How to create a Youtube Sensation

The  world’s a stage. Even more so with the advent of YouTube. I recently walked into my neighbourhood music store, a routine cum ritual of mine that is followed almost every alternate weekend. A music CD caught my eye on the newly released track. The début album for a group called the Piano Guys. Now I had never heard of this group, but since I like piano music, I picked it up and flipped it over. The first line on the back of the CD reads, “ The Piano Guys have become a You Tube sensation with their clever and inspiring takes on popular music and creative videos that accompany them. Now that caught my attention as a digital market professional.

YouTube has become the perfect platform for both aspiring artists and well known ones as well. Do a search for the 2012 Grammy Award winning  ‘Rolling in the Deep’ from Adele and not only will you find the original song, but also an equally popular cover being sung by a young girl. Vazquez Sounds cover, was once as popular as Adele’s music video in itself.  And its popularity is growing as days go buy. Now that is impressive. This year more records were broken with PSY’s Gangam Style video. The most watched video in Youtube history.  So what’s the key?

 

Is there a holy grail for how to make a Youtube video go viral? Time Magazine has compiled a list of top 50 Youtube videos of all time here. A quick look at it has lead me to the following pointers you need to ask yourself regarding whether you have cracked a ‘ Big Idea’ when hoping your next Youtube video becomes a sensation.

Think of these rules of thumb before you aim to make a ‘thumbs up’ viral:

  1. Make sure it is entertaining.
  2. If it’s not spontaneous, shoot it well.
  3. Is it fun, funny  or inspiring? Everything else will have takers but not as much as if it meets one of these three parameters.
  4. Will it be remembered? Would you want to remember it?

I also chanced upon a Harvard Business Review article on the topic. It’s worth checking out here.