Mastering Marketing Momentum: Lessons Learned From Five of the Internet's Most Sharable Slices

More than “likes” or even views, shares can benefit your business by extending the reach of your brand. In other words, shares are the key to exponentially increasing your exposure to new audiences – and ultimately garnering even more likes, views and shares. Here’s a quick look at five recent “sharability” success stories and the lesson you can apply to boost the effectiveness of your own marketing campaigns.

1. Samsung Galaxy S III phone bump bests Apple.

Rather than attempt to compete with the Apple "universe of cachet," Samsung wisely zeroed in on one simple, cool thing that the iPhone couldn't do – as shown in their "Next Big Thing Is Here" campaign. And they framed that moment with a context (a loooong line at your local Apple store) that poked fun at Apple's legion of superfans while emphasizing what they might be missing out on. The resulting viral phenomenon generated more views on YouTube (over 17 million in total) than than all of Apple's 2012 ads combined – and more importantly, pushed the Galaxy S III to overtake the iPhone in worldwide sales in the third quarter of 2012, shortly following the release of the commercial. As selling points go, the "phone bump" might not stand on its own for long. But a well-designed product with other strong features (such as leading 4g technology and a larger screen) allowed this clever presentation to capitalize on its momentum and translate buzz into sales. The clip hit home with a huge audience that was beginning to show some brand fatigue with Apple – and Apple’s well-known, easily-caricatured tribe of brand evangelists. The takeaway: In today’s fast-paced world of business, timing is everything. Always keep your radar up for opportunities – whether that’s exploiting cracks in the competitor’s armor or seizing upon the chance to bring something new to the marketplace – and strike quickly (and creatively).

2. "Man of Steel" trailers take flight.

The last Superman movie, 2006's super-sincere Superman Returns, while reasonably successful, didn't energize the comic-book pioneer's enormous fanbase. Instead, the collective reaction seemed to land somewhere between "not bad" and "not great." Which just didn't cut it. A sequel never materialized in large part because there wasn’t a rabid demand for it. The intervening years have been witness to the huge success of superhero franchises like Iron Man, The Avengers and of course Batman. Much of the flaky "comic-book-ness" of earlier films has given way in the new millennium to earnest, darker, more realistic-looking efforts that hit home with an audience that values cool over camp. This time around Superman, first and mightiest of all costumed crusaders, needed to lose the golly-gee and make with the internal conflict and superpowers. And this set of trailers comes through – in speeding bullet fashion.

The trailers carry an angsty theme, to be sure. But the money moment is when our hero puts his fists on the ground and rockets into the stratosphere. It's a fantastic-looking flight that promises a movie filled not only with its share of 21st-century motivations but special effects that are truly...super. The first trailer drew more than 3 million views – and now, as the movie’s release date nears, the third trailer (also containing the definitive flight sequence), driven by thousands of Facebook shares and retweets, has passed 21 million views. The takeaway: It’s critical to be in tune with your tribe. Motivating someone to choose to share your content over all of the other stuff that comes their way in any given day requires you to give them something that resonates deeply with them on an emotional level, whether that emotion is humor, empathy, excitement, anger or any other feeling in the pantheon of the human condition. You can’t strike that chord unless you are truly one with your audience.

3. Lowes’ #lowesfixinsix vine series helps in seconds.

Lowes’ smart, useful “Fix in Six” series, utilizing the six-second video sharing app Vine, is among the first – and best – marketing efforts on the new platform, which Twitter recently purchased and is rapidly integrating into its text-and links-based model. By its nature, Vine’s six-second time limit forces any application for marketing to be all hook and no sinker. Lowes wisely utilizes the app to serve up content that is every bit as helpful as it is brief. And the fact that it’s all happening on Twitter – the second largest social channel on the Internet after Facebook – means that the audience is potentially huge for marketers who get it right. The takeaway: In a new marketing world where trust – and by extension trustworthy content – is king, achieving the perfect marriage of message and medium is paramount. Whether Vine, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest is your weapon of choice, know it well and use it wisely.

