appetite for deconstruction...lessons in virality from axl rose

Hannah Smith, Content Strategist, Distilled @hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

appetite for deconstruction….lessons in virality from axl rose

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

this is distilled

@hannah_bo_banna

we made this

@hannah_bo_banna

http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

@hannah_bo_banna

1.8m page views; 100k+ ‘likes’; 4.5k+ tweets; 874 LRDs

http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

@hannah_bo_banna

insert sexy title slide here...

& this guy commented...

@hannah_bo_banna

& they lived happily ever after...

@hannah_bo_banna

a happy ending is nice, but rarely interesting

@hannah_bo_banna

it’s about how you get there

@hannah_bo_banna

it wasn’t always like this

@hannah_bo_banna

a few years ago we made this; it got just 31 ‘likes’

@hannah_bo_banna

we *still* don’t always get it right

@hannah_bo_banna

but our strike rate has significantly improved

@hannah_bo_banna

so...

@hannah_bo_banna

how did we come to create this?

http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

@hannah_bo_banna

let’s start at the beginning

@hannah_bo_banna

the client

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

the brief

@hannah_bo_banna

objectives of the contentcore messaging

personality/brand valuestarget audiencetarget publishers

audience & publisher insightscontent competitors

off-limits

@hannah_bo_banna

objectives

@hannah_bo_banna

increase brand awareness (via press coverage, social shares & exposure on sites our target audience read)

@hannah_bo_banna

earn links(to build domain authority and increase search visibility across the board)

@hannah_bo_banna

core messaging

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

personality & brand values

@hannah_bo_banna

geekyirreverent

fun

@hannah_bo_banna

“Remember way back when the internet was accessible only via the dog whistle screech of your dial up modem?

The internet was a brave new world;albeit a decidedly slow and slightly crappy one…”

@hannah_bo_banna

“This charming little ditty boasts many a sophisticated lyric - "Hard like Geometry, and Trigonometry" (deep, huh?),

multiple references to excrement and a heart-felt line about morning glory.”

@hannah_bo_banna

target audience

@hannah_bo_banna

who are we trying to reach?

@hannah_bo_banna

target publishers

@hannah_bo_banna

what sites do our audience read?

@hannah_bo_banna

audience / publisher insights

@hannah_bo_banna

what do our audience share?(& therefore)

what do our target publishers want to cover?

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

content competitors

@hannah_bo_banna

who else is doing interesting stuff in the space?

@hannah_bo_banna

ever wondered why all pop songs sound the same?

@hannah_bo_banna

it’s pretty simple,they all use the same four chords...

@hannah_bo_banna

Axis of Awesome - 4 Chords

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

@hannah_bo_banna

eeeek!that’s what we’re up against...

@hannah_bo_banna

a quick note on ideas

@hannah_bo_banna

an idea is a novel combination of

previously unconnected elements in a way that adds value

@hannah_bo_banna

the axis of awesome’s 4 chords is a great example....

@hannah_bo_banna

you’ve probably thought this:

“hmmmm a lot of pop songs sound kinda the same… why is that?”

@hannah_bo_banna

the answer:

“they use the same four chords…”

@hannah_bo_banna

you could just write a list of all the songs that use the same chords...

@hannah_bo_banna

meh

@hannah_bo_banna

it’s not until you show me that I really get it

@hannah_bo_banna

an idea is a novel combination of

previously unconnected elements in a way that adds value

@hannah_bo_banna

why do pop songs sound the same?

they use the same 4 chords

bring it to life with a mash up

combining previously

unconnected elements

execute in a way that adds value

@hannah_bo_banna

how did we come up with this idea?

@hannah_bo_banna

kick off with some questions:

could we look at why or how the different genres changed?

what if we could take one tune and make it change through the genres, e.g. make it funk, heavy metal…?

what if you could make your own super group?

@hannah_bo_banna

explore ideas...

@hannah_bo_banna

intended to search for vocal solo...

but was curious about this auto suggest...

@hannah_bo_banna

found the range place(http://therangeplace.forummotions.com/f1-range-stuff)

@hannah_bo_banna

hmmmmmmm

@hannah_bo_banna

who’s the greatest singer is something that’s debated endlessly…

could we add to the conversation?

@hannah_bo_banna

the idea

@hannah_bo_banna

illustrate the vocal range of some of the most popular singers

@hannah_bo_banna

how?

@hannah_bo_banna

use vocal range data from the Range Place

@hannah_bo_banna

use Rolling Stone’s Greatest Singers of all Timeas a seedlist

@hannah_bo_banna

but the list from Rolling Stone is a little old - shouldn’t we also include current artists?

@hannah_bo_banna

solution: add in The Billboard Music Award 2014 nominees

for top male and female artist

@hannah_bo_banna

so we *think* this is a good idea,but how do you know for sure?

