Weird, wonderful and WTF

Editor Adam Reed delves into the light-hearted side of London Social Media Week...

As one might expect, events at London Social Media Week cover a wide array of topics relating to social media: from sociology and psychology to sales and customer service, politics to fashion and entertainment.

On Thursday evening advertising agency Inferno opened its doors for a light-hearted soiree that focused firmly on the latter category.

Aptly billed as Weird, Wonderful and WTF, Inferno’s digital strategy director, Luis Carranza, took the audience through a selection of his favourite online content, all of which fitted neatly into one of the adjectives suggested by the title – or straddled all three.

From memes to wacky website concepts and 'fail' videos, the spotlight was on content that entertained, generated laughs and sometimes shocked. All of which served to illustrate that while what makes ‘good’ content is subjective, ‘effective’ content will always generate a reaction – and stick in the consumer’s mind as a result.

As humans, Carranza reasoned, we are inherently predisposed to share things that have grabbed our attention, and weird, wonderful and WTF are just a few ways to achieve that distraction.

Cut-through can also be gained by being timely, quirky, funny, unexpected, spectacular, emotional, unique, illuminating, useful, shocking or any combination of the above. But if you’re a content creator and you’re not ticking at least some of those boxes, you’re highly unlikely to achieve the holy grail of a viral phenomenon.

As we know here at Zone, virality isn’t something that can just be created – but good content certainly is. Whether you are a part-time blogger, a start-up car rental business or a globally recognised brand, just because you create content with all of the above in mind, there’s no guarantee it will become the next online sensation, because that is only part of the equation.

Widescale organic success is also reliant on matching exceptional content to the interests of the intended audience, and ensuring that the methods of distribution and propagation get the content to them in the first place. Plus, a little luck never goes amiss.

You can view the Inferno presentation here.