Dan Greenberg, CEO of social advertising company Sharethrough, wrote an interesting post for Mashable yesterday about how to produce video content that will spread virally.

Greenberg suggests that while creating video that has the potential to be shared between users on a massive scale online is considered a mysterious art, it is possible to apply “a little science to the process”. He says that this equates to three key principles; psychological share motivation, shareability and a data-driven strategy.

But from a PR perspective, does this make sense? Can video content really be produced to ‘go viral’ and create immeasurable brand awareness for a client?

Mat Morrison, Head of Social Media at Starcom MediaVest Group told us that viral shouldn’t be thought of as a strategy as it’s actually an effect of a well planned and researched campaign. “It’s clear that certain people are better at making shareable content than others – which implies that there’s more than just simple luck involved”.

Greenberg’s first suggestion – psychological share motivation – suggests that there are basic drivers that make people want to share content. These include emotion (as humans like to share their feelings with one another), identity and self expression (as the things we share work to define who we are) and finally, information (as we all like to share things we think may be useful to others). Stephen Waddington, Managing Director of Speed, agrees that inspiring an individual to share content relies on generating an emotional response. ”However, it can be argued that Greenberg’s points are a little too simplistic. Predicting a human reaction is something that challenges even the smartest sociologists”, he said.

The second attribute, shareability, suggests that you should make content available across multiple platforms as well as building in social features. If you make it easier you make it to share, the more it will be shared. Ged Carroll, Director of Digital Strategy at Ruder Finn, said that, “shareability is fundamental, yet brands need to consider transmedia and not just see this kind of video content as operating purely online”. Carroll points to the importance of integrating online and offline media in order to give content a better chance of something being spread virally.

Finally, Greenberg suggests that any strategy needs to be driven by data at the core and based on facts, such as where users are sharing content already and which sites generate the highest amount of this sharing.

Ultimately, it’s impossible to force or predict whether something will ‘go viral’. There are many factors, including emotional appeal, shareability, content, timeliness and noise, that will have an effect. Greenberg’s list presents three key considerations for helping content become more shareable along the way, but as Carroll says, these ideas are valid for all social objects and not just virality in videos.

The best way to approach the creation of video – from a PR perspective or otherwise – is to try and understand audiences, the way people share and how they behave in their networks. This will help to create the right content, for the right people, that can be shared in the right way. Whether it’s actually shared is a different story.

Tags: dan greenberg, ged carroll, mashable, mat morrison, ruder finn, speed, starcom mediavest, stephen waddington, video, viral