The Day My Facebook Video Went Viral
The millions of views, the good, the bad, and everything I learnt.
Several years ago, my friends and I were waiting at a tram strop when I heard one of the the most amazing renditions of a song I’d ever heard. We decided to catch the next tram and instead crossed the road towards the busker who was creating the music.
I pulled out my phone and began to record.
He had created an instrument out of PVC pipes, and was playing them with nothing but his thongs (in case you’re not Australian, I’m referring to flip flops… not underwear. Now that’s something I’d like to see. I think).
I wasn’t taking much care in filming. I was too busy enjoying his mash-up of “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea and “Seven Army Nation” by The White Stripes. My main aim of filming was to share with my brother later on.
That night, I posted it to my Facebook wall, tagging my brother in the comments. The only person who I really thought would care. I then went to sleep.
In the morning, my Facebook notifications had blown up. According to the video, it had been shared 100,000 times. Not viewed, SHARED.
Imagine how many times it had been viewed if it had been posted to over 100,000 people’s walls. Unfortunately, had I know it would be a “success”, I would have posted it to YouTube first. Facebook don’t pay you for views (they also didn’t share the view count back in 2014), and so I’d unknowingly shot myself in the foot.
Of course, it was a bad quality video and I never once thought whilst filming it, ‘Wow, this is going to go viral.” So, I try and forgive myself for that. It’s still painful though.
I did eventually add the video to YouTube, but the original post had already spread far and wide by then.
But what happened next was crazy. Although exciting, it was one of the more stressful weeks of my life.
First, video agencies started contacting me for the rights to the video. I’m talking about 30 different companies who specialise in viral videos… I’d never heard of such a thing or given it so much as a second thought. At the time, I called my dad in panic because I was being emailed contract after contract.
I had to determine whether a big, once-off payment was better than a smaller upfront payment with smaller payments to follow based on views. I had to make sure I wasn’t being ripped off. Put simply, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
Having a video go viral (especially back in 2014) was tough, because it wasn’t a super common experience.
It meant that, where you could usually Google the answer to ANYTHING, you couldn’t really Google the answer to any question you had about viral videos.
I ended up going with Jukin Media because, from the little information I had available, they were one of the biggest and most trustworthy. They also offered me a larger upfront payment with the promise of further payments, so it was the least risky option.
Next, I had hundreds of radio stations and websites messaging me for permission to use the video. Luckily, once I’d signed with Jukin, there was a CTA for them at the bottom of my video to contact them instead.
That week, I would turn on the TV and the busker would be on almost every channel.
He was doing interviews left, right and centre. He was on the radio. He was everywhere, and it felt weird to have had so much to do with that.
The worst part was the most unexpected.
The busker himself was not a particularly nice person. The morning that the video went viral, someone tagged the busker’s Facebook page for my refrerence. So, I immediately messaged the guy. I told him I’d posted a video of him busking from last night, and that it had accidentally gone viral.
His response was one of anger.
He was loving the attention and everything about the situation… but he was furious that I hadn’t linked his Facebook page to the video when I posted it originally. I hit back with the fact I didn’t know he called himself ‘Pipe Guy’. I also told him that I’d had no idea the video would go viral, and by the time I woke up, it had been viewed (what I would guess) millions of times already.
Now, before you start to feel bad for the guy, he ended up appearing all over the news (surely being paid lots of money) and his Facebook page grew exponentially (I’m talking over 1 million). He was then flown, first class, to Singapore to film a TV commercial.
… And that was all within the week of me posting his video.
His own YouTube videos went from thousands of views to millions of views.
He never once said thank you, but mate, YOU. ARE. WELCOME.
His mum messaged me on Facebook that week— she said that deep down her son knew I was the one to thank, and that she would be eternally grateful towards me for changing his life.
Obviously, I didn’t do much. I filmed him and posted on Facebook, whereby the right people saw it and shared it too. It was his own talent that caught the attention of millions, but I was able to kick-start that attention for him. Had I not been there, he would probably still be at 1000 Facebook likes and no one would know who he was.
The busker’s mum then added me on LinkedIn, and upon seeing that I worked in advertising, asked if I had any tips for her son to capitalise on his “new found fame”. She said that her son was arrogant, and he assumed this was his ‘big break’ — she said her son believed this would last forever.
Obviously, we both knew this wasn’t true. This was his 15 minutes (or, one week) of fame.
So I spent a couple of hours writing out a plan for him to capitalise on this attention — mainly tips on what he could do on his social media platforms and for him to get his YouTube account full of similar content. I did it for his mum, who seemed so excited, rather than for the guy himself, who’d been pretty damn rude.
In the next week, he appeared to use all my tips.
I ended up making around $10,000 from the video, most of the money coming from websites that paid for the rights to post on their articles.
Yes, it’s a bit weird to make money from someone else’s talent. But I made him a lot more than that. Like, a lot. And that appeases some of the guilt. He also wasn’t very nice, so that helps too.
Had I have posted the video on YouTube first and received the millions of views there, my sum would be a LOT higher. I try not to think about just how high…
It’s important to note that it’s been several years since my video went viral, and I’m sure things are a little different now. There’s probably more resources and answers to be found. But, I believe most of my learnings are still relevant
So my hot tips for you are:
- Always add your video to YouTube first, even if you think it has a 0.01% chance of going viral. You never know.
- Do your research with video companies when they reach out to you, but Jukin Media were good for me.
- Don’t go for the first offer that offers you money upfront. You may want continuous payments according to views.
- Enjoy it while it lasts. The trajectory of a viral video is fast and intense and it won’t last forever.
