Written by Lesa Seibert | 09 May 2012
Posted in Multimedia Tip of the Week

Last we we discussed setting up a YouTube Channel and making a Brand Channel out of it.  This week we are going to discuss how to get the word out.

There are many avenues you can choose to get the word out about your YouTube Channel.  The first is to post the videos and links to your channel on your website.  Then share them on your social media sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.  You can also share them on your blog and via email marketing by adding the link into your email blasts.  YouTube also makes it easy to share videos and make sure to ask your audience (customers) to subscribe to your channel.

YouTube also provides advertising options for brands.  You can advertise with a promoted video, which allows advertisers to choose which keywords their video will show up next to and only pay when a viewer clicks on the promotion and watches the video.  Other options include a partner-watch program that allows companies to advertise next to content partners; in-stream display ads, homepages ads, customer marketing programs, YouTube mobile ads and more.

Once your channel is up and running, make sure to review your strategy.  The most important aspect of any marketing plan is the analytics, because these numbers show how successful or unsuccessful the project is.

Sometimes it can be difficult to analyze how video views turn into conversions.  YouTube provides many statistics to help brand channel managers analyze the popularity of specific content.  Recently YouTube updated its analytics data with the launch of YouTube Analyitcs.  This is a tool that provides a quick overview of important information, detailed  reports, as well as how much of a video the viewers are actually watching.

These statistics allow brands to analyze what type of content is the most popular with its audience.

Written by Lesa Seibert | 02 May 2012
Posted in Multimedia Tip of the Week

YouTube combines two of the hottest online marketing trends today, video and social media.  The platform receives more than 800 million unique visitors every month and more than 3 billion videos are viewed on the site every day.  YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google.  So, do you have a YouTube Channel yet?

First go to www.YouTube.com and complete the basic setup process.  Once that is complete, a business must send its username to a YouTube representative and request to have the account converted into a brand channel.  Brand channels offer features that aren't available on standard channels, like a channel banner image, side column image and video page banner.  They also provide the ability to specify demographic filters and offer user tracking.

Once your channel has been converted to a brand channel, customization is the next and most important step. During this process, the brand is starting to set the tone of the channel.  You should remember that the final channel appearance and content should be cohesive.

Next it is time to start creating content.  You can produce many different types of videos for your company from a company overview to product or service overviews, client testimonials and how-to videos.  One thing to remember is to keep your videos short.  A good video length is between 45 seconds and two minutes.  If it requires longer, think about spitting it up into a series so that your audience does not get bored or overwhelmed with information.  The quality of the video is more important than the quantity. 

Next time we will talk about how to use your videos and spread the word.

Written by Lesa Seibert | 06 July 2011
Posted in Multimedia Tip of the Week

by, Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media

The key part of this series is to show you that online videos are one part of an online marketing campaign.  You should already have your marketing plan determined and know how it will be leveraged across all of the various parts of your online strategy.  You also should have a Facebook Page and a Twitter account as well as a website and a blog.  A few more tips for you are:

1. Set up accounts and channels with all of the major video-sharing sites.  YouTube is the most popular, but you should also have accounts on sites such as Vimeo, Google, Metacafe and Dailymotion.
2. Customize your channel to keep the look and feel as professional as possible.  Keep your background .jpg as simple and uncluttered as possible.
3. Connect all of your sites together.  Provide links to your Facebook and Twitter pages through your YouTube channel and vice versa.  Facebook has an app that helps you embed your videos on your page and you can also create custom pages to host your videos on Facebook.
4. Upload your videos.  You can use YouTube's uploader, but if you are putting your video on several sites, TubeMogul offers a great service that will let you put your videos to all the major video-sharing sites and also provides analytis for them.
5. Make sure people can share your videos by clearly providing links.
6. Promote your videos.  Tweet about them, blog about them, let your Facebook friends know about them, etc.  If you can, pay for advertising space on the Web.

Have fun with videos and watch how successful they can be in promoting your brand and your company.

