As an African entrepreneur, SME owner, or Content Creator, you want to stay up to date with what’s happening, not just within your industry or on Wall Street, but also on social media. If this is the case, you’d realize every season has its trend. There’s always a new one after the previous one, especially trends that go viral via videos.
Social Media, Search Engines, and Viral Videos
When it comes to trends, social media holds most of the power. With 4.80 billion people using social media in 2023, it’s not hard to make a loud statement. YouTube is also a major player in videos. It is a popular search engine and has a massive 122 million users per day. Both platforms make it possible for users to post videos but with definite limitations. But what are the factors that make one video more popular than the other? Let’s briefly examine the possible reasons.
How Do Videos Go Viral?
There’s actually no guaranteed formula for why videos go viral. Videos go viral as a result of several contributing factors which include the algorithm of the platforms they are being shared on, and their ability to capture the collective interest of a broad audience leading to widespread sharing, comments, and discussions.
But while these factors contribute to virality, predicting it is challenging. As an entrepreneur, however, making videos is not just fun for you, it’s part of a clear-cut strategy to promote your business to your target audience and achieve a wider reach.
Hence, creating shareable video content requires a defined goal, a mix of creativity, relevance, and engagement. In this article, we’ll show you how to create viral videos as an entrepreneur.
How to Create Viral Videos for Social Media in 2024
There are three stages in making a video, namely the Pre-production, Production, and Post-production stages. We are going to apply these principles to ensure we achieve maximum output from making our videos.
Pre-Production
1. Understand Your Audience
Know your target audience’s preferences, interests, and behaviors and tailor your content to address their needs and aspirations.
2. Make proper arrangements
Ensure there are no distractions and disturbing elements. Ensure you have good lighting and test your sound system. All these go into making a successful video.
3. Develop a good script and be creative
To spark the response you desire from your viewers, you need to develop a structure for your content ideas. Where or how do you start the video? At what point do you bring it all together? The goal here is to have a well-balanced script.
Some of these techniques include
Storytelling: Craft a compelling narrative that takes viewers on a journey. A well-told story captures attention and encourages sharing.
Relatability: Create videos that evoke emotions such as laughter, inspiration, empathy, or surprise as it resonate with your audience. You can also infuse unexpected elements, twists, or humor that surprise and delight your audience.
Timeliness and Trends: Videos that tap into current events, trends, challenges, or popular topics have a better chance of gaining traction so you might want to harness your creativity here.
Unique Value: Offer something unique, whether it’s a fresh perspective, expert insights, or creative visuals. Stand out from the crowd.
Production
4. Create a powerful start
Everything on social media is fighting for your target audience’s attention, including you. You need to begin with a strong hook in the first 2-3 seconds to grab your viewers’ attention and encourage them to keep watching.
5. Keep it concise
Depending on the type of platform you are using to promote your videos, it is best practice to keep your videos short. Except you are promoting a tutorial or DIY video, keep your videos concise. Aim for a length that holds viewers’ attention without losing focus. Typically, shorter videos (under 2 minutes) perform better.
As an entrepreneur, you also need to understand the algorithm of each platform. Use these recommended tips when posting videos
Videos not more than 30 seconds are suitable for TikTok
Videos not more than 1 minute are suitable for WhatsApp
Videos not more than 2 minutes are suitable for Instagram, Threads, and Twitter
Videos of more than 2 mins are suitable for platforms such as Facebook and YouTube
On WhatsApp, always start your posts with a draw-in text before posting your videos. The reason is, that it takes longer for videos to load on WhatsApp due to network issues but your draw-in text will make your viewers curious to see what you’ve posted rather than skip your posts.
6. Have a Clear Message
Have a clear and concise message. Viewers should understand the main point or takeaway from your video. You can achieve this by speaking directly, including a voiceover, using an AI voice, or with displayed texts.
7. Call to Action
Include a clear call to action (CTA) that prompts viewers to like, subscribe, comment, or share the video. This could be a direct request or a subtle suggestion.
AI Library enlists AI Video Tools you can use to make your video production process easier and faster.
Post-Production
8. Optimize for Sharing
Ensure your video is shareable on various platforms by using appropriate formats and aspect ratios.
9. Platform Tailoring
Customize your content for each platform to make it feel native and relevant to the platform’s audience. For example, your TikTok videos can be shortened to a 30-second video even though it has a 10-minute span.
10. Post and Cross-Promote
Finally, when you are done with the previous steps, it is time to post your videos across your targeted platforms.
Also, ensure to collaborate with influencers or partners in and outside your niche as it will also help in expanding your reach and increasing the chances of your video being shared to a wider audience. You can also run ads with your videos and cross-promote across different platforms.
11. Captivating Thumbnails
Design eye-catching thumbnails that intrigue viewers and encourage them to click and watch your video.
12. Engage with Comments and Requests
Sometimes your viewers can give you a glimpse of what they are expecting. Feedback is important as you get to know the desires of your followers. You can use this feedback to plan new content for the future. Also, respond to comments and engage with viewers to foster a sense of community around your videos.
13. Consistency
In conclusion, there is no magic to it. The key is to remain consistent. You may not need to post videos every day but ensure you are consistently producing high-quality content to build an audience that constantly anticipates your videos, views them, and shares them.
Get Ready to Go Viral
Remember, while these tips can increase the shareability of your videos, the most crucial factor is ensuring that the content you create aligns with your business goals and that your content adds value to your audiences. When viewers find value in your videos, they’ll be more likely to share them with others. Also, virality often has an element of luck. The right content at the right time can resonate with the collective consciousness. But if you are not consistent, you won’t find luck.
If you think maintaining a strict timeline on posting your videos across platforms might be a problem, read our next article on 15 Social Media Marketing Tools for Entrepreneurs which provides solutions on tools you can use to pre-schedule and post your videos, even when you’re sleeping.
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