How to Use Viral Video to Market Your Small Business

Making your Video go Viral

Creating a Viral Video for Small Businesses

Why should your small business advertise with a viral video?

O What will cost your company $50,000 to develop for TV, you might develop for the web with $500.

O On Facebook alone, you have 500 million involved contributors ages 12 to 65.

Why should your small business advertise through a viral video?

O Promotional elements meant for web based use will be faster to produce compared to other media.

O There are not complex preparations necessary or legal documentation needed.

O Your business cannot develop a viral video however. O You can only create an awesome video

and hope that it goes viral.

#1: Extremely targeted content

O It will be critical to start out by understanding who your projected audience is and what they are interested in, just like you would do when creating new merchandise.

O When you construct a video without any consideration of who will see it, you are wasting your effort.

#2: Do not lie to your audience

O Awhile ago a viral video picked up well over five million visitors.

O It involved a man in a wet suit heading down a man made waterslide, launching himself in the air and landing in an inflatable kiddie pool.

O A few days after it launched, people wondered if the stunt was even possible.

#2: Do not lie to your audience

O In the end, they proved the stunt was faked.

O The creators of the video eventually admitted that the whole event was computer generated and took the video down.

#2: Do not lie to your audience

O There was a variety of undesirable commentary on YouTube.

O Shoppers do not enjoy getting tricked. When making a viral video, state right away that the video is promotional.

#3: Customers don’t mind if a video is promotional, if they are

entertained

O Old Spice and Evian have videos that started on Television but became successful on the web.

O Both are visibly promotional yet also entertaining which means that potential customers are willing to watch them anyway.

#4: Find a way to connect

O The easiest way to persuade anyone to circulate a video to family and friends is to stir up feelings, whether it is making them laugh or sob.

O In addition to emotion, you can find other common characteristics exist in many viral videos -- music, dancing, attractive women, Candid Camera-style pranks, babies and pop culture and political references.

#4: Find a way to connect

O When implementing video as a marketing strategy, you truly need to understand your market and what would be of the most interest to them.

O The video should be smart and add to the virtual space, rather than interrupting it, which is often the effect of comedy or shock value.

#5: Make it Quirky

O Predicting what will go viral is almost impossible, but a common characteristic of viral videos is "quirkiness.”

O There needs to be something new and different and maybe even a little weird to get the average individual to share a video.

#5: Make it QuirkyO Piano-playing cats, finger-

biting babies, the Star Wars kid – many of us have viewed these viral videos on YouTube, chuckled and then distributed them to people we know.

O That is exactly the response marketer’s are looking for from potential customers.

#6: Keep it short and sharp.

O A video needs to be easily viewed by a multitasking generation.

O It is best to persuade people early on, be interesting, not exceedingly promotional and don't abandon your marketing message towards the end because they may have clicked away by then.

#7: Do not devote a lot of time or finances.

O The more funds spent putting together a video, the more viral it must be for your business to get a return on your investment. O So make it cheap.

#8: Circulate itO When you have the video get

it out there. O Friday at noon is the best time

slot to launch a video -- many people are just returning from lunch and you can get a lot of views at once.

O Upload to web sites such as Facebook and Twitter, where sharing videos is both easy and expected.

#8: Circulate itO Test several types of content,

launching it weekly and distributing everywhere.

O The goal will be to build a greater relationship with consumers through the use of engaging information, O Instead of hitting individuals over the

head with obvious hard sales practices.

Going viral will not always generate money.

O A video may be watched by 5 million young adults, but if the merchandise is meant for the elderly, the views will not translate to actual sales and profits.

Still not convinced? Here are several

results which might compel you to

contribute video posts to your

marketing campaign:

Still not convinced ?O Internet video is considered the one

advertising platform with a growth rate of forty to sixty percent per year.

O More common media, such as television and print, have level or decreasing growth rates.

Still not convinced ?O Internet video viewing is on the rise

across all demographics.

O A greater video readership may mean you can target additional potential customers and turn them into purchasers.

Still not convinced ?O The Return on investment of getting

face-to-face with customer eyeballs through the use of online video is significant, due to affordable development and submission expenses.

Still not convinced ?O A video is about 10 times more prone

to land in the top 10 search engine rankings over articles on the same product, because search engines seek to broaden their results.

O In other words, videos get preferential treatment, and there is a much better click through rate compared to text articles because videos appear with a hard-to-miss thumbnail.

Still not convinced ?O Video is easily the most visceral and

interactive form of social networking, which makes it the most beneficial and engaging marketing tool.

O People recall video a lot more than, say, a banner ad.

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