It is not much difficult to presume how much we all love to see videos. Neither it is hard to understand why. Since the advent of cinema, the audio-visual medium is the stuff of legends. Digital age has changed the ballgame and now virality is the key parameter of success. Let me try to outline the most important attributes of a successful viral video.
1. Build the Curiosity at the Beginning:
Content is of paramount importance in video and then execution should be crisp, so that it can build up the curiosity factor. The more interesting the content, the more interested the audience gets.
2. Make it Short and Sweet:
As our life becomes faster with every passing day, we try to complete every task within the shortest amount of time, without sacrificing on curiosity or creativity. And that’s why, the first five seconds of any video is the most crucial for a video editor. If in this first five seconds, a curiosity is not built up inside a viewer, then chances are high, that he/she will lose interest and end up, skipping the video. Our attention span can only process if the length is right. So the ideally, online videos should not be long. Shorter videos with interesting content and engaging visuals can have the capacity to go viral.
3. Choose Your Audio Carefully:
Another important element of online videos is sound. It is apparently mostly ignored, but is vital for the video’s success. Out-of-focus or blurry visuals can lend an enigma to the video and can be effective but bad sound is unforgivable. The sound has to be in perfect tandem with every cut and thus creating a montage, contextual to the content.
4. Visual Framing Holds the Key:
The visual should be in sync with the content. It has to be relevant, crisp and contextual. The quality of the imagery is dictated by the theme or the desired result, but editing should be adequate. If the editing is not seamless and complimentary to the visuals, the video will not be successful. Ensure that every frame matches in a sequence and according to the scene.
5. Just Like Sex, the Climax Makes or Breaks It:
An oft-used Hindi proverb is ‘Anth bhala toh sab bhala’, quite accurately translating to ‘All’s well that ends well’. In case of video, this is sacrosanct. If you are able to capture the curiosity of the viewer in the first five seconds, then it is your duty to satisfy that curiosity at the end. The climax has to be complementary, awe-inspiring, interesting and do justice to the built-up anticipation. The video must end gloriously.
If these 5 attributes are kept in mid while making and editing digital videos, the chances of the video going viral, increases astronomically.
Here, you can see some of our recent videos made for social media marketing.
