It’s Like a Star Trek Conference, But With YouTubers. And You Either Love Them or Don’t Care at All. February 28, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : YouTube , 12comments
Did you know that people deeply embedded in the YouTube community have regular gatherings in person? The events fetch crowds — ranging from a dozen to several hundred, depending on the location, timing and marketing of the event. It helps when you have a popular YouTube video creator announcing the event and convincing other widely-viewed attendees to promote and attend.
Lately YouTubers gathered in SanFrancisco, and there are countless events being scheduled around the U.S. and the world. I predict these gatherings will bifurcate into: small venues based on geography or interest (pockets of friends), and larger events that attract sponsors, media and a larger crowd. YouTube has yet to endorse an event, but often sends t-shirts and people from its community department.
There are three sites (at least) tracking these events.
- MrSafety (aka SMPfilms) put together one of the first gatherings, and his website is YouTubeGathering.com.
- Podcasting101’s YouTubeMeetup (which is rather out of date and ugly, but robust).
- Then there’s the new TubeGathering site by TrueBlueAustralian and ZenArcher.
Does the YouTube community need three sites to coordinate physical meetups?
Probably not. But they’re each addressing the community’s desires in different ways. The winning site will be the one that allows community members to announce their own events 
and connect without manual work by the site owner. It’s too hard to keep on top of various events, which are likely to shrink in size but increase in frequency. Although MrSafety’s site has a strong chance because he led the first large gathering, it’s more of a vanity site with manual publishing. His raving fans will take their guidance from him, and he knows how to throw a party. Others, however, feel like his persona overshadows the essence of the event, and he’s started to notice this backlash. Initially he was rather insistent that there be a primary organizer, sponsors, and permits. Others like the simplicity of announcing a location and date , and letting the rest happen organically (like Pipistrello and this “Yo’Tube” Philadelphia gathering). In fairness to MrSafety, he had a bit of an awakening and even had guests assemble this montage of the recent event.
I like some of YouTubeMeetup’s advanced functionality, but Paul’s a technologist first so the user experience is somewhat daunting and confusing. TubeGathering, if better publicized, seems like a the natural winner. It’s powered by free community software (Simple Machines Forum, SMF), so it’s going to be easy to have the community maintain it. It’s not an ego site, and the interface is simple and eye appealing.
Time will tell. One thing’s for sure. While the physical gatherings are fantastic experiences, the people that attend these represent a small fraction of the “YouTube Community,” which itself is probably 5-10,000 active people.
This is a closely knit but tiny portion of YouTube visitors in general, and that becomes clear when you see the view stats on any video about the gatherings. For example, MrSafety has about 66,000 subscribers and gets views ranging from 50K to 200K on most of his videos. But his video announcing the gathering was one of his lowest performers lately (about 30K views as shown in this photo).
To further exhibit this point, this blog post will likely generate a lot of comments, but a very small percentage of WVFF readers will actually care about this. Do you?
10 Tips for a “Viral Video” Hail Mary February 27, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video, Video Advertising, Viral Video, advertising, marketing , 32comments
Alright, the “Cheat sheet for marketers interested in online video” didn’t get a lot of views. And frankly I get more people consuming my content in an hour than read this damned blog in a day.
So to hell with you. Here’s what you should do to get viral, stupid marketers and agencies.
- Spend an assload of money. Put most of it to banner ads that promote your video, but spend at least $250,000 on the production. Only don’t make it look highly produced. Use a $100 videocamera and crappy lighting.
- Don’t worry about what people are saying about your brand. Screw them. Just tell them what they need to know.
- Promote, promote, promote. It should feel like a cable TV advertisement. Throw boobs in there to make sure people pass it along.
- Target 10 million views. Anything less than that and you’re a friggin’ wimp.
- Don’t bother with those that are online-video personalities. Find a good washed-up television personality.
- Make it a rap. The kids love raps.
- Do something really safe to keep your management happy. Remember- your rise on the corporate latter means putting the customer (your boss and his boss) first.
- Steal an idea that works. That “Evolution of Dance” thing was popular. Get MC Hammer to remake it. He’s coming back again.
