How did a Korean pop artist become THE most viewed video on YouTube, and become an instant sensation in a country that does not speak Korean?
The power of viral videos.
The propensity for people to see a video, post it on their Facebook, Tweet it, email it to friends, and show it to everyone that passes by their computer has given people like Rebecca Black, Justin Bieber and dancing babies the ability to be famous!
You can reach millions of people in days if you can harness the power of the viral video. So why not use it within your organization? Would it work to reach users about USB drives or is this just reserved for teen pop and dancing babies?
Our security behavior design team at MAD security decided to test this question. We took the concept of the ‘funny cat video’, applied it to USB drives, and voila the buddy video was born. Soon we were going onsite to talk to potential clients and they would ask “hey, can I see the cat video?” People that we had not even engaged yet had heard about our viral USB video.
Maybe it was a fluke? Does this only work for cats?
We tested again, but this time we made the HR Lady video. We showed it to a few people at RSA and suddenly our sales team was flooded with emails like “We have to have that video!”, “How do I get that sort of content for my organization?” and “Do you have more?”
So there you have it, viral videos are NOT just for teen pop, dancing babies, and some crazy Korean guy dancing on an imaginary horse.
So how do we use them in our security awareness architecture?
Appealing to Your Audience
A viral video is a very unique medium. It is something that is short and usually funny.
Come on, Justin Bieber videos are funny….the first few times
It also speaks to a topic that appeals to many. So how do we harness this in our security awareness content? Find out what your users find funny. Once you have figured out your hitch make sure you and the creator(s) are not the ONLY people that find it funny. Going off the humor of some esoteric show only seen on hulu – that development team happens to love- will not get you the impact you are looking for. These types of videos need the eyes and input of many to know if it’s going to work. Ideally, you should be able to send this to 100 of your closest friends and co-workers- inside and OUTSIDE of InfoSec- and get at least a chuckle from everyone.
Make a Lasting Message
One of the major things to consider when making a viral video is ‘what is the shelf life of this joke?’ If the topic of the video is extremely specific, you run the risk of basing your video on a 2 month fad…and for all that know how long it take to make a video- that joke will be dead before the video is released. A good viral video appeals to many, but isn’t sooooo specific that it only appeals to them for 30 days.
See Jessica Black- Friday. She went viral and then dropped off the face of the earth…thank goodness.
Picking topics that may change over time but still remain funny are good. Appeal to an intrinsic humor, not just the latest fad.
SUPPLEMENTAL Not Foundational
Knowing the effect of viral videos is not ground breaking, but being able to apply it properly is. To this note, viral videos canNOT be used as foundational training videos. Think about it, if you made every one of your 20 training video some slant on cat memes how quickly would it take for that to get old to the users? My bet is pretty quick. Your users will quickly become desensitized to that type of humor and your training has suddenly become ignored. Furthermore, you can’t use the viral video for what it’s best at, REMINDING! Viral videos aren’t for presenting large amounts of information; they are for getting a message stuck in the viewers head!
-How many of you have Gangnum style, that Friday song, Bieber, or that dancing baby stuck in your head? I’d guess at least a few.
Viral videos, and concepts, are a powerful tool. Not applying them to your security awareness content plan is just as short sided as not using email as a medium to communicate with users.
Also, they are pretty fun to make!
