It’s all about “going viral” today, getting everyone talking about your video or online posting that will bring people to your app, or product. As I’ve found out, trying to spread the word yourself just ends in suspended twitter accounts and getting banned from posting on Facebook, and emailing entire continents.
I have two experiences with attempting this….both of which I would suggest were failures. I think I’d have better luck catching the ebola virus.
HEY, ADOBE IS GIVING AWAY THE WHOLE CS2 SUITE FOR FREE
So one day in January, around about 1pm i came across some sites posting that Adobe was offering the CS2 suite completely free.
Intrigued, I checked out the links, and there was all the files and serial numbers. Now, the CS2 is old, but there were still some useful programs in their (Acrobat Pro, GoLive, etc) and figured people would like to know about it.
So I started sharing the great news. Then the download site became temporarily available…which i assumed was because it was so busy…
Since I had the page up with all the direct download links, I posted the info on my blog. Which of course has a nice mention of the apps on the right sidebar.
I then started posting and tweeting the link to the blogpost.
Guess how many hits i had on the blogpost at 5pm? 20,000.That’s more than 1/3 of the total views my blog has had since I started it back in 2006.
5pm was also when I found out that Adobe wasn’t giving it away for free, and that it was actually only for people who had previously purchased the suite and might to re-install it.
OOPS.
I deleted the info and replaced it with a sort of sorry, it’s not actually legally free post…then did my best to deleted my tweets, facebook posts, as much as I could. (I had visions of Adobe coming after me for spreading the wrong information.)
And the end of the day it was 25,000…and just kept going.
So I must of had a huge amount of downloads, right?
Nope.
Day Before-17 Downloads
Day Off-42 Downloads
Day After-27 Downloads
D’oh!
But as a colleague pointed out, my market isn’t people trying to get software for free!
I’m still getting hits on the post, currently up to 38,000+
HOW ABOUT ANOTHER “HARLEM SHAKE” VIDEO?
So I came up with and idea to do a video of my photo assignment apps leading all the photo apps on my iPod doing the “Harlem Shake”.
(If you aren’t aware of the Harlem Shake, here’s what you need to know.)
I put quite a bit of effort into it, and came up with something pretty cool.
The idea for the video was to have the various photo apps doing things related to what they do.
So I ran the Instagram app icon through the Instragram filters, had the Simply B&W icon turn to black and white and back to color, had the Photographers Rights app disappear (a commentary of the crackdown on photographers taking photos in public places in recent years), etc.
I also created a “behind the scenes” video showing how I made it (again, trying to be helpful, not just promoting everything!)
So of course I began sharing it. I’ve seen more than a few funny videos on the various Facebook groups that I’ve joined, so I started posting them there. And I ended up getting banned for posting for 15 days.
And I posted in on various groups on Google+ (all related to photography, apps, or funny videos)…and the post got marked as spam. I also got booted from a couple of groups.
So another instance where trying to promote something yourself doesn’t work…you need others to do it for you or risk getting the ban hammer! As I had mentioned previously, I have a group of supporters willing to help me out spreading the word, and I know they have sent it around to various places…but unfortunately Ellen Degeneres never called…
ONE YEAR LATER UPDATE:
So I came across the news that Kayne West and Kim Kadashian’s honeymoon was ruined after they had to spend four days photoshopping their wedding images, after they alleged that Annie Leibovitz pulled out of shooting their wedding. (Turns out they never actually booked her.)
So I took the photo they had posted on Instagram and used photoshop to strip them out of the photo, and just for fun put them on a photo of Machias Seal Island.
Just for fun, I posted it on Facebook, and it started getting a ton of likes and comments. I got a message from a fellow photographer who told me I needed to post this on Reddit. That’s when I realized that I could have something that just might go viral…and could give my app a boost. The question was…how to make this happen? The goal would be to get eyeballs on my app…but again, try to do it in a subtle, not in your face way.
I created a layered PSD file with a plain background and “Kimye” on top that people could download and then edit themselves…but I had to figure out the best way to allow people to download the file.
I first put the PSD on my site which I could link…but then realized there would be no chance to show off the app that way. Plus, if it actually did go viral, it would shut down my site with the traffic from people downloading.
Most blog sites can’t host/handle a PSD however, so I decided to put it on Google Drive and made it shareable. (Want to get in on the fun? Download link here.)
Then, I created a blog post to explain the idea and post the photos I had done already, with the link to the PSD on Google Drive. This way, the blogpost is what is shared, and people will see the ad on the right for the app….hopefully.
So I began creating a variety of images, first using my own, but then I thought it would be even more fun to put them into famous and iconic photographs…I mean, they are the most important people in the world, right?
I started sharing them on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ with the blogpost link and an explanation of the idea. I also asked people to share their images they created with the #Kimyekiss hashtag. And posted it on Reddit.
A few of my Facebook friends posted some of their creations, and I started adding them to the blogpost. The images were getting a lot of likes and comments, so I kept creating more and sharing more. According to Google Analytics, the post were getting quite a few hits.
I tried posting the link on a variety of sites who were reported on the whole story…but most of them wouldn’t approve my comments. Again, because I’m the guy who made it. So I did ask anyone who was willing to help out to post and share the links. (As an aside, someone suggested they wouldn’t permit it because what I was doing was copyright infringement…but under Canadian Copyright Law, parody/satire is covered under Fair Dealing, so this is permissible.)
Tweeted it to Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmell, Rick Mercer, and others.
And I sat back to see what would happen.
Other than local sharing and some retweeting, didn’t see much traffic on the overall web…
But the next day it got featured on the Daily Dot Tumblr!
Holy shit! It was actually picked up by a viral site!!!! I started to get excited! People were reblogging the post, and it looked like I might have finally succeeded.
But it didn’t last. No one else picked it up. It unfortunately didn’t catch fire on Reddit, even though a few people upvoted it. The post didn’t get as many views as I thought it would either.
End result? A minor bump in downloads. But I had some fun getting creative at least…
So again, another failed attempt to go viral!
These examples just prove, there is no magic formula to it…it just happens, or it doesn’t.
No harm in trying however!
Noel
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