Let’s Go Viral

Viral advertising as a method of new marketing era express videos that people say 'I cannot stand to share’, therefore, refers to videos spread like a virus. Viral marketing has an increasing weight in advertising. Viral video is similar to gamble; easy, fun but surprisingly difficult. Unfortunately, there is no single generally accepted guaranteed viral video formula.

There are two different types of viral videos: personally uploaded videos, and campaign videos. The personally uploaded videos are those such as personal rants, creative productions, or videos of friends doing funny things. The campaign videos are those such as videos created by a company as a means of brand awareness. But believe or not, all successful virals owe their success mostly to the paid seedings. Thus, everything is not about viral’s context or popular themes, it’s mostly a matter of network and paid media.

PSY’s Gangnam Style video reached 845,851,259 views in 3,5 month time. The video had ‘The Rocking Content’ which are PSY Personality (Who’d have expected him to carry off such moves and such expressions -in the manner he did-), The Trademark Horse-Galloping Dance (it was unique yet simple enough for people to catch on to and emulate on their own.), The Catchy Tune(It is in spite of the language barrier that the song has been so widely appreciated, and that speaks volume of how much people have liked the song for all its beats), Multiple Backgrounds& Costumes&Personalities (There were as many as 19 different background settings in the 4m 13s video, costumes which has now become a trademark, Korean personalities – a kid from Korea’s Got Talent, Korean comedians..) Besides, YG Entertainment was already a successful music label in the Korean Pop arena and had subscribers in the 2 million range before the launch of this video. It had achieved more than 1.6 billion views for its videos over the years before this video and the majority of artists under the YG label had a Twitter account with a large base of followers.  There will always be multiple media outlets and industry influencers who have contributed in extending its’ coverage. The Gangnam Style was initially tweeted by multiple celebrities and then it also got coverage from CNN, Wall Street Journal and many other media outlets.

When to look at this year of viral success, "Harlem Shake" had been posted and generated 44 million views in 10 days, with new generated version at over 4,000 per day. Anyone exactly knows what the original Harlem Shake is  but it’s obvious that doing the Harlem Shake is pretty simple. Just shake your hands and body like crazy. To the creator of the move, the beauty is in the simplicity. A five-minute video? Ain’t nobody got time for that. Not to watch one, or to make one. But Harlem Shake dance videos are capped at 30 seconds. Give people a formula, and they’ll substitute in their own variables. Most people just aren’t all that creative. They’re not going to come up with some entertaining meme on their own. With a little structure, though, our minds fill in the blanks.

To break it down, the Harlem Shake meme is: [14 seconds of (build-up music) played as (one person passively dances while others linger around them motionless)] then an instant video cut to [14 seconds of (bombastic dance music) played as (many people dance aggressively)] then [2 seconds of (a slurring sound) and (slow-motion video of the aggressive dancing)] When you see someone share a Harlem Shake to Facebook or Twitter, there’s very little risk to clicking the link. Worst-case scenario, you burned 30 seconds. Best case, you get a nice surprise and a laugh.

Looking at Turkey in recent times ‘Piston Aşağı İndi’ organic viral spread wide range of audiences and gave a simple formula provided. Looking at the history of viral prepared by brands in Turkey some top virals are like; Profilo "O tabak Bitecek" and "Yavrum seni like ettim" videos; Batesmotelpro's “Sütü  Seven Kamyoncu”, Turkish Airlines's  “İnanılmaz Evlenme Teklifi” and the first examples of Turkish viral, “Aldatılan Kız Fulya” comes to mind. Despite this, successful and memorable viral videos are not numerously so much.

8 TRAITS OF SUCCESSFUL VIRAL VIDEOS

1. COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED
Look at Harlem Shake; it has an idiot basic formula: For the half of the 30 seconds all you need to do is going crazy. There could be nothing more basic with such fun and relief.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJiSSAMNWw

2. EXTREMELY FUNNY
It’s human nature  that audiences love to share videos that will make other people laugh. But being funny isn’t easy, and many people have failed at this. If you put the effort into it though, it can be a huge benefit for your brand, like Catvertising video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IkOQw96cfyE

3. WE CAN ALL RELATE TO
When the content of videos appeal to a wider audience, the likelihood is much greater that someone is going to share the video throughout their social networks. ‘ Sh*t Nobody Says’ is a prime example.
Sh*t Nobody Cares: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f-x8t0JOnVw
Profilo’s  “Tüm yavrulara bayram hediyesi”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QijbudU02To

4. EXPOSING THE TRUTH
One aspect of viral video success that seems to go under the radar is exposing the truth. Ever notice those crazy before and after weight loss pictures (specifically those you see as featured videos on YouTube)? Ever wonder if they’re real? Or if not, where the pictures come from? For example; how body transformations happen, and this guy did it in 5 hours. Three days and over three million views later, the video was viral.
Furious Pete: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=M957dACQyfU

5. EMOTIONAL
One of the best angles for brands to take is to weave an effective story into a video that draws emotion from the audience or targets a pain point they can relate to. Well written (you’ll notice it’s funny in the beginning to get/keep your attention, but gets serious at the right time) and well produced, has had the English version of video viewed over 5 million times. They also have Spanish, French and Russian subtitled versions.
Look at Dear 16years old me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_4jgUcxMezM

6. INTERACTIVE
Some brands utilized the interactive capabilities of YouTube to gain viral success. Both TippEx and Hell Pizza created a “Choose Your Own Adventure” series that garnered millions of views. TippEx put the fate of an unsuspecting bear in the hands of the viewer in their Hunter Shoots a Bear series. Hell Pizza painted an accurate picture of the inevitable 2012 apocalypse in their series where the viewer has to help a delivery man deliver a pizza to a woman trapped on top of a shipping crate surrounded by zombies.
Hell Pizza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9p1yBlV7Ges
TippEx: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M

7. RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME: BE ORGANIC
These are the ones you can never predict, and it’s rare for a brand to take advantage of situations like this because the situations themselves are rare and inherently unpredictable. Videos like Charlie Bit My Finger and David after Dentist are organic. When the person behind the camera hit record, they didn’t know what they were going to get. While this is a commonality found in many viral videos, it’s not one any brand should bank on. Oh, and here’s Charlie and Harry for your viewing pleasure.
Charlie&Harry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_OBlgSz8sSM
David after dentist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs