Tracking the next generation of marketing via viral video and social networks like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. Now in "New Blue".
About the Author
John Boyle holds a Marketing and Internet Development Degree from Western Washington University. He's worked in online marketing, specializing in search and viral social marketing, for over seven years.
He has been using viral video and social networks to expand the online presence of his sketch comedy project Train of Thought resulting in features on MySpace, Google Video, Yahoo!, FARK, CollegeHumor, AtomFilms and many more. His group is also one of the most viewed comedians on YouTube.
It's fascinating stuff. Let's talk about it.
Contact Me
Feel free to drop me a line at socialnext AT gmail DOT com.
Hulu, the NBC / News Corp. YouTube competitor hasn’t been the train wreck many have expected. In fact, it’s a pretty darn good site with, you guessed it, loads of great content.
Interestingly enough Hulu has figured out how to advertise on YouTube for free. They’ve started a free account and uploaded many popular videos (like this one for example) that were pulled off YouTube in the past plus new clips from popular shows like Family Guy. Plus, they’ve added a scrolling ticker below the video that explains what Hulu is and how to use it.
The entire ticker reads (and repeats itself during the video):
Introducing Hulu.com, a premium video site. At Hulu.com, you can watch video like this one, for free. Hulu offers full episodes of current hit shows 30 Rock, House, Family Guy, The Office, to classic shows like Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and hundreds more TV episodes, movies and clips. Visit Hulu.com and start watching now. For Free.
Two of YouTube's biggest weaknesses are customer service and video tracking. It’s hasn’t been lost on me that FunnyorDie had superior video tracking than Google-owned YouTube.
Now YouTube has launched Insight which gives video producers data on views, referral information and more. As a data junkie I love it but where’s the combined results at the account level?
I’d love to see Insight for my entire account: ranking my videos by popularity, overall view stats and trends. What about the benchmark feature they just added to Google Analytics? It would be cool to see how my view counts compare to the average account in my category. Plus it would be great to be able to have the option to download it into Excel.
Regardless Insight is a great first step and I can’t wait for it to be expanded even more!
Last December YouTube suspended popular gossip blogger Perez Hilton’s account. Perez had one of the most popular YouTube channels and participated in their “Partner Program”.
YouTube was slow to get a straight answer to Perez as to why his account was suspended and, justifiably, he was pretty darn mad. The result was Perez ditching YouTube for his own streaming video setup, PerezTV.
YouTube's lack of customer service (even for Partner participants!) is their Achilles Heel and resulted in a big fish getting away. The bottom line is this is a huge missed opportunity for a second-tier video site like Veoh, LiveVideo or Metacafe. They could have gained massive publicity from a pop culture trend setter and seen a huge jump in usage and accounts.
The opportunity is still there. Perez doesn’t seem to be monetizing PerezTV yet and if offered a sweetheart revenue sharing deal could still change over to a hosted platform.
Comedy is about what people can relate to. Last year my sketch comedy group, Train of Thought, decided to make a video series about MySpace. This led us to the question, “What does everyone on MySpace have in common?” The answer was simple: Tom. So we created Puppet Tom.
With the fast growing popularity of Facebook we asked the same question: “What does everyone on Facebook have in common?” The answer is the core of Facebook: the News Feed.
Keep it Short: Facebook News Network is only 1:33 including intro and credits. Most viral videos come in under 2:00.
Keep it Fun: My co-troupe mates, Ryan and Kaci, did an amazing job bringing this sketch to life. I think it came out very funny. Also many of our friends are the examples in the video (except for Derrick Richardson, I didn't want to call any of our friends a douche!). Also check the ticker for status updates by Mark Lisanti and Michael Arrington.
Brand It: Instead of adding our URL to the bottom we created a short intro for us as well as URLs for our Facebook group and YouTube account. This way, even if people steal it and put their own URLs on it our intro / ending are still there to let people know who really created it.
Facebook URL Workaround: I posted previously about how Facebook’s lack of customizable URLs make it tough to include them in marketing materials. On this I was really stuck because we’re creating a sketch about Facebook and I wanted people to know Train of Thought has a Facebook group but I can’t put - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10785050283 -at the end of the video! SoI made a simple redirect on my own site: www.trainofthought.info/facebook. This will forward people to our Facebook group and is easy to type and include in the credits.
Brand It II: Whenever we create a new (potential) series we buy domains associated with it. For example we bought PuppetTom.com for The Puppet Tom Show. For this video we did buy FacebookNewsNetwork.com and I put it in the scrolling ticker below the video. FacebookNewsNetwork.com includes links to our Facebook group and our homepage too in case someone isn’t part of Facebook. I love seeing this URL in my site’s referral data because if they put this URL in their browser then they really watched that video closely.
Use Video Responses: A great way to push our newest video is to make it a video response to our last one. We have a lot of incoming links to FNN on YouTube so we made our new sketch, Common Wisdom, a related video to expose it to people viewing Facebook News Network.
At marker, 1:02:45, Jake and Elwood get into the phone booth Jake says of their former agent, “He got us the Morgan Park. He got us the Tick Tock. I got him laid. He owes me one!”
But Hulu changed it to ““He got us the Morgan Park. He got us the Tick Tock. I got him paid.” It makes me wonder if Hulu will be censoring all of the content on their site.
