Never in a million years did I think I would be writing this post.  Wow!  As of this morning (February 1, 2017), our video has twenty-six THOUSAND views!?! It is still so surreal to me.  When I recorded Hub’s reaction to finding out he would be a father, I honestly didn’t even have any intentions of even uploading it to YouTube.  It was solely for the pregnancy announcement DVD I was planning to make.  But then I quit my job & started this blog. So, I started doing some research on YouTube’s Adsense program & decided, why not?  All, I have to do is upload a video & I might make a buck or two.  Worth a shot, right?! Was it ever!

So, here is how our pregnancy announcement video went viral.

Step 1:  Get pregnant, lol.  But really, whenever that wonderful day comes around, try your best to keep the secret to yourself for a few hours!  I went & bought an “I Love My Daddy” bib & wrapped it in order to tell Hubs.  It was December, so the “early Christmas gift” card worked in my favor.

Step 2:  Set your camera up!  Close enough that facial expressions can be seen, but far enough that the “mood” can be set.  I’m not stealthy enough to have the camera hidden, so Hubs knew he was being recorded, he just didn’t know why.  I just used my iPhone — make sure you have plenty of storage!

Step 3:  Reveal pregnancy to Hubs & relish in the sweet, sweet moments to follow.  Take in every minute.  Every second.  Your lives are changing forever and the emotions that will overcome you are tremendous.

Step 3:  Once you come down off your “OMG, we’re going to be parents” high, edit your video.  Our original copy is ten minutes long.  It doesn’t matter HOW sweet the reactions are, no one is going to sit & watch a ten minute video.  I cut the video to right when I was giving him the present through our first embrace.  I finished the video with a little tidbit where Hubs shared his excitement with the camera, lol.  The final length was 58 seconds.

Step 4:  Upload to YouTube & use relevant tags!  I titled the video “Surprise Pregnancy Announcement to Husband” & gave a brief description.   I used the following tags:  pregnant, pregnancy announcement, husband, baby, surprise announcement, surprise pregnancy announcement, surprise pregnancy announcement to husband, pregnancy, announcement, surprise.

Step 5:  Let YouTube work its magic!!   I uploaded our pregnancy announcement video January 2, 2017 & I got a Facebook message from a writer at LittleThings on January 18, 2017.  Little did I know, we were already at 2,000+ views.   He asked permission to write an article about both this video & one revealing my pregnancy to our best friends.  After talking it over with Hubs, we gave him permission, not knowing what to expect.

From there, Facebook did the rest!!  The article was published January 30, 2017 and so far, 171,811 people have viewed it.   It’d be pretty cool if I was getting those views counting towards my YouTube total!!  But the LittleThings article did lead to another article being published which has helped my views skyrocket.   The video is getting a couple hundred views an hour!  So we will see how long this goes on, but regardless it is so surreal seeing yourself float around the internet!  Hopefully we even make some pocket change!

I’d love to watch your pregnancy announcement videos. Viral or not, I’m all about watching videos that encompass so much love!  I’m such a softy, lol.