In
the realm of online marketing, few objectives are more desirable or downright
elusive than the viral video. Like the vicissitudes of the stock market, the
popularity of any online video depends on the personal tastes and sentiments of
millions of unique individuals, and is thus difficult to predict. However,
there are a few tactics you can employ to improve your chances of achieving
virality.
Insights
from past viral video trends
According
to research by marketing technology company
Unruly, some of the most important factors that drive video sharing are
1) social motivations, including the desire to start a conversation,
seek friends’ opinions, offer useful
information, or support a good cause;
2) a positive emotional response to the video;
3) the participation of “super sharers”—a minority of internet users
who are responsible for around 80 percent of total shares; and
4) timing.
On
average, the greater the total volume of shares a video receives in the first
two days of its existence, the higher its viral peak, which typically arrives
48 to 72 hours post-launch. Unruly’s data suggest that most sharing activity
occurs in the latter half of the work week, and that Wednesday is the optimal
sharing day. Marketers hoping to ride this weekly wave should post their video
by Wednesday or sooner. Avoid posting on weekends or holidays.
Combine
entertainment with a message.
Mekanism,
an advertising agency with offices in New York and San Francisco, has produced
and marketed several viral videos. Among the most famous was the 2012 offering Hovercat, designed to
encourage adoption of cats on behalf of the American Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).
Mekanism
sums up its philosophy on viral videos with the phrase
“candy with the medicine”—in other words, entice viewers with the promise of
entertainment, and complement that with a substantive message. In the case of Hovercat, Mekanism’s creative team began
by identifying a theme they figured would make people smile (a zany cat often
does the trick), and then developed their own creative take on a classic viral
video genre. (Your feline companion may humorously knock items off tables or
fend off alligators, but can it hover in the air like Superman?)
Hovercat concludes by noting that the
cat in the video was adopted from the ASPCA, and links to the organization’s
website.
Market
and distribute the video actively
To
achieve virality, you must fulfill two conditions: 1) content that viewers find
engaging and worth sharing; and 2) widespread exposure.
Before
you go through the technical process of recording a video, you should develop a
clear marketing strategy, and consider how the video will help you reach your
goal. Immediately after you post the video, intensify your marketing efforts.
Writing
in Medium about her first big hit Girl Learns to Dance in a Year (TIME LAPSE),
viral video specialist Karen X. Cheng explains: “I did a ton
of marketing, and it started before the video was released. Going viral was not
an accident—it was work.”
Cheng
started by posting the video on Facebook and Twitter, then submitted it to
Reddit and Hacker News. She asked friends and acquaintances to share it, and
reached out to dancers and dance bloggers. Shortly thereafter, writers at
Kottke, Mashable, Jezebel, and Huffington Post penned articles about the video.
By day three, Girl Learns to Dance in a
Year (TIME LAPSE) appeared on the front page of Youtube, and had achieved
nearly 2 million views.
Cheng
emphasizes the importance of a brief, catchy title, and—modern attention spans
being what they are—recommends keeping the video short and sweet, preferably
under two minutes.
