29 Oct 09 Viral videos: How to make one that actually does go viral!

Viral videos are one of the great mysteries of the universe.

Every “marketing expert” is pitching them as the best way to expose your brand/business without actually advertising.

But how do you know what’s right and wrong? How do you know what will be the next numa numa, star wars kid or chk chk boom girl?

Short and truthful answer is, you can’t. And you probably won’t be able to. There will never be a formula for what makes a successful viral video. However, we can look at one company that has taken somewhat of a structured approach.

Blendtec is a company in the U.S. that makes blenders, has made a series of videos where a scientist-looking figure attempts to blend the wackiest of things, from marbles to coke cans to crowbars, using one of their blenders. The videos are all on YouTube, but you can see one of them below:

Will it blend

These videos have all of the ingredients of perfect social media marketing:

• Interesting and different
• Easy and free to access medium (youtube)
• Fun to watch
• Markets the product’s strengths, while not focusing on them specifically
• Consistency with the brand – showing of other products and logo prominently in videos

In fact, this marketing has done so amazingly well that Blendtec’s sales have gone up by 700%! Each video has over 1 million views each – and to be honest, I even felt a slight urge to go buy one of those blenders after watching!

So what lesson can we learn as nightlife & hospitality troopers?

Well have a think about how you can incorporate those 5 points above into certain elements of your venue. Here are just some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

• Funny cooking class videos from your chef with interesting and non-conventional cooking ingredients
• A competition between two patrons in your venue in some funny game.  Award prizes.
• All you can eat/drink competition
• A musical in your venue. No jokes! Check out this and this. These are incredibly viral & shareable amongst friends on Facebook.
• Exhibit the skills of one of your staff into a cool and impressive video. This could be cocktail mixing, musical performance or anything else they may be good at.
• Do a spoof of a popular trend, music video, film or show. Done the right way, these can be explosive.
• Do a funny  false “media statement” where you announce new events, nights, meals, drinks, offers, musical acts.
• Do a coke vs pepsi styled taste test between one of your signature cocktails and another similar beverage

There are so many more that you can add to this list, that it can almost be the basis of another blog post.

Be creative,  make a video that is engaging, shareable amongst your friends and friends of your friends, with the ultimate goal of sparking more interest in your venue or event.