OMG a Good Article About Viral Video Marketing? January 26, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Blogs on Video, Online Video, Video Advertising, Video Business, Video Sites, Viral Video, YouTube , 6comments
Oh it’s so rare when someone writes an intelligent article about online video (aka viral) marketing. And it’s pretty funny when you’ve never heard of the author but she happens to work for the digital agency you employ in your day job.
Anyway, here’s “Strategies for Making Video Ads Go Viral,” by Christine Beardsell (Digitas) via ClickZ. Christine explains paid and organic “seeding” of videos, which is not very well understood. She references two companies I hadn’t heard about: Kontraband’s The 7th Chamber and Viral Manage, which apparently seed videos, and offer tiered plans that include viral tracking and blog/forum seeding.
She also observes that a little money can go a long way with smaller video sites, and I’ve also found that to be true. I once got a promotional video past one million views by throwing a modest media buy to a second-tier site for some premium placement.
I’m not sure I agree that online video banners aren’t effective. In general, it’s true that banners are ignored. And auto-play banners are repulsively annoying. But I do believe there’s a role for embedded video in interactive, rich media ads. I found her thoughts about RSS and videos interesting, but caution people from thinking too many people will RSS for commercial videos. Get a well known YouTuber to mention your brand and you’ll get exponentially more visibility for far less money than your agency will charge for a FedEx.
Converting PC Videos to Mac January 26, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Video Sites, Video Software , 7commentsMy favorite new software for converting avi and mov files to Quicktime or Mp4s for iMovie is called Visual Hub.
I have paid to download countless Quicktime pro and WMV converters, and most of them frustrate me endlessly. Visual Hub is easy (drag and drop) and hasn’t failed me yet. It also has a free trial without annoying watermarks or frequency limitations (although it does limit duration to under 2 minutes).
Most importantly, when it’s done its work, it boasts a lovely “ding” that sounds like a toaster. I sometimes salivate when I hear that ding.
What Should a Viral Video Cost a Marketer? (Killer Post) January 26, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Blogs on Video, Future of Online Video, Making Money, Making Videos, Online Video, Video Advertising, Video Business, Viral Video, YouTube, advertising, popular videos , 15comments“The price of a thing is the worth it will bring.”
I love that quote, but the reality is that “viral” video pricing has been less about worth and more about cost plus.
If anyone should know the “fair market price” of a viral video it should be I — or me (depending on which one is grammatically correct, and I really don’t want to know, because I don’t plan on framing a sentence that way again).
After all, I interact daily with brand marketers, big and digital agencies, and video creators. Yet prices range irrationally, and the market is in desperate need of guidance. This post is a long one because this is a complex and important issue to brands and creators. I really should clean this up, and adapt this for one of the advertising and marketing trade magazines.
Nalts Discloses Fees
Let me disclose my own fee structure and hope others will do the same. I initially was happy with $1,000 per video (for Mentos and some of my early work), but soon discovered my hourly rate computed to less than minimal wage. And I was juggling more work than I could handle with a day job. I also didn’t want to junk my YouTube channel with excessive sponsored videos, which alienating my subscribers (especially since many resent YouTube’s InVid ads, which produce far less income for me than sponsored videos).
Now I’m pricing between $3,000 and $10,000, but there are a few reasons I can price this way:
- I have a decent track record, and fortunately more demand than time.
- I have a steady audience on YouTube so most of my videos will get at least 20-40,000 views.
- I have a marketing background, and provide strategy and a creative brief before diving into the video.
- I try to produce several videos so a brand can amortize the cost (and generally I get some efficiencies out of a series).
- I have gobs of debt (hey, just keeping it real here).
How Marketers & Creators Find Each Other
There are, of course, plenty of video creators who can perhaps do better videos for less money. I have developed a network of specialists that can, for example, do a great score, logo or animation very inexpensively. But I haven’t yet discovered a good “business exchange” site where advertisers and creators can find each other (viral video could use its own eBay, Craig’s List or Match.com). I’ve thought about starting one, but it is labor intensive and not something that automates well without significant volume. And I don’t feel like being the “viral video” middleman or talent scout.
Xlntads (with whom I consult occasionally) is approaching that model because hundreds of creators have registered and sometimes partner via the site (a director and a musician team up for an ad). A brand can generate a variety of videos via Xlntads without hunting down and dealing with individual creators (not to mention multiple contract negotiations). I like that as a marketer, and as a creator I’m happy to work for a smaller fee if I can avoid some of the incredibly time-consuming and frustrating “business development and qualifying” hassle.
