What a Fake Justin Bieber Prank Can Teach us About Social Media Marketing

Many years ago, back when prank channels were big on YouTube, one creator found a Justin Bieber lookalike, dressed him up to look like Justin Bieber, and filmed him eating a burrito.

It was intended to be candid footage. The actor playing Justin wasn’t eating the burrito the normal way (end to end), instead, he was eating it like a hamburger (centre out).

They tried posting on Reddit under some celebrity and Justin Bieber subreddits, but it didn’t really pop-off.

They switched their approach and posted the image on a subreddit called “Mildly Infuriating” (see below), which showcased videos and images that were likely to get under people’s skin.

They used the headline, “Justin Bieber eating a burrito sideways.”

This time, the image blew up (also see below). Even major news networks were talking about it. These pranksters seemingly fooled everyone.

My point is… when making content, you could use the regular title, thumbnail, and hashtags one might expect.

Or, you could come at it from a completely different angle and see what happens.

We tried this with a client recently and instead of targeting C++ developers, we targeted gamers. We used a clickbaity title and thumbnail.

The video received 10x more traffic, had high watch-through rate, and spawned an entirely new series where we used this similar approach with other videos.

You may say, so what, who cares if your audience doesn’t see it?

Two reasons why it matters:

A rising tide lifts all boats.
You don’t know who are on those boats and what the net will drag in.

The videos draw people in because they are entertaining. We casually mention or showcase our product, without being overly salesy. It’s more indirect selling. That feeds our algo and allows us to reach more viewers.

Let the comments do the selling: “Hey, what tool are you using?” You could even use comment seeding to get that conversation going.

To do this right, you really have to sit down, get creative, do some research, and brainstorm an entirely new strategy.

How to Increase Video Views on YouTube

Here are a few ways to increase video views on YouTube:

Look for ways to optimize the video to increase search or discoverability, including updating the thumbnail
Assume that people love this topic and make more videos about it (then create a playlist or chop up the videos into Shorts)
Put a little bit of ad spend behind the videos to boost it to your audience
Make some modifications to the video (e.g. ask people to subscribe, add a subscribe animation, add new captions, reduce the length, redo the voice over…) and reupload it
Promote the videos on high-traffic webpages
Promote the videos in emails and other DTC channels
Look into the webpages the videos are a part of and look for ways to optimize to rank higher in SERPs
Add video cards and end screens on your other videos