Viral videos are exactly what they sound like, a video that just keeps spreading. Viral videos are becoming an increasingly important part of the marketing mix. If you can get your company’s video to go viral you can get a lot of impressions for only the amount that it cost you to make the video itself. Even though viral videos can be used as a part of an organization’s marketing strategy, there are many other viral videos out there that shape what kind of music gets listened to, how people act or how people think about certain things. This article lists nine secrets about viral videos; some of these secrets can even help your videos go viral.
The secrets are as follows:
1. Not all viral videos are what they seem: It is not very easy to get a video to go viral. It is important to realize that viral videos take work, and you’re lucky if you get there.
2. Content is NOT King: The content of the video doesn’t have to be perfect, it is still important though, it is what keeps people coming back to the video. “Generally, a concept should not be forced because it fits a brand. Rather, a brand should be fit into a great concept.”
3. Core Strategy: Getting onto the “Most Viewed” page: This one speaks pretty well for itself. “The core concept of video marketing on YouTube is to harness the power of the site’s traffic. Here’s the idea: something like 80 million videos are watched each day on YouTube, and a significant number of those views come from people clicking the “Videos” tab at the top. The goal is to get a video on that Videos page, which lists the Daily Most Viewed videos.”
4. Title Optimization: Having a great title can help increase views, and is one of the best ways to persuade somebody to view your video.
5. Thumbnail Optimization: The thumbnail is what makes videos stand out among other videos.
6. Commenting: Have a conversation with yourself: It’s okay to have heated arguments in the comments section, it lets people become engaged. It’s even better if it involves the brand.
7. Releasing all videos simultaneously: “If someone sees our first video and is so intrigued that they want to watch more, why would we make them wait until we post the next one? We give them everything up front.”
8. Strategic Tagging: Leading viewers down the rabbit hole: Through strategic tagging, you can control (to a certain extent) which videos show up in the “Related Videos” section, meaning that you can place your own videos in that section.
9. Metrics/Tracking: How we measure effectiveness: There are various tools that allow you to track the views/comments/ratings on each video, and they also track the spread of videos outside of YouTube. Some of these tools are: Google Analytics, Tube Mogul, and VidMetrix.
Now that we know the secrets behind viral videos and how to help them go viral, here are three additional tricks from this article to help create a sense of discovery for your viral videos.
1. Great Content: The content of the video must be worth discovering.
2. Build a Fan Base: The people that watch the videos don’t come from nowhere. They have to want to watch your video.
3. Search Engine Optimization: It should be easy to find your videos. If it is not easy to search and find it in YouTube, something needs to be changed. A clear and concise title always helps, but it is important to add a description with keywords as well.
Viral videos have the ability to change how we think about marketing, and I feel that in a few years viral videos will be the way things are done. Obviously Super Bowl commercials will always have the top spot for advertising, but once those commercials hit YouTube (even now), the number of impressions will absolutely explode. The future holds a lot of surprises. Maybe my predictions will be wrong. It is possible that viral videos are just a fad, but let’s hope not.
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Nicely done! I like that you mentioned we need to build a fan base. Great tips!
ReplyDeleteIs the super bowl better impressions or people finding it on youtube?
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