Community Media - Interactive World

There's quite a lot that nonprofits, activists, community workers and creative people can learn from corporate media and advertising in order to make a well-meaning video "go viral."  Much of the advice on viral video is common sense. Follow these simple steps in order to promote your viral video: include a link or preview of your viral video in all your emails; find out where your supporters and communities of interest are; learn about the social and ethical preferences of your viewers; take part in relevant social media conversations and mention your viral video; respond to popular and relevant videos with similar themes; choose an eye-catching thumbnail - remember that this is what will show up in search results; link to a popular event - and release your video to 'correspond' with news items; use keywords from popular events to help people to 'stumble upon' your viral video; post a personalized thought-provoking message ...

Viral videos are short films that reach hundreds of thousands of viewings and attract thousands of comments in a period of days, weeks, or months. Some viral videos are products of creative individuals; others spring from the corporate advertising machine which is worth $700 billion annually. Some are just fun and others aim to influence us in an open, or in a more covert, or secret fashion. A few viral videos have been products of chance, chaos theory scenarios, or a tipping point. Their sudden transnational popularity comes as a shock to their makers. But there are many common features and many unexpected success stories. I have recently made a study of the subject. Here are my findings 11 Laws of Viral Video: 1. Law of Shortness . Most people switch off after 3 minutes. Brevity is the soul of wit. People want to watch something that they can get through while drinking a cup of tea or coffee. However, some of the longer running conspiracy theory or environmental films hav...