Is There A Secret Formula to Viral Videos?

The Viral Video. You’ve heard it a thousand times: you’ve got to make one. It is, after all, the holy grail of internet marketing: that one video that has the right combination of quality, humor, pathos and je-ne-sais-quoi that will launch it out of the depths of the YouTube unknown and into social media fame forever. Through the process of internet sharing, mainly through social media and email, a single video can amass billions of views, make international news, and become a part of the cultural vernacular.

Only a handful of clips will ever become a viral video.

Now, your video may be excellent. And who knows, you may be one of the lucky ones. But look at the statistics: one hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Every minute! That’s the equivalent of 115,000 feature films’ worth of uploads per week! If your jaw hasn’t quite reached the floor yet, put it this way: more video is uploaded to YouTube every 60 days than the three largest U.S. television networks have produced in 60 years.

And out of those millions upon millions of individual videos clips being circulated on YouTube every day, maybe one—MAYBE—has the potential to crack five thousand views.

The truth is that the odds of your video “going viral” is incredibly difficult.

So why is everyone so hell-bent on proving otherwise? Across the internet, you’ll find countless websites claiming to have found “the secret” to video virality. There are tips about posting times, sharing strategies, and secret “key words.” There are suggestions about content and how to use exactly the right humor to hit that viral sweet spot. For the right price, you can even buy YouTube views online.

But while some of those things might tip the odds ever-so-slightly in your favor, the real secret to the viral video is this: you can’t plan for it.

Maybe it will happen, and maybe it won’t. But that’s not where your focus should be! High quality content, attention to your audience, and consistently engaging material are much more important to your consumers than sheer numbers. Sharing is also important, but there’s no need to go overboard or exhaust your friends and clients with constant reminders and plugs.

Keep your content focused, your quality high, your videos clear and accessible, and trust that your audience will find you. Whether that audience ends up being one hundred people or one hundred thousand, don’t forget that they are what is most important. A viral video? Sure, that’s cool. But that’s nothing compared to a relationship with your viewers, however many they might be.