I never want to hear the term ‘viral’ used again.

‘Viral’ and ‘viral marketing’ are a poor choice of words. Viral, at best, is a backward-facing label. It’s like saying something is historic, unless you’re from the future, reading the textbook of a 5th grader, you can’t just go around willy-nilly assigning value to things. As Faris said, “Viral is a thing that happens, not a thing that is.” Telling me you’ve got great concepts for a viral video is like saying you’re from the future, both of which immediately make me distrust you.

I’m also quite irked that marketers don’t even understand what the term actually means. Viral is used to describe something when the distribution of that thing is exponential, like a virus. Which means first, someone has to see your thing and pass your thing along. But then each next person has to continue to pass your thing along to even more people. One-to-one sharing is not viral. One-to-many-to-more is exponential, viral, growth. And just to be clear, a media buy to make thousands of single individuals see something once and never return is not viral. It’s stupid.

Viral also falsely implies the thing itself is doing the spreading. The Cadburry Gorilla did not, in fact, enter into my bloodstream, attach itself to a cell, inject its RNA, explode my brain all over my keyboard and send copies of itself along to my Facebook friends. Viral assumes the trick is purely in the thing, not in the people.

For anyone actually making content that’s being spread, viral is dead.

If we’re talking future tense, the video or article you’re writing or creating has a potential for being spread. A lot of factors decide that potential. Certainly the subject matter is important (we at Undercurrent strongly believe that if you don’t have the elements of mystery, sex, amazement or humor baked in to your content you have zero potential). But again, the potential for your content to go exponential is not solely based on the thing. People are important, and so is the environment.

I humbly submit that every piece of content carries with it potential energy and the act of it being spread converts potential energy into kinetic energy.

Potential energy is the measure of just how spreadable it is.
Kinetic energy is the measure of how well it spread.

Warning: I’m going to unravel this metaphor a bit and try to put it back together. If you’re brave enough to follow me, please do, but please comment on this post and help me out where I’m found lacking.

Let’s take a deeper look at this energy. A unit of energy is called a joule. Our joule’s could be the measurement for the social currency that exists within any piece of content. As I choose to spread something, I’m making a conscious valuation as to how likely it is that my audience has not already been exposed to the content and how much esteem I will garner by being first to share it with them. As a piece of content is spread across the social web, it loses that social capital. (well, it’s converted to something else, energy is never lost)

How do we calculate potential energy? Well, if we measure gravitational potential energy, we know U = mgh. Potential energy equals mass times gravity times height (or altitude). Just for grins, let’s think of what those variables could metaphorically represent. Height, to me, seems a best fit for the point of placement for your content. Perhaps someone like Lisa Nova is releasing a video vs someone like your Auntie. Gravity seems a fit for the natural rate of how a thing spreads within an initial system. Or more clearly, just how easy it is to physically spread that content. Mass is easy. Einstein taught us that mass and energy are related (e=mc^2). Mass is the total social currency within the piece of content, divided by some constant speed at which that mass is transformed to energy.

Whew.

Measuring kinetic energy is a little easier. Ke=.5mv^2. Kinetic energy equals mass times velocity squared, divided in half. We know what mass is, and velocity is merely the rate at which an item is spread.

But wait, why is measurement important? Measurement affords us comparisons, and in this case, measurement even beyond simple valuations of time. Instead of just, “which got more hits more quickly?” we could potentially understand how effectively something used its social currency to spread.

Aside from opportunities for pure conjecture, this new metaphor does have consequences…

• It means there is ultimately a finite amount of spreading that can be done. Once all social currency has been exhausted, there’s no mass left to convert to energy.
• But you can also add social currency (or add mass), one way is allowing people to mess with your content. Again, Faris pointed this out, too. But don’t forget, work has to be done in order for human beings to interact that way. Social currency is expended from somewhere.
• Your audience and their worlds matter. Where a piece of content is released and the system(s) within which it is seeded dictate part of its potential. Also, social currency can only be valued with an understanding of those which value it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, etc. Mike Arauz makes excellent points here.
• Most of all, this new metaphor merely points out that nothing is successful until it’s a success, and clients don’t pay for unrealized potential. As Henry Jenkins said, “if it doesn’t spread, it’s dead.”

*Thank you for reading this post and making it this far down. You are the wind beneath my wings.