Secret Recipe for Viral Video Popularity
A recent article about YouTube reveals that 50,000 videos are uploaded a day, and 50 million are viewed. This ratio has changed, no doubt, over time. But that basically means the average views per video should be around 1000. Most videos, however, never surpass 10-100 views. Others get more than 10 million.
So what’s the secret recipe to getting a viral video?
- Start with 1 pound of good video content- ideally short and minimally packaged.
- Stir some initial enthusiasm that yields to high views and votes. Here’s where self promotion and luck can enhance the meal.
- Bake and hope that a few Bloggers point to your video. For example, in my first YouTube success, Googlehead went from 5,000 views last night to 8,000 this morning- I have MicroPersuasion to thank for much of that.
- Remove from oven and let cool. Hope that someone at YouTube decides to feature it.
- Serve warm. Once a video is popular it hits “tipping point.” People want to watch popular videos, so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Again- if the system works right, the best videos are the most popular. In my opinion, that isn’t necessarily happening yet. I’ve seen some great stuff burried with no views and some videos on the “most popular” that have me as puzzled as when mullets were popular.
There are soo many quality videos with sooo little views! It drives me crazy. I just came across a cool little video and I do not know it it is real or not. Check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_eBUaIGdlE
There are several versions and some are awesome. Who is this guy. Why has no one seen the video. I just happen to come by it looking for a popular scarface video, which turned out to be stupid.Thanks for the advice…
This guy left EXACTLY the same comment on my blog – http://www.welcometowallyworld.com (and he left it on my vlog as well). Methinks he’s doing some self-promotion. Ah well…good luck to him. It is an amusing vid.
I’m not self promoting! There is a lot of stuff out there that never gets viewed that I am curious about for a site I’m creating. I’m done reading blogs actually, so this is my last post. You people are extremely cautious and paranoid. Check out this video (has nothing at all to do with me!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLLYARMNalY
I love it and it seems to not be as popular as it should be. Good by and good luck, hope your paranoia works out for you! By the way, I got the link to your blog from this page. I guess you are self promoting as well…
Denvy will never know this because he stopped reading blogs because we’re paranoid, but Wally didn’t ask for the link. I put it on there.
That Snakes on a Plane casting call video was great. Too bad eBaum made it impossible for us to read the creator’s name.
Sorry I had a bad day when I wrote that. I love your blogs. Thanks for the replies. Keep up the good work. You’re right about eBaum, it sucks that these little gems get lost in all the muck. Did you guys see this one, it’s amazing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPSuXhRn1NQ
This guy is good. I wonder if he does more characters. He has these nailed.
I don’t know, how do people get views, I don’t really understand how people get up to the 10 thousand.. I’ve got a couple of vids up, though not the normal YouTube stuff, as I’m a kind of artist, but I think they could fit into the model..here is a link to one of them, that I think ought to do well, it’s the Springer Show but done as Romeo and Juliet…how should I go about marketing it…I’ve had some hits for the works, by talking about it in comments on other videos of similar ilk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djxeu_u_Y8g