Going from Prospect eMail to Payment
My visibility means most of my clients find me, so I’m fortunately not cold calling (yuck). But there’s a huge cost associated with qualifying something and having multiple phone calls and documents, and some of these go nowhere. I probably ignore valid opportunities because I miss an e-mail, or it reminds me of a previous discussion in which I invested time and energy understanding the brand, building a creative brief, proposing video concepts… then the agency or brand inexplicably “went dark.”
More importantly, many video creators have no interest or experience in selling their work, and simply want to create something for a modest profit. Historically, I don’t charge until I make a video, and yet much of my value occurs earlier and I’ve been giving that away naively.
Project or Retainer Video Consulting
As of this post, I’m moving to a flat-fee model where I charge $250 an hour (or a discounted day rate) to: understand the brand’s goals, conduct some informal research of their “space” in online video, build or adapt a creative brief, and present a series of video concepts. This initial fee will help me qualify clients and provide better service initially (as opposed to scrambling together a few weak concepts 10 minutes before a conference call). Then I’ll scope and price videos separately. This seems fair, since much of my value is in the initial phase, and the fee justifies my time and makes me a partner instead of a video production guy desperately pitching a few Nalts videos in hopes that I haven’t wasted my time. If I’m not right for the client’s production (or if I’m swamped) I can refer it to other creators.
As a marketer, I’d maybe prefer to pay upon completed video, but I am accustomed to paying for my agency’s time by the hour (and usually at a rate that far exceeds $250 when you burden it with overhead).
In 2008 (recession or not) companies and agencies will need marketing/video expertise, but can’t justify a full-time employee until this space matures. Do you remember what smart agencies and clients did when paid-search was emerging as a discipline? Rather than hire a firm with overhead or pay a full-time employee, they tapped specialists who were compensated for their objectivity, expertise and time. My career goal is to move from corporate marketing to online-video consulting retainers for a few companies and/or agencies. But don’t tell my boss yet. 
Various Creators. Various Fees.
There are a number of video creators that do work for hire.
- Some are simple and some are complex teams with expensive budgets.
- Many are brilliantly creative but couldn’t market their way out of a paper bag. Others are sound marketing strategists that suggest creative concepts that make you cringe inside (I need to start documenting some of these because they’re so unfunny they’re funny again).
- I’ve known brands that have spent $250,000 on a series of 4 short viral videos (not kidding), and I’ve known brands that have done almost the same thing on a shoestring $5K budget.
As a marketer, I tell people to keep their costs down since there’s no guarantee the video will pop. As a creator, of course, I want to profit from my work and want the same for other amateurs.
If you make online videos, please feel free to pimp yourself below- as long as you provide some information about your pricing.
“Fixed” versus “Variable” Payments
Should a marketer pay for a video, or pay the creator based on its viralicity? I have a strong opinion here, but I need to first explain why I cringe at “per view” payments. A view isn’t a view. Views can be manipulated in various ways – I don’t know how the “viewer robots” work (and don’t really care) but I assume they replicate a view by refreshing a video in intervals using various IP addresses. Most sites are developing safeguards against this, and counting only true views as those that last more than, say, 30 seconds. I’ve notice my view count darts to 200 and then stops for a while before it reflects that actual views. Presumably someone is validating the view count before it’s reflected accurately.
- Any video site can fudge the view counter and it would be hard for a marketer or creator to know otherwise (candidly I suspect some of the second-tier sites are manipulating view counts to make the site look popular for visitors and advertisers).
- “Auto roll” is another way to manipulate views. My YouTube profile page has a feature where the video plays automatically on the unwitting viewer, which gives me the ability to get any video thousands of views pretty quickly.
- Even a real view isn’t always the same as a real view. Why do we pay different CPMs to media properties? Because some are worth more than others. If I do a video highlighting a U.S. hotel chain, it’s going to be worth much more to my sponsor to have that viewed on a travel blog or golfer website than on Break.com by a 14-year-old kid in Russia. It will be years before we can target views by demographics, so we assume some degree of waste.
As a video creator I’d prefer to be paid for my time and creativity, and not be gambling on the video’s popularity to find out if I’ve made $4 an hour or $7. As a marketer I don’t want to inadvertently reward the creator to junk and manipulate views. And even if I “capped” the view incentive, it’s a pain on my budget system to hold a reserve. Try explaining to the folks in finance why you’ve set aside $20,000 in case your video gets popular.
