Seven top tips for improving viral campaign success
There’s clearly no secret formula for viral success otherwise we’d all be doing it.
In fact, there’s nothing worse than a client briefing an agency to devise a viral campaign as it completely misses the point about how good ideas are generated.
A viral campaign is a desired outcome, not the basis for developing break-through campaigns or memes. That said, there are definite skills, techniques and approaches which we can deploy to improve our chances of viral success.
In fact, Propagation Planning is a relatively new school of thought which is dedicated to this very concept. In theory, the more we understand how communities behave and share ideas, the better we’ll get at creating compelling advertising campaigns which self-propagate.
As Griffin Farley, Strategy Director from BBH succinctly puts it “Plan not for the people you reach, but for the people they reach”.
Major online video players schedule their own upfront
According to some in the tech startup community, television is dead, or should be.
Instead of striking fear in the hearts of executives at the major television networks, it probably brings a smile to their faces. After all, year after year they count billions of dollars in revenues from upfronts as it rolls in.
Video content: learning from the amateurs (specifically, Benton)
This probably seems like 'newsjacking'. It might be. I'll try to get to bottom of what makes ‘Benton’ so shareable. (For the record, I know it's actually 'Fenton').
People in the digital industry are obsessed with memes because they spend all their days on the internet.
And it’s obviously clear that the recreation of this level of ‘sharability’ is the holy grail for brands, who find it difficult to convince the customer to suspend their disbelief when being sold to.
Some sources point to a shared piece of content being three times more likely to be viewed than a ‘paid’ piece. Below I attempt a cod analysis of ‘Benton’, to find out what makes him so sharable, along with some famous examples of adverts and video content that apply the same principles.
Online video needs to move away from traditional broadcast demographics
Traditional demographic segments are in large part what marketers currently rely on to deliver their message in front of a relevant audience.
However, years of research says that demographics is just one of a number of independent variables that may impact campaign performance.
Instead of using demographic segments such as ‘Males aged 18-24’ as the be all and end all of targeting consumers, marketers in the online space can reap the benefits of new technologies to discover what other factors may be positively or negatively affecting the performance of their campaigns.
How to rank highly in YouTube searches
Just as you can use traditional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques to make your web pages more visible in online searches, you can optimise your videos to make them more visible on YouTube.
This is certainly a desirable goal. Research has found that video is the universal search category that is most visible in Google searches, and YouTube content was found to be most prominent when video integrations do appear on Google.
And of course, as the most important video platform and video search engine in the world, YouTube has the potential to be a powerful marketing tool. So what factors do you need to consider?
The 12 video sharing triggers you really need to know about
Video sharing is going through the roof, driven by faster internet connectivity, more powerful devices and a surfeit of user-generated video.
This is a trend that has solidified into a core part of our daily internet routines, and is one that will not reverse. Huge growth is anticipated, and as ever brands wants to be where the attention is.
Branded video in all of its forms is on the rise. In the past year we have seen some great work by the likes of Tipp-Ex, Old Spice and M&S, among others. On top of that there is a swathe of brands that have embraced crowdsourcing, allowing fans to submit their own video productions.
But video comes in many shapes and sizes, as far as the actual content is concerned. So what makes for a great video? And why do people share videos?
Online video sharing site usage is widespread, mainstream: report
According to The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 71% of all internet users in the United States have used a video sharing site; over a quarter used one in the previous day.
That number is relatively consistent across demographic groups. For instance, usage hovers between nearly 70% to 80% for most age groups, ethnicities, household incomes, education levels and geographic locations.
In other words, the use of online video sharing sites is both widespread and mainstream.
15 posts on using online video
We have just released our Online Video Best Practice Guide, which provides valuable advice on using video for sales and marketing.
To coincide with the new report, I've compiled a list of articles on online video from the blog...
The Royal brand engagement
This article, like so many others, may be riding on the Royal Wedding coat -tails (please excuse the pun) but as well-wishers around the world gather to watch the footage on their (multiple) devices, I can’t help but think that as a brand, the Royal family are utilising social media and online video better than most.
Social video: from birth to stardom
Social networking sites have now taken over as the top destination for UK internet users.
As the growth and reach of social networking continues to dominate our internet usage so too has the ways in which companies are using social media to their own advantages.
