K atie c ouric

Be Authentic
When developing content, stay authentic to your brand and message. Actor
and producer Rob Moran—known for acting in 
There’s
Something About
Mary
; 
Dumb and Dumber
; and 
Me, Myself, and Irene
—explains that those
movies resonate because their creators didn’t grow up in Hollywood, which
can often create a barrier to the discovery process. Sometimes when you
know too much you become jaded and influenced by what you’ve seen
work or not work. The Farrelly brothers, the creators behind 
There’s

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Something About Mary
and 
Dumb and Dumber
, were just being themselves
and generated content that they thought was funny. They weren’t concerned
with reaching everyone because they knew their content wouldn’t make
everyone laugh, but they would make the right people laugh. They didn’t
need everyone to get their jokes, which gave them freedom.
Today, more than ever, you have the ability to be authentic because
digital platforms (especially Facebook) create content distribution that’s
truly democratic. The content that gets shared is the content that resonates.
You either create things that strike a chord or they don’t—plain and simple.
And these platforms give you the freedom to share things without being at
the mercy of a studio’s distribution team; you get to do it yourself, which
gives you more control.
Play into the Unexpected
We all want to create content that’s fun and interesting, and unfortunately
there’s no set formula or secret to doing it. Your content has to have specific
moments that really catch people’s attention and you’ll have to try out
different things until you find a winning combination. However, movie
producer Jon Jashni hints at storytelling secrets that may help you get better
results. He highlights the idea of playing into the unexpected. Experience
has shown him that great movies (which are often storytelling at its finest)
are not about shock endings but about outcomes along the way that can’t be
predicted. He shares that “unexpected outcomes, unexpectedly timed,
makes stories feel fresh.”
His involvement with the 2009 movie 
The Hangover
taught him that
people were surprised because the film was a noir detective story fueled
with emotion as much as it was set up with outrageous gags. It was a love
story between men, which was original and unexpected. A fresh take was
offered on the subject, and it was something people hadn’t seen in a while.
Brownstein also notes that the surprise factor has been tremendously
valuable in his team’s work. The highest-viewed celebrity video of 2015,
with more than 180 million views across brand and fan pages, and an
additional 520 million views tracked through third-party video ID software,
was Shareability’s “Cristiano Ronaldo in Disguise—ROC.” Cristiano

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Ronaldo is one of the biggest social influencers in the world and has created
hundreds of videos. But Brownstein explains that all prior content had
featured Ronaldo in the same light—a 
GQ
-style superstar looking amazing
with jets and Bentleys. So Shareability decided to give Ronaldo’s fans
something they hadn’t seen before. They dressed him as a shabby busker
and stuck him in one of the most popular squares in Madrid. He was
playing with a soccer ball, lying on the ground, and attempting to pass the
ball and engage with people who, for the most part, ignored him. Then,
when a little boy accepts his offer to play, he autographs the soccer ball and
takes off his disguise—people’s quickly pivoted reactions are priceless.
Fans loved the video because it featured Ronaldo in a distinct way and
totally surprised them.
Shareability then created a few more videos of Ronaldo displaying him
in other unexpected settings. One video showed him playing “Jingle Bells”
with ordinary home items (such as a toothbrush) at his house, and another
featured him drinking tea at a mall to measure how many sips of tea he
could have versus how many people would come by to ask him to take a
picture with them. All the videos Shareability created exposed something
authentic and different about Ronaldo, something people didn’t expect.
Shareability actually created Ronaldo’s four most successful videos!
It’s human nature to want new experiences and to see things in new
ways. The Ronaldo videos were successful because they showed an idolized
person in an approachable way. Think about how you can surprise your
audience and give them the unexpected. Make something that helps your
followers feel close to your brand.
Julius Dein adds that it’s good to have twists, particularly at the end of a
video. He hooks his audience and then tries to have an unexpected ending
that creates extreme virality. If people watch the video and think, “Whoa,
this is cool. I like this,” and then—
bam!
—something ultra-shareable
happens at the end, it’s a recipe for success.