I just came across an article by the Associated Press entitled, “The keys to going viral on YouTube“. The article, which I think is actually pretty weak, lists several things to make your video go viral:

- Infuse yourself into the community by posting video responses and comments within YouTube - this is a pretty good tip, you can’t just build it and hope they come anymore

- Try to get featured on the YouTube homepage…uh, yeah. That’s like telling an ugly person the best way to get a date is to be on the homepage of Match.com. A) If you’re ugly you’re not getting on the homepage and b) if you do get on the homepage, no one is going to click on you anyway. My apologies to ugly people but you guys have your own ugly person website, so I’m guessing you’re cool with it.

- The more people that view your video, the more people that will view your video…rriiiighhhttt

- Have an attractive female in the video…hard to argue this one

Ok, so those are pretty weak. But why do we keep missing the point with this - make the content worth viewing! It’s no wonder marketers get a lot of grief when entering in to social marketing websites. They are more focused on ways to trick consumers than they are on producing good content. So I say, long live the dancing dude and the crazy dog; keep ‘em coming.