What’s it take to create a viral video?
One of my clients just got 13 million views in 24 hours on a 20-second video.
13 million views.
107,000 comments.
9,000 new followers.
All in the first 24 hours.
And here’s the interesting part:
He’s about as far from a social media guru as you can get.
Don’t get me wrong. My client is a very smart business person, and he’s great at what he does.
He’s a fishing charter captain.
But he’d never describe himself as some sort of social media expert.
So what happened?
The Viral Moment He Almost Could Have Missed
Here’s where the story gets interesting.
My client recently bought a pair of Meta glasses to wear while running his charter trips.
Not because he had some grand social media strategy.
They solved a practical problem.
As a charter captain, he’s constantly working with his hands. He’s driving the boat, helping customers, dealing with fishing gear and everything else that comes with running a trip.
Pulling a phone out of his pocket every time something interesting happens isn’t particularly practical.
The glasses changed that.
He could continue doing what he was doing and quickly start recording with his voice or the push of a button.
Then one of those moments happened.
A school of mullet erupted around the boat with kids in the background.
It was unexpected.
It was wild.
And it made for an incredible 20 seconds of video.
Had his phone been buried in his pocket or sitting somewhere in the console, there’s a pretty good chance the video would never have existed.
By the time he put something down, grabbed the phone, opened the camera and started recording…
The moment would have been gone.
Instead, he captured it.
And the internet did the rest.
No Elaborate Social Media Strategy Required
Here’s another part I love about this story.
There wasn’t some beautifully written caption engineered for engagement.
There wasn’t an elaborate hashtag strategy.
There wasn’t a professional production crew, script or content calendar behind it.
It was simply an authentic, unusual moment people wanted to watch.
And share.
And talk about.
13 million times and counting.
I think there’s an important marketing lesson in that.
We spend a tremendous amount of time talking about algorithms, hashtags, posting frequency, hooks, editing techniques and all the other mechanics of social media.
Those things can certainly matter.
But none of them can manufacture what this video had:
Something genuinely worth watching.
You Can’t Schedule the Unexpected
I believe a lot of genuinely viral content happens when someone captures an unexpected, funny, amazing or delightfully weird moment.
In other words, it’s not scripted.
Unless you’re operating in the league of the MrBeast types who can manufacture enormous spectacles specifically for content, most small businesses aren’t going to engineer their way into a viral moment.
But they can be ready when one happens.
And that’s my biggest takeaway from this whole thing.
The Meta glasses didn’t make the video go viral.
The captain did something much simpler:
He put himself in a position to capture something remarkable when it happened.
That’s especially relevant for fishing charters, tour operators and experience businesses.
Think about how many incredible moments happen around you every week.
The kid catching his first fish.
A dolphin unexpectedly swimming alongside the boat.
An unbelievable sunset.
A customer’s reaction to something they’ve never experienced before.
Something hilarious that nobody could have scripted.
Those moments are your content.
But only if you capture them.
The best camera isn’t necessarily the fanciest one.
It’s the one that’s recording when something worth watching happens.
Here’s to being prepared when the viral moment happens.
