Viral YouTube Video Gets Controversial Reaction

How many hits do you have to have to class a video as viral?

Well, readers let me tell you this, here at All Dry Damp Proofing Ltd it’s 300,000, and below we will explain why?

We are always looking to self-improve here at All Dry Damp Proofing whether that be learning new work practice, taking a new course or just using a new product, we just have to keep growing our minds.

That is why years ago we signed up for business coaching that was via a government scheme. Everyone had a chance to do this but it was a case of taking action and doing something about it. It also cost half of the fee.

On the course, we were told by the coach to start making videos to promote work. The coach showed us a video from when he had a construction company and it was a loft conversion they had just completed. He had made lots of mistakes and even filmed it in portrait (so it had black wings at the side).

This short 5min clip didn’t have tons of views, but because the coach had tagged it with Chesterfield all over then after 2-3 years this was still coming out top when people searched YouTube for loft conversions in Chesterfield. YouTube is the worlds second biggest search engine and it is free advertising, who wouldn’t want that for there company.

So we were given the task of making five 5 minute videos just to get our name out there and get used to filming ourselves to get out of the comfort zone, and this is where Damp Sam was born. I had to have a name on my Instagram account and everyone called me Sam and Damp is what I do, so hey presto!

I did all the videos on a Saturday morning at the offices we were renovating. It was so out of my comfort zone but I soldiered on, umming and erring.

That was it I uploaded them to an app I found called Capture and watched them for a week or so get a few views, then forgot about them and got on with improving our business and life in general.

A year later we were at a networking event and the same coach revisited the social media stuff again (like they do rinse and repeat) and he asked us again to do 5 short videos. I went to our YouTube channel to see how many views we had had on each of the previous 5 and they were all 40-60 views except one which had 4.5k in 1 year. I was like, Wow.

What I learned from re-watching the videos was that it is a How-to video and it showed people how to drill and inject a simple damp proof course (DPC) giving them some valuable content for nothing, nada, free. This is what I thought and all it was, in a nutshell, is stuff  I have done for the last 35 years. See the video

In that light bulb moment, I knew that the internet did work so I sat down and thought what would people like to see. From that moment on I decided that Damp Sam would show the world everything he knows good or bad about the building trade. I have taught apprentices year on year but to put all the knowledge into short videos for everyone to see would work better.

I had a moment of inspiration (as I always do being creative), there was a system that I had adapted for damp-proofing from a company called Safeguard Europe. The boffins here had designed a quick method to be able to knock off the damp plaster, drill and inject a new DPC, then re-plaster it all in one day, Genius.

I made the video at a house in Swinton and choose it because it was one long wall and ideal for this. Once the video was made I gave it the title The Biggest Kept Secret in Damp-Proofing and then put in all the SEO.

In the meantime, i had watched lots of podcasts from people I admire like Gary Vee, Grant Cardone and Tony Robbins who all said to keep putting out content no matter how small or large. So we now put out videos on our channel all the time.

So a week passed by and i noticed that the second video has overtaken the first one we made and has got 6k hits. Another week and it’s pushing up to 10k and I’m now thinking were viral so I look in to monetizing it and also I link both videos together. Once both have 10k hits they are both monetized and we are then up to 15k in 3 weeks which is phenomenal for us.

So we keep getting more and more hits gradually and then until we are up to 45k and then something happened. I started getting lots of emails saying this person has downloaded the free book on damp or she has subscribed and I’m saying to everyone something is happening here as the views went up and up. So now we are in month 5 and we have 150,000 views on a video that is 8mins filmed on my I Phone and with dodgy sound.

We have currently made $850 from the two monetized videos which are not bad to say all I did was film some knowledge in my head. One of the things we have had as a company and something you can do no matter what scale you’re at is accumulate work and business via people watching the films and wanting us to sort out their damp issues. We got 3 jobs directly from the video worth £15k to us. Bear in mind we are not a big company just small and if you don’t want to go out Networking with all the false smiles & promises just film a genuine video of something you’re passionate about and that will come across rather than any mistakes you make. We are not perfect, the videos go out unedited because we are showing real life situation not fake news.

At first, with the video Dampproofings biggest secret we had negative comments and some abuse so I decided to take them out. Then after listening to Gary Vee I made a decision to leave them in and answer all questions. If anyone wants to meet up and discuss why they think it’s a wrong system then I will, we respect everyone’s opinion and do know that not everyone sees it as we do. Damp work has been my life in one way or another for the past 35 years and along that road, i have learned more than most and I’m still learning and I am open to new opportunities. You should too, The internet is only just getting started people and from the phone in your pocket, you can ultimately become anything you want.

We don’t have to sit in libraries looking referencing books like I had to do in the 80s & 90s you can do it sat on the toilet if you want.

You need to embrace the fact that to survive you have to keep learning and moving forward, don’t stand still for a minute.

Watch out for Damp Sams podcasts.

If you like what you have read please share with your friends and go to our website where you can read lots more bogs and download free e books.

if you need and of the dryzone stuff in video click the link to order anything from the Dry shield Cream, Dryzone cream damp kit, or the dry grip adheasive

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Have a fantastic day.