Viral Video Marketing

Go Viral! 5 Steps To Video Marketing That Creates Buzz

Ready to generate viral buzz? Web videos are on fire! How hot? According to YouTube’s recent fact sheet, 2 billion videos are being watched daily. While many of these videos are generating millions of hits, most were not strategically created to generate a specific marketing outcome for an underlying business. What if you could harness the power of viral videos to drive traffic, and better yet, revenues for your business?

With strategic thought and planning, you can create a video that will generate buzz. And buzz is what’s needed to go viral. Follow these 5 steps to create a video marketing campaign with major buzz.

1.  Choose Which Viral Video Type to Launch

While there are numerous types of videos you could create, there are four common types that end up viral, including:

• The Accident- Shot by non-professionals and uploaded without the notion of going viral. Since you cannot control the outcome, this doesn’t fall under the ideal viral video strategy.
• The Imitation- This video type involves recreating a successful accidental video. We all know that imitation is one of the best forms of flattery. Businesses have been imitating or copying others within their industries for decades. While never as popular as the original inspiration, this type of video has tremendous viral potential.
• The “WTF”- When viewers aren’t sure what they just watched, viral videos are created. Sometimes imagery is all that’s needed to captivate an audience.
• Obvious Advertising- Highlighting products and services in an entertaining way is popular with web video viewers.

2.  Create Targeted Content

Videos have the power to act as social currency. They start conversations. Viewers pass them on to their friends, family and contacts. In order to achieve this outcome, your video’s content must target your audience. Choose 1-2 triggers that pack a punch. A trigger hits your audience’s sweet spot. What will they find meaningful, relevant or entertaining?

Keep in mind; a viral video must elicit a reaction from your viewers. Common triggers include content that is random, surprising, sexy, comical, shocking and even spectacular. Once you have identified key focus triggers, you can begin to design a video with a huge payoff.

3.  Be Portable

Allow downloads, commentary, embedded links and URL shorteners which as bit.ly to create Twitter friendly posts and easy to forward videos. Placing controls on your content works directly against the premise of viral video marketing. Your goal should be to create a marketing piece that goes beyond yourself, the creator.

4.  Inspire Action- Ask for What you Want

To go viral, your viewers must forward the content. If you want viewers to pass your content forward, why not ask them to do so? Why this seems like common sense to many, few business owners include a call to action within their video’s message, tag lines or commentary.

Consider including one of the following phrases as your call to action:

• "Follow this person..."
• "Check out...."
• "Please vote..."

If you are more comfortable with a less direct approach, make sure that your content motivates viewers to forward the content. Just remember to avoid a completely advertorial message. Viewers are okay with promoting brand names, as long as the content meets one of the targeted content criteria.

5.  Delivery and Tracking- Execution is Key!

Even amazing videos can become buried when launched onto YouTube. For a bang, build a multi-faceted approach for viral dissemination. YouTube’s Auto Tweeting functionality, TubeMogul, Hey Spread and Twitvid are great delivery starting points. In addition, post your clips to Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, StumbleUpon and your company’s blog. Send your video content to top bloggers to cast a wider audience net. For a targeted video launch, leverage paid services such as Facebook social ads, Unruly Media or StumbleUpon.

Without follow up, how will you grade your campaign’s success? To track the response that your video marketing campaign is generating, leverage Google Alerts, Technorati, Pubsub, IceRocket and Twitter’s search function.

Follow these 5 easy steps to creating a viral video that generates a loud buzz for your business!