How we score virality (and why shares beat likes)

Every video in the CreatorIQ database carries a score from 50 to 99. It answers one question: how repeatable is this success? Not how big the creator is — how well the video itself performed, relative to when it was posted.

The formula

engagement = (likes + 4·comments + 6·shares + 3·collects) / views
velocity   = views / hours_since_posted

rawScore   = 0.55 · ln(1 + engagement·1000)
           + 0.45 · ln(1 + velocity/1000)

score      = 50 + 49 · batch_normalize(rawScore)

Why shares weigh 6×

A like is a shrug. A share is a recommendation — someone putting their own name behind your video in someone else's inbox. Every platform's algorithm knows this, so we weight it heaviest. Comments (4×) mean the video started a conversation. Saves (3×) mean it was useful enough to keep. Likes (1×) are the baseline.

Why velocity matters

A million views in three hours is a very different signal from a million views in three months. We divide views by hours since posting, so fresh explosions outrank slow burns — that's what "going viral" actually means.

The 55/45 split

Engagement quality (55%) slightly outweighs raw reach (45%). A small creator with a brilliant video should outrank a giant with a mediocre one — because youcan steal the small creator's pattern. You can't steal someone's 10M followers.

The full algorithm, edge cases, and score bands are documented in the docs.