At the end of September 2016 I uploaded a video called Ugly Truth In Beauty Magazines. Within two weeks it was viewed 10 million times and today it has more than 15 million views. Two weeks later I uploaded my next video called Tap Water Truth - We're All Drinking Sewage and it reluctantly went viral but with a much smaller number of views - close to a million in 6 weeks.
I am going to tell you now what happens when your video is watched by millions of people. This is the information I was always interested in and could never find online so I will share it with you.
It is important that you keep in mind that this is from the point of view of someone who has achieved their first video making success after almost 10 years of trying.
The second thing I'd want you to be aware of is that yes, videos go viral every day but the video I am talking about is not a sneezing giraffe type of a video but an inspirational video that changes the way people think. And it is the more important type.
And also - the video went facebook viral which might be different than youtube viral. I don't know yet what it is like when a video is viral on youtube - I haven't had that experience yet.
Watch the video to see what it looks like.
So here is what it means to go viral:
You will get an insane boost of confidence - there is no bigger praise than hundreds of thousands of people telling you that you did great. It is indescribable.
You will become an inspiration to a lot of people who often need to hear what you are dying to say.
There is a book written by a surgeon who had an amazing out of body experience and went to a magical place where you are loved and praised by everyone. I can only imagine that it's what it feels like.
You feel smart - Going viral is the holy grail of video production it is as if you were given YouTube or Facebook Nobel prize.
You will quickly learn that planning is worthless because everything changes.
You finally have a sense of direction. You know where you're going and you will start working like crazy.
You won't mind being tired. You will enjoy a freshly rediscovered love of life.
You don't have the sense of wasting time anymore. Your relationship with time will change and it will just flow without bothering you
You'll put on hold everything else in your life. Managing a viral video is a full time job.
You will love going to sleep just so that you can wake up and see the overnight progress. It sounds crazy but that's what happens.
You realize that who you are - all your good traits and flaws and your good and bad experiences - what you're made of becomes a story that someone will want to hear about. Every painful moment in your life will have value from now on.
You will be given powers you never had before. You have to know how to use them.
Suddenly you realize that you can send across any message you want and that can change a lot of things. Even globally. This is a huge responsibility that will shape your future
You'll become part of internet history. As long as people are connected digitally you will be there for ever and internet becomes your business card
You will change lives or make a permanent memory in minds of millions of people as long as they live
You will get an overview of what humans are about. You will learn that you know nothing about what people like and what is shareable. You will re-learn social media.
You will realize there is a lot of people on this planet. and a lot of them are successful. you are a part of that group now. you have achieved what you wanted to achieve and you know how it feels.
there are a lot of crazy people out there. a lot
immediately people will want things from you and a lot of it will be very random. You will quickly become that person you always hated - the one who didn't have time for you or didn't want to help you. People will share their intimate stories with you. You will get marriage proposals. You will get business proposals. Because of the video people you know will open up to you and will tell you what they have always thought about you and how they appreciate you and your work. People normally don't do it.
You will learn which of your friends didn't value or respect you
You will learn that a lot of your friends have great ideas
there is no one who will understand how you feel
You stop being polite to people because openings, greetings regards and how-are-yous take too much time
At the same time you will see that success triggers pc correctness and auto-censorship
It is the most amazing psychotherapy session:
It's a great remedy for feeling alone. you have now so many people to talk to. You get to share your thoughts with everybody.
you have an unlimited number of possibilities to make friends
your facebook page will become the best entertainment system on the planet. messages, comments, shares, likes, dislikes, emails, it never ends!
Going viral is one thing but going global is crazy. My video was immediately translated to 20 languages by fantastic people who volunteered to do it and you will be contacted by people living in places you didn't even know exist.
You will see people promote their businesses with your video. Your work will become a vehicle for many things you didn't even know could be connected in any way.
People and news sites will be writing articles, blogs and making own videos about you and your video. Many of them will never tell you about this. Googling yourself becomes addictive
You will get your first haters. This part deserves its own video and I will tell you about it soon.
People will steal your videos. You need a lot of self-control as you will have to deal with a lot of theft, copyright infringement and other nonsense. This also needs to be told about separately.
You will realize that the whole world is trying to do the same thing - tell a story and make someone listen to it. That's all it is about.
The two weeks between my videos was pure agony, waiting to see if I can repeat my success. Clicking the upload button on your next video is a very stressful experience
You will start feeling uncomfortable around other viral videos. And I mean crazy uncomfortable like - why is it viral? how many views? why are they not watching my video?
You will appreciate the technology we have today. That millions of people can watch your creation in a matter of minutes is beyond insane.
At the same time you will realize that facebook and youtube are very unprofessional platforms
Now some figures:
A video doesn't go viral overnight. It takes a few days for it gain momentum.
you go bananas when the video reaches 10 000 views. After a week you start getting depressed when it stops hitting 1 million a day
For every 34 views there is one share.
more than half of the views is below 10 seconds, which means it doesn't really matter.
only 18% watch it with sound on
for every million views you will get 1000 likes on your fcb page.
What does it all mean?
Every hour, every day, every month and every year you spend working on something you love is worth achieving your goal. For a video producer seeing their video go global is the most fulfilling and most thrilling experience possible.
Life has no real value if you don't do what you love and if you don't fulfill your destiny. For me it has been an amazing journey that I started more than 20 years ago which I will tell you about one day and I know this is just the beginning.
You will not know what your role on this planet is until you start realizing yourself and fulfilling your dreams. No effort is too big and no work is too hard to be in a place you are supposed to be.
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