If anyone tells you they know what will go “viral,” they’re lying. We all know the general rules: short, comedic, shocking, funny, sexy. But even those of us immersed in this space are surprised about what we think will go viral (like “Filthy Little Lemon” or “YouTube is My Wife“) and what viewers actually like.
Yesterday I took my camera to the New Orleans Aquarium, but decided I didn’t need another home movie of a field trip. My mom noticed I wasn’t shooting, and pointed out the sting rays that swam above our heads. I was charmed by the sting ray’s funny face, since we don’t usually see the bottom of a sting ray. So I began to collect footage of fishes moving their mouths. I thought it would be fun to have them all singing.
As I looked over the footage, I was memorized. And since I’m on vacation, I don’t have the time or equipment to make a song for the fish. So I opted to compress the video to two minutes, and play it aside Kevin MacLeod‘s soothing piano music. I really liked it, but was pretty sure viewers — who expect comedy or kids in my video — would be turned off.
Then I checked the vital signs today, and was rather surprised. See “more” below for the list to date.
So what’s the lesson? My marketing professor used to say “cows sell,” and I’d augment that with “so do fish.” But it’s also a reminder to create for yourself and not for the audience.
But lest I end on a meaningful note, let me remind you editors of other sites fed by TubeMogul (Revver, Metacafe, Yahoo Video, Viddler, Veoh, Brightcove, AOL Video) that the fish video is on your site as well! Just search “Nalts and Cool Fish.” 🙂
He’s one of the most prolific YouTubers with more than 123,000 subscribers, daily comedic and topical rants, and he makes his primary income from YouTube’s “Partner Program.”
But Sxephil was so frustrated by YouTube’s technical problems — which he said deprived him of ad revenue — that he turned his daily rant toward the Google-owned video site, YouTube. YouTube provides him with shared advertising revenue that some estimate could amount to a 6-figure annual salary.
Last night (May 17), the YouTube Comedian noticed his recent videos lacked advertisements, and likened the glitch to someone arriving at work and finding their paycheck wasn’t processing. He has since removed that video, but his blog post “Bastards” shows a screen shot of his YouTube midget/prostitute video without ads.
It’s not yet clear if SxePhil removed his YouTube rant video because the site has resolved the issue, or whether it was a reaction to his viewers (some the YouTube’s community took issue with his perceived entitlement). He also might have had second thoughts about “biting the hand,” but his blog isn’t commenting about why the video was removed by him, or even if he removed it.
SxePhil, or “Phil DeFranco” (see PhillyD.tv) also was not available at press time for his comments. But to be fair… I didn’t try to reach him (one of the joys of being a blogger instead of a journalist). I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him at a Washington, D.C. gathering, and his true personality is miles from his on-screen persona. I’ve heard the same observation from dozens of people, including a documentary film maker that agreed he’s the YouTuber whose real self is most unlike his on-screen persona.
Last night’s video not only blurred the lines between DeFranco (if indeed that’s his real name) and SxePhil (pronounced “es-exy-phil”). It also created an interesting bifurcation of opinion, which took place on the YouTube video’s comments, in private e-mails among the community, and in live Stickam discussions last night.
On one hand, Phil devotes most of his day to creating a short, daily video show. He’s paid only if people view his videos, and in direct proportion to those views. If Google fails to run the ads due to technical errors, both Google and Phil aren’t paid. Counter this to a television network that buys rights to a show and doesn’t sell or run advertising. My guess is the show’s producer is still paid. Another analogy would be a wholesaler that buys pottery from a local artist, and damages them all in a truck accident. Naturally the wholesaler would take the loss, while the artist would still be paid.
On the other hand, Phil reminded his audience that he’s paid by YouTube while many of them aren’t, which leads to inevitable (and often deep) resentment. Most YouTubers are hobbiests or at best part-time YouTubers (even the increasingly popular Michael Buckley “What the Buck” has a day job). Members of the community don’t like the idea of one YouTuber not needing a job, while they go to work each day. This resentment is not as true for audiences of television or movie stars, who are often paid for one film what many of us won’t make in a lifetime. But since YouTube has a grassroots community origin, the audience sees itself in an equal peer group with the creators — even when fellow creators are propelled to top rankings. When I first campaigned to be in YouTube’s partner program (with a NAPPY video I haven’t since watched), I felt that community ire and resentment. YouTube viewers begin to expect more from videos of paid creators (an odd entitlement since they’re not paying to watch), yet Phil’s rant was viewed as a pompous entitlement of its own. Interesting?
