Viral Video Makes Me Sick: Successfully Using Video In Business Communications

Owen Mack, Chief of Strategy & DevelopmentcoBRANDiT

coBRANDiT specializes in social media video production, distribution and consulting services for brand marketers, agencies, and organizations of all sizes.

The presentation structure is loose, with overlapping topics. Ask questions!

Viral Video Makes Me Sick: Successfully Using Video In Business Communications

1) Why Video? The Value of Video

2) Developing Content That Supports a Goal

3) Outreach & Promotion

4) Resources Needed: Internal & External

Throughout: B2C and B2B Comparisons

1) The Value of Video

Why video? What are the ideal ways to use video? How do we measure success?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkwh4ZaxHIA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae_DKNwK_ms

http://www.youtube.com/user/ciscovid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJfnjrn5YWo

1) The Value of Video

How do we measure success?

The standard social media KPI's:

Views, Comments, Ratings, Response Videos, Subscriptions, Click-thru's to other url's.

All very measurable. (But appropriate for B2B?)

What other measures are there?

1) The Value of Video

SEO: My promo video drove these results in 48 hours, with a TOTAL of 9 views across 7 video sites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJfnjrn5YWo

1) The Value of Video

How do we measure success: Engagement

B2C automotive: Streetfire viewers are more connected to the content. You could say a Streetfire view is about twice as valuable as a YouTube view.

Lesson: An engaged low view count is more valuable than an un-engaged high viewcount.Equally true for B2B!

Don’t get too hung up on view counts. Unless that’s your goal...

1) The Value of Video

How do we measure success: A video doesn't need to be viral to be successful.

Goal: Demonstrate features of a new Viximo release for use by media.

Result: Video embedded in TechCrunch article: 14,000 views

(50% of YouTube vids get fewer than 500 views. Anything over 10k putsyou in the top 5%)

Goal: Drive traffic to sales site and increase conversions. Bring attention to and drive discovery of new and innovative products.

Result: Daily sales videos drive Daily Grommet customers to purchase at twice the frequency of Amazon.com customers. Specific product videos have: Attracted new investors, gotten product into celebrity grab bags at the Oscars, resulted in placement on QVC, led to media write-ups.

Daily Grommet videos: 2,600 average views

Goal: Get a meeting with Narragansett Beer executives

Result: Funny video seen by brewery President leading to a phone call and new business for coBRANDiT: 8 views

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR1zC8JeaRY

http://dailygrommet.com

http://cobrandit.blip.tv/file/88211/

1) The Value of Video

A video doesn't need to be viral to be successful. But sometimes you do luck out.

Chasing Bolt was a 4 week video series following PUMA sprinter Usain Bolt before and during the Beijing Olympics. One piece featured Bolt predicting in advance his record-breaking time in the 100m. All video placements contained links to puma.com, driving PUMA’s highest ever number of daily uniques on August 20, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=699Pd010m3Q

note: TrackShark/AP vid with 3mm viewsPrepare to be lucky!

1) The Value of Video

Another consideration:Use video/social media to trigger offline WOM. Research indicates that most WOM occurs offline, and that advertising increases WOM.

Give your fans & potential clients something to talk about!

The anecdotals support this but it’s tough to measure.

2) Developing Content That Supports a Goal

Success = Achieving Your Goal.What is the goal?

Who is the audience? Are they engaged?

What do you want them to do?

B2C and B2B: Include a call to action.

Goal could be SEO results, or measurable conversions.

2) Developing Content That Supports a Goal

Is this viral video successful? (It might have been if they’d reacted to all the traffic)Was the goal to send 3.5mm viewers to an out of date German website requiring obscure plugins?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkwh4ZaxHIA

2) Developing Content That Supports a Goal

B2B LEAD NURTURING "The process of building relationships and trust with qualified prospects regardless of their timing to buy."

Create content suitable for each mktg/sales touchpoint: SEO, the "content drip" and for use as a "trigger."

http://www.youtube.com/user/salesforce

2) Developing Content That Supports a GoalCreate content for each stage of the buying process: early awareness, consideration, late stage evaluation.