- Be sure your agency knows the space. That means if they’ve ever shot a video to stream on your product site, then they know viral video. It’s that easy.
- Measurement is so 2007. It’s all about views and perception. Fake some positive comments to show your boss.
Jimmy Kimmel F’ing Ben Affleck February 26, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Killer Video, Viral Video, YouTube , 12comments
Why can’t I attract an all-star cast like this “I’m F’ing Ben Affleck” music video that’s going viral as I type? (The link takes you to Funny or Die, although the video originally aired on Jimmy Kimmel Live).
It’s staring: Jimmy Kimmel, Ben Affleck, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, Benji Madden, Joel Madden, Dicky Barrett, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Lance Bass, Dominic Monaghan, Meatloaf, Pete Wentz, Joan Jett, Huey Lewis, Perry Farrell, Macy Gray and Josh Groban
The video is Kimmel’s response to Sarah Silverman’s song titled “I’m F’ing Matt Damon.”
Another Video Site Bites the Dust February 25, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video, Revver, Video Sites, advertising , 14commentsWell we’re clearly in the bubble burst of online-video sites. Stage6 shut down, and Revver was sold. Who’s next?
YouTube Sketchies (and Stupid Thumbnail Ad by Dove) February 25, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Contest, Video Sites, Viral Video, YouTube, advertising , 5comments
You have until March 3 to enter your comedy video into the first round of YouTube’s Sketchies II. Corolla, leveraged popular YouTuber LisaNova to promote the contest (she was second place last year with this “LisaNova does George Bush” video).
I spoke with LisaNova via phone for the first time on Saturday, when TheMightyThor1212 was good enough to put her on the line while at the YouTube San Francisco gathering.
Here’s a recap (wish I had videotaped it since it doesn’t quite translate as a manuscript):
Nalts: Hey, Lisa- Lisa: Hey
- Nalts: Are you getting bombarded?
- Lisa: What?
- Nalts: I’m a big fan. I liked your recent video about the comedy contest.
- Lisa: Which one?
- Nalts: You know- the one on the beanbag. With your face on the homepage.
- Lisa: Oh- the Sketchies.
- Nalts: Yeah. Will you do the BubbleGumTreeShow? (a show featuring viral creators, like Mark Day, who will perhaps be juding the Sketchies?).
- Lisa: Sure. Just send me the information.
- Nalts: Kay. Have fun.
- Lisa: Some kids is asking me to autograph their shirt.
- Nalts: Go make their day. Nice speaking with you.
- Lisa: Nice speaking with you too, Renetto.
Too bad I don’t have a screen grab of the YouTube homepage when it featured LisaNova’s video. It was framed so the ridiculously huge gray play button doesn’t obscure LisaNova’s face. Unlike the image here by Dove.
Honestly. Who lets an ad like this go live?
Just before I posted this, I hit refresh and found this version. Now instead of featuring the Dove host, they’ve got an image from the winning entry (by Celeste Wouden) of the Dove Cream Oil Body Wash advertisement contest.
Hmmm. Two-star rating with the last 4 being the lowest possible. Hmmm. Either the YouTube audience doesn’t care for this video or some of the losers are launching an attack on this video.
Too bad about the thumbnails. You know, Dove, this gal isn’t going to drive nearly as many clicks as a woman with a slender neck and face shaped like a play button.
Who Won the Cheese? Weird Comments. February 24, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video, Viral Video, YouTube , 16comments
It took almost two months of deliberation, but our judges have selected the honorable mentions and winner of the “Weird Comment” contest, which boasts a grand prize of an autographed slice of American cheese.
As you won’t likely recall, back on January 5, 2008, I invited you to post the weirdest comments on this TechCrunch article about my book. There are a about 50 plus comments on my invitation post too (see them).
You took the challenge, and you delivered. That’s why we spent so long deliberating. It is not because we forgot or anything.
Click “more” below to see the 33 weirdest comments. Honorable mention also goes to Maryln and Sukatra’s back ‘n forth.
It’s a tough call, but here’s the winner. Johnny, whoever you are, send your address. We’ll send the cheese.
