There are multiple ingredients that cause a video to go viral:

1) Vehicle: you start with a video sharing site like YouTube which gives any average person access to hundreds of millions of viewers and affords them the opportunity to become an authority, a guru, a comedian, a super star of some sort, etc. in as little as 7 short days once their video gets noticed!

2) Theme: nearly all viral videos fit into either one of these 3 categories:

• The video is a parody of a topic that is popular and timely;
• Or, the video is drop dead cute (either the Evian water commercials, or the e-trade baby spots come to mind);
• Or, the video has a unique wow factor.  For example: an unbelievable ‘did you see that’ component such as making a basketball hoop shot from 50 yards away, or being propelled out a home-made canon and landing in a portable 10 foot in diameter swimming pool for kids.

2) Emotional Component: A powerful Emotional response that causes influential people (taste-makers) to share your video with other people.  In other words, you upload a video that either makes people laugh hard, or it wows people, or it shocks people to their core, or it pulls at people’s hearts, or it impacts folks in some other way – and then ‘someone of influence’ gets hold of it and then tweets it out or shares it with their massive list of followers.

3) Access to a large social connection: We talked about this in the previous point.  For example, you (or someone in your sphere of influence) have the ability to tap into a large social list via a platform like Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.  Regardless of the size of your own list, if an influential person (a taste-maker) is connected to a large group of followers, then sharing a compelling video with them that they happen to like has the potential to go viral through social sharing.  This person may not even be on your own Facebook, or Google Plus, or Twitter list – but they could be connected to someone who is on your list.

Let’s say for example that you uploaded a video and someone shared it with someone else, who then shared it with yet another person, and then that person went on to share it with someone like Jimmy Kimmel, or David Letterman, or Robert Colbert.  If one of those entertainment heavyweights recommends, or refers, or pushes your video to their list of followers, then your online video can go viral very quickly.

An example of this is Rebecca Black’s YouTube video where she sang a song called ‘Friday’ while riding in an open convertible.  It garnered over 200 million views in less than 52 weeks. The fact is that it was uploaded to YouTube for a long time before it went viral.  Then, all of a sudden Tosh 2.0 got wind of it and started to talk about it.  As a result of that, a bunch of high authority blogs mentioned it, and it started to go viral because these taste-makers took notice of it and began to share it with a large audience.  From there, a community of people started to talk about it and the video took on a life of its own.  The result was a couple hundred million views.

What’s interesting is that there are now over 10,000 different parodies of that same video on YouTube.

And, it all starts with one influential person or taste-maker and their community taking notice of a video and then sharing it with their followers.

4) Unexpectedness: By being totally surprising and adding a bit of humor, you can accelerate the number of views you get.  Case in point is a guy in New York City who was protesting a bicycle fine. Casey Neistat got over 5 million views by doing some very unexpected & funny things during his video.  The video centered on his rant over a $50 fine he got because he refused to ride in bicycle lanes.  His complaint was that lanes were unsafe to ride in because of people who illegally parked in them, or illegally placed things like garbage cans in them, and so on.  The video showed him riding in bicycle lanes ranting away, when unexpectedly he would collide into a car, or smash into a garbage can, or get thrown off course by a pedestrian who was walking in a bike lane.  And it was not only funny, but it was hilarious.  It went viral!

By the way, Justin Bieber, who is one of the biggest stars in the world, got his start on YouTube.

Some additional key points to keep in mind if you are looking to create a viral video:

a) Build curiosity fast: Because video viewers don’t like to waste time, you have to do something impactful in the first 10-20 seconds of the video that will compel viewers to stay.

b) Create a hook for the audience: Can you insert something that will boost the appeal factor of your video?  That could be anything from an intriguing title, to an amazing soundtrack, to a celebrity appearance, to exclusive video footage, to sex appeal, and so on.

c) Telling a story: Your video either has to tell some kind of story in a way that has not previously been shared, or it has to tell a story better than has previously been shared.

d) Sharing potential: Can your video deal with important or timely topics or characters?  Does your content relate to a topic that people are already talking about?

e) Production value: Simply put, is your video pleasing or fun to watch?  Does it initiate an emotional response from the viewer?

Finally, when it comes to setting up a viral video marketing campaign let’s talk about the advantages of video for sharing content.

Does video marketing work?  Yes, it does.  If fact, the importance of video marketing for local businesses in particular cannot be understated.

Although video marketing sounds complicated, it is actually one of the simplest & most cost effective online marketing strategies to implement and execute provided it is done the proper way.

Why use video marketing?  Well, there are compelling reasons that drive home the point ‘why you can’t afford to leave video out of your online marketing mix!’

The following video will cover in detail the the ‘how & why’ of the following points:

1. Video Gets Your Message Across Better Than Anything Else!

2. Video Helps To Establish You As An Expert!

3. Video Educates People Better Than Any Other Medium!

4. Video Creates Trust More Effectively Than Other Types Of Marketing!

5. Video Gives You Enormous Reach Potential!

6. Video Gives You Flexibility!

7. Video marketing small business – they go together!

The following short movie clip will not only open your eyes to the power & advantages of video marketing, but you’ll see how easy it is to add video into your internet advertising mix where you can create and optimize web videos yourself.

From the tools you require, to your cost, to your mental preparedness, to the best places for you to host your videos – the video below covers every angle for you.

Lastly, you’ll see the hard-to-ignore benefits of SEO video marketing that will expose just how futile a marketing campaign without video would be. You’ll witness how & why video content literally crushes all other forms of content marketing online.

Marketing with video online isn’t the only form of marketing you should do, but in terms of overall importance and effectiveness, it’s definitely the the singularly most important component of your online repertoire of marketing tactics.

Not only that, but video gives you the best opportunity to go viral online.

So, make sure you watch the video because it will give you a firm grasp of the advantages that this kind of marketing will give you and your business online.