Excerpted from article on VentureBeat:
"Are you using video in your online marketing strategies? Did you know that 87 percent of online marketers now use video content?
Whether you’ve been creating video content for years or this is your first time, we wanted to share some tips on how to make your video stand out from the rest and go viral.

Here are our 3 steps to making a viral video.

1. Understand your audience and their viral triggers.
- Know your audience:
This is very important — it is really, really difficult to make a video that everyone will enjoy. Focus on YOUR audience. Get hyper-specific.

- Consider why people share online:
The average viewer shares video for a variety of reasons.
People share for two major reasons: “a) they altruistically want to share the enjoyment of that video with others or b) they selfishly want to be seen sharing or critiquing that video.”

- Understand your audience’s viral triggers:
The most important aspect of creating a viral video is understanding how to combine the two elements discussed above to understand your audience’s viral triggers. Triggers are what turn your viewer from a passive spectator into someone that will share your content.
Focus on one or two triggers and go “all-in” on them.

2. Optimize your video for an online audience.
- Post your video everywhere:
Your video should be hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, and your professional content management system. Submit your links to Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter and any other frequently visited site that displays video.

- Make it short:
Keep your video short — the average viewer watches between 15 – 30 seconds of a video, so lead with the portion of the video that is engaging.

- Design for remix and meme-ability:
Sometimes your initial video is not the one that goes viral, but parodies or memes that are developed from it can become instant hits.

- Provocative thumbnail and proper tagging:
Make sure to give your video a provocative thumbnail.
Also, make sure to give your video the proper tagging with description text that helps your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and people who are looking for your video on YouTube.

3. Distribution.
Unfortunately, nobody can guarantee that a video goes viral. The best way to do this is to create initial small groups of supporters to start your distribution cycle.

- Niche influencers:
This goes back to understanding your audience. Online publications and bloggers are hungry for content that is interesting for their audiences.

- Celebrity influencers:
After getting some niche recognition, the next step is to reach out to influencers with larger built-in distribution networks. These include YouTube celebrities, mainstream bloggers, Twitter celebrities, etc.

- Create initial groups of support:
Use a service like Virool to guarantee your video gets viewed a certain number of times. They use a network of blogs, games and other partners to make sure that real people watch your content..."

Each step is analyzed with more information and with some videos as example. Read full original article here:
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/29/how-to-make-a-viral-video/

 

Via Giuseppe Mauriello