(Select “more” below to see some favorites).
A Technology Platform for Video Contests February 20, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Contest, Online Video, advertising , 3comments
Memelabs has a platform for running viral-video contests. Didn’t know that existed until now, and it seems to make sense. It’s a better alternative to a “throw away” site that is custom designed by an agency. No big clients yet, but a number of active contests.
Source of Spam Comments on YouTube February 20, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : YouTube , 6comments
I found a site called YouTubeMarketing, which had a link to this software called TubeAdder. For $30, you can annoy people with spam comments and fake friend entries. Puh-leez.
Feel free to spam ‘em.
YouTube as Marketing Channel (free 30-minute podcast): Nalts and Obama Girl Creator February 20, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Making Money, Making Videos, Viral Video, YouTube, marketing , 2comments
Here’s the archive podcast of the Blog Talk Radio show I did with Toby Bloomberg and Ben Relles (read more). Ben’s story about “I Have a Crush on Obama” is always interesting. And maybe you’ll learn a few things about how brands can harness the power of YouTube. Here’s the Diva Marketing Blog description of the show if you want a quick scan.
The Marketeter’s Cheat Sheet to Viral Video February 19, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Blogs on Video, Contest, Future of Online Video, Making Money, Making Videos, Nalts, Online Video, Video Advertising, Video Business, Viral Video, YouTube, advertising, popular videos , 12comments
You’re running a brand that is trying to “dip your toe” into social media and online video, and you’re facing some important questions:
- Is my brand right for this?
- How can I experiment without ending up as a “case study” failure?
- Can I convince my company that we should do this?
- What are my options for developing compelling content and distributing it widely?
Here’s a quick guide that encompasses a lot of topics we’ve covered on this blog. It’s the “least a marketer or agency needs to know” about online video, and will give you a roadmap for a good program.
- Step 1: Determine if your brand is right for online video. Is your brand compelling and simple, or complex and direct-response oriented? If you’re a consumer-product goods (CPG), it’s a no-brainer. If you’re in a complex, crowded, regulated and boring industry, it’s going to be more difficult.
- Step 2: Keep it quiet. The more senior management and attorneys you bring into a pilot, the more internal battling you’ll do before experimenting. Get some “air cover” from an executive sponsor, and avoid excessive internal scrutiny.
- Step 3: Let go. Your marketing message is critical to you, but if your content is driven by an advertising objective it’s at risk of being a flop. If you want to go viral, you’ve got to entertain first and promote subtly. There are countless case studies on this, and it’s an inarguable fact. If you buy media, your ads can be boring. But if you expect people to share your video, it better be entertaining, provocative, sexy, funny, outrageous or at least interesting.
- Step 4: Develop a creative brief. Don’t make it too narrow, but give it some focus. If you ask people to make a funny video that includes your brand, you’ll get a lot of stuff that may or may not support your objective. But if you require creators to insert a series of “unique selling propositions” then you’ll end up with ads instead of entertaining videos. With my smaller clients, I develop the brief. Larger clients often already have one, and simply need ideas or video content.
- Step 5: Engage creators. You have four options here.
- Option one, you can hire your agency to create video content. This gives you control, but most agencies (advertising, online, and public relations) lack experience in social media and online video in particular. I’ve found this to be extremely expensive, and often the agencies lack the expertise to make the videos “not suck” and get the videos widely viewed and “seeded” in the right places.
- Option two, you can hire individual amateurs. This gives you access to people that know the medium and have established audiences. Some smaller brands (and larger ones) contract directly with people like me, InvisibleEngine, Rhett & Link and Barely Political (just a few creators that are interested in building entertaining, promotional content). This keeps things safer, but requires some oversight since you’ll need to interact individually with these companies or people.
- Option three, you can run a big, public contest. These are still quite common, but rather expensive. You’ll spend a lot on media to promote the contest (money I’d prefer to see brands use to promote the brand itself). You’ll also get a lot of lame content, but hopefully a few winners.
