Why you don’t need a viral video for your business

How do I make a viral video for my business?

Everyone always asks how to make a viral video for business.

They believe one viral video is all that they need to propel their company to success.

There is no arguing that when a video goes viral, you get a huge viewership number.

But making a video viral isn’t just a snap of your fingers.  There are two ways that a video usually goes viral, almost like two opposite ends of the video spectrum:

• Option 1: You see something funny happening related to your product or service, whip out your camera, and get a good shot in the moment, upload it, and people respond.
• Option 2: You budget a hefty chunk of money (with lots of zeroes) to have an uber-professionally produced video that is developed with the goal of going viral, and then sit back and cross your fingers that it actually does.

The majority of videos that businesses are sharing with the world fall somewhere in between.

If you attempt to produce a video that hits either of those two marks above, here is what usually happens:

• Option 1:  You don’t have your camera out at the exact right time, and so the things you try to capture that would be naturally viral aren’t really all that funny or engaging, so while you get some views, the video falls far short of viral.
• Option 2:  You spend a lot of money on a professional viral video, only to find out that either the virality of the piece has nothing to do with your business and so the viewers don’t remember you, or they don’t remember you for long, or it doesn’t go viral at all and it’s just another marketing piece.

Focus on creating a constant video series

Unless you have a camera recording 24/7 where you can accidentally capture those moments that could go viral on their own, or you have the crazy budget you could spend on trying to produce a video that would go viral, I recommend you focus on consistency.

Like all things in marketing your business, consistency is key.  You want to create videos regularly, and have them available to your viewers (customers and potential customers) on a regular basis.  The best thing you can do is plan out an entire year of your video topics in advance and record several at a time.

A great way to generate more video topics is to have other people talk about your business.  Invite some guests to help you now and then.  Another option is to re-purpose old content and have it freshly available in a new format for your prospects.

The most important thing is to be authentic in your videos, and offer them with some consistency.

Optimize the video after uploading

If your goal with any video is to be found, then you want to take your video production to the next step by making sure the video is more likely to be found after it’s uploaded to YouTube or elsewhere (we recommend YouTube due to the number of daily searches).  You can optimize your YouTube video so that it is more likely to be found in search results fairly easily and without taking a lot of time or money by just following a few simple steps.  This training video walks you through how to optimize your YouTube video.

Ready to take your video marketing to the next level? Grab a spot for a free video strategy call where we can discuss your video ideas and needs.

Vicky Wu

Vicky is the CEO and Chief Creative Strategist of Vicky Wu Marketing. She draws from 30 years of experience at the CMO level, the CEO level, marketing for Fortune 500 companies and multi-million and multi-billion-dollar organizations, PLUS strategies learned helping startups and nonprofits with limited budgets … now focusing on providing SMBs with effective and efficient marketing strategies – giving them access to the same level of expertise as the really big guys with deep pockets, that they may not otherwise be able to access.