Viral Video: Your Key to an Unlimited Captive Audience

By Mary F. Crean and Gerald B. Crean
Published on Friday, February 01, 2008
ARTICLES

"Leave Brittany alone," shrieks and sobs a teen calling himself Chris Crocker in Time Magazine's number one ranked viral video of 2007. The web cam video of a teen crying under a sheet received more than 18 million downloads. "Don't tase me bro," was ranked number seven.

How many million people downloaded your last policy paper? You don't need Miss Teen South Carolina, whose video ranked third, to find a map showing the power of a relatively new phenomenon: viral video.

What is a viral video? According to Wikipedia, the Internet's free encyclopedia, the term viral video refers to "video clip content which gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through email or instant messaging, blogs and other media sharing websites."

How did this new means of e-communication come about? The proliferation of camera phones, inexpensive web cams and editing software, combined with free hosting sites such as YouTube, has led to this revolution.

The most significant reason for the growth in viral video is the expansion in Broadband Internet access. It seems like only yesterday that downloading video was slow and cumbersome due to dial-up connections. Now, thanks to the tremendous growth in Broadband and the development of Adobe Flash, a cross-platform video player found in 99 percent of web browsers, virtually anyone can watch video instantly on one's own computer.

Forrester Research shows that 65 percent of U.S. consumers now have access to high-speed Internet connections. By the end of 2007, it is estimated that more than 6 billion people will use the Internet. Comparatively, it took more than 50 years for television to grow at this rate.

It's not just about how many people are using the Internet daily, but how long they are staying online. A recent survey by the Marketing Experiments Journal showed the average consumer spends 3.6 hours per day on recreational surfing compared to 2.5 hours per day on television viewing.

If you believe viral video is for amateurs, think again. Nike, Warner Bros., MTV2 and Dimension Films are among the firms posting viral videos on the web. Tracking service TV Week now rates the top ten viral videos each week based on number of downloads.

Even politicians are using viral videos to raise awareness and money. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul added 21,000 new donors and raised $4.07 million on November 5 with a viral video campaign that was tied into Guy Fawkes Day. This viral video produced the second largest revenue dollars raised in a single day by any candidate. The beauty of viral video is that after creating the content, getting your message out is literally, and virtually, free.

What can you do to attract viral video viewers? Steve Safran, managing editor of Lost Remote, a blog identified as the "place where tv finds its future," suggests the following tips for getting your viral video noticed: be entertaining, know your audience, stay on message, avoid jargon, have a sense of humor, know the blogs, know the medium's limits and make it embeddable.

While there are hundreds of free video sharing services, PC World magazine rates the top three as Blip.tv Beta, DivX Stage Six Beta, and Brightcove.Beta. Rating criteria includes price (all free with rating), video/audio quality, ease of upload, embedded player design and file size/length limits. Logging in at number seven, YouTube is arguably the most famous web sharing site, and while its video quality is not the greatest, YouTube delivers to the largest audience.

You can bet that Internet video viewing will continue to skyrocket. The question remains, should your organization be a part of this growing trend?

If you think it should be, begin your viral video project with a concept. Next, write a script, develop a file sharing strategy, select a sharing site or use them all, and purchase a camera. If all else fails, find the closest person under 25 and enlist their help.

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Mary F. Crean is chief development officer at the Yankee Institute for Public Policy and Gerald B. Crean is president of avantgardemultimedia.com. They can be reached at mary@yankeeinstitute.org and gbcrean@comcast.net, respectively.

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