10 Factors That Make Videos Go Viral

We'd all like to have our video go viral, but as everyone knows, it's a lot harder to make that happen than that seems. There's so much luck involved in the process that it's difficult to actually pinpoint why it ever happens at all. That said, Online Video Insider came up with a fine list of factors that make a video go viral on YouTube or any other online video portal.

1. It has to be authentic. Things that are staged don't usually go viral.

2. It can't easily be reproduced. Uniqueness has a lot to do with virility.

3. It's odd. Something far out of the ordinary could catch on.

4. It's humorous. We all love to laugh, and videos that makes us do that have a better chance of spreading.

5. It's the music. Something what's unique or special about a musical piece can help it go viral.

6. There's something surprising. The unexpected result in a video makes us want to share.

7. There's something super impressive. Feats that are far beyond normal have a good chance to go viral.

8. It's a parody of something. Or better still, if something in your video can be parodied or copied.

9. It's painful or embarrassing. It's human nature to revel in someone else's pain or embarrassment, but take care not to intentionally hurt or embarrass someone else.

10. It's timely to the culture of today. This can be fleeting as pop culture constantly changes.

While any one of these things can be enough to make a video go viral, combine several of them and you may have a winner.

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Is Viral Success A Myth?

Everyone is searching for viral success with one of their videos. There's been books written about it (a good one is Contagious: Why Things Catch On), presentations given at conferences, countless web articles, and much speculation about assumptions and formulas, but few are able to recreate the a success like OK Go's "Here It Goes Again," Rebecca Black's "Friday," Baauer's "Harlem Shake," or Psy's "Gangnam Style" (not to mention the numerous cat videos that routinely make the rounds).

But is it possible that what we think of as viral isn't actually viral after all? A number of recent articles and presentations propose that these videos were given a big corporate helping hand first before getting any kind of traction.

Take for instance Psy's "Gangnam Style." In a recent article on Pando, Brandon Mendelson postulates that the video's success is "actually the tail end of months and months of preparation, buying fake views and comments, an extensive PR campaign, and his video fitting a very specific need for the business model that fuels the web: The Page View Based Economy."

He goes on to state that Psy's record company purchased views and comments by using companies like Microworkers and Fiverr to trick the YouTube algorithm into thinking the video was exploding. It actually was, only as a result of gaming the system. 

Another article by Keven Ashton on Quartz points out that Baauer's "Harlem Shake" had only a few thousand views as a result of YouTube comic George Miller's video compilation. It was only after Warner Brother's owned Maker Studios made a version of the video to promote the studio itself and promoted it across it's many YouTube channels and Twitter did the video begin to get some traction. Other companies, DJs and bloggers jumped on, mostly to promote themselves, which caused Baauer's record label to take notice and begin its own promotion. Ashton provides a pretty thorough blow by blog of how it all took place, and it a lot less to do with what we think "viral" is rather than self-promotion. Here's the very first version the "Harlem Shake."

The gist of both articles is that what we believe and what's reality are frequently two different things when it comes to social media. It's becoming easier to manipulate many of the metrics that we use to measure success, if you have the money. 

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The Payout From A Viral Video

As mentioned several times previously on this blog, a viral video on YouTube can pay huge dividends to an artist's popularity, but doesn't necessarily add too much to his pocketbook in the grand scheme of things.

Take Psy's "Gangnam Style," for instance. With over 1.2 billion views, he managed to make about $8.6 million from YouTube, a nice chunk of change to be sure, but it seems way low considering the massive world-wide coverage. Of course, Psy made his big dough from personal appearances and pistachio nut commercials afterwards, which made the money from YouTube look like just a drop in the bucket.

Here's a great infographic that outlines the money made by the 30 most watched music videos, as well as some general rules on what it takes to go viral. It also takes a look at OK Go's "This Too Shall Pass" and the massive effort it took to produce.

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Does a Video Really Have To Be Viral?

We'd all like to have the next big viral video with several million views overnight, but the likelihood of that happening is almost as remote as winning the lottery. That said, perhaps a viral video isn't the key to promotion after all. As you can see from the infographic below, sometimes a clever promotional video that isn't viral in the slightest can be just as effective (or even more so) in getting the word out.

Although the focus is on a hygienic product, it could just as well be about your next single, album, tour or merchandise. In the article where this came on ReelSEO, three premises are stated:

“Screw Viral Videos” Reason 1: Focus on Distribution

“Screw Viral Videos” Reason 2: Not Social Enough

"Screw Viral Videos" Reason 3: Make the Videos that YOU Want to See

I think the sooner that you get the idea that a video must go viral to be successful, the sooner you begin to make a video that's more effective for your promotion.

You can read the entire article here.  Below the infographic, you'll find the video that cause the stir.

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How To Create A Viral Video

We'd all love for our video to go viral and get millions of views overnight. That's the dream, but it happens pretty rarely, although it's more likely to happen if you have an adorable cat or baby video, or for the guys, a video worthy of Jackass. RealSEO recently posted an article about How To Run A Successful Online Video Contest, and in it were some pretty good advice about creating a viral campaign.

"Not to be confused with the contest video, viral videos are entertaining content pieces designed to be spread virally throughout the web and should not blatantly promote the contest. From our experience, the following rules will help:

• Create Content, Not Ads – Try to refrain from creating a blatant ad for your contest and focus on creating a piece of content that entertains. It is ok to promote your contest somewhere, but do it subtly and organically (as if it is part of the story).

• Provoke a response – Humans are social beings and we naturally like to share positive experiences like laughter or happiness with our friends. Draw an emotional response from your viewer such as shock or laughter and they will naturally want to share it with their friends.

• Remove sharing barriers – Consider the points before (under premise) on shareable content. What does sharing your video say about the individual? Does this align with what they want to be saying about themselves?

• Seed your content – Before it can go viral, you need initial viewers. Identify influencers in your industry and get it in front of them, or use a viral seeding company such as Sharethrough or Unruly Media to do it for you. These services usually charge a per view fee so it’s measurable and effective.

There are tons of resources on creating ‘Social Videos’, for the latest best practices and information check out http://www.reelseo.com/video/social/

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5 Viral Video Rules

I read an interesting article today called "How To Break All The Rules Of Viral Video - And Still Go Viral." The premise of the article is that what really makes something go viral is to break the rules. But you can't break the rules until you know what they are, so here's what the article spelled out.

• Rule #1 - Keep It Short. It seems pretty obvious, but videos have a much better chance of going viral if they're short, mostly because that's what our attention span demands these days.

• Rule #2 - Speak Clearly. Once again, it's pretty obvious. If you have any narration, you increase your chances of virility if your viewers can understand it.

• Rule #3 - Avoid Copyrighted Material. Copyrighted material can make a video stop in its tracks just as it gets some viral momentum due to a take-down notice from the content owners attorneys. You might get away with it; then again, you might not.

• Rule #4 - Reinvent Yourself. According to the article, try a different approach for each video. I'm not so sure I agree with this. If you have a style that works, you might be better off to brand yourself with that style.

• Rule #5 - Be Timely. You have a greater chance to go viral if your content is about something currently popular, although there are perennials like cats and babies that never seem to go out of style.

Ok, these are the rules. Now shoot a video that's nothing like them (except for #3, keep doing that) and you'll have a good chance to go viral.

Check out this link for the entire post.

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