Pets have always been stars in their home. We all love our pets and revel in their hilarious behaviour. However, until relatively recently, their best moments were seen only by family and friends. All that changed with the advent of social media and now many pets are worldwide celebrities with huge followings. Could your pet be one of them?

The Video Revolution

It really doesn’t seem that long ago that the first camcorders became available. They were cumbersome pieces of equipment that recorded footage to tape cassettes but they seemed like a miracle at the time!  It would have been difficult to imagine just how quickly technology would advance. Just a few years later almost everyone owned a smartphone which enabled them to record anything and at any time.

YouTube and Your Pet

Three entrepreneurial employees of PayPal were quick to see the potential of digital recordings and began developing a video sharing website. They activated the domain www.youtube.com in February 2005 and two months later the site was open for business. YouTube experienced phenomenal growth and began to influence everything from fashion to politics. People could upload footage of just about anything for free and that included their pets.

 

Celebrity Incomes

YouTube, Facebook and Instagram have made stars out of many animals which would have otherwise lived anonymous lives. Many have garnered an incredible number of followers from across the globe. These social media celebrities bring a lot of pleasure to their fans but they have also made their owners a fortune. Carefully conducted, monetised campaigns have enabled pet lovers to turn their pampered pooches and cute cats into household names and cash cows.

So could your pet be the next internet sensation? There must be an immediate appeal to your videos and pictures in order to engage your audience. The human attention span appears to have been shrunk by excessive internet usage! People demand immediacy so your pet must be able to grab viewers’ attention and keep it. It obviously helps if they are adorable and an element of humour is a must. You are unlikely to gain much success with a 30 minute video of your snake doing nothing and yet a 30 second short of your cat being hilarious could go viral. But your clips don’t have to feature cats and dogs.

 

Feathered Friends

Birds are amongst the most viewed pets on social media and it isn’t difficult to see why. Exotic birds possess amazing intelligence and unique personalities. They can also mimic and talk which makes them riveting viewing. Some of the feathered YouTube stars have clearly been coached to exhibit certain behaviours which work for YouTube and the footage often feels contrived. However, these birds remain incredibly compelling viewing.

So you are unlikely to make a fortune out of your tortoise or tarantula, although stranger things have happened. But if you own a really cute or unusual moggy, a pretty pooch or a bird with a big mouth then you might have an internet sensation on your hands.