What makes a video viral?
In the midst of this pandemic and a worldwide lockdown, the word “viral” might not be the best to get you excited. No one wants to touch anything viral with a ten-foot pole as of now! But hey, petty humour aside, the digital age has made all of us crave that kind of popularity. It is a power alright, sitting at home and being known around the Globe. Everyone wants to be CarryMinati as of now, even if they don’t understand what exactly it is that he does. Spoiler, the kid plays games online, rants about other people’s content and makes a lot of money. Now, who doesn’t want to be known and make a lot of money? Spoiler, we all do.
Video making is an art. To think of a topic, write a script that engages people and come up with treatment and presentation to get the job done…all require hard work. Then the part where a lot of effort goes into the shooting and post-production, trying to get an audience and finally getting the result. Did the idea work or did it not? Now a video maker who is just starting out might go on about his creativity through this process, but someone who understands the art as more of a craft would play it smarter. Sure, creativity never works on a formula. But learning about the craft can help a lot.
Let the learning begin!
Let’s just get this out of the way first and foremost. Reading about something can only ever point you in the right direction. Being informed ensures that you know the basics and cannot be cheated. But professionals do exist for a reason. It should be understood that AIB, EIC and SNG did all they did because they did a lot of research, wrote content that gets an audience and use strategies that have been known to work. Video making is not like throwing random things on the wall and hoping something sticks. It may have started out like that, much like everything else. But there are ways to predict audience response. In fact, it is this information that makes Mark Zuckerberg a billionaire.
Understanding demographics is key in any sort of prediction about audience response. It is as cliché as it gets but knowing your audience is the only way to give them what they want. This isn’t even a high concept from MBA books now, but something every teenager on Instagram understands. If you market your brand to the right people, you will get the response you expect. This is exactly how it is with video making. Identify the group you wish to target and start from there. Teenagers will respond to Tanmay Bhatt, adults might respond to Raju Shrivastava and your grandparents may still be watching Johnny Walker on the YouTube app you helped them set up. People know what they want and find it. So make your idea for the right people and make it discoverable.
Once you identify your target group, topics would come easier. Be updated with what is trending amongst which kind of an audience. While this works for personal blogs and channels, seeking Facebook and Twitter’s professional opinion might help here. Channel analytics can tell you everything you need to know if you know the language. Now when you figure out what kind of content is getting the most clicks and reads, you can structure yours around it. Figure out that topic and start building on it. While trends will help you find the right topic, creative presentation is something of a challenge. Creative video agencies have cracked the codes better than everyone else and suggest treatments that can attract the most views. Presenting the same idea differently is all that it’s about.
Once you have the right content, it’s time to make it discoverable. The first step, the best title. Your title needs to be distinct but updated with the trend enough to be found. Social media algorithms ensure that people always get more of what they want. So if suddenly the word “corona” becomes popular and you search for it a lot, you will eventually find more titles with this word in it without even searching. Your video making skills need to be backed by impeccable video naming skills. Adding relevant keywords increases discoverability for sure. Spoiler, we take care of this little detail in everything we post. Keywords are basically hinting that you leave behind for the internet to ease its process, which ultimately eases a user’s browsing experience. If used right, words are everything you would ever need.
Placing the videos right is also a very important detail. By editing the same video to match different social media platforms’ requirements, you can be all the more visible. Make use of all these spaces that require nothing more than your creativity and basic market analysis. That is more than enough to get you started on this journey of making your own viral video.
Anyone who tells you that ‘viral videos are not made, but they become so on their own’ is either your lying competitor or just a noob you shouldn’t be taking advice from. Trust the best video agency and understand that they make a living on the basis of this knowledge. Sure, it isn’t exactly an easy game, but it’s not as hard as people would want you to think it is. All you have to do is look at the right place for the right thing and let your creativity flow.
Understand the smart craft of video making and get to it! A successful business awaits!
