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The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos

techcrunch.com — Have you ever watched a video with 100,000 views on YouTube and thought to yourself: “How the hell did that video get so many views?” Chances are pretty good that this didn’t happen naturally, but rather that some company worked hard to make it happen – some company like mine

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  • flashden, on 11/23/2007, -2/+31Mike Arrington just said in the comments - of his own blog - "frankly I'm disgusted by this". How odd is that...
    • sandeepg, on 11/23/2007, -1/+23Maybe he's trying to prove a point by making the blog 'viral'..
      • sphark, on 11/23/2007, -0/+6Agreed. They're taking their own advice and having a heated argument. Duh.
    • breezytrees, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1I wouldn't be surprised if flashden or sandeepg or sphark are employees of the company trying to start a "heated discussion" and maybe a little controversy to make this digg, and thus his company go viral.

      Hilariously, even my posting this comment of accusation puts me in the same camp as them for I am taking party in a "heated discussion" and only further adding "controversy."

      PLEASE DIGG THIS DOWN. The more people that see this article, the more people will become aware of this ***** ***** company.
  • pmjoyce, on 11/23/2007, -2/+4Obvious link bait. Dunno about Arrington's reaction and why he doesn't know what's being posted on his own blog, but there's certainly something fishy afoot...
  • flashden, on 11/23/2007, -7/+1Does seem kinda fishy, doesn't it :-| Oh well, I love an internet drama!
  • sungsam, on 11/23/2007, -2/+19FTA: "We reach out to individuals who run relevant blogs and actually pay them to post our embedded videos. Sounds a little bit like cheating/PayPerPost, but it’s effective and it’s not against any rules."

    Ugh....
  • envec, on 11/23/2007, -1/+35and that is not the worst part, the guy was even recommending to create fake users and have a conversation between them :)
    • CondoleezzaRice, on 11/23/2007, -1/+5People do this and have no shame about it. They even call it "spamming for love", except most people do it for their friends, especially the 'lulz' people like MikeSkehan.

      Partners have extra incentive to do this since they get ad money from every view. Blunty3000 is notorious for this (and putting naked women in his thumbnails, making ***** videos about "appreciating the human body" (yeah right))
      • inspecality, on 11/23/2007, -1/+6anyone else think CondoleezzaRice and envec are the same person?
        • Murdats, on 11/23/2007, -1/+7I think you and CondoleezzaRice are the same person
          • Whiskeytorofalc, on 11/23/2007, -0/+2and maybe you are envec, and your alternates are having a debate about your alternates.
            welcome to the end.
          • Murdats, on 11/23/2007, -1/+2Touche my alternate, I raise a good point.
  • salamidan, on 11/23/2007, -11/+0not fake users, per se, we're just making sure that the comment thread is interesting and exciting
  • Goodbyeworld, on 11/23/2007, -4/+401. Make video of attractive woman doing something embarassing
    2. Upload to Youtube, reddit, google video, digg, etc...
    3. ???????
    4. Profit
  • LongShlong, on 11/23/2007, -2/+10Shameless Plug.
  • electioneering, on 11/23/2007, -1/+11i feel like such a dupe now...no more digg videos for me.
  • halfgook, on 11/23/2007, -3/+46so basically you just spam?
  • ThetaDot, on 11/23/2007, -3/+14"I don’t care how “viral” you think your video is; no one is going to find it and no one is going to watch it."
    Nonsense.
  • NathanielJ, on 11/23/2007, -0/+20"This summer, we were approached by a Hollywood movie studio and asked to help market a series of viral clips they had created in advance of a blockbuster. The videos were 10-20 seconds each, were shot from what appeared to be a camera phone, and captured a series of unexpected and shocking events that required professional post-production and CGI. Needless to say, the studio had invested a significant amount of money in creating the videos but every time they put them online, they couldn’t get more than a few thousand views."

