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No matter what type of YouTube video you make, the ultimate goal is for people to see it. The best way to do this is to follow a few simple rules for creating good YouTube content that help your videos go viral. In other words, you want to create content that people will share, leading to an ever-growing audience.
Keep reading to find out how to create a viral YouTube video that gets shared, so you can get your video content in front of as many eyes as possible.
Make Something Unique
There are literally millions of videos on YouTube, many of which barely get seen, let alone shared. If you want your video content to go viral, you have to create something unique that provides value to users and stands out from the crowd.
One of the best ways to do this is to focus on telling a story. Take a moment to think about what story you or your brand want to tell, then try to create a unique video that helps tell that story. Aim to stir up emotions in your audience — try to make them feel excited, happy, sad, or motivated. Humour is also a powerful tool for creating viral YouTube content!
Use High-Quality Footage
Nobody wants to watch poorly shot videos, so it’s of the utmost importance that your YouTube videos use high-quality footage if you want them to get viewed and shared by a large audience. This means shooting in good lighting, including clear audio, and spending lots of time on post-production editing to make the video pop.
If you don’t have filming and editing skills yourself, hire someone who does to shoot and produce your content. Anyone can shoot an average looking video on a smartphone, but it’s hard to make truly quality content without the proper equipment, editing software, and know-how.
If you need to replace bad shots or want to add more audio and don’t have any relevant footage, one option you have to add additional professional looking video to your YouTube videos is to use royalty-free stock footage. What this means is that you pay for the exclusive right to use the stock footage in your videos, rather than paying royalties for every stream.
Keep It Short
Viewers are much more likely to watch a whole video and share it if it’s short. There’s no set-in-stone rule for exactly how long YouTube videos should be, but you should aim to cut out all the insignificant content, leaving only the most relevant, impactful stuff in your final cut.
It’s still possible for longer videos to go viral, but only if everything in them is vital to telling your story and holds the viewer’s attention. This is why the post-production edition process is so important to creating shareable YouTube videos.
Spend Time on the Title and Description
Creating shareable YouTube videos doesn’t just stop when you’re done editing the footage. When you upload a video to YouTube, it’s important to give it a strong, clickable title and a relevant description, both of which should include some relevant keywords to help get your video near the top of search results.
Think about what keywords best describe your video and what would make your target audience want to click on it when they see it in search results or when someone shares it. You can look at some content from competitors with a lot of views or check out other viral YouTube videos to get some ideas.
You can also use keyword research tools to investigate what keywords related to your video’s topic, or related to your industry or brand, are the most commonly searched on YouTube.
Publish Videos During the Week
Weekdays are the best time to publish YouTube videos to get the most views. People are more likely to browse YouTube, watch content, and share videos when they’re on the bus, at work, or hanging out at home. They are less likely to see your videos if you upload them on the weekend (or on holidays), when many people are busy doing other activities and less active on the web.
Promote Your Video on Social Media
Once you hit “publish” on a new YouTube video, you still need to promote it to increase its chances of going viral. Take advantage of every social media platform you have, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your video on all the platforms to get it seen by as many people as possible as soon as you upload it.
On Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can just post the direct link to your video. Make sure to add a relevant caption and some hashtags to help increase the video’s reach. Instagram doesn’t let you put clickable links in posts, so it’s best to add a screenshot or snippet of your video to your Instagram story and include a “swipe up” link in the story.
Content Repurposing
Even though video is a powerful format that can reach many people, some prefer to read rather than watch. Use this opportunity to repurpose your video and present it in written form. You can easily convert a video by using a YouTube transcript generator. With that transcript, you can create content for your blog and cater to those who like reading more.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, you can’t force a video to go viral, and there’s always going to be a good bit of luck involved in how much your YouTube content gets shared. However, if you follow the tips found in this article, you can greatly increase the chances of your YouTube videos getting viewed and shared by a large audience.
