BrightVibes: Inspiring social media users for a positive change
The negative impact of the social media came to the front during the past year with fake news, trolls and post-truths invading the information space and manipulating people’s opinion and decisions. On this background, we came across a new company which does exactly the opposite by creating content which aims to inspire people for a positive change by offering them “contagiously inspiring stories”. To find out how that really works, Georgi R. Chakarov talked with BrightVibes CEO Michiel de Gooijer.
Michiel, people are making money from fake news exploiting antagonism and hatred. BirghtVibes, however, want to unite people by inspiring them. What is the actual goal of your business: profit or positive influence on the social media?
It’s both. What we say is what we do. What we do - we share, we create and cause contagiously inspiring stories. And we do that primarily to have a positive impact - that is our “Why?”, that is why we exist. But “we” as a company first want to have a positive impact on society and second we want to show that you can make money with that and that’s fine.
We want to be an inspiration for the brands that we work with, we want to be an inspiration for other entrepreneurs, showing that doing good and good business go hand in hand. We are building a business by working with brands that also are serious about having a positive impact, that do not only think about the bottom line and their short-term value, but that think about their role in society and want to play a positive role.
Our conviction is that if you are a brand and you only care about yourself, in 5-years time nobody will care about you anymore, so you will go out of business. These brands need to be serious about having a positive impact and they need to believe that storytelling is the future of advertising; that they want to be part of the conversation and not interrupt the conversation, and that’s what we offer.
When did you start the company?
We started with BrightVibes in August 2015 and we started with nothing. Now, 14 months later, we have 560.000 followers and reach between 5 and 15 million people per week. We have served over 200.000 videos, with an average completion rate of 38% and our 200.000 million videos have generated over 27 million comments, likes and shares, of which about 95% or even higher than that are positive.
What generated this growth – the number of posts or the content itself?
It’s 100% the content. Our growth comes from people sharing our original productions and then people will like our page and that’s how we grow. We also share other content successfully - in the last 2 days we generated 20.000 likes on a video that is not ours.
Can you point out some stories that had a big impact, which came from your production?
The first one was a story about the life of Keanu Reeves. That was a video that we created in April this year, it’s been seen by about 30 million people. Another really huge video, which is of the same format, which is called Celebs Worth Celebrating, focused on the other side of Cristiano Ronaldo where we focused completely on his life story, how he grew up and how he used the hardships that he has encountered to fuel his success and now give back. Another video which I absolutely love and I think has had a very big impact is the one we called “Life may be tough, but you don’t know how fortunate you are”. It’s a 1-minute video where we show people who live in the developed world. That video has been viewed over 15 million times.
What we see there is the actual positive impact that we have on people’s behavior by showing positive inspiring content: people start to feel more positive and they want to copy that behavior. They absolutely want to see more positivity.
Can you share some positive examples of work that you have done with brands?
We only just started, so I’ll tell you two stories. One is our first original production, which we did together with Microsoft – a story about Frederick, who was terminally ill. He noticed that the communication between the hospital and himself was done by paper and it was very stressful for him. He decided to start a foundation to make sure that in one year there will be an app to make life much easier for patients like him. However, the Mind App crowdfunding wasn’t successful. Then I told Microsoft about this and they made it happen. Frederick, before he died, saw all the designs, and he knew his mission was going to be completed when he was gone.
The other one is our first commission by DSM, which is a very large science company. We created a video about Boyan Slat, who is the founder of the Ocean Clean-Up, which is the largest endeavor to rid our oceans of plastics. They’re building an installation where they are going to gather all that plastics and fish it out of the sea. We did a beautiful portrait of Boyan Slat as a pilot. One week after launching it we have had a reach of 11 million, leading to 3.9 million video views, that generated over 200.000 reactions, 80.000 shares and 12.000 comments.
If we look at the value that we offer to the brand, they are extremely happy because we know how to tell these types of stories, but we also know how to give them a kickstart because we’re also a platform, we’re not just a producer - we are a brand with our own reach and with a high engaging follower base, so they pay us to produce the campaign and they pay us to promote it.
Coming from a TV background, would you say that this is the big difference between social media and television as a one-way communication medium?
