How nonprofits can go viral in one easy lesson

Here's how not to "go viral": Try to go viral.

That's pretty much what contrarian ad-guy Joseph Jaffe says in his Adweek column, Conversation Killers: Why most viral marketing amounts to lazy, clueless chatter.

Don't try to go viral; do something that's worth spreading. (Then make it easy to spread.) As Jaffe says:

... all content has the ability to be wildly viral, that is, embraced, internalized, evangelized and disseminated. Rather than plan with the end in mind, might I suggest instead that we focus on the idea itself and the means to achieve that end. In other words, getting back to basics to generate compelling, relevant and engaging content and then liberating it to be embedded, hacked, mashed and showcased accordingly.

People love to share cool stuff. It's that simple. Don't set out to create something "viral." Just do something cool. It's that easy. And that difficult.

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