Kolaveri Di Social Analytics Findings & Insights
| Home | Project Overview | Findings & Insights | Documentation | Reflection |
1. Why did the video go viral?
a. The Marketing Activities Done by Sony and Societal Factors
Two weeks before the official release, Kolaveri Di music video was leaked but Sony was able to tap on this opportunity. The social connection of Sony played a big part in the spread of the video. Sony had more than 200,000 followers on Facebook, which was a good ground to reach out to the audience. Heavy marketing activities were done by Sony on its social media platforms; it posted the official song on Tamil, Hindi, and International Facebook pages to drive interest and engagement. As a result, the twitter mentions rose by 200% everyday.
b. The Content of Kolaveri Di
| No | Factor | Description | How was it shown in Kolaveri Di |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Emotion | Content should be able to build some emotional connection with the viewers and provoke emotions from the viewer (e.g. fun, anger, sadness) | Video conveyed a feeling of heartbreak, but it was still fun to watch. |
| 2 | Surprise | Content should not be predictable; if so, the viewers would easily “bounce” out from the content without finishing it | Video was different from other Indian videos or bollywood films, wherein a lot of clichés are used. |
| 3 | Intensity | It is important to grab the audience’s attention from the beginning, and to keep it through brevity and density. | The non-sensical lyrics, the foot-tapping kind of beat.. it was simple but intriguing and hooked the people |
| 4 | Relevance | Content should be relevant to the target audience. Thinking in their perspectives is more important than focusing solely on the messages. | “Is there anyone who hasn’t experienced a heartbreak?” People would connect better to the guy in Kolaveri Di, than other handsome actors shown in movies. |
| 5 | Validation | People tend to share things that support their own perspectives, and that represent their beliefs and opinions. | 72% of the viewers were male, as they found the content more relevant and connecting to them. |
| 6 | Style | The style of how the content is presented is important. Is it presentable? Funny? Engaging? | Video was kept simple, catchy and fun. |
c. Networks Formed in Twitter
Networks among the users could be quickly formed which triggered the spread the video faster than expected. In Twitter, the networks will begin with one user following another user, be it both individual user or corporate user (i.e. SonyMusic). A relation is to be formed when the users direct their messages at other users through a mention (syntax “@[username]”) or retweet other users’ tweets (syntax “RT @[username]”). Hashtag (syntax “#[word]”) is used when users talk about a common topic.
2. Who are the influencers?
a. The Kolaveri Di Team
Dhanush K. Raja (@dhanushkraja)
He was the singer of “Why this Kolaveri Di” and he wrote most of the lyrics of the song. He was the main actor of the movie 3.
Aishwaryaa R. Dhanush (@ash_r_dhanush)
She was the director of her first feature film 3. She appeared in the music video, listening to the singing in the background.
Anirudh Ravichander (@anirudhravichander —> @anirudhofficial)
He made his debut in the movie 3, as the composer of the song. In the music video, he was on the keyboard while Dhanush was singing.
Shruti Haasan (@shrutihaasan)
She is the co-star of the movie 3, together with Dhanush. She makes an appearance towards the end of the music video.
b. Bachchan Family
Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan)
He made a few undirected tweets, mentioning about how he liked Kolaveri Di.
Jhakaas Nandu (@juniorbachchan)
He directed his tweet to a Kolaveri member, saying that he is a fan of Kolaveri Di.
c. Ordinary Users
Padma Akula (@padhuu —> @padmaakula)
Organized a Kolaveri Di flash mob in Auckland & made repetitive tweets to the different users to spread the word about it
Cynthia Collins (@cynthiacollins2), Dallas Sharko (@dallassharkoAFY), Linh Gromley (@linhgromleyDTCO)
All three made repetitive tweets about Nivaan Nigam’s cover of Kolaveri Di
Findings
- Under the eigenvector centrality, the Kolaveri Team stays top most of the time but during certain time periods, new influencers appear.
- Under the out degree centrality, people who are high in out-degree tend to spam their tweets at one period and disappear in other periods. They are mainly the ordinary users.
- Under the betweenness centrality, we realise that betweenness alone is not a strong indicator of an influencer over time. Only Dhanush remains top of the list during the whole period.
Kolaveri Di Timeline
3. What implications does this project have?
1. People involved should talk about the content
It is important that the people who are involved TALK about the topic. This leads to more relevancy and credibility of the content, and helps in increasing the hype and awareness of the video. If these people have the attributes of being an influencer, the spread of the video can further increase. The attributes include reach (having high fan base), resonance (making frequent tweets and acknowledging events related to Kolaveri Di), and relevancy (possessing the authority as the producers of the video and being a trusted celebrity)
2. People create their own interpretations of original content (internet memes). Often times, this is because they are motivated by their personal intentions
People will have the tendency to ride on the hype and do different versions of the original content (such as covers, remixes, parodies, or flash mobs; often known as internet memes) and share it on their social media. This is not because they want to make the original content even more famous, but rather they are driven by personal intentions, such as to gain social status, reflect personality or gain personal benefits. When the internet memes replicate the virality of the original content and spread via the established social networks, it causes further hype and vitality of the original content. This can further increase if other influencers can acknowledge the memes.
Examples of the memes:
Neevan Nigam's cover was acknowledged by dhanushkraja and anirudhravichan, members of the Kolaveri team, while ArjunArtist's cover was by CNN, an American television channel
3. Social media has a great chain effect
Social media's word-of-mouth effect is more tremendous than one can imagine. One person creates a meme and succeeds, then others will immediately follow through.
Furthermore, there can be possible relations among the influencers. Sometimes some influencers work together, which could cause a combined effort to virality.
E.g. cynthiacollins2, lindhgromleydtco, and dallassharkoafy - mentioned about Neevan Nigaam
E.g. beattwinsmusic, jayfringymusic, and surealmusic - made a UK cover of Kolaveri Di
Social media can also cause a chain effect. When a location holds a flash mob and succeeds, other places are likely to hold a flash mob as well.
Limitations
- Analysis and profiling is done under the assumption that the data still holds true and valid, despite the 3 year gap between the data collection and the data analysis.
- The dataset only contains tweets from 23 November, 2011 to 26 February, 2012; therefore, it is hard to gauge the virality of the video before 23 November.
- Aside from the tweets, there is no other data (such as video view counts or FB shares over time) to evaluate the virality of the video.
- Due to the assumptions made, the final outcome may not be as completely accurate or applicable in real life.
- Whatever insights gathered are based solely on Kolaveri Di dataset at hand, thus may differ in other Twitter datasets.