4. Old Spice’s "I'm On A Horse" rides a viral wave.

Sure, the whole commercial is hilarious – from the shower scene to the handful of diamonds and all the accompanying dialog. In the rapid pace of online culture, it's already secured its place as an Internet classic. It's also a great example of traditional media creating synergy with online channels, as millions of people flocked from TV to the Web to watch this clip again and again. But it all comes back to the last bit – that second of time when the camera pulls back as the actor proclaims, "I'm on a horse." As a closing punchline, this moment had its work cut out for it. But the "best surprise yet" reveal managed to easily top everything that came before. And just like that the clip is over, motivating many to click the replay button. And the embed button, and the retweet button, and the share button, thereby spreading like wildfire among social networks and personal blogs and resulting in more than 45 million views. The takeaway: Granted, there’s no magic formula that guarantees that your next clip will go viral. However, what is guaranteed is that playing it safe is no way to achieve that “sharability” factor you seek. Go out on a creative limb. Sure, it’s scary out there, but if your grandpa’s aftershave brand can push the envelope with the “Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” you can, too.

5. The Oatmeal’s odd but awesome ode to Nikola Tesla.

The Oatmeal, created by Matthew Inman, is one of the most popular comics on the Internet, garnering more than 4 million unique visitors per month and generating more than half a million dollars in income annually. By turns acerbic and sentimental, the strip relies as much on Inman's writing as his simple illustration style. One of The Oatmeal's most-shared installments – and a defining moment that earned him coverage in media giants like Time magazine and Wired – is a rambling rumination on the genius of 19th-century inventor, Nikola Tesla. Almost entirely a written piece, this selection stands as an example of the mysterious, unquantifiable attributes of what sometimes constitutes "sharability." The subject is obscure to most of the population. The piece is almost entirely text and could simply be labeled a humorous essay were it not interspersed with illustrations like this: Yet because of Inman's built-in audience, his genuine passion for Tesla's lifetime of innovation and the media attention given to his subsequent Indiegogo campaign to purchase and renovate Tesla's old lab and turn it into a museum, this particular strip garnered more than 38,000 retweets and 18,000 Google+ recommendations. And the campaign raised $2.1 million in nine days. No doubt Tesla, an erratic genius who studied all aspects of electricity and invented radar and alternating current among other things, would have appreciated Inman's success at capturing Internet lightning in a bottle. The takeaway: Achieving a high “sharability” factor doesn’t require playing to the lowest common denominator. Sometimes going narrow and focusing on creating something that will catch fire within your specific niche can be a powerful strategy.

Now it’s your turn.

“Sharability” isn't necessarily about appealing to a wide audience, although several of the above pieces do that. It's about creating a deep impression with a passionate audience – and motivating that audience to spread the word. A flash of anticipation, a sense of urgency, a helpful tip or a genuine belly-laugh can all create that fundamental desire to let others in on the good stuff. So now it’s your turn. Go forth and create good stuff.

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Business Toolbox: How to Standardize Your E-mail Signature

E-mail is the workhorse of communication for your business. It’s likely to be your first point of personal contact with prospective customers as well as your go-to vehicle for conducting day-to-day conversations with existing clients. As a result, your e-mail signature is an important – but all too often overlooked – extension of your brand. Just as you wouldn’t mail a letter or a proposal printed on any old paper stock, you should give equal consideration to creating and implementing a standardized corporate e-mail signature. However, this is where things get a little tricky. While your e-mail signature serves as your electronic business card, it doesn’t play by the same rules of branding that govern your stationery, website design or even participation in social media networks. Here are five common misconceptions that can lead you astray when crafting your signature:

1. If I’m going to represent my brand, I must include my logo.

According to conventional thinking, your company’s brand and logo are one and the same. However, as counterintuitive as it might seem, it is best not to include your logo in your e-mail signature. Why? Because it is difficult to control how images are interpreted and displayed by different e-mail clients. Most e-mail applications either store images as attachments or block them, resulting in a broken image. Therefore, if you construct your signature around a logo, and that image frequently is not displayed, it compromises the consistency and professionalism that you are trying to achieve. The best, most universally replicable alternative is to integrate your corporate colors in your signature, albeit with restraint. For example, you might choose to display your company name in one of your corporate colors, which will make it the most prominent element while also employing one of the primary elements of your visual brand.