There are so many differences, but I think the value of content and being able to generate and show that people talk about your content and share it, I think that is a big difference. From a content perspective, television is being made to keep the user’s attention for as long as possible by making the production as cheaply as possible and building those cliffhangers, so they can put commercial breaks. On social media and online you have to immediately go and catch the attention, it needs to be much more short-form.
Is this the reason why television has such hard times exploiting the social media, so to say, because they don’t want to break this model of stretching?
Yes, I think that’s one reason, from a content point of view. I think they just don’t understand it. And I understand that they don’t understand it. It’s a generational thing as well. When we tell filmmakers “We’re going to make this video, but you need to keep in mind that 80% of people will watch it without sound” or “if you don’t put titles, nobody will watch it. So you need to put titles in” and “we can’t do 16:9”, they are shocked and they find it really difficult. They just resist.
And I also think a big difference, hindering the more traditional companies to reach floors on social and digital, is because they are struggling with this business model. There’s a famous quote: “So, how did you go out of business?” and the answer is “Very gradually, and then suddenly.” And that is, I think, what’s happening now as TV is really suffering and the viewers are getting older and older.
Do you think there is a problem in this sticking to the target demos, like say “We want this demo, we want that demo: the viewers are getting older and so on? Do you think that’s still relevant?
Well, I would say that in a sense, of course, demographic segmentation is very old-fashioned. We should all be talking much more about mentality, lifestyle segmentation. It’s far more about the mindset, about being curious, being open. Of course, media usage is also a characteristic and I do think people of 80 watch less digital than the younger generation, but I think it has much more to do with mindset than to do with age.
Another thing, related to targeting, is pre-supposing what your viewer would like to watch, and this is another difference with social media. Do you know beforehand what will work?
Well, it’s very difficult. We learn and we do see certain strengths and ingredients, but if you cook up a new dish with the same recipe, with the same ingredients, it doesn’t mean it will taste as good or the perception will be as good as last time. It differs a lot. So you need to be really agile, you need to monitor really well how people respond and adapt to that and try a lot of different things.
And let’s say if you compare TV to digital, on TV it’s just about having the right slot, knowing that a lot of people will sit on their couch and tune in to your station because on average you have 25% market share, so whatever you put in front of those people, they would sort of eat it.
Online you have to be much more agile, because the user experience on Facebook can change from one day to the other. Look at Snapchat - that requires a completely different way of looking at the content that you have, you can’t just slot it on and plot it from one screen to another. That’s also something that TV people are completely not used to, for them it’s just that one screen.
It’s both. What we say is what we do. What we do - we share, we create and cause contagiously inspiring stories. And we do that primarily to have a positive impact - that is our “Why?”, that is why we exist. But “we” as a company first want to have a positive impact on society and second we want to show that you can make money with that and that’s fine.
We want to be an inspiration for the brands that we work with, we want to be an inspiration for other entrepreneurs, showing that doing good and good business go hand in hand. We are building a business by working with brands that also are serious about having a positive impact, that do not only think about the bottom line and their short-term value, but that think about their role in society and want to play a positive role.
Our conviction is that if you are a brand and you only care about yourself, in 5-years time nobody will care about you anymore, so you will go out of business. These brands need to be serious about having a positive impact and they need to believe that storytelling is the future of advertising; that they want to be part of the conversation and not interrupt the conversation, and that’s what we offer.
When did you start the company?
We started with BrightVibes in August 2015 and we started with nothing. Now, 14 months later, we have 560.000 followers and reach between 5 and 15 million people per week. We have served over 200.000 videos, with an average completion rate of 38% and our 200.000 million videos have generated over 27 million comments, likes and shares, of which about 95% or even higher than that are positive.
What generated this growth – the number of posts or the content itself?
It’s 100% the content. Our growth comes from people sharing our original productions and then people will like our page and that’s how we grow. We also share other content successfully - in the last 2 days we generated 20.000 likes on a video that is not ours.
Can you point out some stories that had a big impact, which came from your production?
The first one was a story about the life of Keanu Reeves. That was a video that we created in April this year, it’s been seen by about 30 million people. Another really huge video, which is of the same format, which is called Celebs Worth Celebrating, focused on the other side of Cristiano Ronaldo where we focused completely on his life story, how he grew up and how he used the hardships that he has encountered to fuel his success and now give back. Another video which I absolutely love and I think has had a very big impact is the one we called “Life may be tough, but you don’t know how fortunate you are”. It’s a 1-minute video where we show people who live in the developed world. That video has been viewed over 15 million times.