Pay for Seeding
Finally, there are two distinct costs associated with videos. First is the “creative” cost, like producing an advertisement. Second is the “promotion” cost of getting it viewed. While that can involve direct media fees (paying a site to feature a video), this is typically a retainer-based service that involves a person or agency seeding the video and reporting on views. Generally this is a temporary retainer since most of the views will take place in the first 30 days (I’m over simplifying this, but I wouldn’t hire an agency to report on my viral video for six months if each bi-weekly report was changing by .2%). After a few months, you move on. There are a few creators that have mastered this art, and a few agencies that are claiming it but have no idea about how to do it well.
This, like public relations, is a difficult thing to sell. But rest assured that “earned” media (locating a relevant blogger and asking them to post your video) is more targeted and effective than paying to flight crappy preroll ads. My recent Mac Spoof went well past 200K, and we’ll never know that’s attributed to the timliness and humor of the video itself, or the few e-mails I sent to Mac blogs (which took about 5 minutes).
There’s an art and science to video seeding, and it’s often done inappropriately. But it’s a vital step, and I believe this will spawn a cottage industry that eventually gets consumed by big agencies, interactive shops or PR firms.
A lot of information here, and I look forward to reading the comments. I hope this spawns some discussion about this important topic. We’ll set up a forum for it too.
A Spoon Full of Sugar Makes the Photoshop Learning Go Down January 26, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Making Videos, Viral Video, YouTube , 2comments
Brilliant video collection here. Like you, I don’t like reading manuals. I do like getting better and faster at my software. MyDamnChannel has a series of very clever but informative tutorials about PhotoShop called “You Suck at Photoshop.” This recent one (You Suck at Photoshop #4) is absolutely self deprecating and wonderful. Donnie Hoyle shows us how to use “masks” instead of the time-consuming eraser, as he goes about making a photo of his wedding ring for eBay. As he demonstrates the tools, he ponders his despair and how his wife left him to find someone who has working “man batter.” Even better, the ring is actually up on eBay and going for $750 at the moment. To date, 30K have seen the video so far (that will change by the time you read this) and 20K have visited the eBay page.
Thanks, Jan for the find. And for the shout out about my DVD.
The Poor Man’s Guide to Electronic Toys January 26, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video , 2comments
Wow- in searching for a SATA-to-firewire external drive converter thingy, I stumbled into what’s going to be one of my favorite new blogs. Our debt level has pretty much maxed out, but my appetite for toys remains insatiable. Now I’ve found a great source for discount electronics, and clever “work arounds,” and it’s called The Cheapskate by Rick Broida (CNET).
“The Industry Standard” of Online Video RIP: The Daily Reel January 25, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video, Video Sites , 3comments
Well I think The Daily Reel has finally flatlined. For a while, it was old news and old ads. Now I can’t get a signal. A moment of silence for the website that was The Industry Standard of Online Video. Well at least some of its daily videos still exist, even if the last one was October 20.
Based on this Google News Archive, one might say it “jumped the shark” September last year, so it’s probably best that we bury the body before it begins to smell.
Buy “Best of Nalts” Video Shorts on High Definition DVD January 25, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Making Money, Making Videos, Nalts, Online Video, Profit, Revver, Viral Video, YouTube, advertising, popular videos, viral videologist , 19comments
Per my post in December, I finally received and approved my proof of the “Best of Nalts: Volume 1″ DVD. So now you can buy 71 minutes of Nalts videos (with 29 videos) on CreateSpace.com by clicking here.
I have nearly “comedic” 600 videos online for free, but I think these are the best ones (although a few of you pointed out a few that need to be high on the list for volume two). I avoided videos that were too YouTube centric like Renetto shaving my head, or other inside jokes. So most of these are family-friendly and don’t require any context to appreciate.
So buy your copy now for the low, low price of $19.94. Yey. My kids and their friends just gathered around to watch the proof DVD tonight, and it’s frightening how clear the quality is since most of them are high definition… especially when you’re used to seeing them in horribly compressed format on YouTube. You can actually read little things in the background, so I’m sure I’ve inadvertently left a credit card number visible. But unless I sell about 30,000 of these DVDs (and something tells me I’m lucky if I sell 50), those credit card numbers won’t be much worth to you.
To see the full list of videos, click “more” below. To see the sleeve in higher resolution, click the image on the right.
Click here to buy one for $19.94. Click here to watch ‘em for free in low resolution and with annoying ads.
P.S. I priced mine exactly one penny below HappySlip’s, and I make big $6.02 per copy sold.
Another Online Video Show About… Online Video January 19, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Killer Video, Video Sites, Viral Video, YouTube , 10comments
Next New Networks is debuting an online-video show about online video. Googleburn, which appears each Wednesday is:
“the sting in your eyes when you’ve been ogling online videos all night and it’s 6 AM on Monday and oh dear lord you can’t see anything because the Internet blasted you with whiteout,” says host Nick Douglas in the show’s first blog.
