This article was originally written on Jason Leow’s blog and is adapted here with his permission.
So safedistancing.sg blew up. My first ever product that went viral! My sleep scores went way down this week (15 Aug 21) due to all the excitement and chatting around it. But all good – it is a worthwhile trade-off.
Some numbers so far in just thie first week of existence:
👥 ~2600 users on-site at its peak on 8-9 Aug
📈 236k active users
👁 362k page views
🎉 1.06M event count
📰 Featured on 6 news platforms
☕️ 141 coffees received
💵 $705 one-off support
💳 3 new monthly subscription members for my social impact patronage
👨🏻💻 1 full stack developer job offer (what?!)
Keni asked that I do a retrospective on how it went viral. Here’s what I believed worked in my favour and contributed to its virality:
Addressing a real pain point
Each time I want to check the latest safe distancing restrictions, I have to Google them but I also end up getting confused by the outdated news articles and past government press releases. There isn’t one constant, easy-to-remember link that I can refer to each time the rules are updated. So I made one myself. I had a hunch that it is not just me who feels this way, but could not be sure until I launched a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test that. It worked out this time!
A descriptive domain name
It’s my first time making something where the domain name is a key differentiator and unique proposition (vs ‘competitors’ like news/government sites). The name is easy to remember and aligned to search intent and keywords i.e. how people would usually search for it. The clear and descriptive domain name also lends itself to be trusted. This domain-driven approach development is something I learned from another indie hacker Peter Askew. I have been always meaning to try it but never had a product that allowed it. Hence had fun this time finally playing with it!
Timeliness
I launched it on National Day, riding on the festive occasion and likelihood of news outlets wanting to feature celebratory local stories like this. It was also just three days after the government announced the new set of safe distancing rules on 6 Aug and just one day before the rules came into force on 10 Aug, so it is top of mind for the public.
Mass appeal
Unlike most of my other products which are very narrowly scoped and serving very niche audiences, this product was one of the rare few that are mainstream. Safe distancing rules affect everyone in Singapore, and therefore the captive market was as large as any local product could be.
For social good
I would like to think that this contributed to virality. Altruistic projects tend to encourage feel-good vibes and tug at the “Awww” emotion. People also feel more generous about forwarding it in the absence of profit motives.
Something more and/or different
This was something I picked up from people’s comments and feedback about the site. The data on the site isn’t new actually – everything on the site can be traced back to a few government sources. Most of the time, I even copy-pasted directly, word for word! But yet, people commented how intuitive the user interface (UI) was. They love the stronger visual look and feel (using emojis) of the same information they are reading from text-heavy news articles or large tables from government websites.
The ability to easily zoom in on the information that is relevant to them at the moment is more meaningful than the nifty infographics created by media sites. We created a UI that is refreshingly familiar yet offering something more in terms of the visual experience and utility. Also, the fact that there were translations in our four official languages just a click away also helped to bridge the digital divide and reach more users.
Data legitimacy
This was a tricky user experience problem as there were multiple timelines to track. Some measures come into effect from 10 Aug, while others only from 19 Aug. The key outcomes I wanted were to assure users that:
- these are the latest datasets
- they are from various legit sources
- the site is updated on an ongoing basis (not daily)
Initially, I added links to the source data for legitimacy. I also tried including a “Last updated at…” byline but I realised it might come across as outdated if the date goes back to a month ago (even though there might not have been any updates from the government since then).
Using a “Source published on 6 Aug” byline seems to have created the same issue as well. I also tried adding the date of the latest update to each section, but it soon got unwieldy as later dated updates start rolling in and getting included in the copy. If I default to just the latest one, it would not match with some of the source links. I also tried just showing the source links sans dates to declutter – users could click into the links themselves to know the dates – but this was not an ideal solution. Such was the difficulty.
In the end, after a few iterations with friends, we went for a header that said something along the lines of “Data accurate as of today, <today’s date>” which then scrolls to a longer disclaimer saying that the measures “…in this website were implemented from <date> onwards. These measures were announced on <date>. Minor clarifications from other gov sources are added and dated where relevant, on an ongoing basis. Source: <links>“
Co-creation
I believe any form of active contribution from others always lends itself to virality. As the feedback came in, I continued iterating the website in the following ways:
- adding what users found important but were missing (e.g. sector-specific guidelines for some sections),
- editing parts of the copy that was confusing,
- adding extra points of clarification/interpretation from questions they had,
- ultimately closing the loop with the users, thanking them for their contribution to the project
The beautiful unintended consequence of this co-creation effort is that the site ended up with content that answered the public’s questions pointedly, in a way that even news articles and government websites did not!
Caveats
- This is not advice for how to go viral. None of that “10 sure ways to go viral” cringe content. Please do not read this as advice. It is just my experience and thoughts on the why.
- I think that viral success is non-replicable, so do not emulate directly, word for word. Discern, cherry-pick, apply what is useful to your context. I have no idea what your context is. There are probably a lot of contextual forces and factors at play which led to my viral success which I am completely unaware of, so take with a (more than) pinch of salt!
If you want to read more about Jason and his work, do check out the link here!
