Viral Video Marketing: A Free Guide (Part 2)
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This process is called Social Media Optimization, or SMO. SMO entails optimising your online presence to become more visible through searches with online communities and community web sites. This process is very similar to SEO for social network sites. SMO allows you to create more visible sites, videos, podcasts, RSS feeds and blog entries which will be more searchable to tens of millions of people who are connected through sites like MySpace, YouTube, Del.icious, Technorati, Reddit, Facebook and dozens of others.
The essence of SMO is to increase the chances of your video or any other portable, sharable content from being distributed more widely and being found more quickly though community search engines. This is important when producing short videos, because it is within and across these networked community sites that video clips are most likely to be distributed and shared. In other words, to maximise the chances of your video going viral, you have to optimise it for sharing across social network communities.
When you post a video clip to your blog, you will want to increase the chances of the video being widely distributed, correct? Well, the most basic step to take is to add a line of links to relevant social network sites. Here is an example of a typical list of links at the end of an optimized blog entry:(Add to: YouTube | blinklist | del.cio.us | digg | yahoo! | furl). These links allow people to quickly add your blog entry to the social network or community site or sites to which they belong. Once the post has been added by it will be available to every other member of that community through the site's search function.
While some of these sites, like del.icious, Yahoo! and furl include categories that cover almost any topic and subject you can think of, other communities are more focused.
YouTube is clearly focused on short videos. In common with other social network sites, it has a number of features that enable members to vote for, rate, share and distribute the videos they like best. The voting and rating process is an integral part of almost all social network community sites. As a result, content rises to the surface through a "democratic" process, whereby the combined opinions of community members determine which content gets the greatest exposure. Social media search is driven by popular vote. It is essential to understand this when you create your own videos. Needless to say, your videos need to be compelling, entertaining or at least different.
There are few essential tips to keep in mind when maximising the viral potential of your video…
- Try to keep your video clips short, preferably less than 5 minutes long. Most people browse through a number of videos when visiting sites like YouTube and Google Video, won’t be willing to give videos to much of their time.
- Ensure that your video has interesting, entertaining or provocative content. If it doesn't engage your audience then they will have little incentive to share it with other people they know, or across their social networks.
- Be very cautious about including commercial or promotional content. Less is certainly more in this medium. Try not to bombard your viewer with too many pay-off lines and advertising hogwash – keep it as ‘real’ as possible. The most powerful short videos are those which are purely entertaining-a short catchy and relevant phrase that the consumer relates to will suffice.
- Don’t settle for creating just one video. You can’t accurately predict which videos will enjoy wide, viral distribution. Plan on creating a series of clips, and learn from the one which performs the best.
- Optimise your video clips to maximise distribution across social network sites. Use tags and bookmarking links to help people find, save and share your videos.
According to statistics, online advertising spent in the UK is set to soar in 2007.
Online marketing has increased by 73 per cent during 2005-06, taking ad revenues to £1.13bn, which is surpassed other media such as consumer and business magazines, radio, outdoor and cinema. It is predicted that internet shopping will grow five-fold to make up one third of British consumer spending by 2008. Video continues to play an increasing part of most company's advertising and promotions strategy; by streaming video from websites or through the production of a viral marketing campaign. By reaching potential customers, businesses promote their products and services in the most cost effective way.
Make no mistake, with the Internet booming there’s a rock solid future for viral marketing.
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