“I can make any short go viral”

[Terence]

Here’s a really cool video that interviews Jenny Hoyos, a 17-year old YouTube content creator who has made a living off creating viral shorts:

In the video, she shares some of her tricks for making her shorts go viral. What are 3 things you’ve learnt from her about making shorts, and why?

P.S. This is an internal exercise that the Terresquall team is doing among ourselves, but feel free to respond to this thread if it interests you!

[Khor Kok Tong]

1. A good short needs to be simple, rewatchable, and has something that encourages the audience to watch till the end as this is key to maintaining a high retention rate, which is essential for a short to go viral.

2. Shorts are about adding a story and a twist. To engage the audience from the start, it’s essential to include a hook that communicates why they should be interested and use foreshadowing to set viewer expectations for what’s going to be at the end. You want to follow the expectations but towards the end of the short, introduce a twist to the story.

3. Shorts vary across platforms; what works on one might not work on another. For YouTube shorts, you’ll want a slower pace instead of densely packing the video with information. Additionally, there should be a stronger emphasis on storytelling.

[Miguel Cardenas]

1. Storytelling is a key part in making the short successful. You need to tell a story through the limited time you have in the short to keep people interested, while also adding elements like irony and twists to keep it entertaining and exciting like how Jenny started cooking to earn money to fix her kitchen; This short had a clear story and there was irony in the circumstances

2. Creating good shorts is an artform and it’s best to start off by learning from other short creators and see what techniques worked for them and adapting them for your own use. However, you also should put your own twist on them to differentiate yourself from them and thus add something new and unique to you in the shorts scene.

3. Don’t limit yourself when it comes to seeking inspiration for video ideas. I tend to use either my own imagination or personal experiences as inspiration for whatever I would like to create, while refraining from AI because I doubt its capabilities and I refrain from watching others to get ideas so it doesn’t seem like I’m ripping off somebody unless its become a huge trend. However, Jenny does not let that stop her when it comes to just generating video ideas, so she has a lot more possibilities and opportunities to work with. Thus, I should be more open to sources of inspiration I don’t normally make use of

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