YouTube is a fascinating website.  Make a hit, and you might have exposure to more than a billion people.  But, make a dud (or even a good video that just doesn’t get any traction) and you may find yourself out thousands of dollars, with little to show.

That’s because there’s a science to creating and seeding a digital video.  It seems easy enough – make something hilarious, share it with your friends, and then they’ll share it with their friends – but unfortunately, that’s not actually the way it works in the real world.

Successful videos reach viewers on an emotional level.  When videos capture an emotion, people are more likely to share, comment and engage with the content.  There are some exceptions – for example, how-to videos tend to be extremely popular ways to market technical devices – but the trends show that sharing behavior occurs when people feel more emotionally connected to a video.

Humor is obviously a great reason to share a video.  In fact, branded or not branded, most of the videos that come up in my Facebook feed are humorous.  But, a recent white paper from Unruly Media shows that people are even more inclined to share uplifting videos – the types that make people feel happy or inspired.

Also, another tip: if a video is good, the amount of branding doesn’t seem to matter. This popular video from Chipotle, a personal favorite of mine, lists the Chipotle brand only within the last 30 seconds of the video.  Without that, you would never know it is a Chipotle video.

But, it not just the content that helps sell the video… it’s also the way you seed it.

In the days of YouTube, it’s hard to get any video seen through all the rest of the things that are out there.  According to the most recent data from Google, more than 72 hours of video content are uploaded every minute.  That is A LOT of video!  And, let’s be honest… a lot of it is garbage.

Because so much of it is trash, it’s hard to get the good stuff to the surface.  But, there are strategies to help you seed your video.  You can buy sponsored placement on YouTube, or, if you opt to house your video on a server outside YouTube, you may have even more authority to place it wherever you want. Advertisers can put video ads on a number of media sites, as companies such as AOL and Gawker Media have places for branded video content.

Also, if your aim is to create content that people will share, then it is essential to make it easy to share. Top marketing executives know that they should put social share buttons right next to the video, as people are typically logged in to their social networks when viewing, and simplifying the sharing process makes it more likely that people will share the content.

While you can’t make a viral video, you can use these tips to help seed a video for viral success.  And, if you need a helping hand, the team at our Florida advertising agency is happy to assist you in creating a strategy to help your video go viral.