GUEST POST: Why These Comedians Went Viral in February
An analytical breakdown of some recent, viral comedy videos.
Hello! I’m David Zucker, a former data analyst at TikTok that now helps comedians grow their audience. I incorporate data-driven analysis to make my global roster of clients go viral with purpose. I also run a humble mailing list of my own where I blather about digital marketing, break down viral comedy videos, and make an annual Edinburgh Fringe Guide.
Last month for Cramer Comedy Newsletter, I introduced a monthly round-up called “Virality Bites”, where I analyze a few recent viral videos from a variety of comedians.
We received positive feedback on this segment last month, so we’re back at it again today.
The first section of today’s analysis will be available for all subscribers, but the rest will be for paid subscribers only.
So without further ado, let’s get into it:
Reuben Solo: Graph Joke
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Quick Stats (at time of writing):
647.7K Views, 107.9K Likes, 178 Comments, 993 Shares, 5360 Saves
Like PCT: 16.7% | Comment PCT: 0.02% | Share PCT: 0.1% | Save PCT: 0.8%
Video Length: 51 sec
Hashtags: #standup #standupcomedy #graph
This bit boasts a Like PCT of 16.7%. In other words, 1 in every 6 people who were exposed to this video pressed like on it. That is insanely high!!
The low Share PCT is likely because he previously posted a version of this joke in June, so the novelty factor isn’t quite there for his 560K+ followers like it was last summer:
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Original Video’s Stats (at time of writing):
972.5K Views, Like PCT: 15.1% | Share PCT: 1.6% | Save PCT: 0.9%
Although the Like PCT was roughly the same, the Share PCT was 16x higher on the original.
A rising star in the Australian comedy scene with a penchant for meta and self-referential humor, Reuben recently released his hour-long special, Feedback Loop, on YouTube in December. It’s racked up 21K+ views in 3 months, and he’s been using vertically cropped clips from the special as a means of promoting his upcoming tour.
This is what the Gary V’s of the world refer to as making “micro-content” out of your “pillar content”, and precisely what I advise my clients with existing specials to do.
In theory, if you’re funny once every minute in your hour, that’s 60 potential clips.
Post those 2-3 times a week and you have enough content to last you half a year.
What’s also great about chopping up previously released specials is that you’re not “burning material”. Unlike a band, who is mainly on tour to play the songs from their most recently released album, a comedian does precisely the opposite. Unless you’re Andrew Dice Clay telling his Dirty Nursery Rhymes, the jokes don’t really hit the same if the crowd is saying the punch lines with you.
My main note to Reuben, as he presumably continues to clip up bits from his special, would be to make sure each clip is over a minute long.
If you scroll through his recent 20-30 videos, the biggest factor on their reach (total views) was video length. The longer the video, the higher the view count.
As we discussed last time, TikTok is financially incentivizing top creators to post longer videos via the Creativity Program (which just exited its Beta last week).
Not to mention that Matt Rife, the gold standard for stand-up comedy on TikTok, is routinely posting videos that are 3, 5, and 7 minutes long.
Still not convinced? Here’s a notification I received within the TikTok app last week:
The notification continues:
To paraphrase the late Maya Angelou, “When TikTok shows you who they are, believe them”.
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