whatbizopp.com

When YouTube first launched its partnership programme, a revenue sharing opportunity for anyone running a successful YouTube channel (i.e. a channel producing regular and original content generating hundreds of thousands of hits), they focused their attention solely on the power users and big hitters.

YouTube's Individual Partnership Programme

Following the success of that programme – which has made a good many users hundreds of thousands of pounds and enabled many others to earn sufficient revenue to concentrate full-time on their creative endeavours – YouTube has broadened its reach by introducing the Individual Partnership Programme (IPP) whereby users can cash in from one-off videos, or videos that are hugely popular.

To determine whether a particular video is eligible for monetization YouTube look at factors like the number of views, the video’s virality, and compliance with their Terms of Service. If the video is eligible for monetization, the owner will receive an email and see an “Enable Revenue Sharing” message next to their video on the watch page, as well as in other places in their account.

Once you’ve chosen to enable revenue sharing, YouTube will sell advertising against your video and pay a revenue share into your Google AdSense account each month. If you don’t have an AdSense account you’ll be given the opportunity to create one, or you can set one up here: https://www.google.com/adsense/g-app-single-1.

340 million hits and counting

There are no figures available of how many individual videos are being monetized but they undoubtedly run into the tens of thousands. Here are a couple of great examples:

Charlie Bit My Finger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

David After Dentist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs

Charlie Bit My Finger has so far notched up over 340 million views. The video features two English brothers, Harry (aged three) and Charlie (aged one). The two boys are seen sitting in a chair when Harry puts his finger into Charlie’s mouth and gets bitten. The boy’s father posted the video for the benefit of their Godfather who lived in the USA. Within a short period of time the video went viral and the family gained international attention. As a result of the video’s success the family have continued to upload additional videos and create a blog of their family’s life.

The revenue they have earned is uncertain (all YouTube partners are contractually obligated not to disclose their income) but it is estimated to be well in excess of £100,000 from advertising alone. Additional revenue has been generated from T-shirt and calendar sales although the boy’s father has deliberately avoided full commercialization. David After Dentist is a video of an anaesthetic- addled seven-year-old Floridian boy asking existential questions in the backseat of a car following a trip to the dentist. The video, which was shot by his Dad, has earned around £100,000 from advertising with additional revenue from selling stickers and T-shirts on their website.

David’s father, David DeVore Senior, quit his real estate job to promote the video full-time. “We look at it as a blessing, in a crazy 21st century way,” he says. “It’s allowed me to have the flexibility and freedom to be with my family.” They are currently in negotiation with a toothpaste brand for sponsorship.

Going viral

Humour is often a prerequisite of viral videos but not a defining one, and most videos are shot by amateurs using mobile phones or inexpensive consumer equipment. Consequently, good, funny, shocking or emotive content is very much more important than high production values. If viewers love what they see they’ll forgive even the worst quality production.

Viral videos are mostly spontaneously captured candid, unplanned intimate moments – what you might see on You’ve Been Framed. They are typically non- commercial and intended for viewing by friends or family. When a video goes viral it is generally unexpected or unplanned. To intentionally create a viral video is something of a misnomer. A video is only viral when it has gone viral, so be wary of marketers who casually claim otherwise.

Having said that, professional ad agencies and marketers have in place many systems and strategies to give their videos the best possible chance of going viral, and it is these techniques, which we’ll look at in a moment, that you should bear in mind whether you’re planning an online marketing campaign or just fancy taking a shot at creating a jaw-dropping, revenue generating phenomenon.

Incidentally, YouTube viewers are deeply suspicious of videos that are clearly advertisements so try and steer clear of this approach or at least be subtle. On the other hand, with a cleverly thought out idea, it is possible to buck the trend.

Here are two great examples:

Old Spice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

Sunglasses Catch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-prfAENSh2k

Old Spice is an expensive, effects-heavy presentation. It is unashamedly an advertisement, but its high-camp, light-hearted and refreshingly original approach made it a social media sensation. In just 24 hours it gained 6.7 million views ballooning to over 23 million views after 36 hours.

Sunglasses Catch, on the other hand – another piece reliant on special effects – looks and feels like a home- movie but is in fact an ingenious ad dreamed up by Ray-Ban sunglasses.

Although the brand shots are relatively small, and it isn’t that clear what brand the ad is for (missing the point some might think), it is generally regarded as one of the best online campaigns of all time – point achieved.

