What Is A Viral Video?

The term, “Viral Video” is spreading like wildfire just as much as the term, “Make Money Online”, or “Search Engine Optimization”. The problem with viral videos is that I believe that people are getting the wrong idea of them. Wikipedia describes a viral video as a “video that refers to video clip content which gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through email or IM messages, blogs and other media sharing websites. Viral videos are often humorous in nature and include televised comedy sketches… – source.” To me though, most all videos that go viral are very low in quality and tend to not better an individual.

With the Internet marketing and make money online niche, viral videos are created and abused mainly for the purpose of scoring traffic to a web site, blog, or product page being promoted. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with creating videos for the purpose of going viral. But where I have a bone to pick is when people create viral videos for ill purposes in mind. There is nothing wrong with earning traffic, there is nothing wrong with creating videos that can go viral, but to me, I think videos that are created for this purpose should have a message in them. I think that some how they should help others which also providing a balance in entertainment and attractiveness.

I have had a Facebook account for awhile but never really used it. Just a few days ago I started getting into it and I am really having a lot of fun with it. For me, Facebook is great because it allows me to interact with all the people that I have discovered on my blog and get a more personal glimpse of their interests and what they enjoy doing on the Internet. For me, my blog is a very shallow blog, I talk about ONE thing, “how to make money online.” However, I have so many more things that interest me and I am very interested in learning more about the interests of other people. Facebook has been a great place so far that allows me to connect with people and make friends.

Recently, I was able to find Normal Joe on Facebook and quickly I found that he shares similar interests with me. One thing that I quickly found was that he also knew about the SEO Rapper and enjoyed his work very much. I thought that this was really cool, because I knew how much I really enjoyed the SEO Rapper’s work as well. On March 29th 2008 I wrote a rather lengthy comment about the SEO Rapper and I don’t think many people saw it, so today I am republishing my comment into a blog post to share with you.

If you want my opinion on what I consider to be a viral video, then enjoy reading this post and enjoy watching this video.  Watch the video, listen carefully to the lyrics and you’ll learn more web design and SEO tips in 4 minutes than you could by following some of these other “experts” in four years. Also in this post has quite a few other examples of people who I feel that use YouTube to broadcast excellent quality information.  The rest of this article is rather lengthy, sorry about that… but sometimes I get real passionate about what I write about. Enjoy!

The comment/post below was a response to my feelings and thoughts on John Chow’s attempted viral video that I found to be somewhat vulgar.

What Is A Viral Video and What Is Viral Video Marketing?

Written by Garry Conn on March 29th, 2008

As previously mentioned, I am not easily offended with John Chow’s most recent attempt towards creating a viral video, but indeed it did seem strange for an individual of his level of popularity to produce such an amateurish video, while others with only fractions of his authority provide the community with such higher quality videos. While I may not be offended by the video, I am sure that there are large numbers of people who are.

I mean seriously, here is a guy that has received international exposure and has scored some amazing reviews and interviews such as the case of making multiple appearances with Leo Laporte:

Again, I am not easily offended, but I really question why Chow would have published a video like this. He is really not someone who needs the exposure and to be quite honest, if John Chow did this video in a direct effort after reading the sponsored post of Ryan Shamus, I seriously feel that he missed the point.

I believe that viral videos can be a very effective way towards enabling businesses or individuals to communicate a message that successfully promotes a product or service in an alternative nature. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the video is to be vulgar.

In my opinion, viral videos are about finding some inner creativity that strikes a profound interest among a mass audience in a very short period of time.

That can be done in two ways. Either by being utterly tasteless and trashy or by illustrating your intelligence, creativity and ability to entertain.

Here Is A Prime Example of A Viral Video

Here is an absolute perfect example of a viral video that displays the utmost level of creativity, intelligence, and entertainment. All of these elements are being used to promote this individuals ability to provide a professional search engine optimization service for interested prospects. The video was uploaded on March 20th 2008 and currently at the time of syndicating the video here it has received over 21,000 views. Now, I am really no fan of rap music, but I am a huge fan of successful marketing. The publisher has intense skills and is very educated within his business as can be interpreted within the lyrics of his song.

This is viral video business marketing in pure form. This is the next generation of Internet marketing. It combines the ability to promote a message to one medium (e.g. YouTube) coupled with the ability to target another (e.g. Google SERPs).

Here is a copy of the lyrics to this song written and published by The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper):

Your site design is the first thing people see
it should be reflective of you and the industry

easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can’t find what you want it causes frustration

a clear Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation

if you have animation
use with moderation
cause search engines can’t index the information

display the logos of all your associations
highlight your contact info that’s an obligation

create a clean design you can use some decoration
but to try to prevent any client hesitation

every page that they click should provide and explanation
should be easy to understand like having a conversation

when you design the style go ahead and use your imagination
but make sure you use correct color combinations

do some investigation, look at other organizations
but don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation

design done, congratulations but it’s time to start construction
follow these instructions when you move into production

your photoshop functions then slice that design
do your layout with divs make sure that it’s aligned

please don’t use tables even though they work fine
when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time

make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
remove font type, font color and font size

no background colors, keep your coding real neat,
tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet

better results with xml and css
now you making progress, a lil closer to success

describe your doctype so the browser can relate
make sure you do it great or it won’t validate

check in all browsers, I do it directly
gotta make sure that it renders correctly

some use IE, some others use Flock
some use AOL, I use Firefox

title everything including links and images
don’t use italics, use emphasis

don’t use bold, please use strong
if you use bold that’s old and wrong

when you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker

they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
and then they convert now that’s the real kicker

make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker
design and code right man I hope you get the picture

what I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture
if it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter

everyone will want to follow you like twitter
competition will get bitter and you’ll shine like glitter

if you trying to grow your company will get bigger
design and code right man can you get with it

……………………………………………….

