Is it possible to create a viral video? First of all, a viral video is any clip of video that is spread rapidly through online sharing. Viral videos can receive lots of views very quickly. 

A viral video can have different levels.  A video that gets millions of views in few days are very difficult to pull off without having lots of subscribers.  But creating a video that get thousands of views in few days can be very achievable.

As a side note, creating a viral video still need some luck and some work.  If creating a viral video is easy, everyone is doing it.  It is still difficult things to do and you needs some luck on your side.

In this post, I have attempted to create a viral video to see if this is something it can be done.

Deciding what video to create

Easiest way to create a viral video is using Google search.  Since Youtube is own by Google, Youtube video is now appears on Google search.  The plan is to create a video that lots of people are searching for and has no competition. I admit, this is pretty hard to do because now days, there is video for almost everything you can think of.  But internet is big world, and with some luck, you can find a topic that no one has made video for yet.

Do have question about something?  Ask Google and see if you get the answer that is helpful.  If Google does not give you answer to the question that is helpful, this is good opportunity to create a video that answers the question.  Unfortunately, you can pretty much find answer to pretty much any questions you can think of.  So you might have to be little bit creative and take some time to think about the right question to ask Google.

If you can’t think of any question, easiest way to approach this is using current evident.  Current evident are very fresh so you can always be the first one to take advantage of this.  Ask question about the current evident and see what kind of answer you get from Google.  There are good chance that there are any good answer yet.  When you don’t see answer to your question, you hit the jackpot.  Only down side of using current evident is that it is time sensitive and after while the people lose interest.  So it is temporary thing.  But don’t let that discourage you.  If you find a good opportunity to make a short video, take and run with it, and see where it goes.

Case Study “Holy Fire”

In Southern California where I live, there was a big forest fire called “Holy Fire” that was on the news everyday.  It was a big tragedy that effected many people in the area.  The forest fire is called “Holy Fire”, but I never knew why they called it “Holy Fire”.  So I did a Google search, but I didn’t get any hit.  There is no website or video that is answering this question.  That is when I decided to make a video that answers this question.

First I have to do a quick research and find out why they called it “Holy Fire”.  It wasn’t hard to figure it out. I just read few of news article and the answer was buried deep inside the news article.

I didn’t want to spend lots of time making the video.  The video is very short and straight to the point answering why do they call it “Holy Fire”.  Also, to add to it, I did some more research on the history of the area to add to the video.

It only took me about half an hour to make the video.  It was easy and fast since I’ve made many videos like this before.  When the video is done, I uploaded to Youtube and titled it, ” Why Called Holy Fire?”  I also added description and thumbnail, and all the necessary things you need for Youtube to index the video fast.  If you want to learn more about the things you need to do after you upload your video, take a look at this post, “11 Things You Should Do Right After You Upload Your Video to YouTube”

Case Study Results

Surprisingly enough, after few hour, the video is already ranked #1 in keyword “Why Called holy fire?”.  It was because there was no other videos in that keyword.  This video was the first one.

Because of this, I see the views of this video increased dramatically within 22 hours of upload, the video already had over 500 views.

The video view counts continue to increase dramatically next few days.  After one day later, the video received over 735 views.

After two days later, the video received over 1060 views.

The video have revived around 1.4k views until it starts to die down.  This is expected.  Like I have mentioned earlier, current evident related video has short shelf life.  These current evident comes and goes and people starts to loose interest over time.  In case of “Holy Fire” event, it have lasted about 3-4 days after video was uploaded.  But once the forest fire has contained, it was no longer a news event anymore.

How can benefit from viral video

So big question is how can I benefit from a viral video?  First of all, if your channel is able to monetize, you can  monetize the video and make some quick money.  How much money you can make is all depend what type of video you have created.  You might make some few bucks but you might not, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

Other way to benefit from viral video is getting more subscriptions.  At the end of the video, you can put Call-to-Action to subscribe to the channel.  There is good chance that you might get additional subscribers from the video.

Finally, you can use viral video to get view for other videos you have.  At the end of the video, you can put Call-to-Action link to other video you have.  There is good chance that the viewers will watch your other video after they finish watching your viral video.

From this “Holy Fire” case study, I haven’t received too many new subscribers.  But I did put link to other video and the other video did received over 100 views over 1-2 days.

Conclusion

“Holy Fire” examples shows us that creating a viral video is not impossible.  “Holy Fire” video is not a viral video that you can brag about but it did get some results without wasting too much of my time.

If you already have a Youtube channel, continue to make videos that you normally make.  But always keep your eyes open to opportunity for viral video ideas.  If you do see a opportunity for viral video, don’t heist and go for it.  Some of these current event videos are time sensitive, so if you can start it early, odd of getting viral gets even better.

Some times, your viral video doesn’t work out well as you expected.  But that is okay.  Just keep trying new ideas and soon you can create a viral video that can help your channel to grow.

Good luck!

How to make viral video (“Holy Fire” Case study)

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