In this review of two Ted Talks about social media and viral videos, a consideration arises.  To get “viral” levels of exposure, do you need to be lucky?

I recently spoke with a friend who develops videos for his business. He was distraught.

His boss came to him and instructed him to create a video that would go viral.  “Great way to advertise, I’ve heard!”

He gave no instructions as to what this video would be about.

“It’s like he was asking me to order a pizza” my friend quipped.

The idea of creating a viral piece of marketing collateral for a business is mouthwatering.  It’s possible to get millions of people checking it out – and becoming aware of your business.

However, you can’t just order this up like take-out.  On the contrary, it may be that achieving vial status has a significant element of luck.

Below are two presentations from Ted Talks by “experts” in this marketing phenomenon.

First we have Toronto restauranteur Daryl D’Souza:

Clearly Daryl knows his stuff with social media and did some fine work building a following for his restaurant.

But something lucky happened.  The band One Direction happened to come in and dine, lighting the spark of tweets and Facebook likes.

It makes a great story. But if you’re a restaurant owner, is waiting around for celebrities to come into your restaurant and tweet about their meal a strategy you can plan for?  Or is it luck?

In this talk, Kevin Allocca of YouTube talks about videos going viral:

Note Bear Vasquez’s video.  Just one little thing happened:  “tastemaker” Jimmy Kimmel tweeted about the video.

So…should my friend tell his boss:  “Sure, we’ll put something together and get Conan to like it on Facebook.”

Random…luck?

Allocca shares a significant stat:  48,000 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute.  Only a miniscule percentage goes viral.

For marketers, the truth is that viral growth is largely random and almost impossible to control.  Particularly for small brands, getting something to truly go viral is, at least in part, lucky.

But it can – and should be – fun trying.  Content doesn’t go viral because people want to help a business get leads. It goes viral because it’s funny, unique, unexpected.

This year, some videos and social media content will go viral.  Major exposure will be had.  The only way for it to be you is to put content out there you think people will love – and roll with it.