Written by Lesa Seibert | 29 June 2011
Posted in Multimedia Tip of the Week

by, Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media

Last week we looked at Viral Videos and how they work.  This week we will focus on Brand-Focused videos.

While the Viral Videos we looked at last week might be too time-consuming or difficult for what you need to accomplish, you can create brand-focused videos that have the potential to drive business for your company.  A good example of the potential of a more straightforward, brand-focus video is seen in the recent Old Spice campaign featuring the Old Spice Man.

These videos, that were also used as commercials, are wildly popular and it was a huge success for the company.  Immediately after the campaign ended, the Old Spice YouTube Channel became the most viewed channel on YouTube.  Here are some pointers when trying to replicate the success of this or any other brand-focused video:

1. Make the video engaging.  The Old Spice Man commercials don't have flashy effects but they are strongly written and well-acted by Isaiah Mustafa.  The jokes are so rapid-fire they encourage viewers to re-watch the videos to catch all of them.  The lesson here is to keep videos short, dense and when you can funny.
2. Make sure your video has important content.  If comedy is not your favorite or your product or service is not something that lends itself to comedy, informative how-to videos can be just as effective. 
3. Make your video interactive.  Another factor that lead to the success of the Old Spice Man videos is that he is responding to viewers.  You can engage customers' concerns in video form to show that you care. 
4. Work across platforms.  The Old Spice Man answers questions from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and more.  By encouraging viewers to use different platforms, you encourage consumers to get more involved with your brand and company.  Make sure to respond to those posts and consumers will appreciate that you put a human face behind the response.
5. Make it professional.  Don't sink a lot of money into it, but since these videos are seen as messages from your company, you want to make sure they look and sound good.  Hire a professional videographer if you have to.  You don't want a consumer's first thought when they think of your company to be "cheap" or "shoddy."

Next week we will look at the nuts and bolts of online videos.

Written by Lesa Seibert | 25 May 2011
Posted in Multimedia Tip of the Week

by, Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media

In the first installment of this series, we looked at how to choose a video format.  This week we are going to look at Viral Videos and how they work.

Sunglasses-maker Ray Ban has created a site on YouTube called Never Hide Films, where they post videos including sensations like "Cow Gives Birth to Dude" and "Guy Has Glasses Tattooed to Face".   The most popular one so far is "Sunglass Catch", has hit 5 million view.  By watching these videos, you will see what many viral videos have in common:

1. Viral videos show something new or never seen before.  This means that exactly replicating a viral video is impossible.  The person or people shown in the video have to be doing something so unexpected that the viewer will be caught off guard and feel compelled to pass the video along.
2. The video can imitate the types of videos that go viral.  For instance, the "Sunglass Catch" video is similar to other homemade videos where basketball players or skateboarders do more and more outrageous stunts as the video progresses.  Look at several different viral videos and see if you can imitate teh types of things that are shown, if not the exact actions.
3. A good firal video lies on the border between real and unbelievable.  The more gullible will be shocked and will pass it on.  But even more discerning viewers will pass it along because they think other people have been fooled by it, and want to correct them.  The sunglasses tattoo video left many people, including news outlets, questioning its accuracy.  Even though it is clearly on Ray Ban's site, commenters on YouTube still wonder if it is real.
4. The video should look authentically homemade.  There are many high-budget ads that get passed around as viral videos, but with enormous budgets like some have, the benefit of going viral is minimal.  A good viral video will use its low budget as an asset.  The lack of visual richness will help to blur the boundary between real and unreal.
5. Having a place where viewers can easily connect the video back to other parts of your marketing plan is crucial.  Ray Ban's "Never Hide" tagline helps in this regard, but the fact that Ray Ban curates these videos on a single site is also important.  Ray Ban also takes down copies of their advertisement from other posters so the connection to their home site is not diluted.
6. Most viral videos fail.  Of the twenty videos on the Never Hide site, only four have reached one million viewers.  You must be prepared to try a lot of things before you will find something that works.

Next week we will look at brand-focused videos and their use.