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Viral Video Breakdown
Viral videos share common elements that can be used to make your video go viral; these elements have been discovered through careful observation. This article will describe these elements, how they were found, and examples of how they have been used in successful viral videos. This article will break down the original “Crichton Leprechaun” story which went viral and how a successful spinoff was made. The “Bad Day at the Office” video and how suspense and surprise makes a video explosively viral. The article will finish with “Tea Partay” one of the first planned viral videos which helped launch the Smirnoff “Raw Tea” line. The first step to making a viral video is to understand the common elements of a viral video.
West (2011) identified 9 common elements present in the top 20 of Time Magazine’s 2009 list of the top 50 Viral Videos. These were:
He identified these elements by carefully watching the bottom ten videos in times top 50 list and observing elements that were in 30% of them, and adding elements that appeared in the top 20 videos during the later observations. These were his findings ordered from most present to least present:
Applying these elements to your videos will increase the probability that your video will go viral. The simplest ones to apply are to make a short video with a short title. These elements make the video convenient for people to watch. The short title is easy to read, and the length makes it easy for the audience to watch it as it won’t waste a lot of their time. On the content, irony was the biggest factor in a viral video. Videos used sarcasm, irreverence, and breaking social stereotypes to introduce irony into their video. Music is also used to make a video catch on or even to remix an already popular video and piggyback on its success. The best way to understand these aspects is to identify these elements in other videos. This is also a good way to determine if these elements of viral videos are valid across other videos. One of the most popular viral video is the Crichton Leprechaun.
Embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8
(Botmib, 2006)
The Crichton Lepruchaun was the official news story about a leprechaun being spotted in Crichton, Alabama. The video was posted on St. Patricks Day, March 17, 2006, and as of June 25, 2013 the video was clocked at 22,915,661 views. Google trends peaked near when the video was posted during March of 2006:
The video has many of the common elements of a viral video. First the title “Leprechaun in Mobile, Alabama” is short, sweet, and to the point. The length of the video at just over two minutes also shows the importance of brevity in a viral video. This video shows the element of irony in full force. The irony comes from the minority presence in the video saying things like “could be a crack-head, dat got hold to da wrong stuff,” and “this is a leprechaun flute which was passed on from thousands of years ago from my great-great grandfather, who was Irish.” These one liners broke social expectations in so many ways that it was the key to this videos viral takeoff. The video spawned an Internet meme off the “police sketch” of the leprechaun, the leprechaun also has a website, http://www.wheredagoldat.com/, selling t-shirts of the leprechaun and, most importantly, individuals remixed the original video which increased the viral-ness of the original video. The most popular remix was “Leprechaun Gimme Da Gold.”
Embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZfyrIPw3wY
(Mark Slide Squad, 2006)
This video remixed the original Crichton Leprechaun story into a rap video adding the musical element of viral YouTube videos to gain popularity. The video went live a week after the original news story and racked up an impressive 2,720,552 views. The top comments like “I found the gold.. its this #$%#ing video,” and “I’m playing this on repeat all day at my party today” shows how remixing an already popular viral video into a catchy song can allow you to piggyback off of the success of a current viral video. Google Trends offers insight into how many people searched for the Crichton Lepruchaun Musical spinoffs with the search “Leprechaun Song.”
Google searches for “Leprechaun Song” peaked in April 2006,
Though interestingly, views peaked in March, 2009.
This could have been because of people finding the video through social media rather than searching for it on Google. What’s the most fascinating thing about this is that both the searches from Google and the views from YouTube peaked during March of each year, coinciding with St. Patrick’s Day. This may define a new element of YouTube videos being seasonal events. So, making a video with all the essential elements of a viral video about a seasonal event may increase the chances of your video going viral.
Embed the following: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhnLZ3Ryccg
(Hairycanarie, 2006)
There are many “Bad Day at the Office” videos but this one is the most popular. The video was posted on December 11, 2006. As of June 25, 2013 the video clocked 2,034,165 views. The top comments “Now that’s how you ‘Print Screen’ LOL,” and “Well that escalated quickly” shows how the elements of irony and surprise combine to create an explosive viral video. A normal guy at the office suddenly freaking out and destroying the equipment qualifies as both surprising and ironic. An additional element of suspense also adds an additional factor to the entertainment value of this video. Knowing the guy will eventually freak out but not exactly when is another good element to consider incorporating into your own videos.
Google Trends offers insight into the popularity of “Bad Day Office”
Google trends peaked in December of 2007 with a spike in mid-2005. The video gained popularity after its peak even though it had been over a year after it was published.
This shows the unpredictable nature of viral videos. It’s impossible to predict when or which video will blow up, the best you can do is stack the odds in your favor by incorporating the essential elements of viral videos into your video and continue to make more videos.
Embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0
(Iamigor, 2006)
Tea Partay i.e. raw tea viral video was a successful viral video commissioned by Smirnoff to market their new Raw Tea product line. The video was posted on August 2, 2006. As of June 26, 2013, the video was viewed an impressive 6,238,866 times. The top comments include “As someone from New England, this is about 85-90% accurate” and “So this is what Gatsby is up to these days.” This is a perfect example of using the elements of successful viral videos. This video is a short video with a short title so it doesn’t waste effort to read, nor waste a lot of the audiences’ time, making the decision to watch the video easy. The irony of upper-class white men, combined with the musical element of a rap video about a tea partay lifestyle is another successful combination to make a video go viral.
For this video Google Trends peaked August 2006:
And the views peaked at the same time:
This could be taken as evidence that a well-planned marketing campaign may be able to make the success of a viral video more controllable.
This article described the common elements of viral videos, how they were found, and examples of how they have been used in successful viral videos. This article broke down the original “Crichton Leprechaun” story which went viral and the success of its spinoff “Leprechaun Gimmie Da Gold”. The “Bad Day at the Office” video was covered to show how suspense and surprise make a video explosively viral. The article finished by covering “Tea Partay,” one of the first successful uses of viral video in a marketing campaign. Now you can use the essential elements to make your video go viral.
Botmib. (2006). Leprechaun in Mobile, Alabama. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8
Hairycanarie. (2006). A REAL BAD DAY AT THE OFFICE!! Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhnLZ3Ryccg
Iamigor. (2006). Tea Partay. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0
Mark Slide Squad. (2006). Leprechaun gimme da gold rap video. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZfyrIPw3wY
West, T. (2011). Going Viral : Factors That Lead Videos to Become Internet Phenomena. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications2, 2(1), 76–84.