I’ll be interested in the comments on this post since the video’s gone and so are many of the public reactions. I imagine the common denominator would be that Phil has a right to his earnings, but it might have been more diplomatic to work “behind the scenes” to resolve the issue. That said, YouTube is a company, and companies run on company time. So sometimes the squeaky wheel gets oiled. Thoughts?
One of the factors that has limited the growth of online-video advertising is the production and traffic work. Mike Shields of Mediaweek reports that the Interactive Advertising Bureau this week introduced a set of guidelines to standartize online-video advertising and make the medium “easier for advertisers to buy.”
The new guidelines cover three basic forms of online video ad formats: linear ads — interruptive video spots which are typically of the pre-roll variety, non-linear ads — which include the increasingly popular ‘overlay’ ad units, and companion ads — bannerlike ads that appear alongside video as it plays on the Web.
The guidelines, writes Shields, are the product of work conducted by the IAB’s Digital Video Committee, which is composed of 145 leading media companies, including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. “This is a historic day,” IAB president and CEO Randall Rothenberg said, likening the announcement to a similar set of landmark guidelines put in place for banner advertising in the late 1990s. IAB senior vp David Doty said he thinks leadership and marketing, predicted “seismic shifts” would occur in the online ad business as a result of their adoption.
So while the viewer in me isn’t too excited to see the new “interruptive video spots,” the creator and marketer in me looks forward to the possibility that this may unlock some of the potential of this medium.
As many as 25% of the views of a video may come from people finishing a related video. This chart shows the percentage of views that come from various sources to my “The Best of Naked Vlogs.” This is not a representative example, but look at the percent of traffic that comes from “related video” (more than 50 percent). That means someone watched another nude vlogger and then saw mine show up as “related video” and stopped by. Or it means they saw one of the other nude vlogger videos that was posted as a response to mine (or vice versa).
So what’s this mean? Please don’t jam your tags with the same words of popular videos, because that used to game the system but frustrates people. YouTube/Google also has means for penalizing this trick if overused. But do try to make videos about things that are of high interest or topical, and you’ll get some help from relatives…
In other news — as you might have read — YouTube announced that it has paid out $1 million in cash to video creators that are part of its Partners program. Excerpt from NewTeeVee article…
YouTube said today it has paid out more than $1 million to its user partners through its partner program. The figure came as part of an announcement that YouTube is expanding the program to users in Japan, Australia and Ireland. YouTube doesn’t disclose how it splits its revenue, but we’ll make do with what scraps of numbers we have. The site currently lists 100 partners, though that also includes entities that we’d think would be designated as professional partners rather than “user partners,” such as Universal Music Group and CBS.
Kyle from Southpark puts it well in this 30-second clip from “Canada on Strike.” The clip’s called “The Promise of Future Revenue.” Thanks to Jan for finding it.
Boy I’m sure glad that’s over with. Me too. Yeah, but you know I learned something today. We thought we could make money on the Internet. But while the Internet is new and exciting for creative people, it hasn’t matured as a distribution mechanism to the extent that one should trade real and immediate opportunities for income for the promise of future online revenue. It will be a few years before digital distribution of media on the Internet can be monetized to an extent that necessitates content producers to forgo their fair value in more traditional media.
In this part of “Canada on Strike,” the Southpark folks meet some YouTube weblebrities (the cliche one-hit wonders). There’s something pervursely symbolic to see all of the Internet stars — laughing baby, sneezing panda, gopher, Chris Crocker, Chocolate Rain, Tron guy, Numa Numa — end up in a bloody mess on the floor.
All the YouTubers are cruising with these. Let’s not let them be the only ones, dangit.
