A viral video refers to a video that has travelled and been viewed by millions of people around the world. Such videos travel widely around the internet and are usually posted on most social and multimedia sites such as YouTube, Google video, Facebook, MySpace etc. Most marketers optimize their promotional videos so that they become truly viral. To do this, they employ tactics and strategies which ensure that their viral video marketing or videos make it to the most viewed list. The goal is to optimize videos so that they attract as many visitors as possible. Some of the techniques employed in this kind of optimization include the following;



A viral video should have a decent content that should be able to drive visitors back. A brand should be fit in a greatly designed concept that is short, simple and appealing. The content should not be outright ads but rather captivating to make visitors want to investigate further. In addition most marketers employ core strategy of harnessing the power of the sites’ traffic. The objective is to get the video into the “most viewed” list. This is done by embedding videos in comment sections of MySpace or in a new thread intentionally started in blogs and forums. Another strategy is to send the video to an email list of friends and prospective clients.



Once a video makes it on the Most viewed page, next title and thumbnails are used to actively persuade visitors to click on the video. Titles should be changed to be catchy and misleading a number of times then later switched to somewhat more relevant to the brand. Thumbnails on the other hand should be creative, clear, compelling and at least have a face of a person in it. Thumbnails can also be changed every other few hours in order to keep the video fresh on the list.



Another way of maximizing viewers is to start a controversial discussion. Most viewers with accounts in social sites love controversy. You can intentionally start a controversial topic in the comments section just below the video. This is particularly effective on Facebook and YouTube where people log in throughout the day to post good and heated discussions. Such heated comments, especially those related to the brand will engage viewers and drive them to video now and again.



Another commonly employed strategy is tagging. YouTube allows users to tag their videos with keywords making them show up in several relevant searches. This way, the viewers are engaged with the specific content and not to “related” content that is not related to the brand or startup. This strategy allows marketers to have complete control over videos in the “related videos box”.

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