The Ghost Influence Podcast: How Viral Happens On Reddit - 008 The User Is Drunk: UX Design, Alcohol, & Internet Fame With Richard Littauer

008 The User Is Drunk: UX Design, Alcohol, & Internet Fame With Richard Littauer

12/05/15 • 38 min

The Ghost Influence Podcast: How Viral Happens On Reddit

Richard Littauer was more than a few drinks in when his friend asked for feedback on the user experience of his website. While he warned of his inebriated state, the friend persisted that he wanted to know his thoughts. Hesitantly, Richard began diving in and soon realized that his lack of verbal filter was proving entertaining — yet surprisingly helpful feedback. The idea percolated into the purchase of the domain 'theuserisdrunk.com' which sat dormant until a hackathon where he felt it was time to bring the project to life.

Setting up a simple, one-page website, Richard built his consulting offer whereby he would get drunk and make a video reviewing your website. Within an hour of submission, he was at the top of Hacker News. He had just under 100,000 visitors on the first day and within a week around 300k. He was interviewed by FastCo, Tech.co, Gizmodo, VWO, Hubspot. The project quickly became massive leverage for his consulting work and has been ever since.

Create social leverage with the Ghost Influence community.Music: 'Marko Stc - Apollo 13 (Renan Willian Remix)'

Previous Episode

007 Squatty Potty: Unicorn Poop Gone Viral With Bobby Edwards

Bobby Edwards just wanted to help his mom poop. Having discovered the extensive benefits of squatting to poop, he set out to create "the stool for better stool". It wasn't until a barrage of awkward Christmas gifts resulted is raving enthusiasm that he truly realized the potential of his poop platform... or as it's famously known today — Squatty Potty.

Brilliant in it's simplicity, much like the product itself, Bobby's initial marketing strategy was to find bloggers in the health space and send them a Squatty Potty. That led to a phone call from The Doctors and later an endorsement from Howard Stern. Bobby eventually took the business to Shark Tank and landed a deal with Lori Grenier who got them prime placement in Ben, Bath, & Beyond. All of that... and they still only had 1.2M customers.

Working with The Harmon Brothers, the marketers behind the viral success of Poo Pourri, the Squatty Potty team produced a three minute promo video titled "This Unicorn Changed The Way I Poop" and drove over 48M views (between Youtube and Facebook) and was submitted to Reddit 42 times within the first 50 days it existed. Bobby shares the details about the creative process and how this viral video catapulted their sales.

Create social leverage with the Ghost Influence community.Music: 'Contact - Somewhere (LIONBLOOD Remix)'

Next Episode

009 Six Seconds To Fame: Vine Comedian To Illustrator Superstar With Heather Christianson

Heather Christianson is both an illustrator and a curious explorer of the social web. She was naturally curious when, in 2009, Vine launched it's quirky new platform where users post six second looping videos. Quickly finding a natural fit for her humor, Heather started making new vines on a daily basis and slowly built a following.

While it was posted two years ago in August of 2013, her Vine titled "my favorite movies" was discovered and submitted to Reddit's /r/videos community just two days before this episode was recorded. In that time it has jumped from 250K to over 4.6M loops and been shared by nerd celebrities like Mythbusters' Adam Savage. Heather shares how the interconnection of her personal, brand, and portfolio pages is consistently helping her to better leverage the social web to develop her career as an illustrator.

Create social leverage with the Ghost Influence community.Music: 'Exomorph v3 by Minkovsky'