“Is It Luck or Strategy? Why Some Videos Hit The Jackpot”

Imagine you spend 4 hours planning and editing 1 video just for it to get 200 views. Then
without any preparation or planning, you film 1 video, and it gets 2.3M views. That’s the case for
many content creators and others itching to go viral on social media, including myself! Well I
can say as someone who has created viral videos before and tracks how to create viral videos for
a living; the code has finally been cracked.
There are many things that can play into whether a video has checked everything off on
the “viral video list”. Some you can control and then some you cannot. One factor you cannot
control is if algorithms change. Sometimes algorithms change and take a few days or weeks to
boost views, engagement and virality again. But instead of blaming the algorithm for everything,
here are some real reasons why some videos just hit the mark. The first factor is engagement; on
your side. I always tell my clients “Virality = Visibility”. This means replying to comments,
engaging with other creators in your industry, strengthening attention and more. When you
strengthen the attention throughout your videos; not only are you increasing your watch time, but
you’re also able to captivate users by making them stay. The second factor is wording. Let me
ask you a question; have you ever scrolled to a video and within the first 5 seconds, you are
automatically hooked to what that video is about? That is what I like to call “Wordful
Psychology”. Hooks within the first 5 seconds are probably one of the biggest reasons a video
goes viral. Whether it’s a popular phrase, a shocking phrase, a promising phrase, or not even a
phrase; just a hand movement; it almost guarantees your videos to rank higher than others. For
example, in 2022 I had an Instagram Reel hit 2.3 Million views, 150K likes, and over 1,000 new
followers. But what I mentioned in the video wasn’t what got the views; its how I started the
video. Within the first 5 seconds; I said, “I want you to let this sink in…”. I was giving the
viewers something to imagine and closely listen to throughout my video. It hooked viewers in
and allowed viewers to stay and watch the entire 30 second video. The third factor is
Authenticity. It’s something you cannot fake, especially on social media. If your only goal/plan is
to go viral, viewers can see right through that plan. You need to create content you genuinely
want to create, if you create it for the wrong reasons, viewers will let everyone else know. The
reason I understand both as a marketer and on the creator sides is because I started as a content
creator. As a creator, this is one of the first things I learned. As I was chasing the virality train, I
started to notice my passion for content creation declining and my mindset started to shift into a
fixed mentality and content creation became something “I had to do”. So I switched my content
around and started creating videos that were authentic and genuine. Not only did my views and
engagement go up; but my mindset shifted into a more optimistic and growth mentality.
Some viral videos happen on a whim, some are planned out strategically and exceed
every factor I mentioned above. We
can never guarantee virality; but if
you are creating content you love,
creating content to build a brand,
business, or just out of the blue;
then you are automatically on the
right path to hitting that jackpot of
virality.