1. Viral By Design:
A Framework For Creating Viral Messages Behind the Firewall
A White Paper by Linda Dulye, President/Founder, Dulye & Co.
As communicators chase elusive notions of employee engagement in the
About the Author:
Linda Dulye is the
new social media landscape, we happen upon this even more elusive
president and founder of notion of viral communication and wonder how we might inoculate our
Dulye & Co., a leading communication programs to drive attention and conversation among our
change management communities and business organizations.
consultancy based in
Warwick, NY.
Do you know how to create viral communication? Have you wondered
A team of 18 experienced how to instill your communications with that certain infectious quality that
professionals located moves them to pass it on to friends and colleagues? “Check this out; they
throughout the country,
Dulye & Co. specializes
finally got it right,” or “You have to watch this,” they may declare, as the
in Spectator-Free latest viral message makes its rounds.
Workplace ™ Solutions
for some of the world’s This paper's objective is to guide you in the process of developing
most admired companies,
including Lockheed
effective viral communications for the corporate communication
Martin, Cardinal Health, environment.
Tyco, DRS Technologies,
Progress Energy and What is a Viral Communication?
Novo Nordisk. The firm
has received two Gold
Quills and a Silver Quill The term viral is usually associated with visual media, particularly video
award, including work for and pictures. The barrier to creating and sharing affordable digital HD-
Thermo Fisher Scientific quality video was lowered with the introduction of the Flip Mino video
and Rolls-Royce.
recorder. The Flip has been a tremendous tool for creative
communicators, and there are many great examples of using viral video to
drive employee engagement. The Deloitte Film Festival
(http://bit.ly/CoNgT), an employee contest that showcased employee
accomplishments in the workplace, comes to mind, as does Zappos’ 10
Core Values (http://bit.ly/1aN01K) video, which featured entertaining
employee stories about why they love to work for the company, and
comments about corporate culture from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.
How do I create viral
communications inside Viral videos run the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous—to the
the walls of my company? disgusting. When did you first see Susan Boyle (http://bit.ly/TnRKo)? How
about the Comcast Cable Technician (http://bit.ly/gO6kT) caught napping
on a customer’s couch for an hour? When did you first see the Domino’s
crew (http://bit.ly/N36ml) doing disgusting things with food—before or after
you heard it on the news? Many videos receive their

2. 15 minutes of fame by accident. These powerful segments beg the
question put by communication professionals:
How do I position my communications to encourage their viral spread?
You Tube is nice, but how do I create viral communications here—behind
the firewall—inside the walls of my company (or with your external
audience if you’re in a public relations role)? What makes this buzz
happen? This leads to a discussion about the definition and common
elements of viral communication, and then incorporating these practices
into corporate communication strategy.
What Makes a Communication Viral?
Viral communication By definition, a viral communication is information that gets passed around
always involves authentic, informally—the message could originate with mass distribution, but its
compelling content— defining quality is the way it is then forwarded from friend to friend or
something easily digestible colleague to colleague as an item of interest.
and then passed around.
Viral communication always involves authentic, compelling content of some
sort. The term viral is usually associated with video, or a series of
pictures—something easily digestible and then passed around, featuring
content that is remarkably interesting or topical, raw—or even
shocking—and that grabs the reader’s attention immediately.
What Are The Elements (Checklist) of a Viral Communication?
The following elements may function as a kind of helpful checklist for
creating communications positioned to achieve viral dissemination:
 Easily Digestible Content. A common quality of viral
communication is easily-digestible content that can be quickly
consumed, including a catchy or quirky headline—teaser text—that
describes the video content, and what you what you may get out of
watching it.
 Short-Form Content. Viral communications normally use short-
form content. They should be designed to run about the length of
television commercial. This is good guidance in terms of attention
span. The communication could be shorter, or as long as it takes to
get your point across.
 Break Up Long Clips. Anything other than short-form content
should be broken up into smaller clips. You can view entire
episodes of South Park here (http://bit.ly/bXBvtG), or view the
Viral communications normally
episode guide and watch smaller clips of the show. Notice the ability
use short-form content. to blog is built right in—we’ll come back to this. Breaking up longer
clips works particularly well with executive speeches, human
resources benefits communication, and change communication,
where employees may want to drill down to certain excerpt or
topical area that pertains to them.
Copyright © 2010 Dulye & Co. Viral By Design
www.dulye.com, 845-987-7744 Page 2