Editorial Update…. here’s a newer post on how much YouTube partners make. Since this post gets so many daily views via search engines, let me answer your question simply. It’s a fraction of a fraction of a penny per view. It’s not enough to cover the mortgage for most, and it’s certainly not yet the reported $2.50 per 1,000 views. It’s often far less, and varies greatly on whether the views have InVideo ads (YouTube charges $25 per thousand and shares that with creators) or the flat square ads (cost far less for advertisers, and doesn’t pay creators). Although I can’t reveal my income, I can tell you it’s highly influenced by my top 5-10 videos, which get millions of views per month (as opposed to the new ones). That said, if you get millions and millions of views per month and live cheap, you could quit your job and buy my dang book, “Beyond Viral.”
Beyond Viral: Tips on Marketing You & Company on YouTube
YouTube’s Fred was rumored to be making seven-figures, but Google clarified that as six figures. But if you take his 350,000,000 views and multiply it by a conservative $1 per 1,000 views…. you’re talking $350,000.00. I’m making more on YouTube than I made in my first job out of school, but with four kids and a lot of debt, it’s not enough for me to pull a Sxephil, Shaycarl, or Michael Buckley and rely on it as a primary income source.
Oh how’s THAT for a blog title, when you’ve signed a confidentiality document that precludes you from talking about your revenue as a YouTube partner?! Don’t worry, YouTube. I’m not breaking rank. But I’m very interested in what people THINK partners are making.
Before YouTube, I’ve always been transparent about my revenue related to online video. I feel that’s part of my role on this blog… to give creators a realistic sense of what they can make in online video (beyond food). Alas, YouTube prohibits it for reasons that aren’t quite clear to me — are there tiers? If compensation varies, then I can be sure I’m at the bottom based on my complete lack of negotiation skills.
I do believe that some prominent YouTube partners are beginning to earn what amounts to a full-time job through the site. But I also understand that some of the early Partner contracts are up for renewal about now.
Could some be overstating their earnings? Yes. But some partners are doing $10K a month, especially those that already had an audience and moved them to YouTube. And some creators get millions of views consistently.
When some say they’ve quit their day jobs, is that because their costs are so low that even a couple grand a month can sustain them? Maybe.
Could the earnings be based on a point of time where, say, they had a video featured that was monetized? Sure.
While there’s no question that many could still earn more money per hour doing something else (like consulting or bartending), I am happier with my income from YouTube than what I was making from YouTube before I became a partner (zero). And while I’m not sure whether the per-view profit is as strong as Revver’s and Metacafe’s (I don’t even have access to any such metrics), I’m not getting any significant views on those sites anymore. So YouTube is far outperforming them.
My advice remains: if you’re looking to get rich, create a bunch of mortgage blogs and sell adsense. Or go into financial services or recruiting like the former co-worker that just called me to “network.”
But if you love video and the community around it, then it’s nice to get an income subsidy that helps you justify the time commitment to yourself, wife and family. I remain optimistic that more of the top creators of YouTube will be able to quit their day jobs, but that’s partially because amateurs will slowly get trumped by the semi pros (whose day job is performing or video creation). It’s already happening. While the amateur vloggers are holding top positions, we’re seeing more semi-professional content done by comedy troups, bands or known offline celebrities.
Now here’s the purpose of my post. I’m curious what people THINK partners make. I can tell from a lot of comments that people WAY over estimate what creators make: “You get paid for this shit?” “You’re asking us for ideas? You’re the one who gets paid.” I can’t participate in this thread, but it will be fun to watch.
And if you’re not a Partner yet, don’t let it upset you unless you have hundreds of thousands of monthly views. Grow the audience and reapply later. Even if YT did make you a partner, it’s not worth it unless you have some views. Take it from a guy that tried Google ads on his blog for a while, and quickly realized that it wasn’t worth the cosmetic interference.
Which online-video site is mostly likely to be part of the bridge between television and the Internet? You can fault the model, and question it’s sustainability. But Yahoo TV is well poised to leverage its partnerships with Verizon and TiVo to start serving its bite-sized video content via television sets equipped with broadband boxes.
