The Recipe for Making a Video Go Viral
There are 48 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. But only a tiny percent ever “go viral.”
As marketers, we love the idea of creating a piece of content that people share over and over. But, can we actually manufacture a viral video?
There is no exact formula, but according to the trends manager at YouTube, there are some key traits that all viral videos possess:
- Taste Makers – someone well known endorsing the video, mentioning it on their own social platforms or it getting buzz via news channels, blogging sites or websites
– Communities of participation - the video must spark engagement in order to share it among others or encourage people to want to make their own versions
– Unexpectedness - creating something that people haven’t seen before, that evokes some sort of emotion organically from within them whether it be laughter, joy, empathy, or sadness, but something that truly speaks to them.
The evidence shows that the most viewed videos are not from brands, but instead from ordinary people with no intentions other than sharing life experiences. So where does that leave brands? Well, the unfortunate truth is branded videos that go viral are usually part of an integrated campaign, in many cases with a paid media component or complimentary promotion. Look no further than the Tetley Tea ‘Routine Experiment’ Campaign in which the company hired young men to be personal butlers for shoppers at a local market instead of providing shopping carts to the customers. It was filmed and created to show how people react when their habits are broken. The video received over 250,000 views and worked tremendously to help the company promote its new product line, Tetley Infusions. Not only was there a paid component, but the brand leveraged its owned channels such as its Facebook and YouTube accounts to help promote it.
We’re not saying it’s impossible to create a branded video that grows organically; we’re just keeping it real.
We’re going to continue tweaking our recipe and would love to hear about any success you’ve had cooking up a viral.
Jessica Moran is a Marketing Coordinator at GY&K. Connect with her on Twitter: @jessy_moran
Tags: GY&K, Marketing, Marketing Innovation, Media, Social Media, viral videos, youtube
This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2012 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Online, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
