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Top 10 Ways to Get Your Viral Video Seen

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crowd.jpgIronic title because a video isn’t viral UNLESS it’s seen. But it got your attention, didn’t it? Here are some tips for ensuring your video is seen beyond 14 teenagers on YouTube.

Just like search engines are in constant flux, so is online video. So this advice has a limited shelf life:

  1. Make it good. That means it’s short, funny, topical, and short. Did I mention short? Even better, it should have a surprise ending. Example- while I like my “Killer Weed” better, the ending for “Prank the Garbage Man” inspired more viral activity (note- I serve all of my videos here on Revver because I make money if you click ads, but the 100K, 300K, and 700K views have occured on other sites).
  2. Get it on as many sites as you can. Don’t think posting it on YouTube will bring you fame. Try sites that have a decent viewership but aren’t bloated with videos (Google Video, Yahoo Video, Metacafe). Again- you want to make money so get it on Revver, but don’t stop with Revver as the traffic is higher elsewhere.
  3. Once it’s live, your viral task begins not ends. Market it!
  4. Blog about your video, or convince prominent bloggers to blog about it.
  5. Get the ball rolling by getting friends to view and rate it positively. Some good videos never make it out of the vicious cycle… they aren’t popular because they’re not popular. If it’s on YouTube, ask people to make it a favorite.
  6. Digg your video but don’t absuse Digg. Save it for really good ones and timely ones.
  7. Hitch your wagon to related stars. Find other popular and related video and leave comments about your video (don’t be spammish about this, though). YouTube allows you to leave a “video response” to other videos, and if you do that to a highly visible video you’ll get a decent percentage seeing yours.
  8. Be realistic about “conversions.” 95% of people don’t type URLs after they see a video. So don’t think a popular video that brands your website will get even 1% of people to visit your site. Unless your content rocks and you give them a specific reason to visit the site (like seeing a sequel).
  9. Choose your tags wisely. You don’t want to waste tag space on common words that are highly competitive (like “funny” or “hilarious”). Be as specific as possible. The search engines are quite kind to online-video site keywords. For instance, I’m the top listing on Google now for the word “Healies” (which I found out later is spelled Heelys).
  10. Keep trying. Quality is more important than quantity, but quantity is a close second. Don’t let a few failed attempts demoralize you. I’ve only had a few breakouts from the some 200 I’ve posted. And sometimes an old one will catch on months after I posted it.

Some good videos never make it out of the vicious cycle… they aren’t popular because they’re not popular.

21 thoughts on “Top 10 Ways to Get Your Viral Video Seen”

  1. 11. Make it sensationalistic or titilating. Pander to the huge Jerry Springer market. Case in point, rawrz0rz’s “Real Ghost?”. 103,011 views. Sixteen seconds long and all grainy, soundless, don’t really see anything film, but more hits than Zefrank can get with his A-list material.

  2. I just linked here from SteveGarfield.com. As a video producer, this is something really important to me… when you’re proud of your work, you should do your best to get it seen. Great post…

  4. You know what- I think Ghost videos sell. There are a few ghost sites that stream Revver. Too bad Revver won’t tell you yet where they’re viewed. Do a Google or two and you’ll find these ghost sites. I’ll bet they’re getting you the views and making handsome affiliate fees on your flick (which I happened to like a lot)

  5. I noticed it was difficult to sift through all of the content on YouTube and Google. I think there is too much content and not a good ranking system.

    I agree with the author of the article that you should hit as many sites as possible. And I also think that Revver.com should be one of your top video posting sites (just because they have the best payment model out there).

    You can also post a link to your video on kungfugrip.com. This is a site that lets you post a link to your video, and then people vote your video up or down. This site has promise, because it has a ranking system so that your video does not get lost in the shuffle of videos.

  6. There are a few models like KunFugGrip. I like them because they ad value (consumer votes) in a simple way, and overlay many video sites.

  10. I have produced over 100 comic horror videos over the past coupla months. I uploaded loads onto YouTube under the username pappymayfly, but they were swamped by amatuer vids.
    So I entered all the other sites under one banner – THE WOWZER comic horror strips (tags are all important).
    Now if you type Wowzer into gougle search, my videos are listed on the first page. Try it and see!
    Wowzer (mine’s a scotch on the rocks)
    Wowzat.

  15. So I produced a zany video of shamen pictures. Drunk people who have been taken advantage of. Added a brilliant music score of Deep purple’s Never never before. all created freely on jumpcut and tagged it as – (How to edit a zany video with audio).
    After two days it is number one on the gougle page.
    I don’t need to put in a link here, just type in the words in the brackets on gougle search and see if I’m right or wrong.
    Cheers, mine’s a scotch on the rocks.

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