4 reasons why videos go viral

An article by Amit Roushan    No Comments

Everyone wants to be a star. With the Internet in your hands you don’t require some special characteristics to be a star. Thanks to the social media, viz Youtube, Facebook etc, every single person on the planet can be a star by the next Saturday. There are hundreds of example where people not known before has suddenly turned out to be a celebrity just because of some video or event going viral on Internet.

So, why does videos or some events get viral. Kevin Allocca, Youtube’s trends manager, who’s profession is to watch Youtube videos, have some cool reasons on videos going viral. According to him the three reasons why videos goes viral.

Unique and Unexpectedness

Every minute 48 hrs of videos is being uploaded in Youtube and less than 1 % gets viral. So, the videos that are truly unique and unexpected can stand out.

The Numa Numa video is one of those unique videos that has managed 45 millions view by going viral. It’s just the uniqueness or humor that helped Numa Numa to gain the popularity.

Being silly, making people laugh and most important uploading unexpected situations can really be reasons to help videos go viral.

Community Participation

Internet is a common ground. So, participation and sharing is going to be the essence of the Internet.
One of the most important reason for videos going viral is Participation. By participating, we be a part of the phenomenon by either spreading it or by doing something new with it.

The Nyan Cat is a looped animation with looped music video. To date, it has 66 million views of the original Nyan Cat video. Well, there is a 10 hrs version of the same video which has 11 million views and a 100 hrs version with 5 million views. There are several other videos with modifications to the Nyan Cat video and are credited with million views.

Tastemakers

Tastemaker is someone who popularizes a new fashion or most important he/she is the trend setter. A slight promotion by a taste-maker can make you go viral on the Internet.

This video was uploaded by Hungrybear9562 on Jan 8, 2010. To date it has about 33 millions views. So, what is the reason for a double rainbow video to get viral?
Well, the reason was Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel, an American stand-up comedian, actor, voice artist, television host and of-course a tastemaker tweeted this video to be the most funniest video in the world. Guess what, the video got a larger audience and gave it millions of views.

Luck

Apart from all the ingredients to make a video viral, the one that stand on top is Luck. Sometimes people try to hard to make their content go viral but they end up getting nothing. Whereas, many a times some silly videos gets viral out of nothing. So, in most cases it is Luck that plays an important role.

Watch Kevin Allocca speak at Ted talks

Subscribe to fortystones.

Follow @fortystones on Twitter.

Get updated from our Facebook Fanpage.