A Viral video by definition is: “A video that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email”. The exact number of views that categorises a video as ‘viral’ is really just personal opinion. Viral is ‘lots of views and shares over a short period of time’.
So why don’t all videos go viral?
Why many video will never go viral
A viral video must move the person watching it to the point where they decide to share it with another person, or typically a group of people, via social media. The problem that most videos have, is although they maybe informative and entertaining videos, they don’t provoke or warrant public sharing. Typically a corporate video will never go viral, however, understand that a corporate film is not really intended to go viral. The same is true for many product videos, a successful product video will inform, educate and drive a sale, but very few will lead to virality. That said a product video is the most likely to reach viral status in our opinion, and many do… promotion techniques plays a huge role in anything viral, and many are kick started with large budgets.
A non-viral video is a bad video?
Absolutely not, as mentioned above, many videos are never designed to go viral, they are adverts or informative pieces, typically designed to drive sales from an individual viewer. You can still expect to receive hundreds, or thousands of video views over time if you are using video as a marketing tool. If you receive much less then 500 views over an average period of time, then you are not using your video effectively as a marketing tool. Seek advice.
What makes a good viral video?
Subjects that touch your heart, make you laugh, scare you, shock, offend or defend can all be the back bone of a viral video.
Animals & children are by far the most viewed video topics on YouTube. A good viral video is something you have never seen before, or even something everyone’s thinking, but doesn’t dare say. There is that phrase, “all publicity is good publicity”. As long as it gets shared, you’re on to a winner. Remember, in most cases people don’t want to be sold to, they want to be entertained.
Finally one shore start way to see a video go viral is to get it shared by newspapers, celebrities or popular websites. Of course this is the biggest challenge of all, and could cost you. However you can take that concept and apply it locally within your business network, could you get your corporate film shared by a person/company with a larger following than you? You could go ‘viral’ within your area.