PT Insights

May
27

Going viral: Celebs, sex and kittens

Amil Husain

This week, YouTube celebrated its sixth birthday and reported that the video service is amassing over 3 billion views per day. That's a 50 percent increase from last year.

The shear volume of videos and views on YouTube makes it an obvious choice for posting videos as opposed to other video hosting sites that offer similar features. However, it also creates a incredibly crowded marketplace, which is often difficult to crack. Many nonprofits and foundations want to create the next "viral video," but with an oversaturated market, this may not be the best strategy?

Let's look briefly at the kind of videos that go "viral." In general, the most popular videos on YouTube contain either animals, babies, sexuality, violence, celebrities or a combination of those elements.

The top 10 YouTube videos of all time are a good indication of the trends. The top four videos are all music videos with global celebrities, each with over 300,000,000 views. The fifth most viewed video of all time? “Charlie Bit My Finger Again,” featuring a baby who bit his brother's hand.

Does this mean that everyone should hire Justin Beiber and a baby to star in their next video? Probably not. Most companies and organizations would be better served with a more narrowcasting strategy.

You don't need everyone and their mother to watch your video anymore to be effective, you need your target audience to watch your material.

Video success will be better served when we stop hyper-focusing on total views and begin to look more into what we want the videos to accomplish.

Are you looking for more traffic on your site or engagement in a campaign? Videos that are targeted for a specific audience with clear, measurable goals in mind can be more effective than a million people watching and ignoring your next viral video featuring a cat riding a motorcycle on top of a dramatic chipmunk.

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