Video uploaded February 8th, 2012.
21,722,291 views and counting as of February 13th, 2012.
This is viral content in its truest sense.
In case you’ve been offline for the past few days, you may have missed the video that’s scorched the World Wide Web and gotten millions of people talking. In fact, about the only other thing that’s been talked about this much since late last week has been the New York Knicks’ Jeremy Lin and the death of singer Whitney Houston.
If you haven’t had an opportunity to watch this clip, check it out:
That crazy cowboy just shot that computer with a .45! In regards to that, I know how he feels. I’m currently working off an HP and I sometimes want to do the very same thing. But that’s another story…
How you feel about this father’s approach to disciplining his teenage daughter not withstanding, what he created was something EVERYONE wanted to see. Whether you felt he was completely justified in his reaction to his daughter’s disrespectful Facebook post, or thought he breached a line of insanity by popping eight caps into a newly-updated laptop, you probably sat and watched for the full 8:23.
Your next step is most likely to comment about it, and/or tell a bunch of others about it, either by word-of-mouth or by sharing the link on your Facebook, Twitter, and other Social Media accounts. That’s what everyone else did…thus making it a viral sensation in under a week!
When I first saw this video in my news feed, I didn’t click it. Why? Because I thought it was spam. I’ve fallen prey to “garbage” like that before, only to see a bunch of nonsense get sent out from my account to all my friends. Therefore, I’m cautious. It wasn’t until my wife said it was legit that I checked it out, laughed, and shared. I discovered I wasn’t the only one fearing spam as a friend of mine asked if it was real before she checked it out. SIDEBAR: Clowns that post spam, die.
What also lends to this video’s virality (made up a word there) are the crazy spin-offs and reactions that have spawned from it. Remember, it’s not even a week old yet, and responses have flooded YouTube and the web, with hundreds of thousands of people checking those out as well.
Again, whether you agree or disagree with the guy, you have to tip your cap to his creativity and his ability to harness the power of today’s social web by getting something in front of millions of viewers that obviously resonated. Any parent, whether your child is grown up, the same age as his daughter Hannah, or younger, can relate to this content. Heck, you don’t even have to be a parent to get a laugh from this. All you need to do is remember how much you THOUGHT you knew when you were sixteen years old and realize it could’ve led to your stuff getting blown up in front of the world.
Kids and grown-ups alike can walk away from this video with a couple lessons learned:
1) This online stuff is PUBLIC - I’ve written on the LinXone Solutions blog before about posting “stupid stuff” that can come back to haunt you in the future. Hannah learned the hard way that, even though you think you posted something that’s PRIVATE, there’s always an outside chance eyes you don’t want seeing your content will do just that. You never want to post something that could get you grounded or, worse for an adult, cost you your reputation and livelihood.
2) Produce Something That Gets People Talking – For the heck of it, I just went back to see how many more views were gained on the Facebook Parenting video since I started writing this post. Over 200,000. In about an hour. That says a TON. If you’re looking to build an audience, gain followers, drive traffic, and, ultimately, increase profits, your goal should be to produce content that educates, informs, entertains, helps, resonates with your audience, and gets people talking. Most times, viral content such as this is stumbled upon by accident. This guy probably didn’t think he’d be an overnight sensation, but he produced something that struck a chord with millions and it led to lightspeed Internet fame.
You may not be able to gain this many views in such a short period of time, but if you consistently produce content that people want to consume, your chances of striking a chord with your audience will go through the roof!
Why Do YOU Think This Video Gained Overnight Popularity? We’d love to hear your opinions…leave your comments below!
