Viral is a relative term. In kids channels, 20-30M views/video is the norm these days for some channels and some videos. While on Fb/Tw and pretty much anywhere else, 20M hits is mega viral. But 100M views would be viral for a kids channel. That's 4 times the population of Australia. Yet such a video won't make the evening news, but a laughing baby would. I saw a Youtuber being interviewed on one of the morning shows here in Australia, they were talking like she had a mega channel and viral stuff. Checked her out, total views in several years was under 10M with like 10k subs. Hardly viral in any book. But for the morning show, her content seemed to be. So go figure, what is viral, who defines it?
But generally, for content to be viral in the pure sense of the word, it need to elicit a visceral reaction in the viewer. As a presenter said during a Vidcon talk, it must make people laugh hysterically, not just smile, or it must make then fuming mad, filled with rage, not just upset, or it must make them scared to the point of peeing their pants, not just make the pulse skip a beat. The stronger the physical reaction, the more viral potential energy the video has. To release that energy involves several dozen factors. Promotion across active social media accounts, paid advertising, lead ups before that viral video, all must be executed flawlessly. The video should also hit the zeitgeist, current hot and controversial topics and new takes on them would have more potential energy in them.
A good topic might be Trump vs the NFL - emotionally charged topic, gets lefties and righties and many in between fired up - can you do a different take on it, perhaps instead the players kneeling, they do something else. Don't know what, something... get all the backend setup and fire it off. A few $k into promotions on the first day would not go astray, especially if you can laser target the audience via Tw & Fb and of course Yt.
That same presenter during Vidcon said the viral campaigns they execute for clients takes several weeks to several months lead up and prep, with budgets anywhere from a few thousand dollars to several hundred thousand for big corporates. Viral is big business, it needs big dollars to execute. Tags won't cut it unfortunately...
