The 3 Elements of Viral Content

Viral content feels destined to succeed. Do we have what it takes?

Finding content that actually blows up is no easy feat. Honestly, there are times I wonder, "Is this ever going to go viral?" Our newly formed Viral squad ambitiously kicked off in January, rigorously testing various hypotheses. It was a bit chaotic at times, but we managed to complete a few iterations by continuously giving each other feedback, making sure our hypotheses didn't stray and our lessons weren't diluted.

During this process, we discovered some content that hit about 600,000 and 200,000 views—though we haven't quite reached the 1-million mark yet. The fascinating part is that even though they were all based on the same hypothesis, content, and format, some videos couldn't even break 1,000 views while others soared to 600,000. We dug a little deeper into this discrepancy to figure out the essential elements of viral content.

1) A Sharp Reference

Going viral with a completely original concept under the sun is extremely, extremely difficult. This applies to product planning as well as viral content. Rather than just asking if we find it funny as creators, it was much more effective to reference existing material that the general public has already proven to find entertaining on social media. Of course, borrowing something too old is pointless. We had to quickly catch the trend and make it our own, and fortunately, we were able to validate this approach on our very first try.

2) Details That Make You Laugh Out Loud

We often expect that simply copying successful content will guarantee our success too, but that's rarely the case in reality. Even if you recite the exact same lines, the entire vibe of the content can completely shift based on minor details like voice tone, nuance, and the atmosphere of the location where the lines are delivered.

The mandatory requirement for our content planning this time around was:

Show friends playing the game together.

The resulting videos captured the same broad concept, but they were subtly different—and those differences determined whether or not they went viral.

a. Content that showed friends playing "thrillingly" was funnier.
- Videos where they were actually really good at the game, offering a great sense of speed, or where the playback speed was increased, were more entertaining.

b. Content that showed friends "cheering wildly" after finishing the game was funnier.
- You could feel the sheer excitement as the camera shook along with their cheers.

c. Content that showed friends playing "without hesitation" rather than "awkwardly" was funnier.
- Everyone cracked up at the sight of them dropping into squats out of nowhere, whether in a classroom with a teacher or right on the street.

Looking at it now, it seems that rather than just saying "what to do," it's crucial to explain the "how" in much more specific detail with examples.

3) The Law of Large Numbers (feat. The Algorithm's Blessing)

Every platform has its own exposure algorithm to decide which pieces of content to show first, and producing just one video for a specific hook makes it incredibly hard to ride that algorithm. Given the overflowing amount of content out there, some videos might completely miss the algorithmic logic altogether. Assuming there's a set probability for content to even be considered by the logic, just like the law of large numbers in probability theory (where a larger sample size increases statistical accuracy), it means we have to produce a certain volume of content to ensure the algorithm doesn't accidentally skip over us entirely and picks up at least one of our pieces.

During this iteration, we recruited student TikTokers with fewer than 1,000 followers. Twenty of them posted videos for us, and about three of those hit over 100,000 views. We're currently estimating our batting average at around 15%, and we concluded that moving forward, we need to source at least 10 creators for any single marketing hook.

I was a bit bummed that we didn't manage to unearth a 1-million-view hit during the month of January, but it was still great to squeeze out some practical lessons along the way. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. For the rest of the quarter, we'll just have to keep running iterations based on our various hypotheses.

There's a saying that if you want results you've never had, you have to try things you've never done.

In that spirit, we're continuously trying out all sorts of new experiments. I just hope the "blessing of virality" finds us before too long!

A huge thank you as always to my fellow Viral squad members (Judy, Coco, and Ina) for creating so much growth through these challenging iterations!