One of the things many people want to do when they post a video onto you YouTube is to have it go viral. This, sadly, is much easier said than done. With the hundreds of thousands of videos that are uploaded daily, there is a great deal of competition for any one video. Believe it or not, in just one minute on YouTube, two days worth of video viewing bliss are uploaded. When you consider these astronomical numbers, it’s no wonder why only a small percentage hit the viral mark. Now, while not all of your videos will hit the viral mark, very few of them may be seen by more than your family members or friends in fact, you can do some things to make your videos more popular. Below are some ways that you can make videos that have a better chance at being seen and shared by a wider audience.

Allowing Access

Before you even start sharing your video on other social media sites, you must first allow others to access your videos. This may sound obvious but you’d be surprised at how many people forget to change their privacy settings and then can’t figure out why they’re not getting any views. So make sure that you are allowing access to your videos in the settings section of the site and then you can share your videos with others. This also allows them to share your videos with their friends which can start a chain reaction that creates a viral video.

Your Videos Must Be High Quality and Not Overly Long

You will not get many views if you are posting twenty minutes of video that makes no sense or that is poor quality. You must keep your videos below two minutes with less than one minute being the optimum length. Anything over that amount will not get the amount of likes and shares you’ll need for a viral video. YouTube will only credit you with a view when the viewers watch the video to a certain point. You don’t get the credit if they start the video, watch a couple of seconds and then stop the video. So you need to catch the viewers’ attention in the first few seconds and keep them watching for the length of the video. This is much easier to do when the video is shorter rather than longer. The only other way that you’ll get more likes or views on your videos is to pay for them from a site who deals in views.

Share Your Video

If you want to get your video noticed by others then you must use other means to do this. The best way is to share your videos on other social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This gives your videos exposure that they wouldn’t have on YouTube. When you share it on your social media sites, the people who enjoy it will also share it and so on. Soon your video is getting a high number of views and if you’re really lucky, it will go viral. The more you share it, the more exposure it gets and that’s nothing but good for you.

While the odds are against you having a viral video, you can improve upon these odds by following the tips outlined above.

Charise Lindeneer has been teaching YouTube enthusiasts on how to be successful for five years and is the owner of her own blog on this topic.

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