The Viral Video Formula That Resulted in 200M Organic Views in Under 6 Months

On my 34th birthday, I posted my first motivational video on Facebook, hoping it would go viral. I figured even if the video was a complete disaster, some people would like or share it out of sympathy for it being my special day.

After my video went live, I waited around as if something incredible was going to happen. I kept refreshing every few minutes, hoping the views would skyrocket, as if some viral fairy was going to come down and bless my video. I refreshed, and refreshed, and refreshed. And…nothing. The video was a complete flop.

I kept trying for months, before finally deciding to give up. I told my girlfriend my decision and scheduled my final video to go live at 7 a.m. the next day, before going to bed defeated. And then, something incredible happened.

“Babe, babe, wake up! You won’t believe this!” My girlfriend shook me, as I struggled to open my eyes. “That video you posted. It’s gotten 10,000 views in less than an hour!”

Was I dreaming? Was this real life? I still couldn’t believe it. Up until then, none of my videos had broken 600 views.

Sure enough, it was true. The views and shares were going through the roof. Within 24 hours, the video was shared over 50,000 times. Today the video has broken 100 million views and been shared by over 3 million people. And my following, views, and income have been exploding ever since.

How to Make a Viral Video

Captivate the Audience in the First 10 Seconds
Invoke a Strong Emotional Reaction
Don’t Rely on Dialogue
Have an Unexpected, Ironic Twist
Create Relatable Content that Brings Back Memories
Create Content For Them, Not You
Feature Hot-Button Issues
Consistency is Key and Virality is a Numbers Game
Create Content Native to Each Platform
Follow Best Production Practices

After some initial doubts, I can now attest that viral videos are entirely possible and replicable. In this article I’ll share everything I’ve learned on the topic, focusing on two key topics:

How to make a video go viral. Is there a certain formula that works? (There is.)
How to monetize a viral video. Can you create or grow a business from it? (you can)

One word of warning, whenever I get asked about creating viral content, most people want to know the magic bullet that can attract millions of views. They think there’s some hack such as posting the video at the right time, landing a high-profile share, using the right hashtags, or throwing lots of money behind it.

Sorry to burst any bubbles, but that’s not how virality works.

I like to use a fire and fuel analogy when thinking about viral videos. The fire is the content itself, and the fuel is all those various ways you can help your content spread faster. If your content isn’t fire, you can add lots of fuel and it’s not going to go anywhere. But add some fuel to fire content and it can spread around the world.

So the question to ask isn’t how do you get a video to go viral? It’s how do you create content that’s worthy of going viral?

My Formula for Creating a Viral Video Campaign

Even with more than a dozen videos each breaking millions of views under my belt, I know there is no guarantee that any new video I make will go viral. I’ve created videos I thought for sure would reach millions of views that end up failing miserably, and I’ve also created videos which I thought wouldn’t do so well that end up taking off.

But the good news is, I have spent a lot of time trying to crack this code and have successfully developed a formula that works. This formula has helped me draw over 200 million organic views in less than six months.

To develop this formula, I spent a lot of time analyzing my videos, using Facebook’s Insights, as well as analyzing hundreds of viral videos by other content creators. I would ask myself both objective and subjective questions when researching.

Objective Questions:

What demographic seems to share videos the most often?
Do two-minute videos perform better than four-minute videos?
Does quality of video or lighting matter?
What types of videos or subject categories get the most views?

Subjective Questions:

What emotions are invoked by this video? Do certain emotions increase viewership?
Are there certain parts of my storyline that led to a drop off in viewer engagement?
What percentage of my viewers make it past three seconds versus 10 seconds?
How relatable is the storyline? Has my audience experienced something similar?

After a lot of research, I was able to discover the 10 most important things needed for a video to go viral. This isn’t to say you can’t have a viral video without all or some of these points, but from my experience following this list will tremendously increase the chances of your video going viral.

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1. Captivate the Audience in the First 10 Seconds with Something Shocking

The first 10 seconds are make or break. Facebook is saturated with content. If you don’t capture someone’s interest within the first 10 seconds, they’re not going to stick around for the rest.

Fewer than 30% of viewers on average make it past the 10-second mark, but with my most-viewed videos, over 70% make it through. To captivate your audience have something dramatic, emotional, or impactful happen early on to get them invested.

