YouTube Marketing Tips 6: Controversy Is Viral

We're going to talk about the video again that we covered in YouTube Marketing Tips 5... a video called "Rainbow" that has 300,000 views:



Do you know why it has so many views? Does it seem like it doesn't make sense why this video has 300,000 views?


Here's my thought:

I think it makes sense in another way other than the fact that he posted three of them. Go to his channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/scareykatt) and you see that people have been upset by his icon.

Next, I'd imagine that the gay community saw it as a statement and started spreading it, possibly just as a moment to reflect their pride.

So you now have people who hate it and people who love it watching. It became a controversy.

I know that this works, because he did the same thing one month later with Disgusting Teeth (75,000 views):



You'll notice that this video just disappears. It's 0 seconds long. Yet people still click on it based only on the image. It's controversial. You know it's probably just a still (especially if it's only 0 seconds long), but you still click it. You'll also notice that it's rated 1 star. People didn't like the fact that it's just a short image.