10 Steps to Make A Viral Video – Guaranteed!
Mar 28
C’mon, you didn’t actually fall for the title did you? You should know it’s impossible to create any viral content. To be truly viral and real, it has to spread naturally. But “going viral” is not the aim. Here are some thoughts on viral marketing from brains much bigger than my own (I hope to focus on Seth Godin’s comment in a further post) :
1) C.C. Chapman, managingthegray.com
Sure, we can all hope that a video will go viral. Who wouldn’t want that type of success? We’d all want it … But, it shouldn’t ever be the measure of success in my mind. Focus on the content, the story, the message you are trying to get out. If people connect with it then it’ll spread and remember it that is important as well.
2) Seth Godin, sethgoin.typepad.com
Notice that ideas never spread because they are important to the originator.
3) Scott Stratten, http://un-marketing.com/blog/
If your “viral video” has 12 views, and 8 of them are you refreshing it, it isn’t “viral”
4) Michael Szpilzinger, http://www.denagraphix.com/blog.html
I find this whole Old Spice Guy thing intriguing. Not because I find Isaiah “‘I’m on a horse” Mustafa so be so debonair. I am talking more about what he and Old Spice failed to accomplish – translating an engaging campaign into a successful one – from a sales perspective….While Old Spice sales are up in general, the viral campaign did not move the sales needle much (according to early indications) I was really rooting for Old Spice on this one, but it seems so far that male YouTube viewers, while not wanting to smell like women’s body wash, still think of Old Spice as Old Man smelling body wash.
5) Joseph Jaffe, jaffejuice.com
I’m a big fan of the masters of pass along. I don’t profess to be expert in how viruses are spread; what makes them infectious and what defines, differentiates or classifies one virus from another. It’s terrific when the “world” in “world wide Web” embraces a piece of video (did you see the one where the elephant paints a self-portrait?), site (www.manbabies.com) or idea (moveon.org).
That said, I’m not terribly sure that it’s predictable or reliable to plan for this kind of spreading of the word and, even more troubling, I’m not convinced that it actually works.
Here’s the thing: In this day and age, all content has the ability to be wildly viral, that is, embraced, internalized, evangelized and disseminated. Rather than plan with the end in mind, might I suggest instead that we focus on the idea itself and the means to achieve that end. In other words, getting back to basics to generate compelling, relevant and engaging content and then liberating it to be embedded, hacked, mashed and showcased accordingly.
So now, please pass this post around to one gazillion people or your neighbors cat will die.