What we see there is the actual positive impact that we have on people’s behavior by showing positive inspiring content: people start to feel more positive and they want to copy that behavior. They absolutely want to see more positivity.
Can you share some positive examples of work that you have done with brands?
We only just started, so I’ll tell you two stories. One is our first original production, which we did together with Microsoft – a story about Frederick, who was terminally ill. He noticed that the communication between the hospital and himself was done by paper and it was very stressful for him. He decided to start a foundation to make sure that in one year there will be an app to make life much easier for patients like him. However, the Mind App crowdfunding wasn’t successful. Then I told Microsoft about this and they made it happen. Frederick, before he died, saw all the designs, and he knew his mission was going to be completed when he was gone.
The other one is our first commission by DSM, which is a very large science company. We created a video about Boyan Slat, who is the founder of the Ocean Clean-Up, which is the largest endeavor to rid our oceans of plastics. They’re building an installation where they are going to gather all that plastics and fish it out of the sea. We did a beautiful portrait of Boyan Slat as a pilot. One week after launching it we have had a reach of 11 million, leading to 3.9 million video views, that generated over 200.000 reactions, 80.000 shares and 12.000 comments.
If we look at the value that we offer to the brand, they are extremely happy because we know how to tell these types of stories, but we also know how to give them a kickstart because we’re also a platform, we’re not just a producer - we are a brand with our own reach and with a high engaging follower base, so they pay us to produce the campaign and they pay us to promote it.
Coming from a TV background, would you say that this is the big difference between social media and television as a one-way communication medium?
There are so many differences, but I think the value of content and being able to generate and show that people talk about your content and share it, I think that is a big difference. From a content perspective, television is being made to keep the user’s attention for as long as possible by making the production as cheaply as possible and building those cliffhangers, so they can put commercial breaks. On social media and online you have to immediately go and catch the attention, it needs to be much more short-form.
Is this the reason why television has such hard times exploiting the social media, so to say, because they don’t want to break this model of stretching?
Yes, I think that’s one reason, from a content point of view. I think they just don’t understand it. And I understand that they don’t understand it. It’s a generational thing as well. When we tell filmmakers “We’re going to make this video, but you need to keep in mind that 80% of people will watch it without sound” or “if you don’t put titles, nobody will watch it. So you need to put titles in” and “we can’t do 16:9”, they are shocked and they find it really difficult. They just resist.
And I also think a big difference, hindering the more traditional companies to reach floors on social and digital, is because they are struggling with this business model. There’s a famous quote: “So, how did you go out of business?” and the answer is “Very gradually, and then suddenly.” And that is, I think, what’s happening now as TV is really suffering and the viewers are getting older and older.
Do you think there is a problem in this sticking to the target demos, like say “We want this demo, we want that demo: the viewers are getting older and so on? Do you think that’s still relevant?
Well, I would say that in a sense, of course, demographic segmentation is very old-fashioned. We should all be talking much more about mentality, lifestyle segmentation. It’s far more about the mindset, about being curious, being open. Of course, media usage is also a characteristic and I do think people of 80 watch less digital than the younger generation, but I think it has much more to do with mindset than to do with age.
Another thing, related to targeting, is pre-supposing what your viewer would like to watch, and this is another difference with social media. Do you know beforehand what will work?
Well, it’s very difficult. We learn and we do see certain strengths and ingredients, but if you cook up a new dish with the same recipe, with the same ingredients, it doesn’t mean it will taste as good or the perception will be as good as last time. It differs a lot. So you need to be really agile, you need to monitor really well how people respond and adapt to that and try a lot of different things.
And let’s say if you compare TV to digital, on TV it’s just about having the right slot, knowing that a lot of people will sit on their couch and tune in to your station because on average you have 25% market share, so whatever you put in front of those people, they would sort of eat it.
Online you have to be much more agile, because the user experience on Facebook can change from one day to the other. Look at Snapchat - that requires a completely different way of looking at the content that you have, you can’t just slot it on and plot it from one screen to another. That’s also something that TV people are completely not used to, for them it’s just that one screen.