    Cloverfield, anyone?
    • jonbreaks, on 11/23/2007, -0/+8my thoughts exactly
    • llamagorama, on 11/23/2007, -0/+6I can't think of anything else it could be. For someone trying to keep the identities of their clients secret, that's a lot of information right there.
    • DD00, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1This doesn't exactly mean it's Cloverfield they worked on, but if you thought that Cloverfield didn't have someone doing viral marketing for them you are brain dead.
    • 1town, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1Could have been those haiti UFO videos. Which i to this date, don't know what the point of was.
  • MerryMortician, on 11/23/2007, -8/+1DONT post them in DIGG comments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE1ZLoOuG4w
  • Subvexer, on 11/23/2007, -3/+39Ah, and this guy's job title is: *****

    "Filling your internet with ***** because some other ***** paid us."
  • KnightMareInc, on 11/23/2007, -0/+4hardly a secret
  • scabbers, on 11/23/2007, -2/+28Thanks for making Youtube the festering pile of ***** it is today.
    • Roryking, on 11/23/2007, -1/+1well that and all the "HOW IS BABBY FORMED" morons. I wish there was some sort of test you had to take to get on the internet.
  • chaosmachine, on 11/23/2007, -0/+25want to help stop this? next time you see "lol funny ad" in the video section.. bury it as spam.
  • JointheArmy, on 11/23/2007, -0/+10I always had a feeling the number of views on videos at Metacafe and Youtube were somehow artificial. However, I never knew to the extent of this.
  • godfly, on 11/23/2007, -0/+8this is nothing but advertising for his "company"
  • Kingmichael, on 11/23/2007, -0/+8That must explain Chris Crocker's popularity.
  • Animik, on 11/23/2007, -6/+5sort of like what bush does when he wants to start a new war...
  • invasi0n, on 11/23/2007, -0/+5Like it or not, nowadays, spam is the key behind many many businesses. It doesn't matter if we are talking about movie studios, record labels, well known consumer brands, Viagra, or any other pill, all have at least one thing in common, they pay spammers to promote their products. So the conclusion is, without spam you are nobody. What a bastards...
    • centran, on 11/23/2007, -0/+2It is possible to do it without spamming. The problem is it takes weeks, or even months to build up that traffic.
      That is too long for companies. They want instant results. The only way to do that is with their current spam like tactics. It sucks but it works.
      I really don't want to defend them but if the viral video is any good it would still eventually reach the point they want it to... just very slowly. Not saying I agree with the spam but I am just saying.
  • over90000, on 11/23/2007, -9/+2Here's the secret.
    1)Upload video
    2)Download ReloadEvery extension for firefox
    3)Open 10+ tabs and enable reload all tabs every 10 seconds
    4)Leave it overnight
    5)???
    6)Gay SEX
  • jeffchuck, on 11/23/2007, -0/+19I'd like to see this guy explain Chocolate Rain.
  • crapmatic, on 11/23/2007, -0/+82002:Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones makes only $648.3 million in worldwide earnings
    2003: The Internet goes gaga over the Star Wars Kid video
    2005: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith rockets to $848.4 million in worldwide earnings

    OK, I buy this theory. It's not like the Lucas enterprise got any better.
  • canthraxp, on 11/23/2007, -0/+11"We get a few people in our office to log in throughout the day and post heated comments back and forth (you can definitely have a lot of fun with this)."

    So this are the ***** who say "THAT'S PHOTOSHOP, TOTAL FAKE!".
  • WaltDismal, on 11/23/2007, -1/+9Why, thank you for lying to people and manipulating them. We all love being led by the nose so you can make money. In the best tradition of Stanford business school slimeballs. Once you've become confident in your manipulative technique, why don't you start hyping scumbag presidential candidates; that's where the power is, isn't it?
  • raveskirza, on 11/23/2007, -0/+17I was just wondering, how come somebody can give away their strategic secrets just like that. When i started looking at the article then it occured to me! The YOUTUBE video links they provided in this article were just a nice way to con you into generating the views. A link Bait! Truthfully THIS WHOLE ARTICLE WAS A SETUP TO CON PEOPLE INTO CLICKING THE LINKS TO GENERATE VIEWS FOR THE VIDEO LINKS THEY HAD LINKED. I wont be surprised when i get heated replies. It will probably be from their company people. I know all you people will be clever enough to smell the rat!
    • joshuaer, on 11/23/2007, -0/+2well they kept talking about how they do not charge for videos that have under 100,000 views and some of the did not. so maybe they needed some help from us LOL
    • insertnamehere, on 11/23/2007, -0/+2WHO PAID YOU TO SAY THAT?
  • victrola, on 11/23/2007, -0/+8some of them are probably amongst us in this comment section.

