How to Make a Video Go Viral
I read a very interesting article in the Sunday Times newspaper yesterday about what makes a video go viral, and how you can make a profit from it. It's entitled "Charge of the Viral Video" by Stephen Armstrong and Robin Henry. You can read the full article on their website: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/focus - but I thought I'd quote the most relevant parts here.
The video they refer to in the article is this one:
http://youtu.be/CtB1HQt6ak8
Within the first 24 hours of this video being posted online, its owner had already made over £500 (around $750 USD). Not too shabby for a video that's only 47 seconds long and was shot on a mobile phone!
This video has nothing to do with marketing, and doesn't direct traffic to a website. It makes money for is owner in partnership with YouTube. YouTube has an algorithm that enables it to spot when a video is starting to go viral. It then offers the owner a cut of the advertising revenue. This is small beer, however, compared to the merchandising deals on offer including T-shirts and a mobile phone ringtone. Even more lucrative, could be suing all the people who are infringing the owners copyright by making use of the soundtrack on other videos.
So how do videos in general, and this video in particular go viral?
This video was listed on reddit. There was also an interesting sidebar to the article:
Some of these tactics sound a bit "black hat" to me, but they certainly give food for thought. The main point I drew from the article is: a video that is directly connected with any form of marketing will not go viral - ever! Nevertheless, if you can hit the right buttons, you can make a decent amount of money without having to do any selling per se.
The video they refer to in the article is this one:
http://youtu.be/CtB1HQt6ak8
Within the first 24 hours of this video being posted online, its owner had already made over £500 (around $750 USD). Not too shabby for a video that's only 47 seconds long and was shot on a mobile phone!
This video has nothing to do with marketing, and doesn't direct traffic to a website. It makes money for is owner in partnership with YouTube. YouTube has an algorithm that enables it to spot when a video is starting to go viral. It then offers the owner a cut of the advertising revenue. This is small beer, however, compared to the merchandising deals on offer including T-shirts and a mobile phone ringtone. Even more lucrative, could be suing all the people who are infringing the owners copyright by making use of the soundtrack on other videos.
So how do videos in general, and this video in particular go viral?
| David Waterhouse, editor of the Viral Video Chart site, said: "Three sites pretty much launch all the viral video hits you'll find online - reddit, 4chan, and thedailywh.at. |
| How to make a hit Researchers at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia have worked out which emotions are most likely to prompt people to share videos online. Videos that prompt laughter, anger, crying or shock are the most likely to be shared, they say. Of these, positive emotions - exhilaration, hilarity, astonishment, and inspiration - do better than negative ones, such as anger, disgust, sadness, shock or frustration. Simple, you might think; but even videos with the right qualities don't always catch on. So a nice industry is emerging to pay people to "like" your video in the hope others will be attracted to an item with numerous hits. Companies such as bulkfans.com and buytwitterfollowers.org will, for a price, provide your site or video with "hits" or YouTube clicks. Some offer to provide as many as 10,00 clicks. If your video does not go viral after that, you might as well face it - it's just not very appealing. |