My most popular video has gotten about 13,000 hits. Obviously, I don't know.

I have not had any of my videos go "viral," but I certainly have tried. As a result of failing to succeed (love that phrase), I have no definitive answers.

However, I think I have learned a few small things that might help.

The one and only time I set out deliberately to make a video that would go viral was November 2009. A girl who played high school sports with my daughter, and who was an amazing athlete, and also shockingly gorgeous, was a finalist in the "Victoria Secret" model competition on television. The winner was to be chosen largely by online voting. I had done a highlight DVD back in 2004 of the high school girls volleyball and basketball team, and I still had the highlights, sorted by each athlete, stored on a hard drive.

So, I simply put her highlights into Vegas, rendered, and uploaded to YouTube.

I then sent a link to my daughter and asked her to post on Facebook and send emails to everyone she knew in order to get the video to go viral. I also tried to find a way to link to the Victoria Secret site, but failed.

I just looked at the "Insight" stats on YouTube for this video, and indeed it did get a spike in hits in the week prior to the modeling competition finals, but only 200 views per day. Hardly viral. It then spiked again a year later, in November this year, when they held this season's contest.

Since the girl was not in this year's contest, and since I didn't post anything this year, all these recent hits were simply from people searching for "victoria secret."

Here's that video, FWIW:



As you can see, it is long and, unless you are really into girl's high school sports, probably not very interesting, even if you have somehow gotten interested in rooting for the girl. Had I made it only 2-3 minutes, and made it more interesting, that might have helped.

But, I did learn one thing: the first thing about getting hits is to pay a LOT of attention to the search terms you include. The more you include, the more hits you'll get.

As I look at my other videos, the ones that are close to viral are tied to a big event that people can relate to. My most-viewed video, by a large margin, is this incredible footage, from film I transferred for an old friend, of the 1929 Cubs-Athletics World Series game (that's baseball, for those of you not in the USA):



I also have managed to get a large number of hits initially by posting on sites where people might be interested in the subject. For instance, with this video from just before WWII:



I emailed and posted on every WWII aircraft enthusiast site I could find. As a result, I got a really nice initial spike in viewership, but then it died out.

So, I learned how to prime the pump, but not how to turn the initial trickle into a large flow that sustains over time.

So, in summary:

1. Find something that ties into a major event or shared experience;
2. Have something that is inherently interesting, and not too specialized (the WWII airplanes are too specialized);
3. Spend a lot of time posting links on Facebook, enthusiast sites, etc.

And finally, get lucky. If you look at the truly viral videos, like the "wedding entrance" video or the "where the hell is matt" series, who the heck could predict that these would be so popular? The response to art -- if YouTube videos can be classified as such -- is impossible to predict.

I have a candidate... I see soccer videos on the main page of yahoo that are not nearly as impressive as those in this video. Taken some 14 years ago in the Hi8 days. Edited in Vegas 4. So far it has 218 views and one "thumbs up" - go figure.



...Jerry

What's everyone's opinions of viral in regards to viewership count? 100k, 500k, 1million? What's the magic number to hit and cross?

Not too long ago, our local news station posted a link on their facebook page about a news story that "goes viral" in their words, and viewer count was about 1500 or so on YouTube. I checked it again a few days later and it wasn't much higher. It certainly wasn't viral in my opinion.

Mark

How to make a Viral Video?

Choose a subject that people will want to watch .. maybe more than once,

Make is so good that people will tell their friends about it .. and those people will tell their friends .. and those people will tell their friends ... and so on.

Try not to make it too long. It's hard to keep folks interested for a long time, and they will loose interest and not tell their friends.

Once you finish it ... let as many people know about it as you can.

======================

On a serious note: I have over 60 videos on YouTube. I've never tried to make a "viral video" ... but my highest video is over 100,000 .. but that took *years* to reach that level. Most of mine are around a couple of hundred views. Here is that big one...

The only thing I care about when making a video to put up in public is "does it say what I want it to say". I've made a few videos that have won me something. Very little views but I didn't care, I wanted to do something specific & I did it. None of my 48 hour film videos have 500 hits (maybe 650 between all three) but I don't care, I made it because I want to.

If you look at most "viral" videos they're either pretty bland or something that you really wouldn't want other people to view all the time. I don't think I have any in my favorites on the tube. They're the modern equivalent of the fart joke or train wreck.

I've had several go "viral" (100K+ views) though not deliberately. As far as I can tell, its mostly luck, though one common aspect was someone else getting it to the main page of a big "social media" site: Lifehacker, Digg, Reddit, etc. In one case an editor at Lifehacker happened to be "into" the subject of my video.

Okay, I'll admit I can't figure out how to embed this



Anyway, it had half a million hits because of the cute factor.

