I hate using the term “viral video” when putting together social media proposals for clients. Am I guilty of using it? Yes, absolutely — but recently I’m doing my best to stay away from the label. “Viral” should never be promised or assumed. It’s a goal to be achieved by creating video content good enough to be passed from person to person on a large scale.

There is no exact formula for a successful viral video campaign, but it doesn’t hurt to try the following ingredients:

1. Be funny. People like to laugh, and share laughs.
2. Be outrageous, shocking or just plain bizarre. Remember, there’s just as much white noise online (if not more so) than traditional media.
3. Leverage subject matter or concepts already popular in Web culture. This helps you cast a wider net.

Time for a case study. About a year ago, when I worked in the advertising agency world, I helped create a video for Kum & Go featuring three guys obsessed with setting off the biggest Mentos and Diet Coke explosion of all time. This allowed us to tap into the already large volume of content, interest and traffic surrounding the “Mentos + Diet Coke = Boom” theme.

The video sat on YouTube for 10 months, receiving over 13,000 views and 50 comments — good, but not great. This October it was posted to Break, where it blew up immediately with nearly half a million views in 48 hours. (As it stands today, the video has had over 1.5 million viewers and 900 comments.)

So what did we learn? The YouTube audience is mainstream, while Break is niche (mostly teenage and college males). Niche worked best in getting a large number of views, not to mention engagement in the comments section.

So go forth and create, and don’t forget to entertain.