Calculating ROI: easier if the vids are part of a defined mktg/sales program where individual vids are recognized as part of a conversions process...moving thru the funnel from prospect to sales-ready.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ciscovid

2) Developing Content That Supports a Goal http://www.nbc.com/heroes/

B2C Engagement Tiers: Ad-type "hooks", behind-the-scenes, detailed content for hardcore fans.

2) Developing Content That Supports a Goal

Connect with your B2C audience: Working with fans to develop content

Note: Timeline points with comments and blogger url’s. (Viddler.com)

Sharable!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_E0yTwW0dA

http://www.pumamotorsport.com/

http://www.cobrandit.com/blog/2008/10/case_study_weber_shandwick_and.html

2) Developing Content That Supports a Goal

Connect with your B2B audience: Working with clients/partners to develop content

Promotion is baked in.

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoWithVisa

http://www.youtube.com/user/dynamicinfrastructur

Other ways to get people involved: User-generated video contests, and editing contests...

Or partner with a top producer (Fred, Lisa Nova, or someone in your category) to create response vids...

Promotion is baked in.

2) Developing Content That Supports a Goal

3) Outreach & Promotion

Work the site's ecosystem: YouTube (for example, others are similar)Channel Pages / Individual Video Pages each have their own points of contact.

3) Outreach & Promotion

Identification of AudienceStats & Data & Insights help us get smarter: Figure out discovery, how your vids get "surfaced”.Want to build an audience? A series gives you a lot more to work with.

3) Outreach & Promotion

AnnotationsAnnotations can tie together a video series, pop users out to a playlist, or request comments or response vids.Helpful when your video is embedded somewhere away from your YouTube Channel.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJfnjrn5YWo

3) Outreach & Promotion

Facebook Methodologies: Posting vids to the Wall / Native player vs. YouTube link / Custom tabs, Widgets & Players / Landing Tabs / Targetable Updates

3) Outreach & Promotion

Guaranteed widget installs: available through companies like Gigya and Clearspring

3) Outreach & Promotion

Facebook ads, YouTube promoted vids: typically on a CPM or CPC basis.Promotions can be videos themselves, or can drive traffic to a page that includes the video and other offers/info.Have a single video? Jeben at YouTube says “Buy some search around it”.

3) Outreach & Promotion

Paid embeds in websites & blogs: Typically between 5 and 25 cents per view. The opportunity for these deals abound. Some disclose sponsorship, some don’t...

3) Outreach & Promotion

White hat/black hat and the slippery slope: Anatomy of a video spam blog & other fake activities designed to get “real” traffic.

First, embed the vid on a spam blog, auto hit it with a ‘bot or networkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDjK6jN6pFo

Then game Stumbleupon and create fake YouTube comments with a network of profiles. Throw in a bunch of bogus video responses and likes for good measure.

Stated goal: Use these fake techniques to bump the video up the “most viewed” lists, thereby driving “real views”

How valuable is that big view count now? Hmmm. Result?

LG gets played by their agency.

4) Resources Needed: Internal & External

The Big Questions:Who is authorized to speak? Agency? PR? Sales?

Voice: What’s the right tone?

Consider video channel management and how it’s related to your other social media efforts.

Develop community management skills (and a little bit of tech savvy).

4) Resources Needed: Internal & External

Basics: CompressionQuicktime H.264 is great right out of the box. All you have to do is change the Compressor Quality to Medium. See also http://www.squidoo.com/youtuberight as a starting point.

4) Resources Needed: Internal & External

Basics: MetadataTitle / Description / Tags index in that order. Write a long title! And drop a link in the description.

4) Resources Needed: Internal & External

Basics: ToolsUploading to multiple sites: Tubemogul.com is helpful.

4) Resources Needed: Internal & External

Pro content, Distributed video and Flip-type cameras.

Your questions please!

Owen Mackowen@cobrandit.com

facebook.com/owenmacktwitter: @cobrandit

617-823-9286 direct

video production, distribution and consulting services