Are you thinking of getting your own video? Do you want it to go viral? Maybe we have some tips that can help you. When going for video marketing, no one ever wants to create a video that gets an average amount of views. You might be thinking that creating a viral YouTube video is impossible. But if you pay attention to the tips we offer, maybe you can make some great viral YouTube videos

Almost five million views can help to make your video viral. Videos of two minutes in length can easily go viral on Facebook but if it exceeds more than 2 minutes then you have the risk of people scrolling by before your video has ended.

What makes a good YouTube video?

Before knowing that what will make your video viral on social media or any other platform, you need to know what makes a good video on YouTube. What will make people share your content?

Before knowing that what will make your video viral on social media or any other platform, you need to know what makes a good video on YouTube. What will make people share your content?

Though there is no particular definition of the viral video any type of video on YouTube that gets immense popular in a short period of time is considered as a viral video.

Here are four broad areas you should focus on if you want a video to have viral potential. This can help you in creating a viral video on YouTube channel.

Uniqueness

Always try to make videos that are unique because uniqueness matters a lot. It is obvious no one loves to watch or is interested in any kind of old-style video. You need to show your creativity and should watch videos that are related to your niche in order to find out the lacking areas of your video.

High Quality

Just like everything, quality is crucial for getting success in your video marketing. Always dedicate some time to your video in order to enhance its quality which will result in million views. By fixing small errors in your video, you can easily improve the quality of your video. Remember that no one likes to watch a video that is low in quality.

By making some quality tweaks at the starting of the video, you can get a good impression. Always make the intro of your video interesting because most of the visitors do not bother to watch the complete video.

Strong title and description

You will always get a form to fill the title as well as a description for the video when you upload your videos to YouTube or any other video sharing platforms. Don’t leave this place blank or by just adding something. If you do this then you are surely going to lose juice.

Remember that titles, as well as description, often plat a vital role in terms of search engine traffic. Therefore, avoiding this is not a good idea. Analyze the proper keywords for title and description. You can take the assistance of Google Keyword Tool where you can do keyword research and select one of them.

Brevity

When you visit YouTube, you will notice that videos with lesser length get more views on YouTube as compared to the ones with a larger length. Making short videos is one of the good optimization methods. In small length videos try to include more details.

If you want to get more views as well as conversions then small length videos are perfect. Nowadays people are not interested in spending their time on lengthy videos. Now that you have four broad objectives in mind, let us delve deeper into the art of making a video viral. These are some of the effective ways which can help to make a video viral.

Why every Business Need Viral Videos on YouTube

Our world is full of choices. Today we have access to several cheap, mass-produced, crappy or below-average options, Therefore everyone lives by their preset or predetermined rules.

Today it is not enough to have a TVC to connect and communicate your brand story to your audience. TV Communication has become overly expensive and at times does not generate desired results.

Today YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. It has become the emperor of video platforms and helps in giving a strong brand presence to small business. As per one of the research, it was found that 5,000,000,000 videos are watched on YouTube every day.

Cute animal, talk show clips and fitness instructional: YouTube has turned out to be the bustling public square of the web, which is capturing all the life’s hilarious moments.

With the evolution of the Internet, marketers are looking for ways to connect with their consumers effectively and efficiently with Viral videos on YouTube.

However, what most forget is that Brand message does not mostly go Viral unless it is worthy of it. In this article, we will share tried and tested ways to make a video go viral.

What is Viral YouTube Video

Though there is no particular definition for a viral video,  any video on YouTube that gets immense popularity in a short period of time is considered a viral video.

A viral video is one of the videos that become famous through a viral process of Internet sharing, mainly through video sharing websites such as social media, email as well as YouTube.

How to make YouTube Video viral?

Before knowing what will make your video viral on social media or any other platform, you need to understand what will make people share it. People always prefer to share videos that are meaningful and valuable to them.

Below stated are some of the steps that will assist you in making a video viral. A viral video is one of the videos that become famous through a viral process of Internet sharing, mainly through video sharing websites such as social media, email as well as YouTube.

Cute animals, talk show clips and fitness instructional: YouTube has turned out to be the bustling public square of the web which is capturing all the life’s hilarious moments. 

YouTube has turned out to be the second largest search engine. It has become the emperor of video platforms and helps in giving a strong brand presence to small business. As per one of the research, it was found that 5,000,000,000 videos are watched on YouTube every day. Below stated are some of the steps that will assist you to make a video viral and rack up views (and subscribers) for your YouTube channel.   

How to Viral YouTube Video

You must have seen different videos like animal video and strong emotional videos on the landing pages of different websites because the video is considered as one of the most engaging forms of digital marketing.

