How To Go Viral on YouTube in 2025: 6 Tips

In 2018, Ryan Trahan went viral on YouTube for the first time when he broke from his usual running-focused content and posted a humorous commentary video about a fellow YouTuber.

After a year of making similar videos, Ryan’s YouTube channel grew 4,900%, from 30,000 subscribers to 1.5 million. Today, Ryan has a whopping 21.5 million YouTube subscribers and owns a candy business, Joyride.

Though luck plays a role in virality, it’s possible to increase your odds of reaching more people’s screens. From creating engaging content to mastering search engine optimization (SEO) and designing eye-catching thumbnails, following best practices ups your odds of going viral on YouTube.

What is a viral video?

A viral video is a video that achieves a sudden (and snowballing) increase in views and engagement. There are a few characteristics that define a viral video.

First, it gains a lot of views outside of the content creator’s existing audience base. A viral video also gains a lot of views very quickly. And finally, viral videos typically garner a lot of audience engagement in the form of comments, likes, and shares.

How do YouTube videos go viral?

YouTube videos can go viral when the platform recommends them to a high number of users, who then engage with the video and share it with their friends, creating a snowball effect.

When recommending videos, YouTube factors in the reputation and quality of the YouTube channel that produced the video. YouTube also considers the individual viewer, including their:

• Past viewing behavior
• Likes and dislikes
• Subscriptions
• Feedback from satisfaction surveys

High engagement can also boost a video’s ranking in YouTube search results, which leads more people to see the video when they enter a search query. Here’s how YouTube determines search ranking:

• Relevance. YouTube looks at factors including title, tags, description, and the content itself to see if the video matches the search query.
• Engagement. YouTube considers how other users have interacted with the video in the past. Specifically, the platform looks at how long users spend watching the video after typing in certain queries.
• Quality. YouTube considers whether the publishing YouTube channel has expertise in the subject.
• Searcher’s history. YouTube takes the user’s search and watch history into consideration to deliver personalized search results.

While there’s no sure-fire secret to virality, you can increase your chances by optimizing your content for YouTube’s algorithm by producing authoritative, high-quality videos.

How to go viral on YouTube

Here are some more best practices:

• Use eye-catching thumbnails
• Experiment with short-form content
• Write attention-grabbing titles
• Hook your viewers
• Post consistently
• Prioritize engagement and shareability

Because trends are always changing, there is no one way to go viral on YouTube, but viral videos share many commonalities. Here are a few tips to give your videos the best shot at viral status:

Use eye-catching thumbnails

“If there’s one thing you should absolutely obsess about as a professional YouTuber, it’s your thumbnail,” says Rebecca Vilsan, a YouTube specialist at Shopify. “It’s your thumbnail that gets the click, not your video content.”

When it comes to thumbnails, simplicity is key. You want to quickly communicate what your video is about. “The biggest thumbnail mistake creators make is trying to cram too much information into the thumbnail instead of focusing on one clear, compelling message,” says Rebecca.

“Look at creators like Ryan Trahan or MrBeast—they almost never use text in their thumbnails, and when they do, it’s very strategic,” Rebecca explains. “Every element of the thumbnail has a specific purpose; nothing is random.”

For example, the thumbnail for Ryan’s most popular video (“I Tried Every Seat on the Most Expensive Airline”) features side-by-side images of the creator, one labeled “Economy” and the other “First Class.” The “Economy” image shows Ryan in a brightly lit cabin holding a paper cup, while in the “First Class” image, Ryan enjoys mood lighting and wears sunglasses and a gold neck pillow. The thumbnail shows viewers exactly what to expect—and builds intrigue—with minimal text.

Here are some YouTube thumbnail best practices:

• Keep it simple. Don’t overcrowd your thumbnail by adding too many graphic features like text overlays, blurs, and arrows. Try not to include too many faces, either.
• Make it mobile-friendly. Thumbnails appear quite small on mobile devices, so make sure viewers can understand your thumbnail when in a smaller size.
• Follow the one-second rule. Viewers should have a rough understanding of what your video is about with a one-second glance at your thumbnail alone.

The best thing to do is start experimenting to see what works for your channel. The “Edit” tab in YouTube Studio lets you change your thumbnail later, so test a few options.

Experiment with short-form content

YouTube Shorts are vertical videos, from 15 seconds to three minutes long. Their vertical positioning is a particularly good fit for mobile viewers, because of the dimensions of an upright phone screen.

Mobile users can view an endless stream of short-form videos from the “Shorts” tab at the bottom of the YouTube app. That makes Shorts a great way to get in front of new audiences—and increase your chances of going viral.

If you already create long-form videos for your YouTube channel, try repurposing your content into Shorts. Shorts are also a good opportunity to experiment with more casual, less polished content like the kind you might find on other social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels.

Tip: Rebecca recommends using the YouTube mobile app to post Shorts, because it has platform-specific features like access to YouTube’s trending music library and built-in AI tools.

Write attention-grabbing titles

When it comes to writing headlines that get clicks, Rebecca says there’s no universal formula for success. “Title strategy depends entirely on your creator type, audience, and growth stage,” she explains.

First, consider your audience and the type of creator you are. For example, a beauty brand posting educational videos about sustainability might use more serious titles than a content creator publishing slapstick videos.

Review competitors to see what types of titles work for your target audience and channel type. Consider using Google Trends to see what people are looking up. Then title your videos with these search terms and major keywords in mind.

Take into account your channel’s size: “YouTube’s algorithm is sophisticated enough to understand your content through audio transcription and visual analysis within seconds,” Rebecca explains. “Your title primarily helps with initial categorization and search discoverability.”