Here is an example:

Source

In the opening scene of this video, the first 10 seconds, the husband gets dramatically upset at his wife for not being affectionate and decides to sleep on the couch.

2. Invoke a Strong Emotional Reaction

People consume content to feel something. It’s the same reason we go to the movies or watch television. That feeling can be sadness, motivation, happiness, fear, laughter, excitement, etc. One of the most frequent comments I get is, “Your video made me cry.” As the saying goes, people won’t always remember what you said, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel. Emotionally move your audience and they will be moved to share your content.

Source

At 1:00, the man lets the woman helping him know how much of a difference she made in his life, moving the audience with his emotion.

3. Don’t Rely on Dialogue—The Video Should Make Sense Without Sound

Forty percent of my viewers watch my videos without sound. They might be at school, lying in bed, or watching from work. Another large percentage don’t speak English. That means it’s important that the content has strong visuals and the story is easy to understand, even if the viewer can’t hear you.

The test I use is to watch the video without any sound or subtitles and then decide if you can still get a good understanding of what’s happening. If you don’t, figure out what can be added visually or what changes need to be made. Strong visuals allow the audience to experience the story on a deeper level than words can achieve. Otherwise, we’d go to the movies and the director just would stand in front of the camera for 90 minutes and tell the story, without any actors or visual effects.

4. Have an Unexpected, Ironic Twist

When telling a story, people automatically start formulating theories as to how the plot is going to unfold. If it meets their expectations, then there’s nothing exciting about it.

Imagine an action movie where someone is kidnapped, and then the hero shows up at the kidnapper’s door right away and brings them back home. I certainly wouldn’t watch that movie.

Regardless of your topic, find a way to surprise and your video will thrive. My audience has learned to expect a big plot twist at the end of all my videos, so they’re much more likely to stick around for it.

Here’s an example:

Source

In this video, a businessman accuses a homeless man of lying, but in the end realizes he was telling the truth and is really trying to help his family eat.

5. Create Relatable Content that Brings Back Memories for the Viewer

My favorite response from people watching my content is, “This video reminds me of a time when…”

Each one of us has a different life experience. When I was first creating content, I was focusing more on my own perspective. Then I realized that most people cannot relate to the life I live.

So, I put myself in the audience’s shoes. What is something they have experienced, or may have said or heard? The best thing you can do is have the content hit home for the viewer.

Here’s an example:

Source

The husband’s line at 0:53, “I mean what did you do all day?” really struck a chord with stay at home moms. The video received tens of thousands of comments from women saying, “This happened to me”.

6. Understand Your Target Audience and Create Content For Them, Not You

Most social media channels give you audience insights so it’s easy to know who’s following you and who is engaging most with your content. In my experience, women ages 18-54 are much more likely to share my content, so most of the content I create is catered towards them (sorry fellas!).

I spend a lot of time thinking about what kind of content and messages my audience would want to see. I even routinely ask my audience and often get my best ideas from my supporters. Unless you want to be the only person who views your content, create content your audience wants to see, not that you want to see.

To learn more about creating content for your audience check out Foundr’s How to Create a Marketing Strategy Your Target Audience Can’t Resist

7. Feature Hot-Button Issues That People Are Already Thinking About

What national or global issues are happening right now that everyone’s talking about? Create content around hot-button issues that people are searching for. If you’ve got great content, it can organically start appearing at the top of search results. You can use Google Trends to discover what’s on people’s minds. If your content ends up ranking at the top of popular search terms, it can easily translate to millions of views.

8. Consistency is Key and Virality is a Numbers Game

When I first started creating videos I had a tough time breaking 1,000 views for the first couple months. But no matter what, I kept at it until I caught my first lucky break. If you’re expecting your first video or even your 10th video to go viral, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Go into content creation with the mindset that you are going to keep at it as long as it takes to succeed. As people start to see you’re a consistent content creator, they’ll be more likely to follow you and continue to watch your videos. That will help your content rank higher, which makes it easier to go viral. Now, even my worst-performing videos will get over 100,000 views because of my following and how I’m ranked by algorithms. Commit to a posting schedule and keep going, no matter how bad you initially fail.