Now if you want my opinion, that’s some amazing stuff. The publisher of this video is an individual named, Chuck who grew up in a church upbringing and got saved at age 13. During that time he wrote religious raps and performed at his church. He felt good representing Jesus. Although he was writing Godly raps, he was also doing secular raps as well. There was an internal battle within himself that he had to conquer that lasted for the majority of his teen years. [source]

Chuck has found himself in a position where he meet lots of business owners who sign up for his SEO services mainly because they are seeking results. His clients have either tried SEO/SEM and didn’t do it correctly, don’t have time or simply don’t know how to do it. Majority of his clients have tried and failed at it which resulted in loss revenues and time loss. Chuck then realized that even though his clients are business owners, they don’t understand the sales process and how to “close deals” of potential new clients on the Internet. [source]

Chuck’s regular 9 to 5 job is in the business of Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Consulting and currently works at an agency called Pop Labs. Chuck is a God fearing, success driven, sportsaholic, internet addict, lyricist, proud father of 3 who loves entertaining friends. I believe that his above video and displayed lyrics are a reflective example of his inner personal qualities. [source]

Pop Labs was founded in 2001 and is one of the nation’s leading full service digital media agencies. Employing a unique holistic and hands-on approach to search engine marketing and social media, Pop Labs helps clients achieve better online marketing results by focusing on what web users really want. Serving thousands of small to mid-sized business owners, (in addition to the occasional multi-national conglomerate) allows Pop Labs to develop key processes and efficiencies that yield better results at lower cost…enhancing your ROI. [source]

Pop Labs Led by serial entrepreneur, Gene McCubbin, the Pop Labs team is a zany, close-knit group of experts in web design, usability, accessibility, search marketing, technology, sales, online behavior and communication. We are all driven by the same passion that drives the company – Meet the needs of people, and ultimately you will meet the needs of the client.

Gene McCubbin is an accomplished entrepreneur and has co-founded four technology based companies over the last twelve years. Gene has participated in several successful enterprise exits including a $120mm IPO, a $30mm private equity sale, and numerous smaller M/A transactions. He has been featured in Success magazine, Entrepreneur magazine, Houston Business Journal, the Houston Chronicle and many other national and regional publications. Gene has been a member of Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization (YEO) since 2000 and is currently running Pop Labs; #2 fastest growing technology company in Houston, TX in 2003, #50 in the US in 2004 (Entrepreneur magazine and PricewaterhouseCoopers). Gene was recently awarded as a finalist for the Gulf Coast Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. [source]

What Is Viral Video?

Viral video is a form of online marketing that generates compelling levels of interest among a mass audience. It is a form of marketing that drives a target audience towards wanting to learn more and in some rare cases it creates a desire for individuals to publish a 1200+ word article related to it within the comment section of their own blog.

I wonder how many people will use their own blog’s comment section to write about John Chow’s most recent viral video attempt? I didn’t intend for this to provide negative publicity for John Chow. I really like John and have no problems with him. However, in many ways it really rubs me the wrong way to see him produce a video like this.

Yet Another Example of a Viral Video

For those who don’t know this, Joel Comm has been very inspirational for me. He is a fine individual and a very gifted and super talented person in the business of Internet marketing. Joel Comm has been building profitable websites since 1995. He is the co-founder of Yahoo! Games, author of the new York Times bestseller, “The AdSense Code”, and Host & Executive Producer of the world’s first competitive Internet reality show, “The Next Internet Millionaire”. [source]

Consequently he also holds the title of being the producer of one of my personal favorite videos being broadcasted on YouTube. Here is a syndication of the video below:

Joel has an amazing ability to grab you out of your seat and grip onto your attention like he was squeezing a grape. His work is of the best in the industry, and he is one of the only people I put trust into the products being produced. I have been given many wonderful gifts from Joel and everything I have received from him has been worth more than the price of gold. Recently I pushed forward on my web design business and I owe a huge amount of credit to that decision based on watching the DVDs included in The Secret Classroom.

Viral Video At It’s Greatest

Joel Comm was a pioneer in successfully producing the world’s first Internet reality television show. The show was a huge success and is now paving the path for others to follow:

And Indeed Did People Follow…

Shortly after The Next Internet Millionaire, Thor Schrock decided to produce the next Internet reality tv show called, Top Affiliate Challenge. Thor has created such a viral BUZZ about this show that it was even featured on a the local ABC news station during 6:00 PM Hour in his home town:

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