Page 185 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

» Keep the content fresh: Nothing beats fresh content when it comes to
creating viral video clips. The content needs to be so engaging and unique
that people can’t help but want to share it with everyone they know. Always
start by focusing on the content.
» Use celebrities if possible: If you’re representing a large brand and can
afford to use celebrities, don’t hesitate to do so. Adding celebrities to the mix
typically makes the videos more viral. We’re a celebrity-obsessed pop culture,
and celebrities drive views. It is as simple as that. Some of the most popular
videos during the World Cup from advertisers all used celebrities.
» Make it surreal: A video that you want to watch many times over and share
with your friends is often a video that has a surreal element to it. Someone is
doing something in the video that is so out of the ordinary or so crazy that you
can’t help watching it several times or talk to others about it. Better still is if a
celebrity is doing something surreal.

» Arouse emotions: More broadly speaking, studies by psychologists have
shown that the videos that get the most attention and are shared most
frequently are the ones that arouse emotions in the viewer, whether they be
emotions of awe, anger, amusement, or disgust. Although surreal videos are
often the ones that get shared the most, don’t ignore the other ways in which
you can arouse the emotions of your potential viewers. And keep in mind that
videos that elicit a range of emotions are typically the ones that perform the
best because they’re more multidimensional.

» Make it short: People online have no time at all. You must keep the viral clip
short. Sometimes clips as short as 10 seconds are long enough for a video to
go viral. Focus on quality versus quantity more than anything else. But also
remember that there are no hard and fast rules for what the appropriate
length of a YouTube video should be.
» Don’t make it an ad: Sometimes marketers can’t resist the temptation to
turn everything into an advertisement. Don’t let that happen. The content
needs to be thought of as entertainment, and in fact, the more it is in a user’s
casual language (both in terms of words and shooting quality), the more likely
it is to do well. The best way to appeal to your target users is to look at
everything else they are probably viewing on YouTube and then use that as a
baseline to understand what style of content they’d be most interested in.

You can also do a viral seeding campaign on the cheap. Someone in your organiza-
tion can be in charge of developing a campaign. You need to decide how high the
stakes are and what your overall goal is.

CHAPTER 10 Creating a YouTube Strategy 169