30sec explanation: What makes great content go viral on YouTube (both paid and earned)

After endless slides and analysis on the topic, one of the biggest global advertisers I work with at Google asked me to summarize this in one sentence. 

So here it is.

Amazing content informs, entertains and inspires. 

The long explanation: Your audience thinks, feels or does something they would otherwise not have, if they had not seen your content. 

And how will you know how you’ve done on any of these 3 things? 

Views are great but they’re a mechanical function of many things I will not go into here. 

You need to look at engagement and / or actions taken by your audience post-exposure. Even the number of comments (positive or negative) suggests that you talked about something that people care about in an interesting way.

So next time you or your brand are producing a new piece of content, ask yourself if it informs, entertains or inspires. It should do at least one of these.