Make your party viral
Do you remember the movie Project X, which has shocked a whole generation of viewers? They were picturing the best party possible. But what makes this event so great in the movie? The answer: the number of people.
Actually, this is what makes your event remarkable, the number of people. Not too much, but mostly not too little. And everyone knows it is easier to get too little than too much.
So how do you make your event have too many people rather than too little? It has a name, and it is called “virality”.
You’ve probably heard of a video that is “viral”, which means it’s so great that people share it with others easily, and it makes it famous. While this phenomenon in itself is hard to reach, some elements can be influenced to ensure virality. In this article, we will see how to make your party viral.
This article speaks about a subject of how to organize parties. We already treat this subject in a whole course that you can find here.
Disclaimer: This article can be applied to both house and club/bar parties. Just adjust it.
The definition of virality
The concept of virality resides in the fact that existing users invite other people automatically. Those same people will then do the same, and exponential growth can be achieved.
For instance, Facebook. There is no interest in using Facebook alone. This explains why it became so viral. People were telling their friends to use it, and it made a kind of snowball effect. It grew into the social network that we know today.
Uber, at the same time, used discount codes or promotions. They applied if you were inviting your friends to the app.
So virality is the tiny push that a brand will take to get the word out there. And this is what we will investigate right now in order to understand how to make your party viral.
What you need to have in mind for making your event viral
You can think of 3 metrics and one concept to understand how viral is your event?
The first is the number of people one person shares your event with and how. Let’s say a normal person shares your event on his/her story. Then, the number of people who will watch the story fully is the first metric. It’s just an example, but you understand the principle.
The second metric is the number of people who will interact with your event after one has shared. Now let’s take another example, word of mouth. Maybe one person will speak directly to five of his/her friends to come. Among those 5, 3 will be able to come and invite others. You have then a 60% virality in that case.
The third metric is how much time does it take for people to share the event? Do they need one week to convince others? Two weeks? Three months?
The last concept is, how do you make it a loop? How new people can invite new people? This is important also because if it stops with one person only inviting his/her friends, then it’s not that viral.
Ok, now that we have seen the basics, let’s understand how we can apply it.
Understand your ravers
One thing you need to start doing is to understand how people come to your party. How do they get the word? How do they get excited about attending your events?
What you need to know is the story behind anyone who’s coming to your parties.
By mapping your customer’s trip, you will be able to understand them better. Then you will find ways of going viral. You will have insights on how to make your party viral.
I personally know that I go to parties when I see the trailers of the events on Facebook. As long as I see “house” or “techno” I am starting to think about coming. Then I am asking my girlfriend, but no one else. Why no one else? I don’t know. Maybe because no one is suggesting it to me. Or because nothing tells me it’s also an event for people that don’t like this kind of music.
In any case, this is how I experience going to an event.
Set up your viral goals
Why do you want your event to be viral? (or at least have virality?)
I spoke at the beginning about the number of people was crucial. But maybe for you, it will be something else? In any case, you need to set up your goals to be able to reach them.
If you have your own organization, maybe spreading the word could be a better strategy than having people right away. Maybe making something exclusive could be a long-term strategy.
Don’t do too much
Finding a solution to make your party viral is a good step. But multiplying them to be sure to spread the word can be counter-intuitive for your ravers.
So be prudent in what you’re doing and don’t try too hard. Maybe testing through the parties can be great, but not adding them.
The examples
Price reduction if you invite a friend
The price is a great incentive to make something viral. The only problem is the amount of reduction that you can give. Even if you market your party at 50% less, one will still save a relatively small amount of money. So the price here is not an important decision.
What is important, is to say that you’re pushed to invite a friend. This is how something can go viral as it reminds people to invite their friends. This is why it’s a good example
Something to win
I don’t know if you remember, but at one point, Instagram launched an update and encouraged people to make contests. Well, that became pretty popular, and this is a good way to think about it.
If you organize a contest and tell people that they could win something, this can be a reason for them to come and share. The only criteria you need to take into account is motivation. Is your prize enough?
If you have a shitty price, the incentive won’t be enough for them to make your event viral. At the same time, if your prize is too expensive, you might be broke. You then need to find something in between, and that’s hard.
In the same way, you need people who reshare your event and mostly come. You should then have your strategy between only sharing and no coming and only coming and not sharing.
Clubhouse style
Do you remember when Clubhouse started? What a hype. Everybody wanted an invitation, and the fact of not having access to it was stressful.
Well, there are lessons to take from it. Sometimes, not having something makes it even more appealing. Maybe your party can be viral in that sense. By being exclusive, you can become viral, and people might want to come just to feel they are part of the club too.
However, I would advise this strategy only if you have a strong enough community before. If you’re unknown, people might not even care that your party is private or not.
Invite anyone – Everyone is welcome
The same as the “invite your friends” style. By saying that everyone is welcome, you are pushing people to invite their friends and to feel that it’s a big gathering. By doing so, you’re spreading friendly feelings, and that might be what people want.
So don’t hesitate to include everyone who can be concerned about your event.
Register on a list
Registering on the list is again, a process that we already know of. It’s not new and gives a little bit of exclusivity.
By pushing people to register, you send the message that coming is not that easy. They should earn their place. And this is usually what they want to do.
Ok, that’s it for today, I hope you enjoyed this article about how to make your party viral.
If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate, I will try to update this article if I find new ways of making your event viral.
Thanks et à bientôt !
Did you like the article and want to know more about organizing parties? We have a course for that!
The author
Benoit Dervieux is the initiator of Lesk. He started DJing around 14 years old, bought his first pair of vinyls at 22 and started organizing parties at 25. He has a master in entrepreneurship and is developing Lesk hoping the product will enter the market. You can contact him directly on instagram @lesklights.