---
title: '5 Ways to Get Viral Video Ideas (Every YouTuber Should Know)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=hxzpZnmGlYg'
video_id: 'hxzpZnmGlYg'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 459
---

# 5 Ways to Get Viral Video Ideas (Every YouTuber Should Know)

> Source: [5 Ways to Get Viral Video Ideas (Every YouTuber Should Know)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=hxzpZnmGlYg)

## Summary

The video presents five strategies for generating viral video ideas, including the absurdity formula, social hacking, the outlier method, the research tab, and the recommendation station. The creator shares personal examples and tools like VidIQ to help YouTubers consistently produce engaging content.

### Key Points

- **Absurdity Formula** [00:14] — Create content that is within the realm of possibility but seems almost impossible. Example: 'I made a game in one line of code' got 2M views. Must deliver on the claim to avoid clickbait.
- **Social Hacking** [03:10] — Capitalize on familiarity and relevance by collaborating with popular figures or trending topics. Example: George Jenko's video with Andrew Tate got 12M views.
- **Outlier Method** [04:42] — Find videos that perform extremely well in adjacent niches and adapt them. Use tools like VidIQ to identify outliers. Example: Adapted Alex Hormozi's millionaire blueprint to YouTube growth.
- **Research Tab** [06:09] — Use YouTube Studio's research tab to find content gaps—high demand, low supply topics. This increases chances of virality.
- **Recommendation Station** [06:52] — Use VidIQ Chrome extension to see outlier scores on YouTube recommendations. Repackage high-scoring videos from adjacent niches.

### Conclusion

By applying these five strategies—absurdity, social hacking, outlier method, research tab, and recommendation station—YouTubers can consistently generate viral video ideas and grow their channels.

