What made my video go viral?

Christmas day 2007: as my 8 year old son went to open his next present, I grabbed the camcorder knowing that this was the “big one”.
What a reaction! I think he liked it.

I edited the clip thinking that I’d share it on YouTube, with no particular reason other than I thought it was a funny clip and some friends and family might find it amusing.

Slowly and steadily the number of views increased. I looked around for similar videos and discovered the classic Nintendo 64 kid. I amended the title of my video to include a reference to this, which I think further accelerated the viewing figures.

To comment or not to comment?

Normally, I’d say leave comments on, but this video was about my son, who was interested in what people were saying about his clip. Half the comments tended to be quite mild and positive in nature, but the other half contained some really nasty and offensive stuff from people with no theory of mind with which to comprehend the reality of another person taking those comments to heart. Either that, or they’re just psychotic.
I’d therefore go through all the comments and approve or delete them individually. This became a real chore, and I eventually decided to turn comments off. This has had no effect on the rate of views, as far as I am able to tell.

Snowball effect

There is a definite snowball effect going on here. The more views you’ve got, the more you’ll get. This is due to the way YouTube suggests other videos you might like, based on the one you’ve just watched. Every Christmas time, the viewing figures for my video peaks, with around 10,000 views per day.

Interest from third parties/links

I once had an email request from a TV producer in Ireland asking my permission to use the clip in a show. I presumed it was some sort of Irish “You’ve been framed!”. There was no money involved, and I was promised a copy of the show in which the clip was aired, but sadly this never materialised. Thanks a lot.
At various times the clip may have been embedded into other video sites too, which drives the traffic up.

The key question here is why?

What is it about content that makes you want to share it?
Think about it. Every time you post a link to twitter or your Facebook status, you’re saying something about yourself. You’re endorsing something that helps define who you are.
It helps your social contacts know you better: what you’re interested in, what gets you worked up, what your sense of humour is like, what your leisure/hobby interests are, and so on.
There has to be a lesson there in terms of helping us to craft videos that people will want to share.
Make something that helps people explain themselves, because a lot of people can’t or won’t do it by themselves.

And if that fails, just stick to funny.