YouTube Marketing - Viral videos

Sunglasses-maker Ray Ban has created a site on YouTube called Never Hide Films, where the company posts videos including viral sensations like “Cow Gives Birth to Dude” and “Guy Has Glasses Tattooed to Face”. The most popular one so far, “Sunglass Catch”, has hit nearly 5 million views. By watching them, you will see what many viral videos have in common:

1. Viral videos show something new or never seen before. This means that directly replicating a viral video — doing the same thing that another viral video shows — is impossible. The person or people shown in the video have to be doing something so unexpected that the viewer will be caught off guard and feel compelled to pass the video along.


2. The video, however, can imitate the types of videos that go viral. For instance, the “Sunglass Catch” video is similar to other homemade videos where basketball players or skateboarders do more and more outrageous stunts as the video progresses. Look at several different viral videos and see if you can imitate the types of things that are shown, if not the exact actions.


3. A good viral video lies on the border between real and unbelievable. The more gullible will be shocked and will pass it on. But even the more discerning will pass it along because they think other people have been fooled by it, and want to correct them. The sunglasses tattoo video left many people, including news outlets, questioning its accuracy. Even though it is clearly on Ray Ban’s site, commenters on YouTube still wonder if it is real.


4. The video should also look authentically homemade. Sure, there are many high-budget, visually rich ads that get passed around as viral videos — Sony Bravia’s are a good example — but with enormous budgets like that, the benefit of going viral is minimal. A good viral video will use its low budget as an asset. The lack of visual richness will also blur the boundary between real and unreal.


5. Having a place where viewers can easily connect the video back to other parts of your marketing plan is crucial. Ray Ban’s “Never Hide” tagline helps in this regard, but the fact that Ray Ban curates these videos on a single site is also important. Ray Ban also takes down copies of their advertisement from other posters so the connection to their home site is not diluted.


6. Most viral videos fail. Of the twenty videos on the Never Hide site, only four have reached one million viewers. Prepare to throw a lot of spaghetti on the wall before any of it sticks.

Source of Information :  Website Magazine October 2010

YouTube Marketing - Viral videos