Viral Video Creation

There are videos and there are viral videos. Most viral videos, especially from the early days of YouTube, were just videos that got lucky. Now, people are producing videos that are designed to go viral and to that end more planning goes into the video from day one.

What are the components of producing and launching a successful viral video that will turn a profit?
There are three essential stages to creating a successful campaign:

1. How to Get a Great Viral Video Idea
2. How to Execute your Viral Video Idea
3. How to Promote (and Profit from) your Viral Video Idea.

Great ideas for Viral Videos are everywhere. ‘New’, ‘totally original’ or ‘groundbreaking’ ideas are rare or few and far between. So in summary, you either need to come up with a new idea that no one has ever explored before, which is very difficult and highly unlikely, or, revisit an old idea with a fresh, unique perspective.

So the next time you’re sitting at home watching the news, or reading an interesting article on line, ask yourself: ‘How can I take that same story and translate into a 90-second YouTube video that thousands and thousands of people would love to watch?”

Find out what’s the most frequently searched for keywords are. Pay attention to eBay Pulse and find out what products are hot. As ideas start to form write them down in less than 100 words and ask your friends or family what they think of your idea and guage their reaction. Once you have decided on your idea then you can start to develope it.

You can develope it in three ways.
1. The Video Structure
2. The Video Look
3. The Video Sound

Take your idea and write it out in the form of a script that outlines exactly what you want to say. This is most important, your script must have a beginning, middle, and an end, just like any great story. Your viral video should be short, a maximum of 3 minutes. You want to get in, dazzle your viewers with your idea, and get out, all within the 3 minutes.

I have read a report that tested Google Video Ads, where they tracked exactly how long people were willing to pay attention to the videos before they clicked off. What they discovered is that you have between 7 and 15 seconds to grab someone’s attention. Also, they found that in general, people will watch an online video that is 31/2 long. Therefore, ideally your viral video should last up to three minutes, keeping on the right side of the maximum attention span.

So we’ve got our script that has a beginning, middle, and end, and we’ve got it down to around 180 seconds, which is about three written pages. 1 page will roughly approximate 1 minute of video time.

The visual aspect of your viral video is very important. When you start making decisions about what kind of visual images you’re going to include in your viral video, you need to ask yourself two very important questions: Can I shoot this idea myself and create my own footage, or will I need stock footage. When I say stock footage I don’t necessarily mean clips of live actors, more like footage from pictures, photos amd effects. Having said that, live talent could play a part and could even be members of you family.

Check out stock video and photo sites such as iStockPhotos.com for your videos and pics. Type in your keywords and start looking around. You are free to use and manipulate the video, free of charge, as long as you adhere to the Creative Commons guidelines. Don’t be tempted to use copyrighted content that you have scraped of the internet, it might come back to haunt you. Another site to consider but more expensive is RevoStock.com which has some real top quality videos clips.

If you can’t find exactly what you want for a certain element of your new killer video then get out your camcorder and shoot it yourself. It is the easiest, cheapest, fastest way to come up with killer content for your viral video. Maybe not the best quality video but it might be just what your video needs.