About 6 months ago I had the pleasure of attending a summit for work in LA. Part of the summit brought us a guest speaker. His name was Ricky Van Veen, and for those of you who don’t know him, he started College Humor.

As you can imagine, he was quite intelligent. He commanded the room not with his charm or charisma – not with an iron fist of entitlement, but with what I can only describe as confident passion. He was, and can only imagine still is incredibly passionate about what he does – creating funny content.

He took us through some thoughts of his on content creation and what it takes to create good content. Throughout his many years doing so for college humor, he created an equation which he termed “The mechanics of virality.” Before he got into that, he asked the burning question “Why do we share?”

Identity Creation – simply put, what you share is who you are. When you decide to post new content on your page, you’re saying you either approve of it or you don’t approve of it. Either way, it gives someone a glimpse of your online identity.

Documenting something – Another phenomenon he talked about is the developing trend to focus more emphasis on documenting an event as opposed to actually experiencing it. As we become increasingly connected and as we continue to use sharing as a means to shaping our identity, we’ll continue to document events that speak to our identity in positive ways (bragging.)

He said some other stuff, but I took bad notes. I was banged up. SO MOVING ON. He then proceeded to give us his 6 content Maxims. The guidelines that any content creator should follow in pursuit of virality:

Packaging is the new publishing

Your ability to surround your content in a visually appealing manner is paramount to the success of your content. Whether it’s a headline, a thumbnail, or an image, your contents packaging is your elevator pitch to your consumer. More importantly, consumers do NOT want to have to think about how to share your content. It should be as clear as day. If your YouTube link preview doesn’t load in Facebook, don’t post it. Make the process as easy as possible for people to engage and share your content.

Technology is the Wingman

As content creation becomes easier, the market becomes saturated. The result? People feel entitled to free content now. We’ve spoiled ourselves. Rest assured that the easier you make it to access your content, the more often people will return to it and spread it to others. Use technology to make the experience simpler and easier for your consumers. And remember, your consumers are lazy as fuck.

Think singles instead of albums

As a bad rapper, I’ve often struggled with this notion of releasing a mixtape. Why release 20 songs at once, when I can release 1 song every week for 20 weeks? The bottom line is that it’s much easier for people to digest and pass along one piece of content verses “Hey guys, track 5 on this 15 track album is fantastic!” Focus your efforts on making your individual pieces of content as successful as possible. When you’ve got some buzz, then unleash your project as a whole.

Create Content for each platform

Every platform has its nuances, and every audience requires different messaging. I wouldn’t write the same post for Reddit that I would Facebook, because people on Reddit have a much different tone. The principle here is that, albeit more difficult, catering to your audience will increase your chances of success.

Social First, Mobile First and a half

It goes without saying that you should build your content with social platforms in mind, but often enough people forget the fact that users are increasingly turning away from laptop/desktops. Is your content mobile friendly? That’s the question that you need to be asking yourself. Picture your content living on a phone first.

Facebook IS the social venue

Facebook is the big venue for social sharing. It is the Barclays Center, the Madison Square Garden. Your content might live somewhere else, but if it’s going to get shared, it’s going to get shared on Facebook. Sometimes you have to increase your reach by shelling out some $$. The big brands do it and you should do. Basically, blame that guy up there.

IN CONCLUSION

This game is characterized by people who forget one irrevocable truth; If your stuff is not good, people will not want to engage it. Yes, you can make great content that gets tossed aside, and that’s where Ricky’s list can help you, but if you think for one second that you can skate by with irrelevant content, you can’t. If the people do not relate to your stuff, they will not share it.

After his speech, Ricky told me that the first time he ever saw success was when he was in college. He would use AIM to spread links via his away messages. After posting enough content, he built a following. So then, he built a website. Then he started posting there. While after many years he had developed a set of tools, they all assisted in the same basic task, finding / making things that other people would want to see. The only smart thing he did was to make it easier for them to do that.

I tried talking to him afterwards, but I was admittedly nervous. There’s just something about the dude that’s intimidating — maybe it’s because he’s just not intimidated by much himself. We did have a nice little chat, but I chickened out of asking him for his email and whether or not we could stay in touch. I regret that very much.

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT #FRECONFRIDAY WHERE I SHARE THE FAMED “MECHANICS FOR VIRALITY” EQUATION!