What started as a tool positioned to help children channel their nervous energy, fast became a popular toy at schools. Then adults got wind of them and now millions are being sold, countless variations have been manufactured, and these little spinners have achieved true viral status.
The fidget spinner phenomenon has spawned over 5 million YouTube videos with 110,000 searches on Google a month, so it’s worth breaking this trend down to see what we can learn from it and about virality.
If you’re not familiar with them, the idea behind the fidget spinner is simple: a metal or plastic design rotates around a bearing in the middle to achieve a satisfying spin that can go on for minutes on end. But the reason they blew up in popularity so unexpectedly isn’t quite so simple. Whether you have yet to experience this fad in full or you’re one of many who can’t seem to escape it, fidget spinners offer a great case study on how things go viral and how brands can explore viral marketing to reach more people. Before we get into that, however, it’s worth looking at the ways the internet plays a huge role in how things go viral today. Everything from comments, to shares, to blogs, to parody videos on YouTube now contribute to the news cycle for any given viral event. Established news organizations reference tweets and internet memes to start conversations and spread stories at an unprecedented rate.
Traditional media now fuels social media and vice versa.
What ends up happening is, as the media becomes aware of a trend, they cover it and gradually educate the market and shape the conversations people have.
Understanding the New, News Cycle
The news cycle was a lot different in the days when cable television and newspapers were the go-to channels for distributing news. It was called the “24-hour news cycle,” because that was the pace we moved at and the media delivered information at. A story would break and media outlets would compete to be the first to provide initial coverage in the roughly 24 hours before the story went stale. But with “social” media, the pace of the news cycle has been accelerated, and in some cases prolonged. Tweets can spread news before a blog, and a blog post can be published and distributed faster than a newspaper. In today’s digital world, we are no longer passive consumers of the media, but active participants in it.
With fidget spinners, you would see all kinds of headlines come up, many of which leverage the hype to create interest in the story:
– Fidget Spinners are the Must-Have Office Toy of 2017
– Meet the Fidget Spinner, a New Toy Craze Entrancing Kids and Grownups Alike
– Fidget Spinners: Who Invented the Wildly Popular Toy?
– A Fidget Spinner App Is Now the Top Free App in the App Store
It’s no surprise that fidget spinners are everywhere!
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They are made of ABS Plastic w/ Turbo Inserts for longer spinning. Approximately 2 minutes of rotation time!
And each one has a UV Coated Surface, and is CPSIA toy safety tested.
They come in Gold or Silver and we customize each one with your message in the center of the spinner in a bold black imprint!
Remember, along with the most competitive pricing in the industry,
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