How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of the World's Most Inspiring Presentations, revised and expanded new edition, with a foreword by Richard St. John

CHAPTER 22

Helping Your TED Video Go Viral

TIP 111: Make your talk surprising, cute, creative, and emotional.

Professor Yoram Wind of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania knows more than anybody else on the planet what it takes for videos to go viral. He figured out a recipe that improves the odds but does not guarantee that a video will generate millions of clicks on the Internet. Here is how he did it.

Professor Wind started with a list of the 73 most popular web advertising videos, according to the Visible Measures database. The videos ranged from 7 million to over 81 million views. He then paired each of the viral videos with a nonviral video that was as similar as possible. The pairs typically shared the same product brands ...