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Six years ago, before my daughter was even born, my wife and I seized on the opportunity to spend a week visiting my best friend at his home in Puerto Rico. As usual, I took along my video camera, and upon returning home to Atlanta, I cut together a little vacation video so as to have something to watch and remember as time goes on. This is usually where this story ends, but thanks to YouTube, this is where we begin.

In short, the six years since I posted this video online, it has generated over 500,000 views. Before I tell you how this happened, here’s the video:

The 4 Reasons Why This Video Went Viral

I’d like to think it’s because of my amazing ability to shoot, edit, and score a film all by my lonesome, but alas, here are the real reasons:

The Video Thumbnail – Unlike Vimeo, YouTube grants far less control over your thumbnail choice. When this video was uploaded, YouTube would simply display the frame that fell at the exact middle of your video. Today, YouTube offers you options of frames taken at every 1/4 division. I thought it would be funny to highlight the sunburn my wife endured, so I made sure that scene fell right in the middle of the edit. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me and my wife, the frame also looks like I might be taking OFF her bathing suit. It wasn’t long before this was brought to my attention, and my little vacation video might have attracted an initial audience because of it.
The Video Title – “Puerto Rico!” has a built-in fan base, as do most location specific keywords. I wouldn’t be writing this post if I had titled it “My Amazing Vacation in An Amazing Country.” More people search on YouTube for “Puerto Rico” than “Amazing.”
The Debate – At the time, I didn’t realize that my very presence as an American tourist in Puerto Rico carried a history of impassioned views and political stances. Puerto Rico’s current and historic relationship with the U.S. is not the subject of this blog post, but I encourage you to discover it for yourself. Needless to say, it wasn’t long before both pro- and anti-statehood voices appeared under the video and, as is the norm for YouTube, some comments got derogatory and mean while others were incredibly supportive. I made the personal decision that just because I didn’t fully understand the debate didn’t mean that I needed to shut off the comments, which YouTube will allow you to do. Thus, the debate has added more views to this video.
It stayed online with a current message – As you can see by the metrics from the video below, it took almost a year before it received it’s first referral from another video, and then it was featured on the YouTube homepage after that. There’s a lesson here for the creation of video viral content. After an entire year the message of the video was still relevant. In fact, besides not being shot in HD, this video could easily be viewed today by someone who might not realize that it was shot so long ago.

I’d love to hear what you think of the video and if you have any other questions or ideas in the comments section below.

About Haddon Kime

Haddon is a web developer, a filmmaker, a social media manager and a composer/sound designer. His passion is to work alongside creative and innovative minds in telling great stories. He holds a degree in writing music for films from Boston's Berklee College of Music, and is an experienced web designer/developer and social media manager. Haddon is a proud husband and father and currently lives in Atlanta, after having been lucky enough to spend most of his life in Tucson, Boston, and NYC. Learn more at www.haddonkime.com

Show Them What You’re Made Of…

Viral video production is one of the most cost-effective ways to broaden the reach of your mission and message to your online audience. By distilling your brand into short, direct, educational, and emotionally evocative videos, you’ll be building trust and confidence by telling the story of your brand, and doing it first-hand.

While we certainly can’t guarantee that your viral video will be the next Gangham Style or Keyboard Cat, we can guarantee that Kime Media will work closely with you on the concept for your viral video or viral video series and bring proven viral video production techniques to the table in order to make it much easier for your viewers to want to click “share.”

The Many Shapes of Success

Have you ever needed to give an “elevator speech?” Imagine the next time this happens that you’re already prepared with a short video presentation that reaches your viewer on an emotional level, that not only tells the story of the “what” and “how” of your business, but the “why” of your organization as well.

Another strategy is to invest more in production techniques, building trust and confidence in your brand by presenting something more polished, like this piece of kinetic animation that we wrote custom music and sound design for:

If you’re interested in taking the next step in viral video production for your organization, CLICK HERE to contact us or call us at 773.542.3366.

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