I spent a very entertaining evening at Seattle's School of Visual Concepts earlier this month absorbing terrific information from two local executives, Arik Abel and Kirk Mastin, both from Seattle-based Zooppa.
Simply put, this dynamic new company is home for inspired creative-types to post videos for inclusion into Zooppa's online visual competitions. These videographers could be you, or me, or anyone that believes they have something important, funny, silly or shocking to say and want to expose this information to the general public.
These (sometimes random) videos can be extremely powerful and gain a life of their own...or fall completely flat...it just depends on what the audience likes, reacts to, or shares with their network, based on whether the video resonates in them, or captivates their imagination.
When a video is shared among networks of individuals, it is essentially the birth of its "viral life." When others recreate or remix portions of the original video, one might deem it truly viral - something catchy that inspires the public to vamp it up and participate. In Zooppa's words, the video was so good that "others want to use it themselves, create something else or just add on to it."
Check out a few that are at the top:
(This particular video has been watched by over six million people...)
From a marketing perspective, viral videos haven't really entered the business scene as a main stream marketing tool. Businesses want to identify an ROI, which in these early stages has not been soundly demonstrated.
Since "viral" means just that, few have stepped up to the plate to spend the dollars needed for a professional agency to create this type of communication. Zooppa did mention that a couple of organizations do exist purely to help build a viral audience through forced viewings helping to send it on to the general public.
Zooppa shares 10 tips to going viral:
1. Video length: Keep your video between .30 seconds and 2minutes.
2. Remixability: It's great when your video gets to the point when others want to riff it off, add to it or remix - go with the flow.
4. Celebrities Getting Mad or Surprised: Of course adding a celebrity will always help!
5.Animals Taking on Human Traits: Animals doing incredibly cute things also is a winner!
6. Incredibly Cute Things: Anything cute works.
7.An Ending You Can't Believe: Get creative!
8. Inspiring Moments: Many of Obama's speechs went viral. On a less serious note, scores of millions were moved by Susan Boyle's performance on Britain's got Talent.
9.Things Relevant to Who We Are: Going to the dentist, playing sports or tips from Mommy's blogs, things that make us laugh.
10. Videos Relevant to Pop Culture Trends or Current Events.
