Picture: THINKSTOCK
Picture: THINKSTOCK

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WE WANT it to go viral." Cringe-worthy words. Whether uttered by marketers or creatives, requesting that a piece of content go viral is tantamount to standing naked in front of a stranger and expecting them to fall madly in love with you.

Recently I learnt something about content creation from a young creative team. This team turned a clip that was posted by DJ Fresh into a Twitter challenge that resulted in them trending for three days.

The clip, from the soapie Generations, features Connie Ferguson as Karabo Moroka and Rapulana Seiphemo as Tau Mogale. In the scene, Tau confronts Karabo about an affair. He asks her how many times she has slept with the man, to which she replies, "Three times, dammit. Does it matter?" This enrages Tau, who goes crazy and sends stuff flying off his desk. The team edited the clip, replaced Tau’s performance with their dramatised version of outrage, and put the challenge out on Twitter.

@TipiDang and @MrMosoeu, the young men who created the challenge, outline a few reasons why they believe it went viral:

• Timing. The video was retweeted by DJ Fresh on November 2 and the team responded on the same day, without much planning or deliberation.

• Humour. The video was already hilarious and #TauMogaleChallenge sent it into overdrive.

• Serendipity. No amount of time spent conceptualising ideas could have resulted in that content. It relied on finding something already worth sharing and making it a phenomenon.

• The right influence. The team invited @KhayaDlanga to participate in the challenge. He has 258,000 followers.

The interesting thing is that #TauMogaleChallenge broke a misconception about South Africans and user-generated content. It showed that we can actually produce content.

This challenge was not without effort — it required people to edit video clips together.

I also believe the success lies in its unique tonality. This could not have come from anywhere else other than SA. The brand of humour is undoubtedly local; it employs a degree of slapstick, but is layered nonetheless. We’re not necessarily laughing at infidelity, but laughing at a brand of local soapie drama and performance.

Jonah Berger, who wrote Contagious: Why Things Catch On, reveals what assists content "virality". He speaks about "being upbeat and being involved". I’d add the quality of unexpectedness, and producing a good idea with agility.

Berger states that the most shareable content evokes strong emotions. SA is rich with content waiting to happen. We have a president who sets himself up for ridicule, we have players in celebrity land and in Parliament who are as entertaining as Tau. We also have deep-seated issues that are huge emotional triggers. So it makes sense that comic relief is a big part of our culture. Our ability to laugh at ourselves increases our potential for creating and sharing great content. #TauMogaleChallenge came to us shortly after the student uprisings under the banner of #FeesMustFall. We were ready for a laugh.

While we are able to understand what makes for great viral material, it doesn’t mean all brands can achieve viral stardom. You cannot will something to go viral. You can head in that direction with a great idea, but there is an element of Velcro needed — an unidentifiable sticky factor — that no amount of strategising or creative brain-bursting can guarantee.

In this viral game, there are no real rules. SA has 6.6-million active users on Twitter and about 7.2-million users on YouTube. Globally, over 300 videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute. So, if you have something to say, it had better make a dent in this social-verse, otherwise it may end up like flatulence in gale-force winds.

• Gordhan is a creative director in advertising