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Online Video

“Online Influencers” Definition: TechCrunch vs. Fast Company; 4Chan’s Moot Photo Faked.

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Fast Company’s November issue takes on the subject of online influencers, with prominent features of YouTubers, iJustine and MysteryGuitarMan. The piece provided some nice insights into the “going rate” of a weblebrity/webstar… mid-high six figure incomes with $20-$50K per sponsored videos. Sustainable?

Techcrunch took objection to the piece and brought it out back for a good-times ass whooping. And to that I shout, “fight, fight, fight” (and hope nobody kicks my ass while I get some good footage). Here’s a picture of Justine Ezarik. I’m not swiping the one of Joe Penna (MGM) because I’m too lazy.

Most online publications took on the debate of "online influencers" as an excuse to use photos of iJustine to boost page views.

The real surprise of the article, beyond such trivial disputes as to “what defines online influence,” is this… who would have thought that 4Chan’s “Moot” would be fairly zit free, thin, and (dare I concede without sounding perverted) handsome? Is this an elaborate plot by “Anonymous” to give Moot a fake image, torn from some J. Crew catalog or an Asian teen porn magazine?

4Chan's "Moot" isn't as ugly as we might have expected

Yeah I’d say we’ve been punked. That aint Moot. Here’s the real Moot. But you gotta love 4Chan. I’ll bet they cleverly manipulated all of the influence data, showing that Fast Company and TechCrunch are both wrong. Fight, fight, fight!

The real Moot (4chan)

Just remember kids… I may not be in the cool crowd, but I knew them when.

Online Video

The Secret to YouTube Views and Subscribers: Poop Frequency

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Save yourself a lot of time, and ditch my eBook about how to get popular on YouTube. There’s one common denominator to getting regular YouTube views and subscribers. It’s a secret possessed by the regular names we see on YouTube’s most-popular videos of the day. People who retain wildly enthusiastic fans who watch, rate, favorite and forward videos. I once did it (more for my own discipline) and didn’t realize how vital it is.

Frequency. Routine. Post daily. Like you brush your teeth, exercise or poop.

It’s a simple thing, really. When my tagline was “Nalts makes a video everytime you poop,” each of my new videos was seen at least 40-50,000 times. Now I’m intermittent and people simply forget to look.

Sure you could argue that there are other factors. Not everyone that posts daily has views, and not everyone that gets loads of views posts daily. But it’s the single biggest common denominator, and therefore I proclaim it a “best practice.”

Take a look at the people that dominate the “most highly rated,” and tell me something they else have in common besides mostly vlogging and not sketch. They are (in no particular order): Shaytards (aka Shaytard), CTFxC (CharlesTrippy), SxePhil (Phillip DeFranco), WhatTheBuckShow (Michael Buckley), KassemG, Livealivalive, ShaneDawsonTV (and various other channels), CommunityChannel, FailBlog, MichelleFan, and a few more. I’m not hyperlinking their name, because you can find them all here sooner or later (most popular videos of the week on YouTube). There are videos that get more views, but these are the individuals that command a vivid audience.

It makes sense. It’s still a social media, and you can’t be very social if you’re out of mind. I don’t mean to marginalize the talent here. These are gifted people, and it’s not fair to write off their success to frequency. But I hold, as exhibit A, the fact that some of these people had more “packaged” content channels, and their daily vlog channels eclipsed their initial presence.

One exception among them: JimmyKimmelLive. Only 60K subscribers, but lots of recent views. Maybe one day Kimmel will grow up to be a YouTube star.