9. Create Content Native to Each Platform

The videos I post on Facebook that get millions of views are lucky to break 10,000 views on YouTube. That’s because each platform has a different audience that’s looking for something different, so you have to cater to them.

When people visit YouTube, they’re coming with the specific intent to watch videos, so they’re willing to watch longer form content. On Facebook, people tend to be on the go and have shorter attention spans, so content has to be shorter and punchier. Choose a platform you want to create content for and focus on that, because what works for one will most likely not work for the other.

10. Follow Best Production Practices

Be authentic. Your audience will know if you’re not being yourself. For Facebook specifically, keep content between three and four minutes long. If it’s too long, most people won’t stick around, which will hurt your ranking in any social algorithm.

If you involve other people in your videos, make sure they are relatable, believable, and entertaining. Don’t get too hung up on production quality. A lot of people think you have to have the best quality camera, sound, and lighting, but often the videos that do the best are more raw and look like they were filmed from a smartphone. The money you spend on production doesn’t correlate to more views. Here are some tips on how to create compelling videos.

My best-performing videos are shot within a few hours and all happen within one or two locations. Consistency is also key to building an online presence, so make sure the production is easily manageable where you can be posting a new video once or twice a week. And always add subtitles so people without sound can still follow along.

How to Use Viral Videos to Make Money and Grow Your Business

Now that you’ve got the formula for creating viral content, you’re well on your way to creating videos that will get millions of views. At every bar you go to, people will be coming up to you recognizing you as “that guy” or “that girl” from social media. You’ll have people buying you free drinks and wanting to take a picture with you. Awesome, right? But now what?

The main reason people want to create viral content is to be able to monetize it and/or use it to grow their business. And fortunately, capturing people’s attention through views can translate into some serious cash.

It took me only a few months to get on track for pulling in $250,000+ in annual revenue from my Facebook page. And I personally know people who are generating seven figures a year from their content.

While there are many ways to generate income from viral videos, these are the three most common:

1. Enable ads in your videos and collect a percentage of the revenue.

In order to place advertisements on your Facebook content, you have to be approved by Facebook. My advice is, don’t worry about getting approved, just focus on creating the best content possible and Facebook will approach you on their own. It took about three months before I got an email saying I was eligible for Facebook ads in my videos.

Once your account becomes eligible, you can choose to enable ads on any of your videos over three minutes long. You have the choice of placing ads at the beginning of your video, in the middle, or having Facebook choose (which is what I do since those folks are a lot smarter than me).

Facebook doesn’t reveal too many details on how their payment structure works, but from my research, each video pays differently depending on the audience demographic viewing it. I’ve found the average to be around $1 per thousand views. So if you get a video that hits 10 million views, you could make $10,000 from your cut of ad revenue alone.

2. Partner with brands and get paid to drive their sales.

As your following grows, you’ll notice a lot of offers coming into your inbox. Once you filter out all the creepy ones, you’ll find brands are noticing you and want to partner with you. The number of consumers making purchasing decisions based on what they’re seeing on social media is exploding, and brands are definitely taking notice.

That creates a big opportunity for content creators to be able to get paid for product endorsements or earn commission by referring sales to brands. The best part of working with brands is you can make just as much money as you would if you were selling your own products, without having to deal with the business headaches. Many brands have seven-figure annual spending budgets, just to pay content creators to talk about their products.

3. Create or drive sales for your own products.

The holy grail for content creators is to be able to use their content to support their own products or businesses. A lot of the fastest-growing consumer brands today are owned by individuals who started out as content creators (think Kylie Cosmetics). If you can figure out a way to turn millions of views into sales for your own products, you can create a billion-dollar business. The challenge is, most content creators aren’t prepared for the operational challenges that come with running a business, so my suggestion would be to really think it through before jumping in. If you have an existing business or work for one, then you already have a great head start.

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Don’t Just Do It For the Views—Create Content That Matters

One final thought. As you succeed as a content creator and rack up lots of views, don’t forget those views aren’t just numbers on a screen. They’re actual people who are impacted by what you create.

Try to create something that improves the lives of others and helps make the world a better place. While getting views and making money are great, the real goal should be making a positive impact through your work and changing people’s lives for the better!

So, are you ready to make your next viral video? Drop links in the comments below to any questions you have or links to content you’ve created and I’ll keep an eye out. Good luck!