Yes, thats right… “Potentially” get your video to go viral. I’m not going to lie to you. There is NO exact formula for making a video go viral online. If there was, everyone would have viral videos… all the same time…. RIGHT?
However, many viral videos tend to have the same elements. I’m going to point out these elements as well as other sources these ideas originated from. Hopefully by implementing some of these things you get get your video to go viral. And if you do, PLEASE let us know about it and your experience of how you did it.
Here are some key components to get your video to go viral:
Infectious Agent – The video itself is the “infectious agent”. You need to think of a video that is spread worthy, something people would want OR MUST share with others. Some ideas the are spread worth is funny, controversial, extremely helpful, different, shocking. Biggest of all…. create strong emotion. Try to create a video with a combination of these elements. Create something that somone with a big following would want to share or publish.
Also, it is a good idea to make the video short, maybe about 30 secs to 2 minutes.
Replication Mechanism – Once your video is created, it has to be distributed to places where it can then be spread by others. Get your video on YouTube, other social websites, email, mobile phones, etc. Make sure the it is embeded on your own blog and TRY to get it embedded on others blogs. Especially those with high traffic. Start up forum chats on websites related to the video. An idea is even to setup multiple users and have a conversation with yourself.
I super critical replication mechanism is getting featured in the news. If you can somehow get your video noticed by local publishers, you are golden. If this happens its possible to get on national news or talk shows which would guarantee viral by that time.
Critical Mass – Quickly get the word out about your video to as many people as possible. It would be best if you have already built up a following online through blogging or social networks. Blast it out to everyone. Make friends with others who have large online followings. Get them to blast it out to their community as well.
Do this within 48 hours. This is very important because you want to reach YouTube’s Category homepage.
More Ideas
Create controversy in the video comments section. This will create conversations that make people continue to come back and possibly get their friends in on the controversy.
If you have created multiple videos to a series… post them all at once. Then do the following: Delete the second one around the 48 hour mark and upload it again and push that one. Then delete the third around the 48 hour mark after the second one… and so on. This gives each video a chance to be featured over a span of multiple days instead of only 48 hours total.
It may be a good idea to track your video statistics through TubeMogul.
Last, but NOT LEAST! You will need A Lot of Luck!
Some of my ideas from this post were generate from the following video that you may find helpful as well.