You must be thinking: what makes a video viral?

Making a viral video is just like cooking. Having the key ingredients as well as a good recipe helps it to get it right, but you still need to struggle for the first time you try it.

Below stated are some effective techniques that will help you to make a video viral. 

1 Good Plan is half Done:

A good marketing idea is all that takes a video go viral. Are you surprised? Have you always thought no one could make a video go viral?

You must be thinking how can a video go viral with a marketing strategy, after all, what goes Viral, can not be predicted. Well, think of what all you can do to make people share your video.

If you plan, your dependence on luck will be much lesser. Have not you heard “Fortune favours the Bold”? It is better to try and fail instead of leaving it to chance.

1.1 Consider a Unique Story

Always try to make videos that are unique because originality matters a lot. It is obvious no one loves to watch or is interested in old-style videos. You need to show your creativity and should watch videos that are related to your niche to find out the lacking areas of your video.

1.2 Quality rules

Just like everything, quality is crucial for getting success in your video marketing. Always dedicate some time to your video to enhance its quality which will result in million views. 

By fixing small errors in your video, you can easily improve the quality of your video. Remember that no one likes to watch a video that is low in quality. By making some quality tweaks at the starting of the video, you can get a good impression.

Always make the intro of your video enjoyable because most of the visitors do not bother to watch the complete video.

1.3 Connect with emotions

Your video should evoke some strong emotional response from your viewers. Be it happy, sad, inspirational, emotions or motivating video, it always holds the key to make people sit and watch your story all the way through.

This is because people always love to become emotionally invested in a story, if they relate to it, then it is going to leave a long-lasting imprint on their memories.

1.4 Know the day and time to post

Let’s understand one thing- people watch all sorts of stuff when they are bored. This is the reason most of us scroll through social media during office hours. Best way to capture the attention of your audience is to post during office hours on a weekday. Every social media platform has times and days when they see peak action- find that out via analytics or take the advice of some good marketing consultant. Share your content on social media when its peak time and you will have a greater chance of making your video go viral.

1.5 Robust headline and supporting copy

Every video needs to have a click-worthy headline. It is important to have a strong headline that walks the line between curiosity as well as clarity. Don’t try to use clickbait titles if they are not part of your branding. The title should be such that it sets expectations for the video. The main motive is to figure out what works best for your audience and tease out a powerful emotional reaction.

1.6 Optimise your channel with relevant YouTube Channel Keywords

YouTube channel keywords or YouTube Channel Tags are terms that give YouTube information and context about your channel content. With these important terms, YouTube understands the kind of content you will be producing and posting on your channel. With these terms, YouTube also makes an assessment of your target audience. In simple terms, you can assume that these terms are a critical part of YouTube SEO. Therefore, adding relevant YouTube Channel Keyword is a must if you want to increase views on your YouTube Channel.

2 Choose your audience wisely:

If you want to your video to go viral or think of viral successes, then it is essential to frame your video knowing that who will watch your video and what they will get from it. To engage the viewer, you have 30 seconds.

You cannot be everything to everybody. It is better to be something to someone. Be clear, whom you want to invoke in your video and work accordingly. Target social media channels, communities, groups where your target audience frequents. You must reach out to your audience to be able to connect with them.

3 Write an Appropriate – Searchable Title:

Your title should communicate to people, what to expect in the video. So, if somebody is looking for what you got, you will make their life easier, and they will reward you for it.

You will always get a form to fill the title as well as a description for the video when you upload your videos to YouTube or any other video sharing platforms. Don’t leave this place blank or by just adding something. If you do this, then you are surely going to lose some real juice.

Remember that titles, as well as description, often plat a vital role in terms of search engine traffic. Therefore, avoiding this is not a good idea. Analyze the proper keywords for title and description. You can take the assistance of Google Keyword Tool where you can do keyword research and select one of them.

4 Make a branded and catchy thumbnail

When your followers share your video on social media, the very first thing which their followers notice is your thumbnail. This is true for platforms like social media which does not use autoplay.

You need to create a thumbnail that instantly captures the ethos of the video as well as demands for a click. If possible, you can avoid using text as it looks a bit blurry on certain screens as well as in a few formats.

5 Make it short but informative

When you visit YouTube, you will notice that videos with lesser length get more views on YouTube as compared to the ones with a more substantial length. Making short videos is one of the good optimization methods. Within short durations, videos try to include more details.

If you want to get more views as well as conversions, then small length videos are perfect. Nowadays, people are not interested in spending their time on lengthy videos.