Creating the content

With any luck, you’ve already got some potentially priceless footage sitting on a memory card: Granny wrestling a gorilla, the family dog playing a banjo. If not then you’re going to have to come up with some original content. To reiterate, you don’t need any special equipment, a mobile phone is perfectly adequate, and don’t forget that most videos that go viral are spontaneously captured moments in time so carry your camera/phone with you everywhere, and be prepared to shoot when a great opportunity arises.

As for creating content, we can’t tell you what to make – it can be whatever you want – but whatever you decide, ensure that your video satisfies the following criteria:

• Keep it short 15–30 seconds ideally. Short videos will always outperform long ones. Some studies have shown that as many as 90% of viewers will watch a video for less than 10 seconds. If you haven’t grabbed them in those first few seconds chances are they’re off searching somewhere else.

• Be funny, clever, controversial, heart-warming, shocking (without being offensive), cute, eccentric or quirky. Make an impact whichever way you can. You want your viewers to laugh or cry and ideally go “Wow!” The most successful videos tend to be comedies with a surprise ending.

• Be relevant and original. Most viral videos are unique so avoid imitating another person’s work.

• Don’t use any protected or copyrighted material including music and images.

• Don’t make a straight advert or a video that is obviously selling something – unless it’s truly inventive. • If your video is part of a campaign make sure the content fits with your brand.

• Try to make a video that pushes the boundaries, captures the spirit of the time and is socially on the money.

• Create a video that is simple enough to be remixed over and over again by others, e.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg 40

• Remember to abide by YouTube’s compelling content criteria and to obey their Terms and Conditions. Details here: http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines

When you’ve made your video you’ll need to upload it onto YouTube. If you don’t already have an account, create one, it’s a simple, painless process – just follow the instructions.

For individual videos don’t worry about customizing the channel but do optimize your video.

Implementing professional strategies for going “viral”

Getting onto the “Most Viewed” page

Now that the video has been posted, how is it going to attract viewers?

The core concept of video marketing on YouTube is to harness the power of the site’s traffic. Here’s how it works: something like 75 million videos are viewed every day on YouTube, and a significant number of those views come from users clicking the Most Viewed Today videos at the top of the screen. The aim is to get your video here. If successful the video will no longer be lost among the other 10,000+ uploads that day but will feature prominently as a tantalizing nugget for the casual surfer.

Each video has a shelf life of 48 hours before it’s moved from the Most Viewed Daily list to the Most Viewed Weekly list, so it’s important that this strategy is implemented quickly. And if the video fails to reach the Most Viewed Daily list, delete it then re-upload it. You now have another 48-hour crack at the whip.

That’s all fine, but how do you get the first 50,000 views required to feature on the Most Viewed list? The simple answer is, by any means possible. For the most part anyone can copy the professional marketer’s methods – time permitting – but there are some practices that may be financially prohibitive and, if not exactly cheating, morally questionable. I’ll leave you to decide.

The golden rule is share, share and share again. This might comprise:

• Facebook – sharing a video with everybody you know can have a real impact, especially if you encourage them to forward the video, which they will anyway, of course, since it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. Some professional’s create an event that announces the video’s launch, writing notes and tagging friends, or posting the video on Facebook Video with a link back to the original YouTube video.

• Email lists – send the video’s URL to an email list. Depending on the size of the list (and the recipients’ willingness to receive links to YouTube videos), this can be a very effective strategy.

• Forums – join as many forums as you can, creating multiple accounts. Start new, different threads embedding the videos on each thread. Sometimes you might have to kick-start the conversations by setting up “conversations” between your different accounts. It is tedious and time-consuming, but if a thread gets some momentum going it can have a tremendous impact. And don’t forget to join other threads embedding your video wherever you can.

• MySpace – plenty of users allow you to embed YouTube videos in the comments section of their MySpace pages. Take advantage of this.

• Blogs – reach out to anyone you know who runs a relevant blog and encourage them to post your video. If necessary pay them to post your embedded videos. The same applies to all the above. If you have the budget don’t be afraid to contact successful bloggers, YouTube “weblebrities” and anyone else you think will help get your message out there and draw viewers to your video. Sounds a little bit like cheating but it’s not against any rules. • YouTube – post your video on other relevant YouTube channels. If your video is, say, a practical joke, find other successful channels presenting something similar.

Optimization

We took a look at full video search engine optimization in the March issue, so please refer to that, but if you only do two things make sure you create a great title for your video and an eye-catching thumbnail. They’re both simple to implement and undoubtedly the most effective means of encouraging users to click on a video.