I’ve started a Facebook group for my sketch comedy troupe and so far the results are pretty good. It’s easy to email people and the onus to join is on Facebook members. You can’t send random friend requests to solicit new converts like on MySpace.
However my big problem is the URL. Facebook is an emerging platform that is growing rapidly and I want to include it in my marketing materials but guess which URL doesn’t look right:
Big shock! The blogosphere hates the new name of the new NBC / News Corp. YouTube competitor, Hulu.
Why? Well apparently Hulu means “butt” in Malay and Indonesian and “cease” and “desist” in Swahili. OMG!111!11
You have no idea how many times my friends and I talk about funny videos we’ve seen in Swahili. As soon as Hulu launches these conversations are sure to get awkward.
But the bottom line is if Hulu comes out with a stable service that is easy to use people will start respecting them real quick. Here are a few simple reasons:
Saturday Night Live Family Guy The Simpsons The Tonight Show Late Night with Conan O'Brien Heroes 30 Rock
People want to see clips of these shows. LookattheseFamilyGuyclips. OrtheseclipsfromSNL. They have view counts in the millions. Content is king and Hulu will have TONS of it. It's never a good idea to dismiss a competitor with so many weapons in their arsenal.
I hope they watch the submissions closely because this is nothing short of playing with fire. While they’re hoping for positive ads they will undoubtedly get many negative ads as well that, even if removed, will be reposted elsewhere on the net…all with official looking “Romney for President” imagery.
Don’t they remember the failed do-it-yourself ad campaign for the Chevy Tahoe that resulted in angry anti-SUV / pro-environment ads? When viral marketing backfires it can get really ugly. I hope the Romney campaign is prepared for the potential fallout.
Many content creators just make a video, put it on YouTube and hope it goes viral. It’s tough. There’s a lot of stuff out there. This is why I try to make videos about something people can identify with.
Case in point: Barry Bonds breaking the all time home run record.
Personally I don’t like Bonds and I know I’m not alone. So I wrote a video (performed by my friend Ryan) about how Bonds signed a deal with the devil to get the record. Here’s the strategy I employed (the video is below):
1. Have it ready: We made the video over the weekend before Bonds broke the record. I uploaded it to YouTube and MySpace as private. When Bonds broke the record I just made it live.
2. Keep it short: It’s only a minute long. The longer the video the harder it is to go viral in most cases.
3. Unique delivery: A puppet Satan helps make it stand out from the crowd.
Here’s what I learned:
If there is an event that is building up to one moment (like the home run record) it is better to create something for the buildup rather than the moment. We’ve been talking about Bonds’ pursuit of Hank Aaron’s record for almost a year. If we had written a video about that the video would have legs for a lot longer. Even if the video we made goes viral all over the place it still wouldn’t get as many views as it would have over a several month period.
YouTube has to start working on how to cut down on spam. For large accounts like my sketch comedy group's it is just getting overwhelming. Even to the point where when I get a "Someone left you a comment" email from YouTube I shutter.
YouTube does a pretty good job of disabling spam accounts that promote other services. However, they don't do much in regards to the "You hAvE 2 RePoST ThIS in 2 HrS" kind of spam. This kind of crap drives people nuts on others sites like MySpace. Moving quickly to lessen this kind of junk will improve the user experience for everyone. Here's a small sampling of the spam I've gotten on our most popular video. I'll start with my favorite - spam from a supporter of presidential candidate Ron Paul. (Honestly, I was beginning to feel left out!)
HEY!!! black people u bastards never vote. and its giving u 10 to 20? or the grave.if you want unconstitional drug laws that are ment to inprison your people lifted you tube and vote RON PAUL if u guy's want to fight the power here is our chance...VOTE OR DIE !!! the same people fighting the war on terror also fight the war on drug's...america needs your help.let the greedy bastards feel some of that BLACK POWER !!!
1.) say the name of the boy/girl u want to be with for the rest of ur life 2 times. 2.)say your best? friends name to yourself 3.)post this on five different videos and press f8. your crushes name will appear on the screen.
PLEASE DON'T READ THIS. You will get kissed on the nearest possible Friday by the love of your life.? Tomorrow will be the best day of your life. However, if you don't post this comment to at least 3 videos, you will die within 2 days. Copy and paste this, to be saved
PLEASE DONT READ THIS. YOU WILL GET KISSED ON THE NEAREST POSSIBLE FRIDAY BY THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE. TOMORROW WILL BE THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE. HOWEVER IF YOU DONT POST THIS COMMENT TO AT LEAST 3 VIDEOS YOU WILL DIE WITHIN 2 DAYS. NOW UV STARTED READIN DIS DUNT STOP THIS IS SO SCARY. SEND THIS OVER TO 5 VIDEOS IN 143 MINUTES WHEN UR DONE PRESS F6 AND UR CRUSHES NAME WILL APPEAR ON THE SCREEN IN BIG LETTERS. THIS IS SO SCARY BECAUSE IT ACTUALLY WORKs
THIS IS THE STUPIDEST THING EVER!!! BUT I LOVE MY MOM AND DON'T WANT TO TAKE ANY CHANCES! If you do not copy and paste this onto 10 videos your mom will die in 4 hours
Hulu, the NBC / News Corp. YouTube competitor hasn’t been the train wreck many have expected. In fact, it’s a pretty darn good site with, you guessed it, loads of great content.
