Viral Videos.

Websters difinition of Viral--quickly and widely spread or popularized especially by person-to-person electronic communication. You all know what I am talking about. Anything from charlie bit my finger, Justin Beibers "baby",bed intruder, kittens featuring kittens--we've seen them. However, viral videos are not only appealing to bored teenagers, but when it comes to advertising, they are a dream.Have you ever wondered WHY certain videos get to be so popular though? How can advertisers make their videos appeal to so many people to make their videos go viral? Is it luck? a science? a skill? Let's see what some have to say about the issue.

A research study conducted by searchenginejournal.com came up with these factors on how to make a video more likely to go viral.

• Use humor to its fullest extent. Almost 50% of viral videos feature humor and 70% of internet users who share content with others say they do so because the videos they share are amusing.
• Don’t make your video long. Internet audiences have notoriously short attention spans. It’s best to clock your video in under two minutes in duration – the average video in Forrester Research’s study was 1:42 minutes in length. Over a third of the videos were less than a minute.
• You don’t need celebrities. Celebrities cost you more but don’t necessarily pay off. Only about a third of really successful viral videos featured a celebrity.
• Sexy content isn’t necessarily best. Only 16% of successful viral videos in the study featured sexy content.
• Don’t try to mimic UGC. You might think that if you imitate the style of UGC videos are made in you’ll fare better but you’d be wrong. Users can recognize the difference. Don’t pretend to have a low budget when you really have a high one. 85% of successful viral videos by brands featured full production values.
• TV ads can go viral online. Even if your ad has already been played on television, it can still go viral on the internet. TV ads account for over half of viral marketing videos online.

Also, after doing some research THE most likely factor for a video to go viral is it's amount of humor. Take a look at this chart from an SEJ research study.

I guess Humor is the answer. Be funny. Be creative. Be original. Get Viral.