(Newswire.net — April 3, 2014) — Salt Lake City, UT —Viral videos and the origin of their contagious popularity have been some of the most mysterious web anomalies since the dawn of YouTube – both Fortune 500 Marketers and 14 year olds alike trying to crack the recipe and engineer the perfect viral video.The mystery plaguing the minds of men until about 8 days ago on Wednesday the 26th when Ivan Budimir, a resident of Vancouver, BC, received a curious, but not at all unusual, email from his mother.
“Ya, I know how it would seem, like those emails everyone gets from their grandma still using Internet Explorer 5. But I actually respect my moms emails, as she usually sends me interesting things. Even then, I don’t normally post them to my facebook, but I knew there was something special about this particular one.”
When Ivan Posted this video to his Facebook wall, even he admittedly did not see the magnitude of what was to come. A couple of days after posting, Ivan started to notice a couple strange things.
“ I began to see a sudden surplus in friend requests and notifications, so much so that I had to change the privacy settings on most of my photo albums because people were posting things that I didn’t want to be posted “
Then soon after the sudden influx of traffic to his Facebook page his followers increased from a measly 12 to over 3,500 followers. Ivans video sored to over 380,000 Facebook shares in a few days. After that Newsflare.com, a company that sells rights to videos to major news agencies, emailed him asking to purchase the rights to the video for a share of advertising profits.
“ When I got that I email, it hurt that I had to decline, because I didn’t have rights to the video. But that got me thinking, I have a great opportunity to figure out how this weird little video turned into an incredibly valuable commodity. So I began to dissect it ”
Ivan (oh, did we mention he’s a world class marketing specialist?) broke his findings for us into 8 separate conditions and rules that allowed this video to rise to such astronomic proportions.
1. The Time that the Item was Posted (Monday at 10am-12pm)
Ivan says that the reason (for Facebook specifically) that social shares rapidly increase during this time slot is that most people come in to work still in “weekend mode” meaning work is slow to start. Many use this time to re enter themselves back into the workspace by goofing off a little.
2.The Fact it was an Embedded Video
People are lazy by nature. And if there is an easier option (no matter how marginal) often times they will take it. Thats why when this video was embedded directly into Facebook rather than shipping them to another window it enticed a view or a share because it was easy to do.
3. The Fact the Video Still Was Compelling
This one is very important. Ivan stresses the fact that the way the video looks even before you click on it can influence a visitors decision to watch even before they watch it. It needs to be an action still or something that creates a mystery inside the viewers head, and consequently a need to know what happens next.
4. The Fact that the Headline Challenged the Visitor to Watch it
The headline for the Facebook post was titled “Insane Bus Ride in the Himalayas – Not For the Faint of Heart”. “Whoever is reading that obviously does not consider themselves a pansy”, said Budimir. “And even they are, while they sit safely in there office chair they are going to try and prove to themselves otherwise. Make it a challenge.”
5. He “helped” the Video by Liking its Shares
At the very beginning stages of the videos viral development, Ivan liked every share he could. What this does is make the share more prevalent on the individuals’ wall, thus making it more visible to that particular persons Facebook ecosystem. This is especially important in the beginning, you need to help create the excitement you want to achieve.
6. The Video Was Undoubtedly Already Cool
Of course, for any video to be viral, the video has to already be very very interesting. Ivan uses interesting because it could be several different things. The emotions you are trying to entice are awe, humor, grief, and inspiration. In this case the emotion portrayed by a bus taking a life threatening pass through the edge of a mountain is awe.
7. The Nature of the Post Attracted Comments
Because the video instilled a sense of awe and excitement, naturally people would want to exclaim how it made them felt to there friends. These comments then contributed to the buzz of the post, and its general importance in the eyes of search engines.
8. The Profile was Public
And last but certainly not least, from the very beginning before the post was even made Ivan had made sure to make his account public. Because if he hadn’t, then it couldn’t have become viral in the first place.
Top video can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=857019184314641&stream_ref=10