With camera technology always with us every single day (your smartphones have one), it’s impossible not to know how to shoot a video. However, creating and developing one that has quality and exhibits the values of your brand takes skill. It also takes skill to create compelling viral social video that can instantly becomes trending.
Five Things a Viral Video Has:
Clear Objectives
Viral videos look casual. In fact, they don’t appear as shot by a professional because some of them are shot through smartphones. However, despite their quality, each one has a clear objective. Whether it is to expose something shocking, touching, completely surprising or informative, each video must impart something of value and somewhat important.
Treat viral videos as you would when formulating ideas for promotional content or professional-shot videos; make sure the message is easy to understand for everyone before production begins.
Good Production
Audiences feel the concern and effort of brands when they prioritize the quality of images, shots, and the script of their videos. A well-made, high-resolution video is eye-catching and pleasing to watch. However, if it has a lackluster storyline or idea, it doesn’t leave anything memorable for the viewers.
Good production guarantees that your video will get the attention it deserves, exhibits the core values of your company, shows an effort to provide quality products or services to audiences in a subtle manner, and makes it memorable.
A well-produced video that becomes a viral hit does wonders for the development and improvement of your brand.
Five-Year-Olds Can Understand It
Anyone’s expertise on a subject is exhibited in the manner they can make someone unfamiliar with the technicalities to understand the solution. A video that simplifies technical solutions into easy-to-remember-and-perform steps gets great views in YouTube. Prioritize making sure that everyone, even a five-year-old, understands the content in your flagship social media video.
Using symbols and colorful images (even animation) can help audiences understand difficult statements easier. Using text as topic markers and images as a cause-and-effect diagram when discussing technical topics also helps show the quality of work put into creating the video.
Adds Value (as Short as Possible)
You wouldn’t click or tap to play a video that shows it is over 40 minutes long. However, you would consider watching a five-minute video and you’re all thumbs (or mouse clicks) when it comes to one-minute videos.
The shorter your videos, the better it can add value. It can be difficult to shorten content that relies on too much detail to illustrate its point. The best way to ensure it adds value is to focus on the point itself and choose at least two contradicting details that define it completely.
The Internet’s quick provision of data and requested information from its users has shortened attention spans, which is why if you want to make your video viral, make it easy to watch, short, and value-adding.
Data-Amplified
The best way to improve your future content is to see where your previous attempts succeeded or failed. Analytic tools from social networks or third-party providers can help give you insight about your content.
Study the view-through, click-through, and overall appeal of your content using the listed figures. Most analytic tools will show which gender, location, occupation, and other categories watch the video often. If you need to find an audience profile, data you collect here can give you a clear picture for it. You can also use the data to create compelling content.
How do you create your own viral videos? Share your ideas in the comments section!