Important Lessons I've Learned from Creating a 6.2Million View Viral Video

in #dtube7 years ago (edited)

Before I embark on a transition from YouTube to DTube I want to share a story about how one video that I created on Facebook changed everything and also taught me some crucial lessons. I really believe that YouTube and Facebook are fantastic for building an audience, but my aim is to then bring them over here to Steemit. 

Today I want to share a story about something which I am so grateful for but also led to many regrets and missed opportunities. In fact it all started one year ago to this day (14th Jan 2017). Many evenings saw me crawl into the black hole of Facebook, with no hope of getting back out. But being on it so much (too much) meant that I began to build a good understanding for what content works well and certain trends that are happening. 

One thing I noticed was that 60 second cooking videos were very popular and all these cooking pages started to spring up in a rat-race to become the biggest short video cooking page on Facebook. The views blew me away, with a few surpassing 100 million in total. I saw an opportunity in this because if cooking videos were doing so well how come there weren’t any 60 second gardening videos? 

I thought about this for some time, then mulled over it for another day and then the day after I had an actionable plan. After attempting my homework and revision I took my laptop up to the IT room at my old school and edited a 60 second version of one of my videos which was growing peas. The idea with short form video is to put across the bare basics of what is needed for doing the job. I cut the original video into small clips about 3-5 seconds in length and put them in order from start to finish. Because I didn’t know as much about editing back then I didn’t put text like the cooking videos did, instead I recorded my voice to give commentary style information. 

I then simply uploaded it and added a simple description with a link to the full-length video on YouTube. It was not the smartest thing, linking YouTube on Facebook as you will get a bit of algorithm damage but wow did it take off! In the evening I remember coming back from town with some friends and having a look at the video and was stunned to see 50,000 views, later on that evening it hit 100,000, and the next day it reached the 1 million mark. 

Having been on YouTube for a few years beforehand, and passing a million views after 2 and a half years of continuous content, I was amazed by the virality that came from the video. From that video I believe my page gained 50,000 likes, a huge majority of just over 72,000 in total.

YouTube and Facebook are two sites which are really frustrating me as a content creator, however I can’t get too upset because they are excellent places to build up a brand and to connect with people all over the world. 

The biggest regret I had from the creation of a viral video is that I didn’t jump on the wave, it crashed ashore and that was it. What I should have done was to then create one 60 second video a day for a week to promote a weekly show or my YouTube channel but because of exams I couldn’t do this. In hindsight I could have very much done that, it would have been more useful than a mock exam result. But the truth about regrets is you can’t turn back time. You can only learn from the mistakes and know what to do if it happens again.

I created a 60 second version of one of my popular YouTube videos about growing potatoes the lazy way and I posted this on my FB page. This now has 140,000 views, much more successful than my past attempts between that and the pea video, and I reckon it has brought just over 1,000 likes to my Facebook page.

As I build my audience on other social media channels I plan to slowly introduce Steemit to them, one of the strategies I mention in my ‘2018 Goals as a YouTuber on Steemit’ post is that I will trial uploading a video to @dtube exactly a week before it is published on YouTube. I believe I can bring in more content creators in the permaculture/homesteading/gardening niches, and because we often overlap audiences it will be all the more reason for people to come and see why we are all raving about Steemit.

From creating that viral video here is a brief summary of what I learnt from the experience:

  • Always try out an idea, because I could have easily not bothered and missed out on one of the biggest opportunities I have had to date
  • Be ready to try and harness the momentum by creating similar content to the viral video sooner rather than later
  • Facebook video has a power for virality however it has to be something unique or the top of its game
  • People like short form videos because time is getting evermore precious
  • To accept missed opportunities and know to not do the same mistake if it would so happen again

I hope that this post has been informative and perhaps inspired you to just go for something. I have decided to just go for it on Steemit and keep an open mind and I have enjoyed my short amount of time on the platform so much.

Click here for the 60 second pea video

Click here for the full length YouTube video
 

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A personal welcome to Steemit my friend. There is a bunch of great quality posts here in our homesteading community, and as @pennsif built up the hype about you joining us, I got rather excited about your pending posts, as you may tell I am a huge gardener, with the motivation to experiment in the garden. Following Now. Thanks

Hi @gardengirlcanada thank you for the welcome :) @pennsif has been amazing with the help he has given me! I look forward to more of your posts too

Your all post are very nice.
Thanks for your informational post.

That's some good insight. It seems attention spans keep shrinking these days. Too much information to process in a day, I wish we can slow it all down a bit sometimes. I found people really enjoy a series of short GIFs with a bit of descriptive text here on Steemit. Condenses the 60 second video concept down even further.

That is so true! Yes GIFs is something else for me to get my head around but I love GIFs and think they really fit into the posts. Makes it more friendly too :)

This is really interesting to read because I'm also a YouTuber but am only just creating a following. I've got about 2,000 subs and it's only now (after two years) that one of my videos has suddenly taken off...I'm waiting for it to crash. LOL.

Really interesting to hear about doing a short-form FB vid of the longer YouTube version. Great stuff!

Awh that's awesome @brimwoodfarm - I would definitely start linking up YouTube and Facebook because if one dissapears you could lose all your audience apart from your followers on steemit. Thank you for reading and commenting :)

Very true. I have a community group on FB that I encourage my subscribers to come across to, in addition to the FB Business Page. :D

That sounds like a great idea since facebook videos require instant attention grabs while youtube tends to hold a longer attention span albeit not by all that much usually.

Huw - first off, welcome to Steemit my friend! I've seen your videos on YT for years now. I run Epic Gardening, also have a YouTube channel though I've only got about half of your subscribers. Thanks for sharing your video process - took a bunch of notes!

~ Kevin

Hi Kevin thank you so much for the welcome! yes I love the website and your content and I am so pleased you're here so you have yourself a new follower :) I am glad that this post was useful and hopefully you can use some of the ideas for Epic Gardening

Thank you for the tips... Just looked at the 60 second video. You make it look so easy. I really like the gutter idea and sliding off the seedlings.

Thanks

thats great you got a viral video. i haven't yet but not sure if it would matter to much now. youtube is tanking due to their new censoring. i started my own website that can host my own videos and pictures and it is doing well now. in a couple of years im sure it will be as big as my youtube channel is. steemit seems cool but lots of work to earn from it and everything only runs for 7 days here then doesnt matter any more. but it is easy and fun.

Excellent advice. I know I have a tendency to be long-winded. If someone is looking for that, it's great, but for those who are just looking for a quick thrill, which is probably most people scrolling around YT or FB, it doesn't cut it.

Now you got me thinking of how to make a 60 second video...