• Title – the best titles are those that are funny or intriguing, and phrases such as “exclusive”, “shocking”, “behind the scenes” and “leaked video” do well too. The great thing about titles is that they can be changed as many times as you want, so for the first few days go with the catchiest title you can think of – it doesn’t matter if it’s inaccurate or misleading – then, when there’s some meat behind the video, by which I mean hits, change the title to something more appropriate or relevant to the brand. The URL, incidentally, remains the same, so if people are sharing older links they’ll still come back to your video, and you won’t lose any of those all important “views” that YouTube are looking out for.

• Thumbnail – if a video is sitting on the Most Viewed page with 19 other videos a compelling video thumbnail is the single best strategy to maximize the number of clicks the video gets. YouTube provides three choices for a video’s thumbnail, one of which is grabbed from the exact middle of the video. If you are editing your videos (which you can do with your YouTube channel, by the way) try to make sure that the frame at the very middle is interesting. The thumbnail should ideally have a face or person in it and be of great quality. If you have the time optimize all three thumbnails then change them around every few hours. This is definitely an underused strategy, but it’s an interesting way to keep a video fresh once it’s on the Most Viewed list.

Start a conversation with yourself, and others

Another strategy the professionals use is to create some controversy in the comments section below the video. Incidentally, always make certain the comments box is switched on in the settings panel – it’s checked by default – it’s a highly effective tool which generates debate, loyalty and interaction and will help to maximize the number of people who watch your videos.

The easiest way to create controversy is to post heated, contentious exchanges. Many regular users love a good scrap in the comments section and if the comments are seemingly unfair they will very likely come down in support of you and your video and may even enlist the support of other subscribers from their channel too.

If possible use your persuasive powers to get everyone you know with a YouTube account involved, give them a script if necessary, you can have a lot of fun with this. Otherwise, create several YouTube accounts and start the debate yourself. On average a video will receive a comment for every 1,000 views, since most people watching YouTube videos aren’t logged in. But a heated comment thread (done well) will engage viewers and will drive traffic back to your video.

Similarly, add comments on other users videos, and don’t be afraid to plug your own video. Add video responses too. If you regularly post comments on popular videos it is fairly normal that people will click on your username for the sake of curiosity.

Release all your videos simultaneously

If you’re planning on running a video campaign release all of your videos at the same time. Don’t drip feed videos over days or weeks. The web is all about instant gratification, if somebody likes what they see they will probably look around the original content for more, why make them wait? If they’re prepared to watch several videos in one sitting then you’ve probably already got them hooked, in which case they will probably alert their family and friends to your videos. Furthermore, they will be more likely to take that additional step to find out who you are by clicking through to your website.

Ensure that all of your videos flag each other up, and if you have a video that is clearly more popular than the others direct users to that video by adding captions or annotations.

If, on the other hand, your video doesn’t make the Most Viewed Daily page all is not lost. Comparatively few videos go viral overnight. It can take time to get the hits rolling but when a video does gain some momentum nothing can stop it.

Target the bored and niche communities To give yourself the best possible start consider some of the most popular elements of viral videos which crop up time after time – comedy, children, animals, pranks, stunts, dancing, tantrums, outbursts, political comment, accidents and bloopers. If possible, and relevant, incorporate at least a couple of them into your video.

Target the bored at work. One of the biggest factors that drives viral media are the millions of individuals sat in front of their computers waiting for something to brighten up their day. Sad but true. If you can create relevant content that will entertain this demographic they will most likely pass it on to brighten someone else’s day. Niche online communities are worth targeting too: cat lovers, political activists, celebrity obsessives... it really doesn’t matter – if you have content that is appropriate to somebody’s specific interests and it grabs them they will undoubtedly forward it to other like-minded souls creating that all- important momentum.

It really doesn’t matter if your video is made on a shoestring or looks like a Hollywood movie trailer, if it generates laughter, surprise, shock or any strong reaction then people will want to share it with everyone they know. And when your video starts to fly generating hit after hit YouTube will be in touch.

by Sara Baugh Online Opportunities Expert Sara has several years experience at the cutting edge of Internet Marketing and is a regular contributor to Internet Income Detective. You can sign up for her free weekly eletter here: Recent Articles by Sara Name Email

• How to profit from the YouTube Partnership Programme
• How building links could get you to the top of Google SERPs
• How to Turn Micro-Blogging into a Profitable Marketing Strategy With Twitter (Part I)
• 5 Top Link Building Tips – Embrace A Truly Free and Fun Way To Build Traffic to Any Website, Page or Offer…