Producing viral social media campaigns is a challenging task. However, the most difficult aspect is creating something with potential to be easily shared and turn viral, like a short video. Viral videos are most common, because of the accessbility they offer. Anyone can share them with a click of one's computer mouse to copy and paste it to an entire mass e-mail of family and friends.
Viral social media has a domino effect on people, and once it gets going, can easily become a huge sensation. According to the article, "New Theory Explains What Makes YouTube Videos Go Viral" by Natalie Wolchover points out a major way to get your video to go viral is to play on one's emotions. While videos of cute animals are sweet to share, the most intriguing ones are often disturbing and shocking.
In addition to playing on one's emotions, it needs to have content which many can relate to. An example of a widely successful viral video is the "Ouch Charlie" YouTube sensation. In this video, Charlie (a young boy) is playing with his baby brother who proceeds to stick his finger in the baby's mouth which it then not let go of. It is shocking and amusing because you can tell the baby is hurting his older brother and plays on our emotions because while the audience is laughing the brother is in pain. Additionally, the baby then giggles after he lets go, adding an additional laugh to the viewer. Since this is a fairly basic video content, it speaks to many since we all have that young family member who has probably bitten us/peed on us/grabbed a hold of us and will not let go/etc. While it's cute and endearing, we call all relate to how painful it can be.
While Charlie and his younger brother were just an innocent home movie, it still can teach public relations practitioners what can easily go viral and attract such a large number of viewers. Something short, playing on our emotions, and of general and yet interestingly relatable content.
The article referenced can be found here: http://news.yahoo.com/theory-explains-makes-youtube-videos-viral-184013005.html