Take, for example, Yahoo TV’s “Prime Time in No Time,” a show hosted by Frank Nicotero that recaps the prior evening’s television shows. It’s interesting on at least two levels:
It appeals to TV junkies. I’m not sure there’s a market for general prime-time recaps (since audiences tend to form around tighter niches). But it’s clearly targeted at TV viewers who maybe need some hand holding to start consuming via Yahoo’s mini-TV play. With some prime time promotion, I can see this audience growing.
The ad model is interesting. Verizon gets a brief intro (not a preroll that I noticed), some banner wrap-arounds, and even a logo tucked nicely in the host’s corner frame. It’s dominant without being obtrusive.
So we’re still in the infancy of the “TV and online video” collision, which is clearly going to take much more time than we hoped. I’m far less interested in television administered in once-a-day pills (instead of intravanious drips). I find the more fascinating side to be the amateur creators gaining broader exposure than they currently get (assuming they’re good enough, and have consistent content that appeal to steady audiences even if relatively small).
While YouTube is still better poised for the latter, Yahoo comes at the web more like AOL: looking more like TV on the computer than web video as most consume it now. So we see less and more polished content, but fairly superficial interaction between the content and its audience. It’s still “one to many” unlike the magic of online video “many to many” play.
Typically the initial online successes are “pure plays” and not an offline entity moving in. This is true with almost any industry: gaming, retail, travel and media. But it will take a few failures along the way. YahooTV is bringing TV and online video ever so slightly closer together — even if it ends up being a log over the river.
Note that Yahoo Video (the quasi amateur section) still exists, but it’s not part of the primary menu on Yahoo. In fact, I almost gave up in my search for it, so it’s not likely drawing in many Yahoo users (Alexa won’t let me isolate http://video.yahoo.com/ from Yahoo.com, so I don’t know how it’s fairing). The featured videos seem to get paltry views relative to YouTube features, and even the Yahoo Video Awards blog post has just 35 comments 4 days after announced (by contrast, most top 100 YouTubers get that kind of views and interactions within an hour of posting).
Balding white marketer desperately wants to meet smart, strategic media buyer. If you’re one, please recognize you’re not the target of this rant. But the rest of you are just so friggin’ short sighted and clueless.
There are some amazing online-video series that could be incredible opportunities for smart brands wanting to engage with early adopters of a medium that is changing the way we relate to content and brands.
Brands can reach depth and relevancy with their target, even if it’s not driving total significant awareness and immediately creating ROI through driving intent, store visits, and trial.
I give you exhibit one. iChannel. A mere 8000 people are subscribed to this series on YouTube, but the views of the weekly series are roughly three times that (I’m the inverse of that with 30,000 Nalts subscribers, but some recent videos ranging in the 8-15K views). So it’s a healthy and highly devoted and interactive audience. Episode 31 had 180K views alone.
These guys spend more time setting up one shot than I do on my entire post production. The audience is like a microcosm of those watching Lost. Or The Office. They’re engaged, passionate, and hold their breath waiting for the next episode.
So why would a media buyer pass on this?
It’s not a big media deal. No hot AOL ad reps are pushing it.
The audience isn’t big enough. No scale yet.
The conversion from the episode to a bloated brand microsite wouldn’t be great.
They can just advertise on YouTube’s invideo ads and get there.
Why should an electronic manufacturer dye to have sole sponsorship?
They could probably own it for the equivalent of pocket change they dug from the back of their marketing budget couch.
It would be ground breaking.
The audience is perfect, and the level of product engagement would be far richer than an ad we’re trained to ignore.
It sets the stage for a new model where advertisers contract directly with creators of content (who carry fixed audiences). No worthless intermediaries clogging the pipes between.
What’s the solution to grabbing these types of opportunities? Have these deals championed by someone outside the regular media-buying job. While I was at Johnson & Johnson, the big deals between media players (networks and magazines) were done by folks that weren’t inline marketers like me, but had influence over the way media budgets were set across the many brands. After all, J&J couldn’t get interesting deals if each brand fended for itself, and the interesting partnerships required someone that could step outside the short-sighted world I live in when charged with P&L of a brand.