## Transcript

I use five main strategies to come up
with viral video ideas that get views
like this for myself and also my clients
and in this video I'm going to share all
five of them with you so that you'll
never run out of Banger video ideas ever
again so let's start with strategy
number one the absurdity formula the
absurdity formula relies on creating
content that is within the realm of
possibility but is so absurd that it
seems almost impossible and I'm going to
show you how to use it for yourself in
the early days of YouTube it wasn't that
hard to get a ton of views if you knew
what you were doing because the
standards for Content were so much lower
than what they are now for example 6
years ago Mr Beast published this video
where he gave away $10,000 which was
absolutely crazy for the time it ended
up getting 10 million views whereas this
video on giving away $10,000 that was
posted by a Creator who has way more
subs than Mr Beast did at the time only
got 35,000 views which is pretty good
nonetheless but is a long shot off of Mr
B's 10 million nowadays if an unknown
Creator were to publish this video it
would probably struggle to even crack
1,000 views potentially because giving
away $10,000 in a video is no longer
absurd enough because it's been done so
many times to weigh bigger scales so to
use the absurdity formula you need to
come up with ideas that people think are
absurd or aren't possible on my old
gamedev Channel Nate Dev I created a
video called I made a game in one line
of code which got over 2 million views
the reason this video did so well is
that most people understand that even
small video games require hundreds if
not thousands of lines of code to make
them work so doing it in one line of
code was crazy to people however I
mentioned earlier that it also needs to
be within the realm of possibility
despite seeming almost impossible and
this is important because if you make an
absurd claim and then don't deliver on
it in the video your viewers will get
upset and click off your video killing
its performance on the flip side if you
make a bold claim like I did and then
actually deliver on it you'll get way
more clicks on your video than you even
know it to do with in fact I literally
did this with two other videos on the
exact same channel that did the same
thing as the first so to use this
technique for yourself you want to first
put yourself in the mind of the viewer
and then write down 10 to 20 absurd
video ideas don't even worry about
whether these ideas are possible right
now just generate the absolute best
videos you can think of for example if
you make Finance content you might want
to make a video called I don't know I
built a$0 million business in 24 hours
or if you make cooking videos for
example maybe you'll come up with a
video called cooking a five-star gourmet
meal with $5 just make sure your ideas
don't seem too impossible or viewers
will think you're lying and won't click
and once you've written down a bunch of
video ideas you'll want to figure out
exactly how you're going to deliver on
them which might seem really difficult
until you get creative and realize that
you can cap a little bit if you just
follow it up with a super educational or
entertaining video to make up for it for
example in this video where I made a
game without using my computer I
technically made the game without using
my computer because I actually ended up
calling my friends on my phone and
telling them how to make the game with
their computers and the only reason this
worked and didn't feel like clickbait to
my audience is because I followed it up
with a super entertaining story and
video but if this strategy doesn't end
up working as well as you'd like then
don't worry because I have four more
strategies that I'm going to show you
for coming up with viral video ideas
which leads me on to number two the
social hack social hacking involves
creating an idea that capitalizes on
familiarity and relevance even large
Brands like Nike outside of YouTube use
social hacking like when they partnered
with Michael Jordan to create the Jordan
shoe line and I'm going to show you how
you can use this method as well but
first take a look at George jenko's
Channel you can see that his videos get
10 of thousands of views with the odd
video getting a few million views and
then bam he creates a video with Andrew
Tate becoming his most popular video and
gets over 12 million views the reason
social hacking he knew that his core
audience was in the range of 18 to
25-year-old men and what is this
audience love Andrew Tate so he got in
contact with his best friend Patrick f
David asked him to connect with Andrew
flew all the way out to Romania and then
did a podcast with him he took on a ton
of risk but it paid off because of the
power of social hacking his audience was
super familiar with Andrew so they
clicked right away now the good news is
that you don't even need to have
somebody famous come onto your channel
to utilize social hacking instead you
can always just capitalize on stuff
that's currently trending for example
the game power world recently blew up so
on our client's Channel we knew a video
about it would probably do well however
every single video about po World
circulating YouTube at the time was
talking about the game's controversies
and we knew that if we didn't do
something different we just get lost in
the SE of video saying the exact same
stuff over and over again and probably
wouldn't get fused so we took a
different approach and instead focused
on PO world's marketing success and it
became a 20x outlier on the channel
pulling in over 20,000 views on a newish
300 sub Channel and speaking of outliers
let's move on to number three the
outlier method an outlier is a video
that performs extremely well compared to
everything else on a given Channel now a
lot of outliers come as a result of luck
but these days there are tools that
specifically help you find outliers and
I'm going to show you the one that I use
every single day so first you'll want to
find niches that are adjacent to yours
meaning you share a very similar
audience with them for example the
Roblox Niche is very adjacent to the
Minecraft Niche the female fashion Niche
is adjacent to the male fashion Niche
and the YouTube education Niche is
actually adjacent to the finance Niche
basically F niches with a very high
audience overlap to yours then you'll
want to use the tool one of 10 to search
these niches for videos that are huge
outliers and then adapt them to fit your
Niche for example when generating ideas
for this channel I search through the
finance Niche because it has a very
similar audience to the YouTube
education Niche and found Alex horos
video if I wanted to become a
millionaire in 2024 this is what I would
do full blueprint which was a pretty big
outlier I then adapted it for my own
channel and created the video the
blueprint to blow up on YouTube in 2024
and it got a one of 10 almost instantly
one of 10 has also been kind enough to
sponsor this video but I genuinely use
this tool every single day to give
myself fresh inspiration for video ideas
on a plethora of different channels I'm
working on and it's never let me down in
fact it's literally the third tab in my
bookmark marks bar for easy access and
for good reason so if you want to use
one of 10 like I do then click the link
in the description below for a 20% off
discount code next up is number four the
research tab alongside recommendations a
lot of viewers also find videos through
YouTube search features and you can use
that to your advantage with the research
technique to use this technique you want
to first go to YouTube Studio analytics
and then click the research tab where
you'll be able to see things that
viewers of your channel are searching
for when looking for a video in fact
it'll also show you searches that had
what YouTube calls content gap which are
gaps in the market where there's high
demand for a specific search term and
not a lot of Supply or you know content
to deliver on that search term so if
you're ever stuck for a topic idea I
suggest checking out the research tab on
your channel and using a Content Gap
search you already know people want it
and that in turn will increase the
chances of it going viral if again you
follow it up with a banger video and
finally number five is the
recommendation station the
recommendation station is the simplest
of the five strategies to keep it simple
here's a quick tutorial on how to do it
first you want to download the one of 10
Chrome extension using my link in the
description below then you'll want to go
to the YouTube recommendations page and
the one of 10 Chrome extension will then
give you the outlier scores on the side
of each video once you find a video that
is in a niche that's somewhat adjacent
to yours you can then just repackage
that video and then use it on your own
channel very similar to how we do it
with the one of 10 tool except it's so
much easier and you can even do this
while you're on a break watching YouTube
or doing anything else anyway I hope you
found this video useful and if I missed
any of your favorite ways to come up
with video ideas then just just comment
them down below so that I can make
another video like
this