What Makes a Viral Video?
https://hbr.org/2015/09/why-some-videos-go-viral
In class, we talked about what causes a product or application to become popular, and in what ways popularity can spread.
A viral video is a video which becomes popular through internet sharing (usually by websites like YouTube). Such videos can rapidly garner millions or even billions of views in a few days. “Gangnam Style” is a familiar example of such a viral video.
Unruly, a marketing technology company, has analyzed hundreds of billions of video views and a hundred thousand consumer data points. The video they analyzed in the article is “Puppyhood,” a video about a puppy bonding with a man.
First, Unruly analyzed why people shared “Puppyhood”. One of the most common reasons was to “see what my friends think.” Another common motivation was to inform friends and demonstrate your own knowledge. Unruly found numerous other reasons for sharing.
They also looked at what were the most positive emotions inspired by the video. The most popular included warmth, happiness, and hilarity, in decreasing order. One thing the study found was that humor was not necessarily the emotion that drives sharing the most.
Unruly next examined who did what percentage of all shares. They found that there were a few “super sharers” who did nearly all (over 80%) of all the shares.
Lastly, Unruly examined the video generated after its release. Unruly discovered that the number of shares peaked after around two days, and most sharing happens on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
All of the above describe the trends that Unruly found by looking at a viral video. By looking at the factors contributing to the video’s popularity, we can discover what makes a video go viral, and more generally, observe how something can become popular.