Discovering The Secrets to (some) Viral Videos

Casey’s known for making YouTube videos.

Casey made more than one viral video.

Casey also made a video explaining how to make a viral video (to the best of his knowledge)

But Casey also said that he doesn’t exactly know how or why a video goes viral.

In Casey’s video, he explains a recipe for making a viral video, and it goes like this:

“And, is it a totally fucking kick-ass video that people actually want to watch?”

• Zeitgeist — Make sure it’s of the now
• Timing — Too early. No one gets it. Too late? No one cares.
• Relateability — Self-explanatory
• Fresh — Is it the same thing everyone else is doing?
• Clear Message — Will people get the message?

So but here’s the thing. Do you notice the message right underneath his hand?

“I have no fucking idea how or why a video goes viral”

And then he says:

“So if you can figure out this little question mark right here, then you my friend are a God and should be making videos for a living because you can — ”

Well. That’s what I’ve done. (Kind of)

There are different kinds of viral videos, but for a little less than half of Casey’s viral videos, here is the recipe for the piece he’s missing:

• Simple idea, yet powerful concept
• Anyone watching it will say “That’s awesome! I should have thought of that!” [EMOTION EMOTION EMOTION!!]
• And it has to be something that the viewers will feel that they can easily do too / easily get / already have the materials for doing it. So much so that they’d get excited about doing it right away, and will tell their friends “check this out! we can go do this!!”

So that’s the idea. What about the result?

 — 2.  — 3.

Or, branching off that idea a bit, how about:

• A simple idea that anyone can do
• It provides a fun challenge
• But it seems simple enough for people to succeed at, so they want to give it a try (The two magic ingredients in this recipe is it looks and feels attractive, and contrary to first impressions, it actually takes some skill)

So we found a pattern, but maybe you’re thinking “…Okay… You found a pattern in a few videos that already went viral.”.

Not a problem, critical thinking friend! I made a post that checked all of the points within Casey’s recipe, along with all of my own.

Here are my results:

“Whiteboard” Sticky Notes

Let’s go back to Casey’s question:

“If you can figure out this little question mark right here, then you my friend are a God and should be making videos for a living because you can — ”

My answer is it has to be:

• A simple idea, yet powerful concept
• Anyone watching it will say “That’s awesome! I should have thought of that!” [EMOTION EMOTION EMOTION!!]
• And it has to be something that the viewers will feel they can easily do too / easily get / already have the materials for doing it. So much so that they’d get excited about doing it right away, and will tell their friends “check this out! we can go do this!!”

My addition to Casey’s recipe only hits a little less than half of Casey’s Viral Videos. The others are a different kind of video, and one that also holds its own secret recipe.

…But we’ll save that discovery, for another time.

If you like what you just read, please hit the ‘Heart’ button below so that others might stumble across this mini-journey. If Casey is reading this, hey. Come chat with me on Facebook. Anyone can do the same too, my gates are always open.

Curiously, how many of you would find “Whiteboard” Sticky Notes useful to use in their life? Let me know!