1. Keep it simple. Many of the simplest ideas have become the most viral. Don’t try to cram lots of different ideas and concepts into one video as it will most likely get lost in the fog of other snappier more easily understood videos.

2. Keep it short. If your video is 10 minutes long, think again. Only the most committed online video obsessive will stick with one thing for that long.

3. Make it funny. The test of whether something is funny is not just that you find it funny, it needs to appeal to the mainstream if you have any hope of making it viral. Test it on friends by all means, and if they aren’t laughing out loud at the pay-off then it probably isn’t that funny after all.

4. Include something risqué/sexy. Perhaps an obvious one, but throwing in some sort of nudity, ideally funny and clever nudity, can often be enough to make things spread far and wide so to speak. But don’t go too far, no one’s going to send their friends out and out porn.

5. Include something controversial. You don’t need to offend people, but being brave enough to make some sort of comment on society, or showing something that will stimulate some debate on the internet is sure to make your video go viral. This is a tried and tested method for some charities and causes on the web.

6. Include a very clever technique. If you can’t think of anything funny, and you don’t like being controversial, then spending some time creating something that looks particularly difficult, time-consuming and above all interesting to watch, can help your video to spread. This is how some big brand commercials end up becoming virals as people try to work out how something was done, or just watch it and think ‘wow, that’s really clever, I wish I’d thought of that’.

7. Make it relevant to a recent news item, especially celebrity news. A sure fire way to help push your video into the stratosphere is to jump on a recent news item that has already spread around the web, and create something that picks fun at a celebrity, or a politician, or takes a sideways look at something in the news, like an election or a sports event.

8. Don’t just make an advert. There is something people don’t like about videos that simply promote a product, unless of course it fulfils most of the above in some way. With some notable exceptions, most ads on TV aren’t particularly clever or funny, but often more informational. No one will send their friends a video explaining the benefits of a product.

9. If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Many people give up trying to make viral videos because they think that their video deserves to go viral but for some reason doesn’t catch on. Don’t give up. If the above criteria are fulfilled in some measure then eventually something will stick. And remember, just because you think it’s great, other people might not. Test it out on people who will give you honest feedback on whether they would actually send it on. And always ask yourself the question ‘would I send this on to other people if I was sent it by a stranger?’

10. Seed the video well. This could actually be it’s own list of ten ways to seed a video, but that’s for another day. If you don’t know what seeding is then you have to be extremely lucky for your video to go viral in any kind of scale. The very fact that companies exist who do nothing but seeding should tell you that it is a strategy often employed to make videos go viral.