How to make a Viral YouTube Video

Hello everyone,

I wanted to impart a lesson that I learned on making viral YouTube videos after making several for me and for some now famous YouTubers ( I do not want to say which though- promised them).

Anyways, I first want to point out that this works best in the entertainment category.

For example, has anyone seen the Miami Zombie Scare Prank on YouTube. It went viral about 6 months ago. The creator of the video got on Tosh.O. Well how did he actually get the video to be viral along with the successive videos?

Tosh.O asked exactly that. And I am not sure many were listening to apply. But what he said was that he was simply observing the trends on YouTube and Google. And during that time, there was LOT of talk on Zombies particularly because of the incidents in California mentioned on the news. There people atttacking and eating their victim's face, heart, and yes brain. The most reasonable explanation for the events was a high rise in a drug called bath salts that makes act demonic, possessed, and zombieshh.

The video guy made a a video where he went out in public and acted like he was on the drug or was a Zombie. People were responding frighteningly. Even what seams like a whole gang of people running away from this guy with ripped shirt and red stains on him and groaning like he was foaming out of his mouth while he chased them.

He advertised on YouTube and it went viral. The same thing happened with Harlem Shake videos. People were advertising it knowing that people will click on it because that was the trend. And I am sure he used the revenue from that to continually promote the video.

Now it has over 22 Million views.

I learned something from this and I hope you did too.

I know who you mean for the miami zombie video he's hilarious.

That's the way to do it.
By coming up with great ideas and putting them into practice

Then kick start them with some advertising

I have good reason to believe that some big YouTubers with 7million+ Subscribers don't get more than about 50,000 views on a video without promotion and trend relevancy.

A week a go RayWilliamJohnson "accidentally" made public 20 old videos that were private for about 2 years. And what happened was each video received about 20k views. They didn't grow more than 100k I believe. But the same video contents just different files that were uploaded in the past went into the millions. This a clear demonstration of how important trends are. The video content was very appropriate and relevant back then but not now. And I'm sure he promoted back then but not the ones he made public recentlu which have the same content but were extra copies of old content.

michaelfekade said:

I have good reason to believe that some big YouTubers with 7million+ Subscribers don't get more than about 50,000 views on a video without promotion and trend relevancy.

A week a go RayWilliamJohnson "accidentally" made public 20 old videos that were private for about 2 years. And what happened was each video received about 20k views. They didn't grow more than 100k I believe. But the same video contents just different files that were uploaded in the past went into the millions. This a clear demonstration of how important trends are. The video content was very appropriate and relevant back then but not now. And I'm sure he promoted back then but not the ones he made public recentlu which have the same content but were extra copies of old content.

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He didn't "accidentally" upload here's what he tweeted.

I'm archiving a bunch of old video segments today on Youtube. Forgive the subscription box spam. There's no way (I know of) to turn it off.

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michaelfekade said:

He advertised on YouTube and it went viral. The same thing happened with Harlem Shake videos. People were advertising it knowing that people will click on it because that was the trend. And I am sure he used the revenue from that to continually promote the video.

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Michael, that's a good example, but frankly speaking, we doubt that there's a universal formula for producing YouTube hits.

There are some tricks, though, that can help you make your video go viral. These are:

- produce really unique and gripping video content. The one that can make people go 'wow' and share your video;
- keep your viral video short. If you want this video to be watched as many times as possible that's more likely to happen if people can watch the video quickly;
- avoid advertising;
- put your viral video everywhere. Services like TubeMogul can be of great help as they let you upload your video once and then distributing it for you.
- share your video on all possible social networks;
- and, as you said, use the paid promotion opportunities that social media and video sharing sites offer.

michaelfekade said:

I have good reason to believe that some big YouTubers with 7million+ Subscribers don't get more than about 50,000 views on a video without promotion and trend relevancy.

A week a go RayWilliamJohnson "accidentally" made public 20 old videos that were private for about 2 years. And what happened was each video received about 20k views. They didn't grow more than 100k I believe. But the same video contents just different files that were uploaded in the past went into the millions. This a clear demonstration of how important trends are. The video content was very appropriate and relevant back then but not now. And I'm sure he promoted back then but not the ones he made public recentlu which have the same content but were extra copies of old content.

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All it shows is that the majority of RayWilliamJohnson subscribers are fake. RayWilliamJohnson cashed in some years ago when it was fairly easy to fool Youtube; he was ramping Youtube videos with fake views which caused the initial traction. Couple that with targeting the most idiot Youtube users (teens) who will watch the entire video and then subscribe (this is a good ranking signal) and you have $$$ coming in.

RayWilliamJohnson wasn't the only one who faked it till he made it, plenty of Youtube celebrities circa 2007-2009 used the same trick. All it proves is that Youtube will allow bullsh*t so long as it makes them money. Nothing wrong with that I guess.