Using vocabulary matched only by Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman, NewTeeVee’s Jackson West says the show is “slightly warped yet smartly erudite sensibility and a disaffected delivery.”
This week’s spoof is well timed, as it features an interview with the sunglasses of Australian party thrower Corey Delaney (Worthington), who was widely seen on YouTube, in this embarassing interview. Embarassing, I think, for the host who asked loaded questions, lacked objectivity, nagged, and became part of the story (must have missed that “Intro to Television News” course in college, honey). I thought this was a prank at first, but it might well be real.
My BubbleGumTree Show, of course, is going for a more retrotarded angle on online video, featuring the interesting people of the space. Watch for a debut with Mark Day Comedy next week.
This “online video shows about online video” arena is starting to remind me of the short-lived websites that featured the best websites back in the late 90s. But it will be fun while it lasts. Via Mike Abundo’s Inside Online Video).
Another Great Site for Free, Royalty Free Music January 18, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Making Videos, Online Video, YouTube , 8commentsThe online-video community is in constant need for good, royalty free music that doesn’t cost money. Most of us don’t make enough on our videos to warrant paying a lot. And we’re all sick of the canned stuff that comes with the editing software.
For a while, Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com had filled that void. Now the musician has helped his friend, Jonathon Roberts serve the same need. If you use the New Yorker’s music in your video, simply credit him and consider a modest $5 Paypal donation. As an example, here’s a clip we made (Squirting Water Boats) yesterday on our first day of vacation. The song is called Ragtime, and it brings an otherwise boring video to life.
Thanks to these guys for helping make online videos more interesting. It will only be a matter of time before Jonathon’s clips are pervasive as Kevin’s.
The Power of Blogs for Video Viralization (MacBook Air Parody Case Study) January 17, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Blogs on Video, Killer Video, Making Videos, Online Video, Viral Video, YouTube, advertising, popular videos, viral videologist , 5comments
As I mentioned in my recent eBook (”How to Become Popular on YouTube Without Any Talent“), Obama-Girl creator Ben Relles taught me about the power of blogs to get a viral video to a tipping point. Candidly, I’m usually too lazy to go searching for blogs that might like a video, and kinda hope they’ll find it on their own. But Gizmodo (a very popular blog) recently posted about my ”MacBook Air Obsessed With Thin.”
Back story: this short parody of a Mac ad (see original post) took about 20 minutes — from idea to upload. So I decided to invest another 5 Googling a few Mac blogs, and sending them the video’s URL. I had to move quick because the Ambien, at this point, was bringing me down like a tranquilized elephant with a dart hanging from his neck.
This paid off. I would have forgotten about my little self-promotion binge (I’m prone to “black outs” after my post-Ambien activities). But this morning I noticed the Mac parody had 40K views already, which far exceed my 
number of subscribers (27K) and what I’d normally get by being the 3rd-highest rated comedy of the day. Paranthetically, my antecdotal feebdack suggests the video has some innate viral elements because a) my wife liked it (rare), b) I got a call from my advertising agency about it, and c) the CEO from Xlntads sent me an e-mail about it.
Still, a little “blog gasoline” on the “viral spark” is well worth its time.
Is it working? Google your video’s unique title to see if there’s uptake. Also, 0n YouTube, you can select “links” under a video (it’s easy to miss), and see if any individual site is tossing a lot of traffic your way. I don’t usually notice a lot of activity here, but I do recall finding an Asian porn site throwing my “HappySlip on eBay” video a lot of views).
Today it shows that 12K of the 39k views were coming from Gizmodo. I couldn’t recall sending them the URL, but it appears they posted about the video and credited Cult of Mac (I suppose I had sent the video to Cult of Mac before Ambien shut me down completely). Oddly, Gizmodo reports 6000 people reading that post, but I’m seeing 12,000 coming to my video via Gizmodo. Huh? YouTube usually drastically under reports the inbound links.
Are you paying attention or glazing over this in an ADHD fog? Let me summarize with the “least you need to know”: if you do a video that has viral potential, find some bloggers who might be interested in the story.
Don’t spam bloggers, but send them a personalized, relevant note and connect the video to their readership so it doesn’t look too self pimpin’. And I wouldn’t advise this tactic unless you’re fairly confident they’ll get a chuckle over the clip. It also makes a big difference if you’re a regular reader of their blog and can demonstrate that. I’ll confess I wasn’t a regular reader of Cult of Mac, but now I’m hooked.