A couple of days ago i was saying how that penguin video is now my most viewed video on my youtube channel with over 9,000 views. Right now, it has over 45,000 views…
The video, as things stand, is the 3rd ‘Most Viewed’ video in Ireland in the ‘Pets & Animals’ category and the 15th ‘Top Favourited’ video this month in the same category. Has it’s popularity peaked? Doesn’t look like it and i hope not but in any case this has been nothing but a massive success for me on youtube. The challenge now of course will be to repeat it.
Lots of things contributed towards that video going up online. My July challenge, my eagerness to go to Cork, girlfriend’s love of penguins which meant we went to see them at feeding time, my eye for detail / noticing the lone penguin… the manner in which i shot the video etc…
I could spent days analysing why this worked out and what contributed to getting it to the stage where it has 45,000 views but in reality it was ‘fluked’. However the fact i was there, shot the video and was prepared for something funny to happen wasn’t fluked… the fact it went viral (very small scale by youtube standards, but big scale by my standards!) was fluked as i’d no control over who seen it or where it was posted. My guess is somebody who is followed by some animal channel got wind of it, embedded it on their site and it snowballed from there.
Dance, penguin.
So how do i repeat this ‘success’ again? Do i adopt a penguin and just film it all day long? Force it to do stupid stuff? That *might* work but of course i’d be trying to replicate a set of circumstances which can never be replicated so that’s a recipe for failure. No, the only way i can ever stand a chance of beating this penguin video for views is by recording more video. I’ve known that for a long time and my youtube stats will show i’ve been busier this year than ever before uploading videos, but there’s always room for improvement & creativity…