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A secret technique for designing viral videos
Everyone seems to want a "viral" video. I have discussed, in previous blogs, why a viral video my not actually be the best idea for you and your products, but still that's what folks seem to want. If you must try for one, here's a simple way to test out your idea in a sort of mental model. If it works here, then it may even work in reality. Beware however at the end of this article I have included a quote from Slate that might give you pause for thought. 
Viral videos rely on an effect that is well known to chess players and mathematicians (oh, and Multi-Level Marketeers). One person sends the video to two people, they each send it to two more people and before you know it we are talking thousands of folks.
However, the human mind has trouble grasping this concept of "ply" and how rapidly it works. You may feel you can grasp the concept, but here's a fascinating example that shows what I mean.
A great wise man did an important favor for an immensely rich Chinese Lord. The Lord offered the man anything that his kingdom held in return for the favor. The wise man however requested a seemingly simple pay back. Just a single grain of rice, doubled for every square on a chess board. That is; one for the first square, two for the second, four for third and so on (in case you don't know there are 64 squares on a chess board). Now, try and guess what the Lord thought he was signing up for as he agreed. How much rice was that? Look at the bottom of this article for the surprising answer.
This super powerful concept relies on one thing, the urge to share. To achieve even limited success you have to create something that people will want to pass on to their friends and associates.
Here's how to think about it and to make that mental model. Imagine 10 people who fit your desired demographic. Make your imaginings as broad as the demographic allows. If it includes men and women, a range of ages, various job types and socio-economic levels add them all in.
So, now you have 10 imaginary characters (at least you won't be lonely), it's time to imagine them forwarding your video link. Think of it as a chain mail. One break and your viral dynamic dies (not absolutely true, but a good test).You are working on a funny story about fluffy rabbits. Would your male characters forward that? Probably not. Or you have an idea about power saws and grinders. Any good for the women in the group? Probably not. Get the idea? Your idea may well be more subtle, but in truth the best viral videos have a laser tight message aimed at a distinct audience. Just look at the Old Spice viral campaign to see what I mean.
Now you can put your "concept" on paper and then try it on a couple of sample "real people". What you are going to hear is a challenge to your own objectivity. Some folks will just lie to you out of respect, pity or some other motivation. "Dude! That's the greatest idea ever, I personally wouldn't, but everyone else would!" That and the carefully disguised, "Are you mad? Who would care!" can be a test for your ego.
The conclusion then is, do some thinking before you head off on the path of the viral video idea. If you are not running a mashup band or a street improv group then you are going to have as much trouble with this as everyone else. Sure you could come up with the next great viral hit, but realistically it's hard.
A recent Slate article by Chris Wilson described some measurements he made of the chances of a video going viral (or for that matter getting over just a few views).
"On Friday, May 22, I used Web-crawling software to capture the URLs of more than 10,000 YouTube videos as soon as they were uploaded. Over the next month, I checked in regularly to see how many views each video had gotten. After 31 days, only 250 of my YouTube hatchlings had more than 1,000 views—that comes out to 3.1 percent after you exclude the videos that were taken down before the month was up. A mere 25, 0.3 percent, had more than 10,000 views. Meanwhile, 65 percent of videos failed to break 50 views; 2.8 percent had zero views. That's the good news: Your video is slightly more likely to get more than 1,000 views than it is to get none at all."
Check out Chris' article and Slate article and data here.
And the answer was? 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 - that's a boatload of rice. In fact more than there are stars in the known universe (or something like that). Guess who got to be Lord after he took over the wealth of the nation and he had no idea about viral videos?
Comments
And don't forget that no matter how many views you get, yo also need to be making some form of commercial gain. It only helps if it moves your brand or a product forward - otherwise it's just numbers.
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