5 ways TED catapulted into a global brand (and how you can, too)

Cohen discussed TED’s evolution from a single conference into a global media platform at Mashable Connect recently. The key has always been inspiring and innovative ideas.

For TED, it discovered early on that the nature of its content created scores of like-minded individuals eager to spread ideas themselves. Cohen outlined its strategy towards taking these “ideas worth spreading” and inspiring a community of discovery and change.

1. Feed the hunger for participation.

People want to be a part of something bigger. For TED, the desire to scale to a global level was enabled by an empowered community who were ready and willing to translate talks into different languages.

To date, TED Talks have been translated into 86 languages through volunteer efforts.

2. Encourage sharing.

There are 1,200 TED Talks online that have been viewed collectively more than 800,000,000 times.

Cohen explained that the widespread use of social media naturally played a part in this process.

“Online users are exquisitely vulnerable to distraction” Cohen said.