Recently, I caught up with an old friend who works at a multi-million dollar jewelry company. He asked me if my company could create a viral video for them in order to push the sales of their new product line.
I was astonished by how much confidence this company has in reaching their sales target using viral video. They had so much faith yet so little understanding about it.
There is a fundamental difference between “a viral video” and “a video that goes viral”.
Instead of explaining it “Wiki- style”, here are 6 of my favorite examples of how images or videos go viral without having to spend millions of dollars to get your China social media agencies to do that for you.
NO.1 “The Most Beautiful Girl by The West Lake” (“西湖边最美女子”)
In May, 2010, a photo taken 18 years ago was uploaded onto sinaweibo. In this photo stands an angel-faced young lady by the West Lake (Hangzhou, China). Netizens were desperate to find this lady who they call “The Most Beautiful Girl by The West Lake” As a result, there were over 200,000 search results on the Internet. On June 5ththe same year, a lady called Xin from a software company in Japan called the Chinese media and confirmed that the person in the photo is herself.
NO.2 “The good traffic policeman in Wuhan” (“武汉街头的好交警”)
In February 2011, a netizen named @wsy930117 on the Chinese forum tt.mop posted up a few photos that moved over 8 million Chinese netizens to tears. A traffic policeman in Wuhan was spotted helping a frightened puppy to safety, escaping the mad afternoon traffic. The traffic policeman became a hero in no time and gained an incredible amount of respect!
NO.3 “China’s First Crazy Granny” (“中国第一潮外婆”)
Inspired by the American Crazy Granny (a popular set of photos of grannies in America doing crazy things), a student at Wuhan University took a series of photos of his 81 year-old grandma named “My Crazy Granny” and uploaded them on the Internet. They quickly went viral among Chinese netizens and they labelled his granny “China’s First Crazy Granny”.
Don’t mess with grannies!
NO.4 “Iron-ing man” (“熨斗哥”)
An ironing staff at a laundry store in Sichuan never misses the chance to have some fun at work. One day, his incredible ironing skill got captured on a phone camera by a customer. The footage of the 23-year old ironing staff showing off his skill to our all time favorite pop song <<Dangerous>> took the internet by storm with over a million views in just a few days.
Now watch…and learn:
Watch out desperate housewives as men will no longer hold back their talents in doing housework!
NO.5 “The News Reporter Who Eats Mosquitoes” （”吃蚊子主播”）
In her 10 years of news reporting, not for one second could Wong have imagined herself achieving overnight fame because of one cheeky mosquito. During a regular live-broadcast in the news studio, Wong accidentally swallowed a mosquito which was so eager to be on national tv it began flying around in front of the camera. Wong had to stop broadcasting and was rushed to the hospital immediately. Never underestimate our tiny bug friends!
Parental Guidance (PG) only:
NO.6 “The TV’s Prestige Taxi Driver” (“无线御用的士大佬”）
Who says only leading roles in TV and movies get all the fame and attention. 56-year old TV extra Yuan has been playing a taxi driver in his 20-year acting career until one day, a super TV fan recognized him on a Hong-Kongnese TV drama and decided to make a collection of all his TV appearances. The images of Yuan’s TV appearances went viral on the Internet shortly after and Yuan gained a lot of respect from netizens for his tenacity as an TV extra. In real life, Yuan is a taxi driver and to this day enjoys his work as an extra.
Viral [ adj.]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The adjective or adverb viral and the noun virality may refer to any viral phenomenon, that is an object or pattern that is able to induce some agents to replicate it, resulting in many copies being produced and spread around.
Get it now?