A Practical Guide To Making Viral Content

Hi I’m Jonah, and I’ve gone viral. I think.

It was my Star Wars Wes Anderson parody trailer, and within 48 hours it hit 1 million views, and was featured on all my favorite film websites. I then worked at Buzzfeed, where videos would accumulate 1 million + views even when they shouldn’t have.

I was just watching Gary Vaynerchuk’s episode of #AskGaryVee, where the viewer prompted a question about how to make a viral video. Gary honed in on an important thing — timing. However I’ve seen other videos and articles that offer theoretical ways to “go viral”, and not so much practical ones. I’m a practical dude, so I figured I would offer some VERY PRACTICAL tips on how to make a viral video, sprinkled with some theory.

But first! Context. Who am I and why should you believe anything I say. Short answer, doesn’t really matter. I’m just some 25 year old filmmaker who wants to direct Pirates Of The Caribbean 7. But in addition to that…

• Graduated USC Film School with a major in film production.
• Have worked in the digital YouTube space for almost four years, learning back-end to front-end from master YouTube sensei Matt Gielen of Frederator as well as master of marketing and branding — Fred Seibert.
• Attended the Buzzfeed School For Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Want To Make Viral YouTube Videos.
• Current online combined video counter is 30 million and counting views.
• Teaching a class at USC next summer called “The Art Of The Viral Video”
• Hook is my favorite film of all time. Not sure how that is relevant to my knowledge of digital content creation for the web, but think it’s important for a reader to know what inspired me to pick up a camera.

First, a quick definition of viral, for this articles sake. A video that receives 1 million + views in a a week, that enters the cultural zeitgeist and bridges the gap between demographics. It’s water cooler talk, you’ve seen it, and your mom has seen it. Your friends tag you on Facebook saying you are “famous”, somebody tells you about the video and you tell them “Well, I made that…” Weeks later, your grand parents send it to you — THAT IS VIRAL.

The Viral Equation

Length x Relevancy x Quality x Content x X FACTOR= VIRAL

Some of these concepts are pretty straight forward. I think shorter videos, 3 to 2 minutes, are probably more likely to go “viral” — and note, this is viral on YouTube/the web. You must execute in the context of your medium. YouTube is a medium designed on sharing video, it’s a quick pass of information, therefore the less time, the better. Generally speaking.

Relevancy — Trending topics can be INCREDIBLY helpful when trying to enter the culturural YouTube zeitgeist, so making a Star Wars parody video the week the Star Wars trailer drops, well, it will be relevant.

Quality — So, I have a theory. It might not be right. It probably isn’t accurate 100 percent of the time, but I think if one were to look at trends, the theory would prove correct. Okay, what is SAID theory. The theory is that a YouTube video with the visual quality of something between an episode of Planet Earth, and something your Dad would film on family vacation, is more effective as a viral hit as say, something as high quality as an Marvel film.

Metaphor-less, incredibly high quality videos take away from viral-ity. Subconsciously, I think people come to YouTube to watch and share things that they too think they can make (whether they can or not), being able to watch something, enjoy, then go out and do it is half the fun. YouTube is show and tell. It’s a high school talent show.

Content — The content of your video should be interesting. It should offer fresh perspective on a topic. It should be hyper specific, giving the audience a piece of new information that they would then want to share. Did you know THIS… Example with Star Wars video…Did you know the Star Wars Trailer looks like a Wes Anderson movie?

X FACTOR — Now this is the thing. 2 x 2 = 4. 2 x 2 x 1 = 4. 2 x 2 x 0 = 0. The X FACTOR is either 0 or 1. It’s one little tiny thing about your video that you can’t really control, it’s the spark of viral-ity. A good example of the X-Factor in the video would be the voice of the kid from “Damn Daniel”

Rapid Fire Practical Musts

• A clean, high contrast and bright thumbnail that accurately portrays the content of the video, preferably of a face, and viewable eyes.
• Release the video Tuesday-Weds in the AM.
• Accurate title that portrays the content of the video, short and sweet.
• Make the video shorter than you think it needs to be. While I’m sure there are great long form viral videos, 2:30 to me seems like the ultimate sweet spot.
• Reddit is a great place to start your viral adventure. That’s where Star Wars Wes Anderson really picked up.
• Hit hard on a specific identity or audience. Star Wars fans…Siblings…Wes Anderson fans…Cat Lovers…
• Check out www.Devour.com for daily videos that tend to go viral. See if you can break down the commonalities amongst them.
• Give the viewer more than they are giving you.

Last but not least, just go out there and MAKE your video. Stop thinking about it. Execution is everything and you can’t execute just thinking about what you should do. You must do it. I made the Star Wars trailer in 3 hours on a whim — you never know what will hit off.

I plan on writing more at length articles surrounding the concept of digital content creation. How to make money doing it, how to find those jobs, and more. If you’re interested in any of this, follow me on Medium! or Sign up for the email newsletter that will have articles and other fun links pertaining to the film/content world.

In the event that this article, ironically enough, does go viral — I wanted to share my current ‘life status’ as a filmmaker. I’m in the process of raising money and casting an indie romantic comedy called Wendy. I’ve made a bunch of shorts, countless web videos, and now it’s time to make the jump into making features. I’ve been learning a lot about this process, as it feels very much like starting a business. Lot’s of rejection, dead ends, little victories. If you’re a producer, or a writer, or someone going through something similar, I hope some of the content on this blog helps (Art Of The Follow Up Email)

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