What Makes Content Viral: Youtube Viral Success

People + Platform x Snowball Effect’ = Results

One of the most concrete formulas I have read about viral content comes from Brendan Gahan, Director of Social Media for Mekanism, as reported to Forbes. Gahan has been in charge of numerous YouTube viral campaigns and broke down his method of success. Mekanism explained that he begins any campaign by reaching out to relevant online influencers in advance. He also makes sure he is completely transparent about the video and its purpose allowing his influencers to know how to best share the content. Something I was completely unaware of was using categories on YouTube to monopolize the platform aspect. Gahan explained that there are 10 categories and the top videos from each of these categories is featured daily on the main page. Therefore, picking a targeted category for your video means that it may make the coveted home page spot. Gahan uses this with the snowball effect to make his videos last. The snowball effect involves coordinating with other influencers and websites to get them to share out the content as well. This formula has led Gahan to millions of YouTube views.

This makes the beauty of going viral on YouTube relatively easy compared to other platforms. If a video gains enough traction through categories or key words in the title, then it can lead to instant success, like the recent Zombie prank embedded below. The maker of this video only had 4 other videos total on his channel and no internet fame at all, but this one video catapulted him into over 19 million views!

Most Viral YouTube Videos of 2015

Unlike Instagram which had clear patterns within it's top ten, YouTube's list is far more erratic. The most watched video of 2015 was a Britain's Got Talent audition which had over 57 million views.