- Finally, you can contract with a third party that can represent a variety of proven creators. For example, a few large brands have contracted with Xlntads to help reach a collection of experienced amateur creators (note: I consult with Xlntads, and run its creative ad board). There are probably similar brand/creator models that offer this service, but I’m less familiar with them. I see this as an evolving industry that can either contract directly to brands or via agencies. For instance, Daily Motion has brokered between certain major advertisers in France, and works from the agency’s creative brief to identify, engage, pay and leverage the presence of appropriate creators that produce content on the site.
- Step 6: Get the videos seen. If you want to buy media, you can run your videos as advertisements on a variety of sites. The second and third tier video sites are especially receptive to giving prominence to promotional content in fairly inexpensive media buys. If your content is good enough, you can hope it will travel “viral” style: people will share it with friends, post it on their blogs, feature it on their websites. There are three magic tricks that make this work:
- First, your content has to be good.
- Second, it really helps to leverage the distribution and audience of known creators. If an amateur has a popular blog or YouTube channel, this gives you a much better chance of wide distribution.
- Thirdly, you can “seed” it yourself or have the creators, third parties or agencies do it. This “seeding” involves reaching out to appropriate online properties, channels, discussions, forums and blogs. If it’s good content and you reach out to people politely your chances increase. I’ve seen bad videos that get lots of attention, and good videos that die. So this third step is non trivial and often overlooked.
- Step 7: Evaluate. Did the videos get lots of views and positive feedback? What did the comments say? Did people take a measurable action after watching the video? Keep your expectations in check: few marketing videos break into the millions of views, and very few of those viewers will take an immediate action (visiting your site, and making a purchase). These videos will, however, help your rankings via Google and other search engines. So maybe the next time a prospect is searching for your brand on Google, they’ll find your brand-friendly videos instead of a competitor’s content or disgruntled customer. This is a powerful and often overlooked outcome of a good video pilot.
- Step 8: Scale as Appropriate. Most online-video marketing projects are simple experiments to help brands learn and “test the waters,” and few have scaled radically. However some brands have been so excited about results with online video that they return annually with programs that are hard to miss.
With a few exceptions, I haven’t yet seen many online-video pilots driving significant, immediate sales for a brand. But I have seen online-video initiatives that have increased the awareness of the brand, and changed the attributes and preference of target consumers (as measured by awareness trackers). Most of my clients have enjoyed an online presence they wouldn’t have gotten on their own and found it a good investment. A few have confided that more people watched my stupid video than visited their big, bloated agency-developed website (which contained a variety of expensive videos they produced). It’s much easier to reach people on the highway of YouTube than to hope they’ll stop at the little rest stop you create (which is usually a huge expense and a “throw away” at the end of the project).
Other suggestions? Bring ‘em on. This is a blog, for crying out loud.
WARNING I DID NOT START THIS SPAM ok susie was going to a river where she watched the school of dogs dissecting cats that could fly because of their lung cancer thus enabling the time portal to pull down the trigger that made the lever go down into Narnia which was currently in a war against the Summer Queen who made eternal summer, when the summer queen was vanquished Fred came to save the day transporting all living babies in the world to travel first class to Funkytown singing Funkytowwwwwn the whole way there the babies enjoyed their sparkling white grape juice which made them all fart Beethovens Ninth backwards making them change each others pampers for a milenium until two magical beavers came and started to shop at wal-mart because of it having the lowest prices they bought firewood to burn the Ohio River therefore making Lisa Nova drinking an 8 ounce glass of water flexing her liver making it break thus powering all of new york city for the rest of the year making arnold schwargentator happy to be alive until the terminator kills him everyone is living happily except George Bush since lisa novas liver broke and two squirrels from sydney come in to kidnap president lincoln holding him as ransom for 70 nuts or walnuts making the world fall in the Great Depression 2 thus starting war against switzerland because of all of the obese people in america wanting it’s magical chocolate mines causing them to get more obese and starting weight watchers to gain even more weight causing the worlds rotation to end effecting into the sun being blocked by an enormous bottle sun tan lotion sold by an eskimo in iceland causing a humonguos meteor to fall into austrailia and killing all of the worlds opera singers thus making everyone happy again and then everyone died except nalts, he lived. (run-on consider revising)