You can create the best & most entertaining video in the land, upload it on to Youtube and find that it is not getting anywhere. You can also easily create one of the worst videos in history and find it goes viral, e.g. -:
70k hits + in 4 days.
What is the Secret? How do you make your video go viral and monetize it? Let's start by looking at an example of a video that has gone viral and why?
4.5m hits + in 2 months.
Fenton (Or Benton!) the dog is a hilarious video with red deer being scattered over Richmond Park in London by an angry owner's unstoppable hound! The combination of cause and effect coupled with the owner's inability to stop the dog and his shouting makes this video a "must see."
Numerous sites uploaded the video to their own, everybody wanted to share it and the seeds were sown. So much so, that "Have I Got News For You" picked-up on this, Paul Merton rubbished it and thus further "talk" ensued, more viewings and thus became viral almost immediately.
Both above examples are from complete video novices to youtube - And both were lucky to be picked up by various Internet Media for the explosion to take place.
The good news is that you can sow the seeds yourself. All you need is to be a member of a few social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Obviously, the more the better and the more followers you have the better. As soon as you upload your video, share it with everyone you know. Details of how to upload your video on to this Website below.
All is not lost if you do not belong to any of the social networking sites.
Depending on the variety of video you have uploaded, seek out as many Websites as you have time for that will accept your relevant youtube uploaded video - Upload the video on to these sites as quickly as you are able. Uploading does not guarantee inclusion, but will give your video a far greater chance than if you don't upload it!
Examples and links to these sites-:
Buzzfeed | Boingboing | The Blaze | Crazy Days and Nights | The Viral Trend | Scoop It | Gawker | Video Likes | Yangutu | Tosho | Google Videos | Break | Veoh
In addition, email your youtube link to as many Sites that may be interested in featuring your video-:
Syracuse | Huffington Post (UK)
Although Google constantly crawl youtube for fresh content, ensure they find your videos by submitting your URL/s. If you search in Google for "submit URL" you will find plenty of other search engines that you can submit to, time well spent.
If possible, create lots of videos. The more videos you create, the greater the chance of one of them going viral. Request a "video response" from similar video theme uploaders, hence share with people likely to want to see and share your content.
People like to share anything that is funny. These videos have the most chance of self-seeding. Funny videos with a surprise/shocking ending are memorable and work well. Sharing is the key to success. It costs you absolutely nothing and once there are enough links out there, your video will be seen, again and again and again.
People love visually compelling content and one way to create it is to experiment with filmmaking techniques to try and show people something they haven't seen before.
Timing-: Friday lunchtime is disputedly the best time to start uploading videos. Just after lunch tends to be the time when people start kicking-back, relaxing and getiing in the mood for the weekend. Sowing seeds at this time sets the possibilities much higher and you should reap the viewership rewards over the weekend.
Posts-: The more controversial posts are on your video upload, the better. This is a surefire way for people to become actively engaged and start "conversations" in the comment section. Keep an eye out for spam - Ipads are the current craze with numerous people out there working together, commenting with URL's to their sites with others "liking" their comments, thus bringing them to the top of lists.
Monetizing-: Once you have accumulated around 50,000 hits, youtube will email you to invite you to monetize your videos. You are able to apply beforehand, but unless you have enough history, videos and hits, you are unlikely to be accepted. To save time, set up a Google Ad Sense account now - It's free and means you will be able to link your youtube account directly to this without spending more time doing this later.
This post is by no means finished as yet - Please bookmark it and we will complete it by the end of this coming weekend.
If you would like us to feature your youtube video upload on to this page, post a comment and the page URL and we will upload it here.
1. Dave's Kitty Madness - Youtube
We hope you have found the contents above resourceful and helpful - We will update this post frequently with fresh content and welcome your feedback. Please leave your comments and any resources you would like us to include.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and the best of luck in making your video go viral - and making money from it!
