The Secret Strategies Behind Many "Viral" Videos

Websites like YouTube are full of videos all vying for attention. Even with millions of users watching videos each day, most clips get very few hits. Only a handful of videos get 100,000 hits or more. These are often referred to as viral videos. The massive number of viewers may seem like luck but getting a video to go viral comes down to good content, efficient networking, a good title and thumbnail picture, comment control, timing and tagging. Here is how it works.

The best videos are between 15 and 30 seconds. They use things like fake headlines and sex appeal to help draw people in. The best videos are also easy to reuse so other people can repost or remix them. Once the video is created, the race is on. Simply posting a video does not mean people are going to watch it. By using blogs, forums, email lists, facebook, myspace and friends to get the word out a good video will start to gain popularity. The idea is to link the video to blogs, post links to it in discussion forums, email everyone you know a link to the video, recommend it to all your friends on facebook and myspace and do anything else possible to spread the word. The combination of all these efforts is only the beginning. Blogs and social networking can often help a good video start to snowball.

Another important factor is the title and thumbnail picture for a video. The title needs to be compelling, interesting and unique. This attracts attention and makes the video more likely to be found in a search. The thumbnail picture is just as important. It is the first thing anyone sees when searching for a video. Nothing kills peoples interest like a dull picture.

 

Once the video is up and the word is out, it is time to create even more buzz by incorporating interesting conversation in the comments section. Many youtube users have multiple accounts so they can sign on under two different names and stir up some controversy. It is also important to delete negative comments that may hurt the blogs potential. This allows the videos creator to steer the conversation and encourages more people to take an active interest in the content. Finally, if a creator has multiple videos, they need good timing and tagging. Rather than releasing all their videos slowly, it is important to post all the videos at the same time. Users may want to watch all the videos but if they can not, they will not come back later. It is also important to give all the related videos unique tags. That way anyone watching one video will see the rest in the “more like this” section. Using these steps, anyone can boost the number of people watching their videos.

A great example of a video going "viral"after being posted to YouTube. "Here it Goes Again", by OK Go, was an extremely successful viral video on YouTube for 2009 and 2010, gaining the band well over 10 million hits. This music video doesn't include backup dancers, lighting effects, or motion graphics...rather, 6 treadmills, one video camera and an epic choreographed dance with the band. Simple, yet brilliant! 

"Here it Goes Again" - OK Go

Written By: Brad Girtz - Mindshift Media Blogger
Blog Posting By: Tyler Griffin, Creative Director - Mindshift Media