What makes a video go viral?

For businesses, having your video go viral is often the ultimate goal of any online marketing campaign as it is a way of letting others spread your message with limited expense and effort on your part and allows you to reach a potentially huge audience.
Over the last decade, an array of viral marketing examples have come and gone with varying degrees of success. Every 60 seconds, 24 hours’ worth of new viral video is uploaded to YouTube alone. Viral marketing is very unpredictable, as no one can foresee what will succeed and what will fail. Who would have thought 200 million people would watch a 56-second video of a laughing British baby gnawing on his crying brother’s finger?
However, there are a few distinct characteristics to viral marketing success stories – those that are so popular with viewers they feel the need to share it with their family, friends or colleagues via social media, or through e-mail, re-posting it on their blog or website. Utah-based Blendtec is one company that managed to revitalise its brand and create top-of-the-mind awareness for its consumers via a clever online marketing strategy.
The content should be shocking, memorable or funny.
Blendtec launched the “Will it Blend?” campaign of an infomercial miniseries in 2007. The videos parody the “As Seen on TV” and “Home Shopping Network” infomercials. In an effort to demonstrate the strength and durability of his Blendtec line of blenders, CEO Tom Dickson wears a white lab coat and blends an assortment of items including garden rakes, full soda cans, lighters and cell phones.
The videos were viewed more than 6 million times within 5 days after they were posted on YouTube and Blendtec’s website – and have been viewed more than 100 million times since. Blendtec retail sales have increased by 700% since the campaign began. The videos also don’t feel like advertisements, so viewers are willing to share it.
Make a connection with the audience.
Viewers can suggest things for Dickson to blend and he listens. Blendtec engages with followers on Twitter and Facebook. They come across as sincere people instead of a collective corporate voice.
Integrate the viral video into all of your marketing.
“Will it Blend” is on Twitter, Facebook, a microsite, the company’s homepage and the company blog. The phrase “Will it Blend?” has become an internet meme on sites such as Digg.
Now in its 4th year, the campaign reached new heights in terms of hilarity and production value when Dickson blended a “lost” iPhone 4 and launched a “Blend my Phone” contest in June. The prize was an iPhone 4 with Dickson paying the winner’s contract for 2 years. It is amazing how the power of online video marketing can greatly increase the market share and sales of an ordinary, readily available commodity – a blender.