It is essential to keep the video short and simple. You easily justify your video within 60 seconds. The longer the video gets, the harder it becomes to explain to your audience why you are not working on the project that’s due tomorrow.

5.1 Focus on a single message

Clear, simple, as well as succinct content, always work like wonders. This is true when it comes to creating a high conversion landing page or would-be viral video. You should always define what your video is about as well as focus on getting that point across as clearly as possible before you start. 

5.2 Give value

To make your videos viral, you need to give your viewers something valuable. When you ensure the audience that your every video post is focused on going to give something useful, then it turns into a tidal wave of more likes, shares, new audiences and of course comments. 

Therefore, compelling videos are beneficial for your audiences, so make sure that your videos are helpful to the viewers- be it entertaining, educating or informing.

5.3 Keep it simple

When you keep the video simple, then you have more chance to keep your audience or viewer focused. Try to be focused on one topic in your entire video.

6 Create a video for mobile devices

Remember that smartphones are not only meant for texting about YouTube videos but also they are for watching. The mobile users are spending their significant time on the YouTube platform for watching popular videos and almost half of all YouTube videos come from mobile devices.

6.1 Make use of the right format

By optimizing it for social sharing, you can quickly maximize the chance of creating a viral video. One needs to ensure that the video is in the right format for the platforms by taking into account how people are watching their videos.

Since mobile users are increasing to a great extent, it is essential to make mobile-optimized videos that instantly capture the user’s attention for the right reasons with the first few frames of the video.

7 Include a call to action 

A call to action is just like a cardinal sin in a video. Viewers always need to be encouraged to do something after they have finished off watching the video or else they will forget about the video as soon as they move on the second one to watch.

One can now easily track the YouTube channel’s traffic from mobile by just clicking on the channel icon.

8 Do keyword research and monitor ranking progress

Start the investigation by digging deeply into the keywords that are related to your brand and industry. You can make use of Rank Tracker, which will help you to evaluate keyword potential. With just a few steps, you can have all the detailed information on keywords for your YouTube videos.

9 Optimize the file name

Before you upload a video to YouTube, you will see an auto-generated title like LSR354.mov so rename this file name by utilizing some keywords that perfectly describe the video in a similar or fewer word than a title. If you make a video that features how to carve a pumpkin, then you can rename it like carve-pumpkin-tutorial.

10 Write an effective video description

When you upload a video, you will need a description box which is most famous for SEO potential. Always give the video at least 300 words description, which is packed with phrases as well as keywords that are related to your brand and industry. After you have done your keyword research, write the description.

Link the video to content-related, which provides further information or place for purchase with branded and tagged URLs. To ensure that viewers don’t dig deeper for your content, make sure to add a domain link to your site at the top of the video.

11 Use the right tags

You can get a significant advantage over the competitors by using the right and proper video tags. You can put up to 500 characters worth of keywords; so try to pick the best ones. The tags are entered when uploading or editing the video on YouTube.

Don’t try to go wild with the tags only include the words correctly describe what is there in your video.

12 Understand ideal length

You must have noticed that all the popular videos are on the short side. You should always try to cut the excess on your branded video. If it’s a short video, there are more chances that your viewers will watch the entire video, resulting in a more engaged audience.

If you want to be successful when promoting videos, then all these strategies are going to help you to make a video viral easily.

13 Do not do product pimping:

Please be clear what you want. Do you want a viral video or a promotional video? If you want to create a viral video, then you should not be promotional. Several marketers want their advertisement or a promotional video go viral. Viral videos should not talk about the features, benefits or pricing; they should tell a story.

If you want to create a video that is going to viral, then the focal point should be on raising brand awareness, not the sale. However, it is not so easy as nobody intends to see an ad, let alone make it viral (by sharing it) if it is full of logos, product features, etc. If you want your video to go viral, stop product pimping. If you hard sell, no one will share your video, and it will never go viral.

Remember, the essence of a viral video is a purely emotional response. It is neither the place for product pimping nor talking about yourself. Your objective should be to entertain the audience or make them respond emotionally to something.

So instead of showing how your product will make their lives better, simply post a video of a girl doing a new dance step. Or a cat jumping enthusiastically on a pile of snow. Or a mom breaking down in tears after receiving a gift from her kids. There is a higher chance that these will get more shares, likes, recommendations and tags than a promotional video.

However, advertisements or promotional videos may also go viral- but those are extremely rare cases. So instead of attempting a venture where the chances of success are minuscule, go for pure emotional storytelling.