@hannah_bo_banna

you can’t ever be 100% certain

@hannah_bo_banna

but you can improve your strike rate

@hannah_bo_banna

we’re interested in what makes an idea memorable & shareable

@hannah_bo_banna

by deconstructing the success of othersyou can improve your own chances

@hannah_bo_banna

http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

@hannah_bo_banna

authors Chip & Dan Heath identified 6 factors make an idea ‘stick’:

simpleunexpectedconcretecredibleemotionalstory

@hannah_bo_banna

& we’ve added one of our own:

simpleunexpectedconcretecredibleemotionalstoryshareable

@hannah_bo_banna

we evaluate our ideas based on these criteria

@hannah_bo_banna

you don’t need to hit all 7, but it helps you evaluate multiple ideas & see

which looks to be the strongest

it’s also a great set of criteria to refer back to as you’re developing a piece

@hannah_bo_banna

simple

@hannah_bo_banna

this is much harder than it sounds

@hannah_bo_banna

if you can’t explain it to a 6 year old, you don’t understand it yourself

~ Albert Einstein

@hannah_bo_banna

our idea sounds simple enough,but we had to accept that we were talking about

a concept which is difficult for some people to grasp

@hannah_bo_banna

http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

@hannah_bo_banna

we acknowledged that it wouldn’t be as simple as axis of awesome’s 4 chords

however

we felt that enough people would understand the concept & we’d made it as simple as we could to understand

@hannah_bo_banna

unexpected

@hannah_bo_banna

we struck gold

@hannah_bo_banna

wait, what?

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

if mariah carey came out on top, the piece wouldn’t have been so successful

@hannah_bo_banna

concrete

@hannah_bo_banna

we’re going to

win the space race

~ not said by JFK

@hannah_bo_banna

‘win the space race’is an abstraction

it’s intangible, no one knows what you mean

@hannah_bo_banna

we’re going to put

a man on the moon

~ JFK

@hannah_bo_banna

you can help make ideas concrete with the language you use to describe them

@hannah_bo_banna

what exactly were we trying to say here?

@hannah_bo_banna

who is the best singer?

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

vocal range ≠ quality

@hannah_bo_banna

axl has the biggest vocal range,we’re not saying he’s the best singer

@hannah_bo_banna

the visuals you use are important too

good data visualisation helps make abstract concepts more concrete

@hannah_bo_banna

abstract concept

made more concrete with the visual

@hannah_bo_banna

credible

@hannah_bo_banna

comes in two flavours:

@hannah_bo_banna

is the data credible?

@hannah_bo_banna

credible enough for our purposes

@hannah_bo_banna

is this credible coming from concerthotels.com?

@hannah_bo_banna

only if we’re clear that we talking about thevocal ranges of the world’s greatest singers

@hannah_bo_banna

we can’t credibly claim to saywho the greatest singer is

@hannah_bo_banna

we’ll leave that to these guys...

@hannah_bo_banna

emotional

@hannah_bo_banna

this provokes an emotional reaction

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

would our piece?

@hannah_bo_banna

again here, we struck gold

@hannah_bo_banna

we knew this was something people were likely to get emotional about - but we didn’t realise

just how emotional they’d get

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

“this list is emblematic of the decline of western civilisation…” ~ commentor on the Daily Mail’s coverage

@hannah_bo_banna

“this ‘list’ seems very incomplete”

“I can’t believe they didn’t contact you to round the selections out.”~ conversation on HuffPo’s coverage

@hannah_bo_banna

“whoever made this list is mentally ill”~ commentor on Rolling Stone

@hannah_bo_banna

story

@hannah_bo_banna

have you uncovered a story?

@hannah_bo_banna

again here, we struck gold

@hannah_bo_banna

wait, what?

@hannah_bo_banna

plus we also had the Billboard Music Awards nominees in there

@hannah_bo_banna

that turned out to be less important

@hannah_bo_banna

this guy was the story

@hannah_bo_banna

shareable

@hannah_bo_banna

would someone look good sharing this?

@hannah_bo_banna

we felt that the unexpected result+

the emotion (both positive & negative) sparked by the piece

would cause people to share the piece

@hannah_bo_banna

again here, we struck gold

@hannah_bo_banna

& the piece went far further than we thought possible

@hannah_bo_banna

hindsight is 20/20

it’s different when you’re in the moment

@hannah_bo_banna

we *always* get nervous before launching a piece

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

you can never be 100% confident

@hannah_bo_banna

here are some of the things we debated pre-launch

@hannah_bo_banna

do we need more functionalityto help people understand the piece?

@hannah_bo_banna

http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

@hannah_bo_banna

should we include clips of the artists singingthose notes?

@hannah_bo_banna

a nice feature, but are we just adding complexity?

@hannah_bo_banna

can we even do that - what about music rights?

@hannah_bo_banna

should the keyboard work?

@hannah_bo_banna

http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

@hannah_bo_banna

we included the visual of the keyboard to help people ‘see’ the vocal range but would hearing it help?

@hannah_bo_banna

again, a nice feature, but would it actually aid understanding?

@hannah_bo_banna

what are the implications of doing that?

what will it cost?will we have to delay launch?