Google closed on the acquisition of DoubleClick today, and issued this statement to address concerns (continued Dart service, as well as privacy provisions).
As a buyer of interactive media (primarily paid search but also targeted display), I like this deal. Google’s muscle, innovation and discipline from the paid search origins means this could enhance the metrics around otherwise cute but unaccountable display ads. I’m tired of the “let’s do another bloated consumer survey to find out what display does to awareness, recall and intent.” There’s got to be a way to get conversion rates tied better to display, and if anyone can now prove the “one-two-punch” theory of paid ‘n display (think chocolate and peanut butter yummy), Google now can. And should.
Oh, I almost forgot. Here’s my “Enlightened Stupid Marketers” video I posted this morning to spoof my profession, and it touches on the impact of friggin’ newspaper ads versus paid search. Did you know that stupid marketers have two choices: to remain stupid, or pretend not to be? The core YouTube audience really doesn’t care much for these niche videos, but readers of WVFF might.
Where was I? Oh. Now here’s the challenge. This deal kinda makes some online media buyers a little twitchy, as some get threatened by consolidation downstream. Some of those flickering-bulb types (you know- the pretty ones that talk too much if they talk at all) will feel they’re one step closer to being as obsolete as their moms or older sisters who were, naturally, travel agents. Maybe they should be doing PR afterall?
In reality, the online media mix is dynamic and will always require smart, strategic buyers. It’s just that they’re only about 10 of them in the world, and 7 of them lose their charm exactly 6.5 days after they win the new account. Like Candycorn, the first few handfuls are delicious, and then suddenly you feel like you’re eating sweetened candles and can’t stand the site of them. You loved the little puppies in the litter, and now they’re just pissing on the furniture, biting the couch and barking all night.
So get to the damned point, Nalts. What does this acquisition mean to video? Well, probably nothing initially. But long term it’s good news for two reasons:
Text ads are currently more relevant than display ads around videos. Since Revver hasn’t been selling many single-frame display ads these days, we’re seeing the Google-run text ads (Adsense) served “InVid” style. Guess what? They’re actually relevant and capture my attention more than current display ads. I watch a lot of videos, and have developed ad anethesia for the limited number of CPG companies doing “run of site” ads across YouTube. Don’t stop, guys. I owe my YouTube partner income to you.
Since it’s Google buying Doubleclick (and not the other way around), we’ll see display develop some of the maturity of paid search. Harnass the visceral medium of InVid (quarter frame ads) with their sister display ads, then add the relevance of text relevancy. And if the databases can be merged in ways that don’t freak out the privacy people, then ads become even more relevant albiet sometimes creepy.
Now Google has two more challenges to make video advertising really interesting.
The Google account teams have to grow beyond paid search. This is not an easy transition. SEM (search engine marketing) buyers have a very hard time with CPM (cost per million- a term for buying for an ad based on impressions not performance). Meanwhile SEM sellers need to be trained to talk to CPM junkies. It’s kinda like being bilingual. You need a translator around for a period. Currently, it’s a buyer’s market for video advertising. I am convinced that the “marketers are afraid of buying ads around CGM (consumer generated media)” hype is a big, fat, stinkin’ red herring. It’s just that nobody is showing marketers how online video ads and more creative sponsorships can move their business. Google plus YouTube plus DART should be able to pull that off, but it’s going to require behavior and organizational shift.
Now the big challenge. If I get a CPC (cost per click) based on text ads around my videos, then I’ll tag them all with free Viagra, mortgage, loans, lawers and digital camera. So we need that ever-evasive “text recognition” technology that turns my droaning voice into targetable text. Blinkx was supposed to be doing this years ago. Then, of course, I’ll just start saying all those tag words as part of my scripts. 🙂
Yesterday I took my camera to the New Orleans Aquarium, but decided I didn’t need another home movie of a field trip. My mom noticed I wasn’t shooting, and pointed out the sting rays that swam above our heads. I was charmed by the sting ray’s funny face, since we don’t usually see the bottom of a sting ray. So I began to collect footage of fishes moving their mouths. I thought it would be fun to have them all singing.
