Online Videos Go Viral as Study Shows 57% Share their Favorites

Thursday, July 26th, 2007 by Andy Beal

Online Videos Go Viral as Study Shows 57% Share their Favorites

If you have plans for any kind of viral marketing campaign in 2007, you may wish to take a look at the numbers revealed by a new Pew study.

57% of internet users watch video online and of that number 57% send their favorite videos on to their friends. They must be sending them to more than one person, judging by the 75% that said they receive videos from others. If your video appeals to the 18-29 age group, you can expect that video sharing rate to jump to 67%.

But before you grab your video camera and round up the staff, you may want to consider some investment into video production. 62% of online video watchers prefer content that is “professionally produced” and only 19% prefer videos “produced by amateurs.” Can’t be bothered to hire a production crew? Target the male 18-29 demo – only 43% of them prefer professional video.

Finally, here’s the type of content online video viewers prefer:

So, a hit video needs to be a mixture of comedy and news, huh? What’s Dan Rather up to these days?

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5 comments on “Online Videos Go Viral as Study Shows 57% Share their Favorites”

Jeremy Luebke Says:

July 26th, 2007 at 11:21 am

I really think video has to be one of the cheapest forms of marketing available these days, even with professional production.

Even a semi bad vehicle can easily drive 500 visitors and I can get a local college student / film student to do the production for $500. So worse case scenario, it cost $1 per visitor. Best case, is it goes viral and you get hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Giovanni Gallucci Says:

July 26th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

Andy,

This is great news as we are actively participating in viral videos campaigns right now and I obviously want them to succeed. Thanks for keeping us abreast of this stuff every day.

-giovanni
Andy Beal Says:

July 26th, 2007 at 3:48 pm

@Gio – np, it’s all just for you!
» Friday’s NGT News Roundup » Next Great Thing Says:

July 27th, 2007 at 4:39 pm

[...] to prefer non-professional content. [Pew Report] TAGS | NGT News Round-up Permalink Email Add To del.icio.us Comments: [...]
Luke Says:

August 14th, 2007 at 5:54 pm

Real people actually watch political videos? O_o

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