From backflips to power potato peeling: why videos go viral
In this cross-posting from The Conversation, Brent Coker looks at the four key ingredients to making a video go viral.
It’s the Holy Grail for marketers: understanding what makes a video ad go viral. A lot of the research in this area has looked at what makes people share, since it’s assumed something goes viral because it’s sharable. But exactly what motivates a person to tell others about a video?
Viral videos have four things in common that inspire us to share and drive up those YouTube views.
You are what you share
The first is self-intensification. This is an instinctual tendency people have to build and maintain their self-esteem.
Less sexy so generally left out of these types of arguments – luck and money.
These reasons are so wide ranging they’re effectively meaningless. You might as well have said videos become shareable by being cool.
The magic of viral is that there is very little logic to what works and what doesn’t. If it was as easy as following a prescribed list of must haves. Every Tom, Dick and Harvey Norman would be going viral. Agree with above that it needs a fair amount of luck and also a willingness to take risks.
Thanks for posting this; at least science meets art here
Sadly, Kelly McGarry’s luck ran out on February 1 this year when he died of cardiac arrest.