The Secret of the Drunken Elk: Three Steps to the World’s Most Shared News Story

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Earlier this month, the BBC published the seminal article “Drunk Swedish Elk Found in Apple Tree near Gothenburg.” It recounts the discovery, by one Per Johansson, of an Elk who got stuck in a tree while trying to eat fermented apples. The BBC soberly reported that it’s “not unusual to see elk … drunk in Sweden during autumn, when there are plenty of apples about.”

Plenty of apples indeed. The 150 word story quickly attracted millions of readers. In fact, it became the most shared news story in the world on the week it was published. This is remarkable when you consider this was the week of blanket media coverage of the 9/11 anniversary. As it turned out, the most shared 9/11 news story was a video of Beyonce singing (42,000 shares and likes on Facebook). New York Times economist Paul Krugman’s 9/11 commemorative piece – the Years of Shame – also performed well, with 16,000 shares and likes.

But despite the intense media focus on 9/11, the BBC’s Drunken Elk barged into the room and dominated the social networks. It was shared on the Facebook walls of over 44,000 people, and liked by 49,000 – that’s 93,000 upvotes. In terms of shares and reads, it was the biggest news story in the world for days.*

Anyway, I’ve been watching the world’s most trending stories over the past few weeks on NewsWhip, and I reckon I’ve figured out the magic formula. Here it is so you, too, can write the biggest news story in the world.

Before we begin, I should admit that I shudder for the future of journalism if everyone follows this advice.

1. Get on a big platform

The first and most difficult step is that you must get on a channel with serious broadcast power – a mega-platform. If you don’t write for the BBC there are other ways: become an ‘expert’ in something and the HuffPo will give you a spot on their site, with its a massive audience. The Guardian has its “Comment is Free” section, and popular business news and gossip site Business Insider often publishes guest articles. With a bit of planning and positioning, you can get your place on a trusted, powerful platform.

Perhaps you already have a beloved blog, and want to use it to publish your mega story? Don’t. You’re too small. For a story to get huge, quickly, you have to be on a mega-platform. Our front page – which shows the fastest spreading news at any point in time – is dominated by the world’s big news players. Influential blogs can rule the roost only in particular sections of the web (like fashion or business strategy).

Don’t worry about being drowned out by the roar of other stories on the mega-platform – follow steps 2 and 3 below, and you’ll drown out everyone else.

2. Go international elk hunting

The next step is to find the story. The good news is that there’s no legwork involved here: the story is already out there, somewhere. So use your browser to go roaming in exotic places. If you’re in the States, go to India, if you’re in India, check Ireland. When you get there, take a good look at what’s trending and getting shares in the local market.

What you want to spot is a universal human interest story getting social media traction. The best will involve an animal doing something remarkable, old people or kids doing something cute, or perhaps science “proving” some cliche about why men and women are different. The story will often involve a picture or a video.

The Drunken Elk story actually trended in Europe a day before the BBC picked it up, when it appeared on TheLocal.se. The story gathered a flurry of shares there, and must have been spotted by some sharp editor at the BBC who got to work on rewriting it, effectively ‘breaking’ it on the world stage.

A warning: Be sure you’re first to spot and break the story in your region. The past few days saw the the ascension across the internet of a “Redheads rejected by sperm bank” story across the web. Briefly, the story involves a quote from a Danish sperm bank who have said their supply of sperm from redheads exceeds demand, and they’re not going to accept any more.

First to the party was Richard Orange (yes, really) at the Telegraph on September 16th (“Sperm bank turns down Redheads“). He seems to have spotted the story in the Danish paper Ekstrabladet. Richard broke the story in the English-speaking world, and it garnered 10,000 likes and shares for The Telegraph. Bravo, Richard.

But beginning yesterday, it seems everyone else on the internet began rewriting the exact same story, even with the same quotes. Some ‘fair and balanced’ publications did not even admit where they lifted the quotes from. None achieved the same degree of viral spread as the original Telegraph piece.

So don’t bother rehashing stuff like this if it’s already thoroughly discovered. Unless you break the story in your region, you just end up looking like Mom trying to be cool on Friendster.

Ignore the big memes, search the little trends of the world, and you too will find your Drunken Elk. Now, you’re ready to write the story. But when you do…

3. Spin the story for a group of hardcore evangalizers

The genius in last Friday’s most shared BBC story – the discover of a planet orbiting two suns – was the writer’s likening of the planet with Tatooine, Luke Skywalker’s home planet. The story was shared or liked by 10,000 people, presumably many of them Star Wars fans. A couple of weeks before, a punchy “Comment is Free” piece on the high price of academic publications get 14,000 shares and likes. This was presumably thanks to a pile of sharing by disgruntled academics and postgraduate students – though the headline was great: “Academic Publishers make Murdoch look like a Socialist.”

Any group that has a particular interest in a news story – from redheads to nurses to organic food lovers – can become your instant viral fanbase. Spin the story so it either enrages or engages your group. If you’re in the US, outraged Democrats and Republicans are pretty reliable grassroots support groups for your story – stories about the avarice or stupidity of ‘the other guys’ get great traction.

Of course, if you have found the holy prize of a true Drunken Elk, you don’t even need to worry about this last step so much.

Finally, don’t dawdle, or some other writer will steal your thunder – or giant crocodile, or dwarf porn murder, or smoking baby, or whatever other madness you’ve found on your Drunk Elk expedition around the internet. Publish first, ask questions later.

Hey, we didn’t promise this was going to be wholesome.

Happy hunting.

 

We have a lot more in store on our blog – follow @NewsWhip on Twitter to stay in touch. To see what’s the trendingest news in the world right now, click around NewsWhip.com.

*We take our data straight from the Facebook API. If our numbers seem low, know that the “share count” button on the story pages of news sites tends to exaggerate the number of actual share or likes, as it includes comments on the stories on peoples’ Facebook walls. Image: BBC screenshot