@hannah_bo_banna

we have a responsibility to our clientsto get the best results for the least investment

@hannah_bo_banna

our job isn’t to build the most excellent thinger on the internet

@hannah_bo_banna

our job is to get results for our clients

@hannah_bo_banna

we debated delaying the launch to increase functionality

@hannah_bo_banna

but if we did that we’d miss our window with the Billboard Music Awards

& we thought that was a great hook

@hannah_bo_banna

we decided that the added functionality wasn’t necessary to the success of the piece

@hannah_bo_banna

in this instance we were right

@hannah_bo_banna

however, less functionality

shouldn’t be your default position

@hannah_bo_banna

there will be instances where functionality is necessary

@hannah_bo_banna

152k ‘likes’; 12.6k tweets; 739 LRDs

http://www.thomson.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/infographic/interactive-music-map/index.html

@hannah_bo_banna

152k ‘likes’; 12.6k tweets; 739 LRDs

http://www.thomson.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/infographic/interactive-music-map/index.html

@hannah_bo_banna

152k ‘likes’; 12.6k tweets; 739 LRDs

http://www.thomson.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/infographic/interactive-music-map/index.html

@hannah_bo_banna

152k ‘likes’; 12.6k tweets; 739 LRDs

http://www.thomson.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/infographic/interactive-music-map/index.html

@hannah_bo_banna

if this piece had been static as opposed to animated, it wouldn’t have told the story

& we wouldn’t have got the results

@hannah_bo_banna

so what happened when we launched the vocal ranges piece?

@hannah_bo_banna

there were 4 waves of coverage

@hannah_bo_banna

wave 1: coverage focused on a claim that wasn’t made in the piece:

Axl Rose was being named as the greatest singer of all time

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

wave 2: journalists slate others for drawing

inaccurate conclusions from the piece

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

wave 3: counter-claim: Mike Patton (Faith No More) is found to have

the greatest vocal range

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

wave 4: Axl Rose comments

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

controversy attracts coveragebut not always in the way you might expect...

@hannah_bo_banna

it can be hard to get a brand mention for a piece of content - particularly when you’re not using proprietary data

@hannah_bo_banna

but when journalists are attempting to deflect the trollsthey’ll mention the brand early & prominently

@hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_banna

please note:

@hannah_bo_banna

1.8m page views; 100k+ ‘likes’; 4.5k+ tweets; 874 LRDs

http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

@hannah_bo_banna

results like this don’t just *happen*

@hannah_bo_banna

we spent over 60 hours promoting this piece

@hannah_bo_banna

& our efforts paid off

@hannah_bo_banna

the bigger picture

@hannah_bo_banna

getting good at this stuff is hard

@hannah_bo_banna

no, really hard

@hannah_bo_banna

there’s a few things we do which we think have helped us get better

@hannah_bo_banna

focus on ideas, not formats

@hannah_bo_banna

an idea is a novel combination of

previously unconnected elements in a way that adds value

@hannah_bo_banna

a music infographic is not an idea;it’s a format

@hannah_bo_banna

know your sh*t

@hannah_bo_banna

has this already been done?is it possible to do this?

will our audience share it?will our target publishers cover it?

have we got proof something like this as worked before?

@hannah_bo_banna

know you’re sh*t

@hannah_bo_banna

or more accurately,when your ideas are sh*t

@hannah_bo_banna

http://www.concerthotels.com/worlds-greatest-vocal-ranges

@hannah_bo_banna

evaluate all your ideas

simple / unexpected / concrete / credible /emotional / story / shareable

to give yourself the best chance of success

@hannah_bo_banna

good luck out there x

@hannah_bo_banna

thank you ☺

@hannah_bo_banna

Hannah SmithContent Strategist, Distilled caffeine addict; book worm; would really like a unicorn...

send cat pictures or questions to:

hannah.smith@distilled.net

credits

Images:axl - http://www.nolandalla.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/axl-rose.jpghappy ever after - http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/c8972ec570efebca114372a3895032aeb98e5858_m.jpgstrike: http://www.twobluecommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/bowling.jpgunexpected - http://thabto.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/shocked-face.jpgemotional - http://adland.tv/ooh/feed-sa-trolley-ambient-south-africagold - http://www.4khdwallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/gold-texture-wallpaper-7.jpgno - http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9w1aqMfCG1qz6f9yo1_r2_500.jpgrolling stone cover - http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/d8/0c/41/d80c41d517f2fbe3bd86614d506832b3.jpgaudience - http://theculturevulture.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/audience.jpgswing - https://www.flickr.com/photos/21745851@N00/4805435840danbo - https://www.flickr.com/photos/nomadic_lass/6889892777/in/set-72157629144987013unicorn - http://queenofheartsonthesleeve.tumblr.com/post/58736423727/ok-not-much-but-here-it-is-3

Big love to to the wonderful Distilled folks who helped me put this together:Adria Saracino, Mark Johnstone, Paddy Moogan, Phil Nottingham, Tim Allen, & Will Critchlow