How to Make a Viral Video | Hacker News Reader

How to Make a Viral Video

venturebeat.com

11 pointsnjoglekar13 comments

I agree with most everything in the article, but:

"Make sure to give your video a provocative thumbnail. For example, this video (which got over 13 million views) used a thumbnail that was not really even related to the video itself."

It is crazy they openly encourage the community to do the same. It is the same as posting a provocative HN title unrelated to the post, creativity should be encouraged but not to the detriment of the community.

I agree the example in the piece is a bit extreme, but was just trying to make a point. It is very possible to have a provocative thumbnail that is relevant to your video. I definitely don't advocate deceiving your audience.

In fairness the example was followed up with:

"Maybe you don’t need to be this extreme, but your thumbnail should be interesting..."

I do agree with about everything else in the article, it is just the reinforcement of behavior that is a personal pet peeve of mine got a knee jerk reaction. I think "thumbnail fixing" is the 3rd largest problem on Video Sharing websites behind Youtube's comment threads (#2, I had to squeeze that pet peeve in).

Now, when it comes to a provocative thumbnail that is relevant to the video...great advice.

Edit: By "I agree" I mean I feel comfortable taking your advice. Good read.

Don't forget the youtube has an option to flag videos for misleading thumbnails.

This is known as "thumbnail cheating"

Kinda just a worthless piece of PR for ReelSurfer. Why is this on the front page?

Definitely because a bunch of people agreed to upvote it around the same time. Hopefully it'll be taken down soon.

It should be noted that ReelSurfer links tend to be upvoted rather highly. Make of that what you will.

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=njoglekar

I think Daily Grace (+1.3mil subscribers, +100mil video views) sums this up best - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7Nxyqi4WK0

Nothing is worse than advice about making things "go viral" from people who have never actually done it.

Slight hyperbole, but I understand what you mean. Assuming OP has never succeeded in creating a truly viral video then a pontificating title such as this is sure to get a few backs up at the very the least, certainly amongst hypersensitive and hypercritical HN commenters.

Having never made one myself, I can only imagine that making a viral video is largely a function of luck, so any treatise on how to make one might just be viewed as a hypothesis that provides something useful when one synthesises their own strategy. That's how I looked at it, and that's why I'm grateful for the OP having shared it, rather than getting insanely worked up behind a computer screen.

Thanks OP.

Who is insanely worked up?

It's not that it's luck behind viral videas, it's that they tend to spread or become popular in their own unique ways and attempts to deduce general rules from examples you had nothing to do with is usually foolhardy.

There is some science behind virality and for that I'd recommend looking at Jonah Berger

Thanks, I hadn't heard of Jonah Berger before.

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