How to go Viral with Veo 3

Welcome back to The Signal, a weekly letter where I share stories, trends, strategies and insights to help you level up as a creator and win on the internet.

Today we are talking about how to get the best results with Google’s Veo 3.

The AI video phenomenon

Veo 3 videos might just be the most viral thing on the internet right now.

Stromtrooper vlogs, historical POVs and AI yetis are all over the timeline.

My friend PJ has done tens of millions of views with his ‘bible influencer’ videos.

(PJ actually runs a great newsletter dedicated to AI filmmaking tips. Tell him I say hello!)

My street interview video did serious numbers.

Hell, Mr. Beast is looking for Veo 3 creators and Casey Neistat is even praising AI video.

AI video is here to stay. It absolutely crushes in the algorithms.

And it will only get crazier from here.

Because audiences don’t care how something is made. They just want to be entertained, educated or inspired.

And there is a real arbitrage opportunity right now.

So, where do you access Veo 3, and how do you get the best results?

Let’s dive in.

Where to access Veo 3

To access Veo 3 directly from Google, you have to pay $250/mo for Google AI Ultra, which is $124.99 for the first 3 months. Then, you interface with it via Gemini or Flow.

This gives you 12,500 credits, which is 125 Veo 3 generations.

That’s right, Veo 3 is not cheap.

Fortunately, the model is now available via API on platforms like Freepik and Krea.

You can also generate directly on FAL or Replicate for ~$0.75 / second.

FAL announced today that they are the first platform to enable 9:16 generations on Veo 3.

How to prompt Veo 3

To avoid spending a fortune on generating with Veo 3, let’s go over some best practices.

The more descriptive you are, the better.

What’s the format of the video? Who are the characters? What are they saying? How are they saying it? What does the environment look like? What camera is being used to film it? Is it hand-held?

You get the point. The more descriptive you are with your prompt, the better results you’re going to get.

The easiest way to come up with the best text-to-video prompts? Use ChatGPT or your favorite LLM.

Include all of the details you can think of, and let ChatGPT format the prompt.

Here’s how I prompted ChatGPT:

Here’s the very detailed text-to-video prompt it gave me:

Here’s a GIF of the video that Veo 3 generated using that prompt (click here to watch it in full quality with sound)

To give you another example of effective prompts, here is the one used for the viral stormtrooper videos.

You can change this to fit what you’re after.

A cinematic handheld selfie-style medium shot, set on a snowy battlefield at dusk. A stormtrooper in full white armor holds the camera at arm’s length, his helmeted face perfectly framed as snowflakes swirl gently in the cold air. His armor is lightly dusted with frost and ash. Behind him, a vast frozen landscape stretches into a shallow-focus blur—explosions flicker in the distance, and streaks of missile trails arc across the twilight sky.

The stormtrooper slowly pans the camera sideways, revealing another stormtrooper crouched in the snow, carefully sculpting a snowman with exaggerated focus. Bits of snow cling to his gloved hands and leg plates as he works.

Back on camera, the first stormtrooper yells with a sense of urgency: “Okay so we’re in the middle of an active firefight, people are screaming, and Greg’s building a darn snowman.”

Here’s the prompt I used for the viral street interview style😀 

A high-energy, spontaneous TikTok-style street interview.

Daytime setting, filmed vertically on a smartphone. A confident, charismatic interviewer approaches a random pedestrian in a busy public area (like Broadway, Venice Beach, or downtown Nashville) and asks an unexpected, provocative, or playful question, often flirtatious or shocking.

The camera is handheld, slightly shaky, with quick zooms and punchy cuts. The interviewee delivers an outrageous, meme-worthy response with bold facial expressions and Southern charm. Bystanders laugh or react in the background. Humor is raw, viral, and unapologetic. Urban setting, natural lighting, with ambient street sounds and fast-paced editing. The interviewee's response details just how much she loves tech commentary and videos from RPN.

Character Consistency with Veo 3