Make your Youtube video viral in a few easy steps

So, you made a video, you think it is great and entertaining and want the world to know about it? How do you go viral within a short period of time with your latest visual art-piece?

First of all you need to build a strategy and not just sit and pray that your video suddenly takesoff. Most likely this is NOT going to happen.

One of the strategies one often finds on the net is to do a ‘video response’ which basically means trying to piggyback on someone’s successful video with a large audience. Just because someone has a large audience, doesn’t automatically make them an ideal partner. This strategy does not pay off for a couple of reasons; you need to be approved by the owner of the said video channel which is highly unlikely, and the second is if you actually do get approved that the viewers of the other video will scroll down and click on your video. There are just to many ‘ifs’ in this strategy to safely rely on it.

Viral CAN be created, but it takes some serious planning.

In order to generate a great number of views, you can employ something called “Candy with the Medicine,” a philosophy that recognizes a message is best received within entertainment.

Your first priority should be to ENTERTAIN – that’s the “candy.”

The second step is to inject the MESSAGE within  – that’s the “medicine.”

Once the direction of the content is chosen it’s important to follow it up by creating a strategic plan.  This mindset places the creation of a video in the context of an overall marketing plan rather than viewing the video as the plan itself.

The last thing anyone should do is ‘Post and Pray’; this is typically how inexperienced (and even some experienced) marketing departments approach video marketing. Instead, you should focus on the planning of the campaign launch, which is how maximum impact is achieved.

So let’s go through the necessary steps of achieving your video goals. First, you need to select the right platform in order to achieve the desired viral results. When it comes to YouTube marketing there needs to be more of a strategy then simply saying “Let’s create a YouTube video.”

There are 10 categories within YouTube and the top videos from each of these categories will be featured on the home page and browse page of YouTube.

This means it pays to be among your categories ‘most viewed.’ Therefore, you need to carefully select the category in which you want your video to appear; select the one which does not have too many views. In other words, if you go with ‘entertainment’ category which has millions of views the chance that your video will be featured towards the top of the chart is minimal. Select the one which has fewer views and can therefore increase your chances of being featured in Youtube’s recommended column. This is calles leveraging a platform which in turn increases your chances of going viral.

Here’s a quick recap of what to do in order to go viral:

        Candy with the Medicine:

·       Nothing happens until attention is captured

·       Deliver a message with entertainment.

        Don’t ‘Post & Pray’:

·       Making a video is not a strategy.

·       A video is just one part of an overall strategy and objective.

·       Identify influencers who will LOVE your message, not just people with a large audience

·       Choose your category wisely

        Snowball Effect:

·       Once things get rolling – keep them rolling!

·       Create a post launch plan

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