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Tim Street on Producing Viral Video
 Tim Street (click to enlarge) |
Tim Street is speaking about viral video. Viral video has some important things in common:
- Easy to share
- OK to share (no too explicit)
- Controversial - takes risks
- Emotionally engaging
The last point is the most important. Tim goes through a list of primary and secondary emotions. He shows different video clips (and their stats) for various emotions. Use emotion to engage.
Some critical advice: think about who the audience should root for. Who’s the hero? Who’s the antagonist. This is basic story telling and applies to blogging and podcasting as well as video.
Spectacle vs. story. Lots of video on the ‘Net is spectacle. Think of the Mentos and Diet Coke videos. Pure spectacle. Lonelygirl (on YouTube) is an example of story with over 16 million combined views. Robert McKee’s “Story” is a good resource.
Once the story is over, your audience leaves. He cites Howard Stern who had much larger audience numbers when he was “fighting the man.”
What helps launch a viral video? What you’d expect: sex, violence, and comedy. Title and key art are also important. You’ve got a postage stamp to make your visual statement. Off-air promo (ads bought on other networks) can help. Build a launch spot for your podcast. Cut a cross promotion deal with other podcasts.
Tim references The Tipping Point and Word of Mouth Marketing as good references. Online communities like StumbleUpon, Second Life, fan sites, email, and so on are good places to promote.
Love the haters. You can’t make everyone love you. But you can make people hate you. Love the haters and they will bring you the lovers. He references the NBC Promo as an example of feeding off negative reviews.
Posted by windley on September 28, 2006 3:05 PM
Comment from quixote at September 28, 2006 3:58 PM
We thought that you might find this reply to Lee Gomes WSJ article on YouTube stats interesting:
http://www.rabbitbites.com/misc/youtube.html
It raises questions on viewership, demographics , and bandwidth data.
Comment from peace at September 28, 2006 6:57 PM
Stirring up contention for personal gain is a technique that has been around forever. It's not new. Unfortunately it relies on society having some level of peace and unity to begin with, which it destroys in the process of 'cashing out.'
Comment from Phil Windley at September 29, 2006 7:30 AM
Controversy and contention are not necessarily the same thing. Lonelygirl51 is a good example. There's a lot of controversy surrounding whether she's real, etc. That's not contention.
Comment from Yaron at September 29, 2006 10:32 AM
There seems to be a misconception that viral videos are only videos created by people (amateurs). A viral video, by definition, is merely a video that is widely viewed as a result of people telling other people about it. The vast majority of viral videos online today (including YouTube) are professionally produced by media companies with decades of experience creating mass media. How many times something gets viewed depends on one thing only -- content. Its the quality of the content, not the marketing/distribution of it that dictates viewership. We sometimes get ahead of our Web 2.0 selves thinking we're reinventing all the rules of media, but this one is tried and true -- content is king. If you can produce quality content that is compelling to a mass audience, it will "go viral" if you make it available to the masses to share. The internet opens the flood gates of radically scalable, open distribution, but it does not change the basic formula of mass media.
Comment from peace at September 29, 2006 3:39 PM
You're correct. Still, I think controversy is just a stepping stone to contention. I got ahead of myself. Let's peel the onion back one more layer. Wasn't lonely girl a big fat lie (a fictional story passed off as if it were truth for as long as it would last)? Is the make-a-lie-and-profit-from-controversy business model that much different than the make-a-lie-and-profit-from-contention model?
If pictures are worth a thousand words, video is worth even more. I'm not slamming the technology, it's going to be very powerful. But we need to be cautious how we use it. I just hope we don't shoot ourselves in the foot embracing vicious cycle business models that rely on viewers returning like dogs to their vomit. Material that is based in truth and strengthens our communities, our friendships, and our trust of each other can be so much rewarding for the content consumer and the producer than socially parasitic material that only pretends to accomplish those objectives.
Comment from Viral Videos at August 28, 2007 10:28 PM
Great read. Found via StumbleUpon, gave it a thumbs up.
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