This one has had over a hundred thousand

I do a lot of international theatre productions content like Chicago, Lion king, Mamma Mia, Grease etc
So often I will do a clip during rehearsals, and final full stage shots, the clips will be uploaded but there will be links to the clip from multiple web sites from the theater, production companies, stage/set production companies, casting companies, wardrobe/dress designers, to the guys that make coffee…everybody has a link to the clip on their web page
Then the cast, friends of the cast have links on face book etc

So you need to position the clip in the market place and use as many resources, links as possible.

'Okay, I'll admit I can't figure out how to embed this"Try this: [link=

...Jerry

i don't really have any sage advice, but the video i created (commissioned by the gallery) that accompanies my wife's touring art show has had over 122k hits on vimeo, it mostly went viral in the first two days - but there was quite a large, eclectic crowd at the opening and a fair amount of hype from the gallery, newspapers, etc.,.

from what i gather what seems to go viral is usually either really, really dumb, or exceptionally hyped celebrity, all else is random, like the comedians history of dance with some 14mil hits..

all that aside - what does it really matter if something goes viral? if you could turn the hits into cash it would be another matter entirely, but otherwise good for the ego / bragging rights?

i suppose you 'might' get picked up by some organisation or other (tv, music, ad agency), but i've yet to read of anyone making serious money from a viral clip. however, i do stand to be corrected though....

"what does it really matter if something goes viral?"

Well I think we'd all rather have a reasonable number of people see what we've created than no one. Beyond that, sure it wouldn't hurt the ego if you get over 10M views.

If the intent is to broadcast a message or sell a product then no views = fail. If memory serves me well ice is trying to get a message "out there" and his best efforts will fail if only a few see the message. Unlike a TVC campaign YT doesn't give you a captive audience and it's hard to target a specific demographic so you I think you need a scattergun approach, get a huge number of views in the hope that part of those wiewers are from your target demographic.
Once you've got past the "how to get it to go viral" then you need to think about the content. If the content is a put off your views will not escalate and / or you'll get lots of views but fail to deliver the message. It really is a bit of minefield.
Linking the campaign to a physical event is a huge help, like that UK mobile ad staged in Waterloo station. It went viral before they ran the ads on TV. Of course they had a significant budget and good creatives masterminding the campaign and most of these things are one shots. I've seen attempts to copycat such things and they are huge flops.

Bob.

For what it's worth (which isn't much), here is a list of http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/meet-the-youtube-stars-making-100000-plus-per-year-535349.html?tickers=goog,^ixic,qqqqten people[/link] who know what it takes to "go viral."

Seems humor is a key element.

My whale shark video is nearly up to a million Youtube views, but it's taken 5 years, and being a YouTube partner helps. I wouldn't call it viral, it's just that sharks sell, and I was in relatively early with it. My mimic octopus video is also over 800k. I have much prettier videos, but people like weird stuff. My channel.

I subscribe to a weekly newsletter from ReelSEO. There are occasionally some useful articles in it, and they have a regular feature, The Week’s Best Viral Videos & Viral Video Marketing Lessons.

Wow. good info here.

Bob seems to remember me (despite my absence) and knows what I am getting at. Lol.

some good info to grasp from here.

Okay, so here's the idea. If you all remember I made my first video called "..So I ran." a few years ago (about a young kid chasing money till he dies (?). You all helped me a lot.
This time a round it's much stupider. It's about a giant frog (costume) trying to lead a normal life but everything goes wrong. filmed downtown a large city. Everyone tells me that once I get it done it will go "viral" (*sigh). I am having my doubts.
There are no words, just music (in the style of So I Ran). How long can it be? any ideas? Right now, my tightes editing will leave it about 7:00. Is that doomed from the start?

I think I am blabbing. sorry.

bye.

The mind boggles to find out what actually goes viral. A while ago I comented on the famous "JK wedding" video which at the time was 32 million hits. Search YouTube now and check it out, it's gone "pandemic" with almost 63 million.

So what goes viral is a natural fun video shot with a cell phone. No fancy text or even a tripod. I still cry everytime i see this clip.

These are not necessarily viral, but they say they get over 100,000 views a month.

http://www.lifeonterra.com/

So well produced (no cell phone footage), non-comedic content can find an audience.

Its just really hard.

kairosmatt

Teenage mutant ninja frog runs amok in Tokyo subway with AK47?
Of course the mutation just HAS to be the result of irradiation in some Japanese reactor meltdown and you need to get this done real quick. That should get lots of views if you have enough gratuitous violence and bloodshed and have tags like "tsunami" :)


You could also read The Metamorphosis by Kafka if you want something serious that no one will probably watch.

/sarcasm

Bob.

Here are two very recent online articles on this topic.
Viral Videos: Five Questions to Ask Yourself
Digital Marketing Guide: How to Make Your Branded Video Go Truly Viral

And here's a YouTube video with 8,717,994 hits and counting.



Mike

Here's an article about a video that apparently got "famous" by being mentioned on Tosh.0...

Thanks Farss.

very helpful. lol.