14 Don’t be Shy, go out there and shout aloud:

Making a Video go Viral starts simply with you. If you believe in what you have, don’t be Shy, Go out there and shout aloud:

  • Post it on Facebook, personally ask your friends, colleagues to like it, share it and comment on it.
  • Share it in relevant Facebook groups.
  • Post it on Twitter.
  • Tweet it to relevant audiences directly and ask for feedback.
  • Submit it to Reddit (on appropriate Subreddits) and watch out for action on it. Try several subreddits to be sure about its success.
  • Reach out to bloggers, who might be interested in your video or have covered similar ones.
  • Write blogs and publish it on LinkedIn, Medium, Blogger and even on Facebook.
  • Issue a press release, here are some resources that you can consider

15 Reach out to people when their stakes are small:

Most of the people do not want to spend time seeing videos in their own time. What it simply means is that they engage in such activities when they are at work. Monday’s, they come back after a weekend and spend time connecting with others and catching up on email. Therefore, Tuesday is the best time, which gives you four clear days to showcase what you got.

16 Search for stakeholders who could support you:

Every Brand is trying to pass on a message to their audience. What if you can join the forces and go as a team. Reach out to companies who share your passion and request them to share your video with their followers.

17 Connect with your target audience emotionally:

While your video can be on a topic of your choice, there are some images or themes that have a greater chance of going viral. The magic word here is emotional connect- videos that make you react emotionally almost always go viral. 

Connection happens when you connect emotionally with your audience. Your Video must connect emotionally with your audience. Identify the strongest emotions your target audience reacts to and workaround.

For example, animal videos almost always become hit. People love pets- they are cute and funny and entertaining to look at. Using imagery of animals will always give you an added advantage. Similarly, videos that felicitate strong emotions always have a greater chance of going viral. This is the reason you can see videos of patriotic speeches or people reuniting with the family make the rounds on social media.

18 Share a Story:

We all grew up listening to stories. Same goes on the internet as well. Your Video should communicate a story, and as long as it is there, you will have success with it.

19 Leverage your Celebrity to the Fullest:

If you got a celebrity (of any stature) either in the video or otherwise, ask for a favour and request him/her to share your video. You will be surprised to see the engagement rate and the reach your video will get overnight.

20 Create Remarkable content for a niche audience:

Marketing guru Seth Godin spells out why, he says that “when it comes to getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones”.

21 Short and Sweet:

Time is a rare commodity, which is always in short supply. Therefore, communicate your story in a jiffy. One another thing you must pay attention to is the fact that it does not make sense to have a 1 minute or 2-minute video if your audience is going to spend only 10 seconds on it.

22 Talk to your audience:

You want your video to go Viral. Therefore the onus rests with you. Speak to your audience directly and ask them if they have seen, what you have got. “Hey did you see the Video of ……………………….” or “Hey do you want to see …………………”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DRoqk_z2Lgg

23 Do not be afraid, stay responsive:

You cannot please all, therefore don’t be afraid and Be responsive best. Criticism is good for Viral Videos.

24 Ask people to share:

It is something everyone forgets. Therefore do not be shy, go ahead and ask people to share your Video and you will be surprised to see, how many do so.

25 Try posting it everywhere

Remember, the more social media platforms you post your YouTube video link to, the more people you reach out to. Don’t just post on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram- go on Reddit, Imgur and Pinterest too. In fact, the last three are frequented more by millennials who are more likely to make your video viral

25 Keep on paying attention after you hit publish

Paying attention helps to create better, targeted as well as more shareable content. Once you hit publish, the video process does not come to an end. The main secret behind your viral video is to know your audience as well as exceeding their assumptions.

Following all these points can help you to make video viral effectively. Almost five million views can help to make your video viral. Videos of two minutes in length can easily go viral on Facebook, but if it exceeds more than 2 minutes, then you have the risk of people scrolling by before your video has ended.

In Conclusion

While there is no predicting which video will go viral on YouTube, you can always maximize your chances by keeping in mind the tips mentioned above. If your video goes viral, you can even generate good leads. So in the video description, add relevant keywords and links to landing pages for your website.

It goes without saying that you should also optimize your landing pages so that you can take advantage of the opportunity a viral video presents.

At the end of the day, no matter which video you make, think of how it will appeal to your audiences and put their expectations at the centre. Because when you pay attention to what your community wants, you have a greater chance of success.

Avinash Chandra
Author Avinash Chandra

Branding, Integrated & Digital Marketing Wizard and Founder of BrandLoom Consulting (A $1m startup). I help companies generate more revenue through digital marketing. I have successfully led Business and Marketing operations of several Large & Small; American, European, Chinese & Indian Brands and Startups. In totality, I have worked with over 100 Brands during my 21 years of professional career with a proven track record of Building Sustainable & Profitable Businesses.

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