If you’ve ever made a video to promote your business, you’ve probably had dreams of it going viral.
Some people say it’s a completely random occurrence, while others say that you can proactively work to make it happen. While that debate still rages, below you’ll find 5 awesome videos that went crazy viral, receiving millions upon millions of views.
Let’s check ’em out and see what we can learn about making our own content more viral!
(As a note, each of these videos had many millions of views before being reposted, which reset the view counters.)
Open Happiness: The OFW Project by Coca Cola
Coca Cola’s motto is “Open Happiness,” and I think we can both agree that they did a dang good job.
Like blog posts, a video’s “share rate” has a lot to do with the emotional impact created in the viewer. When a person’s thinking or feelings have been changed or stirred, the urge to share kicks in, which is what underlies the viral explosion of any piece of Web content.
When creating content, remember the following rules:
1. Positive content is more viral than negative content.
2. Content that evoked high arousal emotions—positive or negative—is more viral than content without emotion.
3. Practically useful content get’s shared.
The T-Mobile Royal Wedding by T-Mobile
Here is a fun, hilarious version of the “Royal Wedding” done with actor look-alikes, and it got a TON of exposure.
Tying mainstream, trending topics, movies, TV shows, books, and music into your content is a surefire way to make it more likely to be shared. If a movie like The Avengers is blowing up in the theaters, for example, you could get creative and write an article like, “What the Avengers Can Teach Us About…(insert your topic here)” or “How the Avengers Would Go About…(insert your topic here).
Social media makes it amazingly easy to get a snapshot of what’s currently popular. For example, Hashtags.org is a great website for finding out what’s currently popular on Twitter in various genres, such as business, celebs, education, environment, and more.
Our Blades are F***king Great by DollarShaveClub.com
This is one of the best business-related viral videos I’ve seen. It explains the company’s product while making you crack up. I use an electric shaver and this made me want to switch.
Injecting humor and personality into your content is extremely important in getting your content shared.
The worst sin you commit in creating content, whether strictly marketing or educational, is being boring. So don’t be shy–write your articles and shoot your videos the way you want to, and don’t be afraid to be a little controversial or “weird”…it gets shares!
The Inside Experience by Intel and Toshiba
This project blew me away. How ingeniously creative is that?
I think the big takeaway here is the importance of inviting and stimulating engagement. By getting people involved with your business and content, you immediately make them more likely to share it. How do you do that?
You ask for their comments at the end of blog posts and videos, and you reply to each and every one.
You run contests and giveaways that involve sharing content socially.
You ask them questions on Facebook and Twitter, and join into the ongoing conversation.
The more people interact with you and your business, the closer they’ll feel to you and it, and the more likely they’ll be to share your content.
MFCEO by K-Swiss
LOL. This is just awesome.
That’s what we can learn from this. Be awesome and the rest takes care of itself.
