pole dancing lesson as well as an audio clip of the radio bit that aired. That extends the reach of publicity far beyond listeners who happened to tune in to the radio this morning.

The best part is that Studio Rio has been consistently communicating with its members and prospective members through online social media. Because Studio Rio actively engages with customers via Facebook, Twitter and text messaging, they were able alert customers instantly to tune in and listen. Then after the radio exposure, when the clips were posted online, Studio Rio used social media to share the links and get the word out even more. Congratulations to Studio Rio for getting some great publicity and for effectively using online social media to make the most of it.

Rising to Stardom YouTube study

Dr. Yuping Liu and I are waiting to hear back on a research proposal we entered in the MSI & WIMI User-Generated Content Research Competition. Hopefully we'll get some funding, but either way we're working on our study, Rising to Stardom: How Do Some User-Generated Contents Become Popular? The key questions are how to predict UGC's eventual success during the early stage of dissemination and what makes one piece of UGC extremely popular and others not. We're basing our research on social network theory, particularly theories described in Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age by Duncan J. Watts. The practical application of our findings will enable marketers to strategically participate in the conversation and collaboration facilitated through UGC and to better utilize their resources to focus on UGCs that are likely to affect a larger audience.