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The End of the Viral Video
Dima Ermakov • May 20, 2020
It used to be that companies could work hard to create great content and, with the right support behind it, get hundreds of thousands or even millions of people to watch their video without having to pay a dime to the gods of Google or Facebook. Every marketer and their dog wanted in on that action and worked hard to try and find the best way to make it happen.
The Viral Video Formula
It really did have a recipe to it. First, the content had to be either entertaining or inspiring, but ideally both, and surprising. It had to be out of the ordinary and worth talking about either for good reasons or bad. Then, you needed influencers to catch hold of that video and share it with their audience. If you got all of those things right, you had a very good chance for your video to go viral. People would share it because the influencer shared it, and the message would be amplified at no cost to you.
Why It Worked
This worked because of Social Media’s power to amplify a message. Imagine that Becky had 5,000 Facebook friends and has built 20,000 Facebook fans on her business page. She created a video that hit that viral video sweet spot. Back in those days, if she shared that video to her personal page and then shared it to her Business page, all 5,000 of her friends would see the video and so would all 20,000 of her Facebook fans. That’s 25,000 people seeing the video right there.
Let’s imagine that Becky’s followers and fans all have 100 people that they were friends with. That’s 50,000 people she’s connected to through her friends and 250,000 people potentially through her business page. If even 10% of her friends and followers share her video, she’s reached an additional 30,000 people just with their shares alone. If 10% of their followers and friends repeat that process, she’s gained an additional 30,000 views per person.
The Social Media Switch Up
Google and Facebook perceived this viral phenomenon as cutting them out of the marketing action, because it was, and they decided to put an effective stop to that. No more would your video gain traction on their sites unless there was money put behind the effort. It simply wasn’t going to happen.
Every video you share now shows up in the newsfeeds of only about 10% of your active audience, the people who regularly comment and like your content. If they like that video, that number can increase by a few percentage points. If they comment on it, the percentage increases some more. If they share it, you get exposure to 10% of their audience.
Going back to the example of Becky, that means that now when she shares her video she gets only 2,500 views out of her possible maximum of 25,000. Let’s say that all of those people have 100 friends a piece and 10% of them share the video. That’s 250 people who reach 10 people each, or 2500 more views. Do you see why going viral is now so much harder than it used to be?
The Necessity of Paid Media
In today’s world if you want your videos to be seen by everyone on your newsfeed, be prepared to pay. This is the only way to reach all of your audience members. The good news is that you can actively select only those audience members that are likely to be interested in the content and – if you’re smart and do target your ad – Facebook and Google reward you by charging you less for annoying their customers less.
In fact, the more engaging the content is to your audience, the less you pay. It’s their way of rewarding you for being interesting, inspiring, and entertaining. It really does pay to be creative when you put together a video.
The New Winning Formula
While you can’t make a video go viral the way you used to, you can still get people tripping over themselves to share, like, and comment on your video. This new winning formula is what I call Influencer Marketing 2.0
List of Services
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Step 1. Take Someone Who Is Personable And Engaging To WatchList Item 1
It doesn’t have to be somebody famous. It just has to be somebody enjoyable to watch.
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Step 2. Pair The Person With Content That Delivers ValueList Item 2
Work with that person to create content that delivers value to the consumer. Let it educate, entertain, inspire, and demonstrate new things to them. Wow them with the unexpected.
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Step 3. Target Your MarketingList Item 3
You want to be sure you only reach out to people who are going to be interested in the kind of content you are creating. You don’t want to annoy people who aren’t likely to care about your stuff. Annoying people is an expensive advertising hobby.
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Step 4. Don’t Stop With Just One VideoList Item 4
Create shorter videos for retargeting to those who watch your first video and keep delivering value.
What’s Your Experience?
Have you been advertising on Facebook? What’s been your experience with your content? What are some strategies and techniques you’ve tried that worked? What are some that didn’t? I’m always interested in hearing from my readers.
The rules of Facebook marketing have changed. Gone are the days when you could get virtually unlimited exposure just by creating and sharing great content. Facebook wants its slice of the marketing money pie, too, and that means that in order to gain the exposure you need for your content to deliver the kind of impact on your bottom line that it used to, you are going to have to put some money behind it. Here are tips for creating the kind of content that wins the Facebook Marketing Game.