A Brilliant Viral Video Campaign

Thanks to a heads up from David Pogue of the New York Times  I just caught the announcement of my run for the US Presidency on the Channel 3 News.

Let me make this is clear, I HAVE NO IMMEDIATE PLANS TO RUN FOR ANY POLITICAL OFFICE!  I can however tell you how to get your own 15 minutes of fame on the Channel 3 News thanks to a brilliant viral campaign by Paltalk, which bills itself as the world's largest video chat community.

Paltalk has created a brilliant way to get their name out to a great many people.  My Channel 3 online video is a slickly produced news piece that describes how my candidacy has come out of nowhere to become a threat to the major candidates.  The video shows how my backers have plastered my name all over buses, billboards, and even grandma’s tattooed backside.

To create this online video I logged into the Paltalk News3Online page and typed in my name, email address, the email address of “backers” I wanted the video emailed to.  The program filled in my name in the appropriate places in the video and shipped out copies to surprise my friends and family. It also provides embed code to play the video from within my blog or website.

What Paltalk did right to make this campaign viral

At first my friends were not sure if this video was about me or someone with the same name.  This intrigued them. When they figured it out they all went looking to see how they can make a video of their own. That's exactly what you want to happen with a viral video! Part of the reason that this is so viral is Paltalk never hits you on the head with a " This video is coming to you from" message.  That would be a huge turnoff. Instead they made you go looking.  I bet that half of the people who saw my video and decided to create a video of their own ended up t clickingon the small Paltalk banner at the top of the page. 

Not everybody who sees this video is going to give Paltalk a try.  They might just click other link in the middle of the page to create their own video.    On the other hand, once that video is created they are going to send it out to their friends. This gives Paltalk a whole new chance to get their name out to a new audience.