Viral vitals
Mystery abounds in the music world over the identity of iamamiwhoami, an unknown (or at least for the moment unrecognisable) artist taking YouTube by storm.
The mystery videos, which feature a distorted blonde female singing, have caught the eye of Shane Richmond at the Daily Telegraph, who wrote an interesting piece speculating as to the singer’s identity, while music bloggers and fans are busy trying to guess the puzzle.
Viral videos are of course, nothing new. In fact, they predate sites such as YouTube and Google Video, originally being emailed and forwarded on from one friend to another. With the exponential grow of video and social networking sites, the popularity of virals exploded, and we all have our own particular favourites that we remember months or even years after we first clicked on them.
It goes without saying that virals can be amazing marketing tools – think of the Cadbury’s drumming Gorilla, for example, viewed more than a million times – but what makes a really good viral?
First, and most important, content is king. Humour is vital, of course, but funny is not the only thing that matters – your content should also be suitably different, unlike anything a viewer has seen before, which will make them more likely to want to talk about what they’ve seen, share it with their colleagues and friends.
Your viral content has also got to be something most people can identify with. For example, if you are selling a piece of high-level computing equipment, the ‘geek’ jokes that go down well among your colleagues might not have enough mass appeal for a wider audience (for that read your target customers) to find humour or that word-of-mouth factor in.
The guessing-game element from the iamamiwhoami videos acts as a perfect hook, as bloggers love having a mystery to solve. Names being tossed into the ring as potential stars of the campaign include Little Boots and Christina Aguilera, and if one of them turns out to be the true star, there will be much loved kudos for the blogger who named them first.
Short and sweet is another often-told message about viral videos. Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes: perhaps they’re sneaking a five minute break at work, or are sent a link to your viral campaign in an inbox containing 40 other messages. Remember time is precious – videos of two to three minutes are more likely to be watched and shared than an eight-minute epic, no matter how well produced or funny it is.
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We want to know what your favourite virals are – what stands out to you? Among mine are the hilarious FAIL blog and the Where The Hell Is Matt? series featuring Matt Harding dancing all over the world.
Let us know your favourite virals by leaving a comment on this thread!
