Every 60 seconds, another 48 hours of video is posted on YouTube. People tripping. Babies laughing. Cats farting. Any given day sees another 250 million tweets. And in any given month, the average Facebook user—there are about 901 million in total—creates 90 pieces of content. And did we mention the estimated 164 million blogs in existence?
Only a small percentage of this content ever reaches more than a million hits—a coveted benchmark and a sign the content has “gone viral” to become part of the pop culture lexicon. Should that content be attached to your brand, congrats! Such recognition could translate into exponential growth in brand awareness.
Olive Garden executives discovered that in early 2012 when a small town newspaper’s review of a North Dakota location of the chain restaurant went viral. But why the heck was this seemingly unassuming article viewed millions of times?
Breadsticks and Bloggers
In order to become an Internet sensation, content needs to be found by tastemakers—influential bloggers, reporters, pundits or celebrities who share content with the masses.
For 85-year-old journalist Marilyn Hagerty’s piece, that meant The Denver Omelette. The North Dakotan food blog was the first to pick up
her Grand Forks Herald piece touting the Olive Garden’s appealing atmosphere and generous food portions. Blogs Guyism and City Pages followed, and soon the much larger Gawker covered the story.
Thanks largely to the Gawker post, in just hours Hagerty’s review was shared 21,000 times on Facebook and tweeted 14,000 times. In days the Web page displaying Hagerty’s story surpassed the million mark and became the Grand Forks Herald’s most read story ever.
This community participation fuels all viral content. People aren’t just sharing their opinions on Hagerty’s article around the water cooler. They are a global part of her story.
In Hagerty’s case, a wave of criticism flooded her inbox from people fussing over the unexpectedness of the article. The day after Hagerty’s report was published online, she received an email titled: “Your column is pathetic.” She thanked the sender for his interest and then headed off to play bridge with friends.
Foodies mistook the octogenarian’s profile as an earnest review of the Olive Garden, and they were surprised—and angry—that someone might find the good in a chain. “People criticized me because I didn’t analyze each bite of food, each grain of meat,” Hagerty says. “But I’m just a news reporter in North Dakota. It is a description of the place.”
The Olive Garden subtly capitalized on the attention. When The Huffington Post, for example, asked for a quote from the general manager of the Grand Forks location, company representatives denied the request and informed the online news outlet that the manager was in Italy at the brand’s culinary institute.
For Hagerty, the fame translated into appearances on national news shows and a book deal with celebrity foodie Anthony Bourdain. “To me,” she says, “it’s a little bit ridiculous—and amusing.”