3.  Leave Selling or Branding Message To The End. The message
must engage effortlessly and stand on its own. Trying to “sell” too
early generally has an adverse effect on viral quality. The content
must have intrinsic value and be entertaining or vitally interesting
without any manipulation —your call to action/branding should be
reserved until the end.
 Thought You Might Enjoy. Pre-populating the subject and content
of a viral message you want forwarded with “thought you might
enjoy;” “mail to: fill in friend’s name,” is another practical tip you may
wish to incorporate.
Trying to “sell” too early
has an adverse effect  Use Two-Way Dialoguing/Comment Capability That Caters to
on viral quality. Corporate Culture: As mentioned earlier with the South Park video,
viral communications must have easy access to other social media
platforms that enable conversation and two-way engagement. Is
instant messaging the communication tool of choice at your
company? Does video communication on the company portal or
intranet hold sway, or how about wikis or blogs? Furnish quick and
easy access to these channels to seed viral engagement.
 Message Forwarding: As opposed to mass messages, viral
messages are usually forwarded on from friend to friend or
colleague to colleague. Know your audience and try to find the
“what’s in it for me” content value proposition. Use your own
judgment: Would you want to forward this message on? Why would
your audience care to forward this message on?
 HTML E-mail Delivery/Distribution with Embedded Video Link.
The html e-mail provides required formatting capabilities needed
and not normally available through text, such as the ability to embed
video links.
 Video Still Frame. Visually, the html e-mail must feature an
interesting video still frame picture with an embedded “play” arrow.
The video is not to play inside the e-mail, but should link seamlessly
Viral communications must to a web-landing page, where the video may be viewed.
have easy access to other
social media platforms that
 Stimulate Two-Way Dialogue Through Strategic Call to Action:
enable conversation and
two-way engagement. Although calls to action are normally left to the end of the viral
message, a request to reply back to the sender—a call to action to
vote or provide an opinion— tends to make the message more
personal and tends to build rapport. This must be fine tuned and
calibrated to your organizational culture, using the two-way social
media tools at your disposal, such as blogs, micro-blogs
(Twitter/Yammer), IM, or the intranet.
 Seeding Comments to Start the Buzz: Message or line of
business champions may sometimes influence the viral quality of
message by weighing in themselves on a posted video or set of
pictures. If it would be inappropriate for you to weigh-in, then don’t.
But it’s something to consider. Your honest enthusiasm and
vibrancy about the message could be contagious and help get the
ball rolling.
Copyright © 2010 Dulye & Co. Viral By Design
www.dulye.com, 845-987-7744 Page 3

4. A Word About Metrics and Viral Communication
Metrics: Establish a single location web landing page to post viral content.
Concentrate as much if not all of the traffic to a single web landing page to
pull down analytics. Similar to the way URL shorteners such as bit.ly work, you
should ensure that all traffic goes to the same measurement place. Concentrate
all viral attention on a single web page.
Viral
Communication Metrics: Use html e-mail marketing metrics to track click-throughs. You
Measurement original e-mail list may have only 206 recipients. By using e-mail marketing
contact management systems like iContact you can view click-throughs
(tracking the recipient’s e-mail id) to know who passed the message on.
Identifying who passed it on provides a view to who is engaged—and more
important, helps identify the influencers in your organization.
Metrics: Create unique URL crafted for each internal communication
channel to track effectiveness of distribution. When using various
Gauge the effectiveness communication channels like IM, micro-blogs (Twitter/Yammer), and intranet
of your viral campaign by portals, you can gauge the effectiveness of your viral campaign by customizing
customizing the links used for the links used for every communication channel. It may be the same message,
every communication channel. but did they access it via e-mail, through an embedded IM or through a Twitter
link? You’ll know how many people viewed the message and by which channel,
so you’ll know which ones work best.
Metrics: Facilitate forwarding in a subtle way that enhances measurement
and metrics. This concept is embodied by the Share on Facebook button/link
at the end of most blogs. Again, this action will vary by corporate culture—it
may be Share on IM (embed link inside IM post), or Share on Yammer (embed
the link inside the micro-blog post). Optimize e-mail and web landing pages for
easy sharing. Build buttons that makes it easy to share via email and IM. You
Tube, for example, makes this easy and they capture the additional metric of
how many people shared the viral communication on Facebook. You can do the
same.
Where Can I Get More Help Creating a Viral Communication?
Founded in 1998, Dulye & Co. is a change management consultancy
specializing in high-impact workplace communications, including social
media and intranet communication solutions that drive engagement and
bottom-line results. Our experienced professional can guide you through the
viral communication process to deliver a customized solution that works
best for your organization.
Research and experience tell us that most corporate organizations are filled
with untapped potential and misdirected energies due to inconsistent,
infrequent and unclear communications within and between layers, locations
For more information you and departments.
may contact us via chat from
our website at www.dulye.com Our Spectator-Free Workplace™ solutions and tools have dramatically
or through e-mail at improved workforce performance by increasing knowledge, trust and
contact@dulye.com, or employee engagement—in turn, helping our clients achieve measured
phone at 845-987-7744. results in service delivery, quality, retention and productivity.
Please consider sending a
note about how this paper has
helped you.
Please contact us for a cost-free consultation concerning your
communication needs.
Copyright © 2010 Dulye & Co. Viral By Design
www.dulye.com, 845-987-7744 Page 4