When you start a YouTube channel, you’ll need to teach YouTube to properly categorize your videos by using more descriptive titles. Rebecca breaks down how to title your videos according to your channel size:

• 0–20,000 subscribers. Your titles should be as specific as possible.
• 20,000–100,000. You can start adding a bit of intrigue into your titles.
• 100,000–1 million: Start focusing on titles that pique users’ interest or hook them emotionally.
• 1 million+ subscribers. You can start using less descriptive and more creative titles

For example, Epic Gardening chose a highly-specific title for one of its earlier viral videos from 2020: “How to Grow Ginger in Containers And Get a Huge Harvest.” This 2023 title, in contrast, prioritizes intrigue over specificity: “We Buried Common Kitchen Scraps in the Garden and THIS Happened.”

Hook your viewers

One way to increase engagement on a video is to include a strong hook in the first seconds that convinces viewers to keep watching. There are several ways to make an engaging hook, including teasing a payoff that comes at the end of your video, posing a question you promise to answer later, or including something funny and surprising to subvert your viewers’ expectations.

In Ryan Trahan’s “I Tried Every Seat on the Most Expensive Airline,” it’s clear the payoff will be a review of every seat on Etihad Airway’s Airbus A380, including “The Residence,” a mini apartment with an ensuite shower, which Ryan teases within the first five seconds of the video.

But 14 seconds in, Ryan introduces another hook: The reason he’s traveling is to deliver an item to his friend Isaac’s brother in Singapore. This adds an element of adventure that takes Ryan’s video beyond a standard airline review.

Throughout the 25-minute video, Ryan references his hooks to keep his viewers engaged, from checking that the item (breakfast cereal) is safe to noticing the smell of business class service when seated in premium economy. After Ryan delivers the cereal to his friend’s brother, we get a new reason to keep watching: a letter and Singaporean snack to bring back to Isaac.

These tactics keep the viewer engaged to increase watchtime, a key factor in YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. You can see your average watchtime in the in-platform YouTube Analytics, which also shows detailed data like average watchtime by country.

Post consistently

One of the time-tested strategies that seems to help YouTube creators go viral is posting consistently. “We upload videos every single week and we film every single week for new content,” says popular YouTube chef Wil Yeung. He notes that the success of those videos is “up to the YouTube gods.”

Posting consistently gives you more opportunities to experiment with your content to find what has the broadest reach. The key is to not get discouraged—even seasoned YouTubers can’t predict what will go viral.

For example, a gingerbread recipe video Wil expected to do particularly well flopped, even though he put extensive time and resources into it and scheduled it to come out at the perfect time, around Christmas. “We were just like throwing everything at it, guns out. But that video is probably one of the worst-performing videos,” Wil says.

Prioritize engagement and shareability

Virality isn’t just about view count—the YouTube algorithm also rewards engagement metrics like comments, likes, and shares by pushing those videos to more people. Whether you’re responding directly to comments from your YouTube subscribers or even commenting on other creators’ posts and videos, engaging with the community can help your videos take off quickly.

Another way to boost engagement is to create videos likely to be shared often. While long-form videos like how-tos and explainers are a popular genre and get a lot of views, they may not be highly shareable.

Mix this kind of content with relatable content like AMAs (ask-me-anything videos), behind-the-scenes clips, and even popular challenges. Just make sure these lighthearted, shorter videos are consistent with your brand voice. You don’t want to gain virality at the expense of your brand identity.

As a brand, that can mean expanding the focus of your content beyond your products directly. “It’s about awareness,” says social media consultant Rachel Karten. “We’re speaking to broader truths and jokes that would be funny or interesting to anyone, not just people who have tried your product before.”

Here’s an example from the soup dumpling company MìLà. This YouTube Short earned 23 million views by responding to a question that many curious viewers might have: “How does soup get in soup dumplings?”

How to leverage YouTube virality for your ecommerce businesses

• Use a call to action
• Leverage YouTube Shopping
• Build a community

If you run a YouTube channel as part of your ecommerce marketing strategy, it’s important to know how to leverage that hard-won virality into a real-life business opportunity. There are many ways, but here are a few to keep in mind:

Use a call to action

Tell your viewers what you’d like them to do with a call to action (CTA)—a succinct text prompt that tells viewers exactly what they should do next.

If your aim is to gain subscribers, you might include a graphic at the beginning of the video asking viewers to subscribe. If you want to boost engagement, you might pose a question and ask viewers to answer it in the comment section.

Or you could direct viewers to your website or blog so they can learn more about your brand. In this case, make sure to add a link in the video description or your bio so people know where to go.

Leverage YouTube Shopping

If your goal is to make money on YouTube by converting sales on your ecommerce site, you can use the native YouTube Shopping platform to showcase your products in your full-length videos, livestreams, and Shorts, and give users the opportunity to buy your linked products and YouTuber merch.

James Hofmann—who built a subscriber base of 2.39 million people for his YouTube channel centered on coffee—uses YouTube Shopping to direct viewers to his YouTube merch store Tens Hundreds Thousands. The shopping links appear below the video description, above the comments.

📚Read more: The Ultimate Guide to YouTube Marketing (2025)

Build a community

Virality can be fleeting, but a dedicated audience base can sustain your channel for years to come. These audience members can also turn into paying customers of an ecommerce store. This likely means finding a niche that makes your channel the go-to stop for content on that particular topic.

Kevin Espiritu, the founder of Epic Gardening, spent three years building up the audience base of his gardening media brand. He was monetizing his media channels with methods like affiliate marketing and brand deals.

“I looked at the landscape and I thought, ‘Why would I just accept a deal from a brand that I like working with? What do they really want? They want access to my audience, and I have that,’” Kevin says on an episode of Shopify Masters. “Why wouldn’t I at least try to offer something directly to that audience?” Now, Kevin sells gardening products on his own website.