Three days ago I shot a short video which had been in the planning a couple of days prior. Before that, I stumbled across a Tik Tok video that really caught my attention. I drew inspiration and information from that video and decided to make my own. So the project began.
The video is about how the bank system works. I remember how a lot of people (including me) don't fully understand how banks make their money. The topic about banks is full of financial jargons that not only confuses the hell out of the general public, but also financial, economy and math students as well.
Having seen a much easier way to understand this, I decided to make a video about it.
The plot is just a simple dialogue between a banker and 2 customers. It was my first time acting and I played all 3 characters. Thank God it turned out okay and not so amateurish. Shooting began at 10am and I finished editing the video at 3pm, all done in my son's room. As soon as I uploaded it to all social platforms, I kind of forgot about it and went on with my day.
Right after breaking fast at 7.30pm (as it was the month of Ramadhan), I took a peek at my phone and boom! I opened Tik Tok and was immediately greeted with hundreds of notifications. People commenting, liking, sharing and following. The inbox was a frenzy of notifications popping up non-stop. It kept going and going and going. The views on that video was at 200,000! The number of followers blew up from only 350 to 2,000! And both these numbers kept going up. It was at this moment that I realized this video had actually gone viral. I've had instances of some of my videos going 'mini-viral' as in thousands of views, but 200 thousand views is wild. It scared me a little, I'm not gonna lie.
As I always do, I would reply to every comment that I get on any of my videos. Little did I know that engaging with a crowd of that magnitude was close to impossible. As soon as I reply to every comment, new ones appeared. Before I know it, hours had passed and I was still at it. No wonder creators don't really reply comments. Or at least they try to reply what they can. But since it's my first time going viral, I figured I'd try to reply all of them no matter how long it takes. And I did.
By the next day, at 1pm, my follower-count reached 4,500 and the video views was at a staggering 850 thousand! And when the 3rd day came along, I already had 6,700 followers and the views on that video reached 1 million! Let me repeat that. 1 MILLION! You only see that kind of numbers with the big influencers and OG creators. What a blessing. I seemingly managed to reach a level that I once considered impossible, and I'm glad the information on my video reached more eyes than I can ever imagine.
From the virality of that video, the boost in numbers spread to other videos as well. Views, comments and likes appeared everywhere else. Today, at day 4, I'm at 8,100 followers and 1.5 million views on that video. It's still going up but not as fast as day 1 and 2.
What I learned from all of this is that there is no perfect recipe when it comes to going viral. You can't cheat your way into achieving it. The simple truth is, you have to make a truly GOOD video. It can be either entertaining, informative or even both. When people enjoy it to the point that they feel the need to share it, that's when virality happens. Sub-par videos won't get you there. IT HAS TO BE GOOD.
I'm not tooting my own horn here and saying my video was good. I think it went viral because it contains valuable information, with a little bit of wit and humor. It's not that people didn't know about the information, but that they've never thought about it that way before. This ultimately gave them full understanding on the matter and they thank me for it. They tell me to keep making more videos like this. They automatically assume I have extensive knowledge on this particular topic (which I honestly don't), asking me all sorts of questions about banks and financing. So that video wasn't GOOD per se. But it's what some would call 'quality content'.
I feel like I have to make sure my next video is nothing short of quality-bearing. I feel that pressure to top the last video or at least break even with an equally good one. THAT is something very few people can do. I know I'm not one of them. However, I must not let this kind of thinking cloud my mind. The most important thing is to keep making videos that I love and never, ever let something like ego or any other form of toxicities get to me.
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