Discovery is the “Traditional Media” Shark of YouTube

Silence please as I open the envelope. The winner of the “Best Traditional Network on YouTube”  (yeah, I just made that up) is Discovery Networks. Now it’s not entirely fair, because they have shark footage. So that’s almost cheating.

• But let me give you some examples of how Discovery is doing tube right while many networks still see YouTube as a competitor or some “odd job” for the summer intern with the messy hair. Oprah, still averaging a mere 3-5,000 views per video, could learn a lot from this YouTube channel. As I’ve said before, I suggest doing the opposite of everything Oprah does on YouTube (I had a dream she had me on her show, and if she does I’ll give her a YouTube makeover for free).

• Brilliant move: post micro clips like this surprise shark attack during a segment. Brillianter move: want to know how I found this clip? An annotation that said SURPRISE SHARK ATTACK on another Discovery clip. How can you not click that?
• Just as I’m getting bored realizing the “combat diver, technical diver, former member of the Marine Corps special ops unit known as force recon” isn’t going to get chewed by a shark, BOOM another one… “watch this decoy leap- CLICK HERE.” Now I’m onto the next clip. See what’s happening? Discovery is hooking me like a Great White.
• Do you love the subscribe button? It’s so much like an amatuer vlogger begging for subs that you wanna hug it.

• They’re among the first buying the new yellow ads that show up now in “related videos.” I dunno what they cost, but they’re sure effective. Hey, YouTube, if you’re reading… it’d be good if those ads didn’t spawn the default “related videos” menu, at the expense of my own “Nalts related” section. I liked having people see my videos there, as opposed to random ones. Now the back door is too close to the front, if you know what I mean. I’m gonna go buy related video links on Discovery with my snake video to steal back viewers. 😉

• Now what if I decide to subscribe. Badabing. I’m offered a bunch of other Discovery Channel networks. Because if they jammed all of this into one channel, I’d unsubscribe.

• What more could Discovery do? Put a human face toward the YouTube community, and vlog occasionally. Respond to comments.
• Still, Discovery is up to 112,000 subscribers, and will soon pass me. And that’s amazing because “I’m a combat Tuber, technical Tuber, former member of the Viral Video special ops unit known as force promotion.”