How to Create Viral Videos

22.04.2015
Eoin Dowdall
Creative Director
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By 2016, it is estimated that videos will represent 55% of all internet traffic. With that many videos to compete with, how do you make yours stand out? How do you make an effective video that people want to share? What do you do to make your video viral? There is no fool-proof formula, but here are a few helpful tips.

Short and Sweet

The nature of today’s world is that people have short attention spans. So make your video concise and to the point. Cater to people’s short attention spans, as it is rare for a video more than a couple minutes to be shared widely. You need to capture the viewers’ attention within the first few seconds, so don’t save your best stuff until the end. Make it dynamic and captivating right from the start.

This also means keeping your video simple – don’t overwhelm your viewers by bogging the video down with too many concepts. Pick one and present it well. Only include what is most important to your video.

Evoke Emotion

Sharing is about emotion. People are more likely to share a video that makes us feel good or fired up or inspired. You want to evoke an emotion that inspires the action of sharing. This means to avoid evoking passive or negative emotions like sadness. When we feel down we are not motivated to share that emotion with others. So the trick is to engage viewers with strong active emotions.

One way to do this, especially for charities, is to weave in an effective story that inspires emotion or focuses on a relatable point. Inspire your viewers and they will want to inspire others and share your video. This was incredibly done in the video above from Save the Children.

Like it

For your video to be shareable it has to be a video people want to share. This means that viewers have to like it. Make the video enjoyable so that people want to share it with their friends. Focus on making the video appealing both visually and content-wise to your target audience. Better yet choose to focus on something that your target audience cares about. Avoid making a boring video about an irrelevant topic at all costs! Make your video appeal to the audience you want your video to go viral with.

Hire help

While it is completely possible to create an effective shareable video in-house you might benefit from hiring video production professionals. Not only can a video production company ensure your video is shot, directed, and edited in a quality manner but they have the experience. Professionals having worked on numerous video projects will know what ideas are possible and which are not, which ideas might resonate with audiences and which will fall flat. They can offer ideas, advice and help with shareable potential.

Share! Share! Share!

You cannot expect others to share your video if you don’t. Start the ball rolling yourself by featuring the video on your organisation’s social media pages and encouraging friends, family, and colleagues to share the video on their social media. Be sure to make it as easy as possible to share the video by posting social media sharing links directly below the video.

Kartoffel Films has the experience, creativity, and resources to create highly shareable videos. Please contact us to find out more at mash@kartoffelfilms.com

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