Lindsey’s Daily Deal: Viral Video Isn’t Magic, Viral Video Hoax and Viral Video Muffins

By Lindsey Campbell, Captains of Industry

Hey Captains’ readers,

It’s Viral Wednesday! Indulge in a little viral video hoopla:

1. Viral video isn’t magic, it’s marketing

Everyone loves a good viral video. In fact, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t yet laughed at Charlie chomping on his brother’s finger, rocked out to Numa Numa or shuddered when Chris Crocker asked us to just LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! But what a lot of people don’t know is that most viral videos don’t just “magically” get three hundred million hits. First, they have to be marketed.

In fact, Bill Green from Make the Logo Bigger recently interviewed Josh Warner from Feed Company, a business that markets web videos, to get the inside scoop on what makes a video viral-worthy. According to Warner, you can’t just create an awesome web video, post it to YouTube, cross your fingers and hope it goes viral. You have to “seed” that baby if you want it to grow. For all of you who are new to the viral video biz, “seeding” is basically just another term for marketing. You have to analyze the content, figure out who would care about it, and then plant it where the key audiences will find it.

Warner explains that clients come to Feed hoping that they can hand over their video and then *POOF* it’ll be viral. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Not only do you have to market the video, but the video itself actually has to be creative and interesting. A video won’t go viral if no one wants to watch it — no matter how much marketing you do. To produce a successful viral video campaign these days, you have to be both creative AND strategic. However, Warner warned, even if you think your video will do well in the viral world, you can never anticipate HOW well. Just look at The Evolution of Dance.

To learn more about how viral videos are born, check out Bill Green’s podcast. Or if you want to see what viral videos the Captains have cooked up, check out our Viral Video Portfolio.

2. I Quit!

Speaking of viral, The Chive recently posted about a young girl who decided to quit her job at a brokerage firm via whiteboard messages. The story is that Jenny, the girl who quit, emailed at least 20 people in her office a series of photos. In each photo, Jenny is holding up a whiteboard with a sequential reasoning for her departure. Throughout the series, you find out that Jenny ditched her job because her boss, Spencer (AKA: garbage diSPENCER), called her a HOPA (Hot Piece Of Ass). So, like any disgruntled employee, Jenny decided to investigate which websites diSpencer was visiting. According to Jenny’s analysis, her boss spent 4 hours per week on ScottTrade, 5.3 hours a week on TechCrunch and…19.7 hours a week playing FarmVille.

Oh snap! This is totally badass, right? The only thing is, it’s not real.

According to TechCruch, “Jenny” is actually Elyse Porterfield, an aspiring actress. Porterfield told TechCrunch, “When I went into the audition, I didn’t know what it was for — but thought that this couldn’t be too bawdy or promiscuous or else they wouldn’t have me holding a dry erase board.” Brothers John and Leo Resig reportedly created the idea for “Dry Erase Girl” a month ago and wanted to execute it because it was “completely relatable.”

I don’t know. Before I knew this was a hoax, I thought this video (and the girl) was awesome. But, now that I know it’s not real, it just seems like a waste of time. When it comes to viral, I’d prefer the truth, or to be at least informed that it’s a fictional video BEFORE I view it.

What do you think? Is it worth a view even though it’s not real?

3. Glass muffins!

Today during a very serious Captains’ status meeting, one of our most conscientious and straight-laced employee decided to show us her favorite viral video. Take a look and please enjoy.

Until tomorrow,

Captain Lindsey