What is Viral video and how can I do it? This question is often asked, when wanting to shatter the internet with a video about your brand or product. How or why is this one of the most popular questions we are asked and what goes into having a viral video?
Companies often think that this is the answer to their marketing troubles and will give them quick popularity. But in all honesty, it is tough to answer due to viral videos being a lot of luck and timing of when the video is released. But what makes a video viral?
If you’ve seen this video, it was probably because it was being shared all over Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by everyone and their mothers. If you haven’t seen this, you might want to phone a friend.
A viral video is something that is passed from person to person through social media. Viral videos are not just a candid shot that happened to be caught on a cell phone during an office break.
Businesses can also try to emulate viral videos with branded videos. These videos spread like crazy because of the creative thought that goes into them and the approach that the video takes. People love sharing nowadays, so it makes it easy to create something that you would want to share with your family or friends. This is where the viral trend starts.
Viral videos for companies or products have to really hone in on a series of principles. When making a viral video, you want to make it stick. What the heck does that mean? Well, this is referring to the book “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip and Dan Heath, which climbed to the New York Times top chart when published. So.. again… what does it mean to stick and how is this useful to me?
Making something stick or sticky means that it is memorable and easily understood.
Here are the common principles to making a video sticky:
1. It is simple and understandable. You want people to get the concept and what your message is. What is the point you are trying to get across.
2. You want it to be sudden and give shock value. Something that someone is not expecting. This might be hard, since everyone thinks they’ve seen it all. But the point is to grab someone’s attention and to keep it. Shock adds this.
3. Be Specific, so that when people are watching they can remember your brand.
4. Trustworthy and believable. You want people to view the video, and associate your brand or product with being reliable.
5. The video should touch the viewer. Draw some sort of emotion or feeling with them. This doesn’t mean you need to make them laugh or hysterically sob because it is so sad, but you want them to get some sort of feeling after watching your viral video.
6. Have a narrative where people can follow along. Your video should tell a story.
Now, here are some examples of videos that went viral from big time brands, that touch on one of the 6 principles and why they were wildly successful.
Dollar Shave Club
Why was this video so successful? It has over 24 million views, and is 5 years old. The video is digestible, with a simple message talking about their product. They used Michael Dubin, the founder of Dollar Shave Club, giving a face to the well known brand. This creates trust in the viewership. It also follows a story, that makes you want to stay glued to the screen. This video makes it seem like filming was simple and easy, but really it is more of a difficult shoot because everything is in one take. Instead of the company just pulling out a cell phone and shooting, they knew that it would take more than just that to get this video to go viral. There was a creative process behind it in order to get this video viral.
Poo Pourri
With over 13 million views on this video, Poo Pourri, the bathroom spray, has continued to grow their brand through viral videos. Why does this video work and why was it so popular among the masses of baby boomers, millennials, Gen X, and the other names that we don’t know? It was relatable and used humor. A topic that a lot of people do not feel comfortable talking about, Poo Pourri crushes it with making it funny with its narrative and shock value. But it also makes it relatable to its audience.
Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches
This video has over 68 million views. Why did it go viral and what made it so special? Well, it tells a story and is unique to each individual that watches it.The video create emotion from a viewer, specifically women, who sometimes doesn’t always view her body as a positive. It takes us through a story with the man sketching and the women sort of narrating throughout the video. Lastly, there is a shock value to this. The shock is that unfortunately so many women think of their image negatively and Dove brought to light what we view our exteriors to be.
Volvo’s The Epic Split
With over 47 million views, this video is impressive. It starts with just seeing a man standing between two things but you can’t really tell what it is. As the video goes through, the shock value adds and adds that the cars are moving, as he continues to do a split. The concept of the video is simple. The trucks are not wobbly and the drivers are able to steer straight the entire time while the actor goes deeper into a split. The video is easy to remember Volvo will be front in mind, and associated as this crazy company that had a man doing a split between trucks while driving.
The most important thing for having a successful video is high quality and awareness to your business or product.We know that viral videos are popular right now, but take a second before completely jumping on the bandwagon without truly thinking what you want to get out of a viral video.
Here atFront Runner Films, we can help you with finding the right video for your company. If you are in need pick up that phone and give us a call at 208-336-9594or send an email to info@frontrunnerfilmsllc.com today.
