KONY Sequel Got 2% of the Traffic of Its Predecessor

KONY 2012 was the most-viral video of all time. Its sequel? Not so much.
More than a week after KONY 2012: Part II Beyond Famous hit YouTube, the video, which was also created by Invisible Children, has racked up about 1.7 million views. Thats less than 2% of the traffic that KONY 2012 got in its first five days. Part IIs performance shows that the success of the initial video will be hard, if not impossible, to repeat.
The first campaign was an anomaly, says Matt Fiorentino, director of marketing at Visible Measures, a video measurement firm. Weve never seen anything like it before. Fiorentino adds that 1.7 million views is still very good for a video, particularly one with a social good message. Compared to a regular campaign, its pretty good, he says. Whatever they put out is going to be very visible.
Both KONY 2012 and its successor were designed to raise awareness about Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord behind the Lords Resistance Army, a guerrilla force dedicated to overthrowing the Ugandan government. The videos aim to have Kony arrested for war crimes by the end of 2012. Invisible Children is also planning a worldwide rally on April 20 called Cover the Night.
Released on March 5, KONY 2012 is now up to around 180 million views, according to Visible Measures. The success has drawn critics, including a group called Visible Children that took issue with Invisible Childrens overhead costs.
Invisible Children also drew unwanted attention a couple of weeks after the video hit when the groups director and co-founder, Jason Russell, was detained by police in San Diego for charges of public drunkenness and lewd behavior.
With all that back story, there was a lot of curiosity about the KONY 2012 sequel, but Fiorentino says there was probably nothing Invisible Children could have done to garner another video with comparable views, except maybe to wait longer before it released the sequel. Says Fiorentino: They needed to give the audience time to breathe.
Representatives from Invisible Children could not be reached for comment.

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