2. Personality, personality, personality...it’s all about personality, right?

In marketing, yes. On Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you’ll never get anywhere without personality. However, when it comes to e-mail, make sure your messages are friendly and personable, but keep your signature strictly professional. The one and only purpose of an e-mail signature is to let the recipient know who sent the message and provide a way for them to get in touch with you. You might think it’s fun to include your favorite quotation in every e-mail, but in doing so, you run the risk of unknowingly offending a client or prospect. And never include any non-company-related information in your corporate e-mail signature. Not a link to your personal blog, not the URL of your side-project website, not your Facebook, Twitter or Skype details. That’s only asking for trouble.

3. It’s important to make a lasting impression.

The only impression you want your e-mail signature to make is professionalism. If your clients remember your signature and not the point of your message, there’s a problem. Don’t give into the temptation to experiment with large, bold or multi-colored text. Don’t try to use the typeface from your logo; more often than not, it won’t be displayed properly by the recipient’s e-mail client. Stick with simple, plain, web-safe fonts in the same size as the body of your message, and you can’t go wrong. Returning to the example of mailing a letter or a proposal, there’s a reason you would never print your correspondence on multi-colored florescent paper. Like your letterhead, your signature should reflect the legitimacy and gravity of your business-related communication. It should never compete with your message or in any way distract from the information you need to convey.

4. I need to make sure that my clients can reach me by any and every means necessary.

There’s no question that great customer service is a key competitive edge in today’s marketplace. And it’s understandable why giving your clients your direct office line, 800 number, cell phone, fax number, IM handle, mailing address and LinkedIn profile would seem to convey that you are accessible at their convenience through any number of channels. However, a much better way to serve your clients is to provide the one method of contact through which they can almost always reach you. Most of the time, this will be a phone number (pick one: work or mobile). Then, rather than having to sift through a dozen different means of communication to identify the one they need or play guessing games about which one will connect them to you in the most expedient manner, it will be right there for them to find at a glance. As a rule, there’s no need to include your fax number or your mailing address in your e-mail signature. In the unlikely event that your client needs to send you something by fax or mail, you can either include this information in the body of your message, or they can jump over to your website, where these details should always be readily available.

5. I want to drive traffic to my blog / encourage people to follow me on Twitter / promote a limited-time offer.

These are all great marketing objectives. However, you must always keep in mind that e-mail is, first and foremost, a platform for communication between one human being and another. You wouldn’t wrap up a phone conversation with your client by asking them to be your friend on Facebook, and you wouldn’t conclude a sales meeting by making a blatant plug for your blog. Your e-mails aren’t billboards for your marketing message du jour; always keep it personal and professional. Including your website URL in your signature is a good way to indirectly promote your business, its presence on various social media networks and targeted marketing efforts without cluttering up your e-mail messages. If your customer or prospect clicks through to your site, they should be presented with all of these options – most likely before they ever leave the cover page.

Best practices for a professional e-mail signature

Follow these tried-and-true guidelines to ensure your e-mail signature is polished, professional and customer-friendly:

• Focus on providing only the most essential information about who you are and how you can be reached in an effective and unobtrusive way.
• Limit your signature to four lines (the accepted standard), with a maximum of 72 characters per line to optimize how it is displayed in different e-mail applications. Combine different types of information on one line by using pipes (|) to separate the text.
• Typically, you should include only your name, job title, company, primary method of contact and corporate web address. Don't repeat your e-mail address in your signature.
• Write out the URL for your company website rather than using hyperlinked text.
• Create different signatures for different purposes. For example, you might have one version for e-mails you send to vendors that includes your office line and another for client correspondence that provides your cell number.
• Always add a signature to replies, but include fewer details. For example, whereas your primary e-mail signature would most likely include your name, position, company name, contact information and web address, your reply signature might provide only your name, primary form of contact and web URL.
• Don’t include a legal disclaimer unless required to do so. The best practice is not to transmit confidential information in plain text in e-mails because that information could easily be extracted or forwarded.
• Use a signature delimiter to create visual separation between your signature and the body of your e-mail. The standard protocol recognized by most e-mail clients is two hyphens followed by a space and a line break (-- ).
• Don't use HTML formatting, as it can interfere with how your signature is displayed in some e-mail clients.
• Simple, plain text in the same size as the body of your e-mail is best. Employ bold or colored text very sparingly for emphasis, and use only your corporate colors.
• Don't use an image as your signature, and avoid including images in your signature.
• Be sure to test your signature in as many different e-mail clients as you can (including web-based applications like Gmail). Don't forget to also check how your signature looks when forwarded to ensure that all lines wrap correctly.

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