Learn to Catch the Viral Virus

The term viral is a huge buzz word these days on the internet.  People talk about viral videos, or ad campaigns but they don’t really know much about the process by which something goes “viral.”  Long gone is the time when you can just upload a funny video to YouTube and hope that it randomly gets thousands or millions of views.  Viral content nowadays requires active marketing in order to ensure that it has a good chance of becoming one of the most viewed pieces of content on the internet.  This is no easy task, and there is always a bit of luck involved with how the content will be received by the fickle population of the internet, but there are some guidelines that will give your content the best chance of going viral.

1) Content is King – No one is going to watch your video, listen to your song, or look at your picture if there isn’t much substance to it.  There needs to be something of value there, especially if you want people to tell their friends to go check out your content.  This doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be the best thing to ever hit the internet but it shouldn’t be a 30 sec video that not even your own mother would find entertaining.  Shorter videos tend to do better because they allow people with a short attention span to enjoy it and pass it along.  Make the video easy to remix by keeping it somewhat simple.  One of the best ways that something goes viral is when other people start to make remixes of your video with spoofs or added content.  In the end people will always go back to the original once they have watched a remix.  Never make your content feel like an advertisement.  No one likes them and this will seriously hurt your word of mouth factor.  If all else fails make sure you have some sex appeal in your video.  Don’t underestimate the power of a hot model or two to bring in the views.

2) Make an exciting title – This is so important because a boring title will not catch the attention of anyone.  If it comes down to your content being on the same page as another similar piece of content, the one with the more exciting title will always get more views.  Don’t be afraid to take some liberties with your title as long as your content can back it up.  In other words, exaggerate, embellish, and try and lure your potential audience in with ideas of shock and awe.

3) Pick the right thumbnail  - This is especially true for songs and videos.  Make sure you pick a thumbnail image that will draw someone into your video.  If it is a song don’t use the title screen of your song that has a black background.  Pick the best part of your song/video and make that your thumbnail.  Many people browse the internet very quickly and only stop when something catches their eye.  Make sure that your thumbnail is that thing.  Try and experiment with different thumbnails to see which one draws in more views.

4)  Tag your content correctly – Make sure you don’t use common tags that will just find your content buried under the thousands and thousands of other videos using the same tag.  At the same time don’t use something so obscure that your video never shows up in searches or related content for other videos etc.  I recommend that you try and tag your content as accurately as you can so that people who are interested in content related to yours will be more likely to come across it.  Don’t be tempted to mislead people with your tags as it will only result in disappointed visitors, and a lack of word of mouth.

5) Make use of the internet to jumpstart the viral process – This is the part where most of your work will be put in.  You need to take advantage of the numerous resources available to you to advertise and spread your content.  This means sharing your video on Facebook and MySpace with all of your friends.  Submit your content to community ranked content submission sites such as Digg, Reddit, Mixx, and Propeller.  Have your friends vote the submissions up on those websites to give them some traction.  You can make a Squidoo lens to talk about something related to your viral content and then embed your content on the website.  Make a YouTube channel and submit all of your content there so that people who like one of your videos can subscribe to watch the rest.  Make use of contest websites such as TriFame to gain feedback and views.  The latest craze now in the Web 2.0 world is Twitter.  This is a great tool for spreading your content.  Make sure to use the website bit.ly to shorten your link and then Tweet all about it.  Ask people to ReTweet it to help it become viral.  Make sure that you include a call to action such as “Please vote for me” or “Check this out”, along with the appropriate link.

The term “viral” is a huge buzz word these days on the internet.  People talk about viral videos, or ad campaigns but they don’t really know much about the process by which something goes “viral.”  Long gone is the time when you can just upload a funny video to YouTube and hope that it randomly gets thousands or millions of views.  Viral content nowadays requires active marketing in order to ensure that it has a good chance of becoming one of the most viewed pieces of content on the internet.  This is no easy task, and there is always a bit of luck involved with how the content will be received by the fickle population of the internet, but there are some guidelines that will give your content the best chance of going viral.

1) Content is King – No one is going to watch your video, listen to your song, or look at your picture if there isn’t much substance to it.  There needs to be something of value there, especially if you want people to tell their friends to go check out your content.  This doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be the best thing to ever hit the internet but it shouldn’t be a 30 sec video that not even your own mother would find entertaining.  Shorter videos tend to do better because they allow people with a short attention span to enjoy it and pass it along.  Make the video easy to remix by keeping it somewhat simple.  One of the best ways that something goes viral is when other people start to make remixes of your video with spoofs or added content.  In the end people will always go back to the original once they have watched a remix.  Never make your content feel like an advertisement.  No one likes them and this will seriously hurt your word of mouth factor.  If all else fails make sure you have some sex appeal in your video.  Don’t underestimate the power of a hot model or two to bring in the views.

2) Make an exciting title – This is so important because a boring title will not catch the attention of anyone.  If it comes down to your content being on the same page as another similar piece of content, the one with the more exciting title will always get more views.  Don’t be afraid to take some liberties with your title as long as your content can back it up.  In other words, exaggerate, embellish, and try and lure your potential audience in with ideas of shock and awe.

3) Pick the right thumbnail – This is especially true for songs and videos.  Make sure you pick a thumbnail image that will draw someone into your video.  If it is a song don’t use the title screen of your song that has a black background.  Pick the best part of your song/video and make that your thumbnail.  Many people browse the internet very quickly and only stop when something catches their eye.  Make sure that your thumbnail is that thing.  Try and experiment with different thumbnails to see which one draws in more views.

4)  Tag your content correctly – Make sure you don’t use common tags that will just find your content buried under the thousands and thousands of other videos using the same tag.  At the same time don’t use something so obscure that your video never shows up in searches or related content for other videos etc.  I recommend that you try and tag your content as accurately as you can so that people who are interested in content related to yours will be more likely to come across it.  Don’t be tempted to mislead people with your tags as it will only result in disappointed visitors, and a lack of word of mouth.

5) Make use of the internet to jumpstart the viral process – This is the part where most of your work will be put in.  You need to take advantage of the numerous resources available to you to advertise and spread your content.  This means sharing your video on Facebook and MySpace with all of your friends.  Submit your content to community ranked content submission sites such as Digg, Reddit, Mixx, and Propeller.  Have your friends vote the submissions up on those websites to give them some traction.  You can make a Squidoo lens to talk about something related to your viral content and then embed your content on the website.  Make a YouTube channel and submit all of your content there so that people who like one of your videos can subscribe to watch the rest.  Make use of contest websites such as TriFame to gain feedback and views.  The latest craze now in the Web 2.0 world is Twitter.  This is a great tool for spreading your content.  Make sure to use the website bit.ly to shorten your link and then Tweet all about it.  Ask people to ReTweet it to help it become viral.  Make sure that you include a call to action such as “Please vote for me” or “Check this out”, along with the appropriate link.

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