In the past week a couple of videos have achieved tremendous viral success.  First we had the story of Benton (or Fenton as it later emerged) the dog, who was off his lead scaring the deer in Richmond Park, with his owner hilariously chasing after him.  That quickly went viral and spawned a number of imitators.

Then yesterday a video was shot of a lady riding the tram service to Croydon giving her fellow travellers a foul mouthed tirade against immigration.  At the time of writing this video has had around 2 million views and has led to the lady in question being arrested by local police for aggrevating racial tension.

All of which is kinda cool, but what makes a piece of content go viral?  What makes people want to share it with their friends and colleagues?

Wharton School of Business marketing professor Jonah Berger and doctoral student Eric Schwartz took on this challenge with their recent study, "What Drives Immediate and Ongoing Word of Mouth."

They investigated the psychological motivations behind word of mouth campaigns, exploring why people talk about things, how online and offline chat differs, and how you can go about creating some more buzz for your own work.  Here's a summary of their 5 key findings.

1. You don't need an interesting product – Traditional wisdom would have it that you need a cool and exciting product to generate buzz, something that will in turn make those passing on the information seem cool or smart as a result.  Instead however the researchers found that a product only has to be good to be passed on.  People are well aware of being watched in our social world, so are very conscious to pass on things that are likely to be well received by others.  They term this motivated transmission.  Interestingly though, offline discussions tend to focus much more on what's interesting rather than what's practical.
2. The product needs to be accessible – Obviously the two videos above were in the public domain on YouTube, so instantly accessible.  The researchers found that the key to generating word of mouth is that people need to have easy access to it.
3. Let people try things out – It seems obvious to say, but it's hard for people to talk about things they haven't used, so campaigns where there were free product samples available achieved much better word of mouth than those that didn't. 
4. Give people a helping hand – If you use the right cues and triggers you can make your products seem more accessible.  The research revealed using branded freebies in your campaign resulted in a 15% uptick in word of mouth.
5. Buzz isn't just for Apple – The good news is that we talk about products and memes every day, and it's not something that's limited to the latest cool gadget.  The positive message for marketers is that you can affect how often and for how long your products remain the focus of conversation.  Just as in an era of 24 hour news the broadcasters crave news stories, in our social world, people are literally craving things to talk about, so you have an opportunity to fill that need and to take your product viral.