Communication has evolved throughout history and the deployment of a persuasive message has been a key “soft” aim of many individuals and organisations. Technology has evolved to facilitate the effective dissemination of such messages and with the increasingly rapid development and ubiquitous availability of this communications technology, principally social media, the ability for individuals, groups and organisations to distribute their message has been greatly improved.
An important issue in this crowded information environment is how to ensure that any single message reaches its target audience. The volume of messages delivered through the likes of social media is vast and one effective strategy to becoming the ’loud’ voice in this crowd is for the message creator to rely on the participation of the audience in replicating the message and propagating it within their networks. This is the principle behind viral messaging, where messages exhibit significant self-replicating behaviour through their ability to encourage the target audience to facilitate their further dissemination.
K Sharp led the partnership with Lexegesys and Aston University to deliver this project, which completed in February 2015. The 6 month project was delivered in conjunction with BAE Systems as part of the Defence Human Capability Science and Technology Centre. The aim of this study was to develop an improved understanding of the factors which enable or inhibit successful viral messages. This was then used to provide guidance on creating viral messages, and on identifying and countering external viral messages.