    doo-DOO-doo-DOO
  • giev, on 11/23/2007, -0/+3Yup, one more reason to ignore whats popular or not and think for myself. If this is too hard for you, I suggest agreeing with the +'s and disagreeing the -'s.
  • Cyberen, on 11/23/2007, -0/+9I'm thankful that this article exists to show us how Youtube and similar social sites are manipulated. I am not thankful these companies and practices exist in the first place. I don't care how well you play the popularity game, and I don't care how rich you are, Dan. You're a scumbag, and even the priciest brush can't scrub the stink of deception from your empty soul.
  • 10GunSalute, on 11/23/2007, -0/+9Youtube is *****; I don't waste my time with it unless there is a specific video I'm looking for
  • walmsley, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1YOUR ALL TOOLS! aaaarrghhhhh. paid tools i tell ya!
  • tjmb9, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1mentos in diet pepsi anyone?
  • JonHs, on 11/23/2007, -0/+3Haha, a viral-video-whistle-blower. If someone outside the business said all that he'd be called a tinfoilhat looney.

    I always wondered who the people saying "is this real?" were. Now I know.
  • SupaNeeb, on 11/23/2007, -0/+3They're whoring out my internet :(
  • thebrawl, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1frankly I don't give a damn
  • chris9902, on 11/23/2007, -0/+2I stopped using YouTube ages ago. You can't find anything worth watching because it's all spam or been taken down by Viacom.
  • breezytrees, on 11/23/2007, -0/+2his company is conveniently going viral now, awesome. i'd wager at 15% of the people commenting here are employees of said company.
  • Xondar, on 11/23/2007, -0/+4So... This is why there's so much crap on YouTube.
  • chaos386, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1"80 million videos are watched each day on YouTube, and a significant number of those views come from people clicking the “Videos” tab at the top. The goal is to get a video on that Videos page, which lists the Daily Most Viewed videos."

    You know, I've never bothered clicking the Videos tab on youtube (I've always just used the search box to find things I'm already looking for), and now I'm glad I haven't.
  • cplusplus, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1Isn't there a section at the top of YouTube's main page called "Promoted Videos". I assume companies pay to put there videos there.
    If they are good/interesting/fun/etc/ they'll go viral. No need to hire this joker.
  • AngelaQ, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1This is fascinating. An ethical person can look at the techniques in this blog and come up with an effective marketing strategy that doesn't involve creating fake controversy and fake users.
  • exformation, on 11/23/2007, -0/+1this is exactly what's wrong with the internet
  • RevEng, on 11/23/2007, -0/+3Notice how he says, "Youtube wouldn't like us doing it." I suppose that's because they don't allow multiple accounts, you know, for that very reason. Paying bloggers to create articles for them? Setting up multiple accounts and artificially creating views? Changing the title to something deliberately misleading just to get views? This is more than just spam, this is the epitome of unethical business and marketing practises. If there were any decency in the legal system, people like this would have their businesses shut down.

    Somebody needs to uncover the companies involved in these cases: both those who pay and those who play. Boycotts are in order. Make it clear to them that people want to decide what is interesting and popular, not companies.

    The sad part is, I don't know whether to digg this so people know about the scam, or bury it because it only serves to increase its effectiveness.
  • CrunchTrend, on 11/23/2007, -0/+4*Just deleted TechCrunch RSS feed from my browser*
  • 1tb0y, on 11/25/2007, -0/+1The fact that this article itself got dugg so much is a testament to this person's l33t internet marketing sk1llz.

    /kowtow
  •  

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