About Viral

Understanding Viral Videos: Production Vs Distribution

The creation of viral videos, as the saying goes, is like catching lightening in a bottle. The best the industry has come up with is to identify patterns and have keen salesmanship sell an idea to a client based on metrics that haven’t yet been solidified in a textbook. Below you will find a model that plots viral video patterns between their two greatest influences: content production and distribution.

Source: About Viral 2009

In order to completely grasp the above model a few terms have been defined below. It is not logical to consider all virals equal. Therefore, identifying the patterns, similarities and content categories will aid anyone addressing the subject of viral production to view it in a more holistic manner.

The Grid – Y Axis

The grid is split between whether a viral video becomes popular from the production or distribution side. Production often relies heavily on quality content. Quality is not specific to resolution or whether the clip was well shot but also its likability. The homemade baby laughing virals are a testament to heavy production based content.

Distribution heavy virals can be movie trailers where heavy promotion makes them available to a wider audience based on monetary compensation for sharing. YouTube Partners, who have built up a large list of subscribers, are also distribution heavy as they have carved out a niche audience around their channel. (AV subscribes to most YouTube Partners)

The Grid – Bull’s-Eye
Levels of Mainstream Interest

The bull’s-eye represents the increased interest and similarly the audience present. The outer circles (5 & 4) show a more niche type audience whereby a select few people are interested in the viral’s subject matter. Subjects could be certain sports or a specific genre of film.

As the circle gets smaller (3, 2 & 1) the content becomes increasingly more mainstream and the audience grows in size. Virals that are found close to the center will generally have greater mass appeal and will be composed of more elements of popularity i.e Sports combined with a Shock and Awe component. These videos can often be listed in multiple categories.

Optimal Content Balance

The bull’s-eye represents the optimal balance within content. A video can’t please everyone so this position at best is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Flu Virals

Flu virals rarely reach the highest interest level. They are often sports highlights or date specific events that lose their appeal as time goes on. A streaker at a home opener ball game peaks early as the game is fresh on the audience’s mind resulting in most traffic coming in the days immidiately after the game.  But, more games will be played and inevitably more streakers will jump the fence and make a hopeless dash for freedom. Let’s be honest, when was the last time you saw someone putting their clothes back on outside the arena without any bruises?

Seeded Virals

Seeded virals are often within the realm of flu virals as companies enlist the services of web influencers to push a video into an audience’s view whether they know about the hidden agenda or not.

Sleeper Virals

Sleeper virals are content that lean hard to the production side of the model. These clips are generally uploaded from relatively unknown users and sit amongst the sea of videos uploaded each day. After an extended period of time moving around personal networks and within organic conversation a couple blogs or social influencers catch on and spread the clips increasing their popularity exponentially.

Addictive Epidemics

Music is an example of content that causes addictive epidemics. It’s the type of content that a wide audience can enjoy, put in a playlist and share with their friends easily. The content promotes remixes and multiple plays which is why, on our last check, music dominates the Top 100 Videos of All Times. If you look at the number one all time song on YouTube and match it to the pattern within the model you will see that initially RCA Records would have pushed the song in the market and then allowed the content to take over and run it to all time viral position it is in today.

Simple Viral Threshold

Human nature for sharing can be extremely complex or extremely simple. A simple way of looking at it is looking at any one individual having three broad options seen in the image here. The goal of any viral would be to consistently hit the third stage of any online media consumer.

Integrated Media Campaigns

An integrated media campaign takes the distribution side of the grid and blankets anyone with eyes and ears via promotion over multiple outlets. Levis jeans uses integrated tactics when they release web videos of a monkey doing Hollywood, someone doing a backflip into a pair of jeans and then additionally setting up a website to send crotch gifts to each other.

Organic Web Catalysts

Organic web catalysts are little gems for viral videos. They immediately show up as statistic blips as one or more online networks, online influencers or an event occurs launching a video into the spotlight. Some of these catalysts include Digg.com, a YouTube feature (regional and then worldwide), increased comments and ratings placing a video on page one of “what’s popular” or “rising videos”, multiple blog posts to gain recognition on The Viral Video Chart or a spot on The Best of YouTube.

Wrapping it Up

Each video that generates a certain level of success will be able to be plotted on the above grid. The more statistical data available from the release of the video to its climax the more accurate one can place the video into a given pattern.

The model helps to identify the what and why surrounding certain videos and ultimately creates a better understanding of the digital media landscape and the overall concept of Viralism.

Cheers!