Time to go Viral: 5 Tips for Creating Potentially-Viral Branded Video

Video is all the rage these days. Most of are already well aware of this fact, but many of you reading this still lack the basic know-how to create, edit, and distribute videos that can help your business’s bottom line. A viral or frequently watched/shared video can put your relatively unknown business on the map, making potential customers learn more about you, call you, and/or drop by your website or storefront.

Video is to a business today what radio advertising was a decade ago. Not every business could afford radio spots back in the day, but anyone can afford to make and distribute (for free in most cases) video all across the Internet. Easy distribution includes sites like YouTube, Vimeo, JustinTV, Vine – and tons of industry-specific sites which allow you to further “niche out” to your potential customers. As video goes viral, social media will often do most of the marketing work for you.

video recording — Your goal: Creating branded video that goes viral

Whether you’re established and looking to expand your marketing efforts, or getting ready to launch a new business (offline or on), video needs to be on your “to do list”. Commercial adverts, informative videos, news that relates to your industry – all these formats and more make for great ideas to base a video from.

Keep in mind that most viral videos are rarely commercials; particularly if your budget isn’t high. However, before we move on, check out this “Google Glass” video displaying some of the most viral “commercial” videos of 2013:

Without further ado, here’s 5 tips and guidelines to make your videos effective:

1. Not every video needs to be an obvious ad

Don’t feel like you have to sell something to people in every video you release. Offering value to customers without an in-your-face “buy this product now” message is a great way to get loyalty and future views for other videos you release.

By not coming across as sales person your videos will: get watched by a larger audience, watched more often, with repeat viewers coming back, and traffic to your business will improve faster. Nobody likes to get sold to, but if you give them something they want or need without hammering them with ads, those same people will find their way to your site or storefront business because they trust you and want to spend their hard-earned dollars on your product or service because they like and feel beholding to you in some way.

2. Viral without a call to action = no sales/leads

A call to action can be as simple as “Follow us” with a link to your social media; “Check out our site” with a link to your company website; or “Come visit us” with again, a link to your site or product sales page, or your company’s physical address (offer a Google Maps link for brownie points!) Tell them what to do for crying out loud! This isn’t a contradiction to number one: Something like “Follow us”, or dishing out a site link is much different from “Buy this now or your IQ will drop by 30%” – which, and this is a contradiction to number one, can actually be used effectively if you’re an authority of sorts with your viewing audience.

3. Time is of the essence

You have about 10 seconds (much less in some cases) to get your audience’s attention. This should be no surprise to you. We are human after all, and most of us know how easily we’re distracted and/or bored.

Make sure the person or persons in your video aren’t speaking in monotone or otherwise boring, offensive or off-putting in one way or another.

Also, the length of time the video runs is critical. Shorter, snappier messages are much more effective, regardless of what kind of content you’re talking about. If you insist on a longer video, make sure to beta test them before mass-distribution, to make sure it’s something that the majority will actually tune in to. Length requirements can be very industry-specific and dependent on how much of an authority you are beforehand.

Time scale also comes into the picture with regards to your expectations after the video release: Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your video won’t go viral that quickly either. (Unless you’re very lucky!)

4. Be honest in the title and video description

Don’t use misleading titles just to get views like “Miley Cyrus Upskirt” or “Meet the World’s Most Interesting Person” or some other sort of provocative or awe-inspiring title that has nothing to do with the content of your video. Tempting people with promises of nudity, gossip, or information that doesn’t exist in your video will not only hurt your credibility, it’ll make people click off quickly.

5. Video branding by using a logo is the way to go

If your company doesn’t have a logo, then what the heck are you waiting for? Having a logo-less company is unheard of, and releasing a video to help promote your brand without one is equally foolish. Watermark each video with your logo, without obscuring the content. Usually the top or bottom, in the left or right hand area of the screen is best. Check out the image below if you believe that you or anyone else doesn’t make a visual connection with logo placements.