Two questions to start with. How does a video go viral? And can you increase the odds in your favor with help from Internet search engines such as Google?

Here at GollyGoose headquarters, we’ve been having a gaggle about doing exactly that through the services of Google, Yahoo and Bing, as well as YouTube and other video aggregation sites.

According to ZOOGGIE, our Buffer Egg and animated Marketing Mascot, there are three important tips to help a video go viral:

1) Create a title that compels your target audience to check it out.

2) Create video content worth watching…

3) Use simple video on-page and off-page SEO optimization techniques. As a reminder, see this post titled, ‘An SEO Video Primer’ for details: http://blog.gollygoose.com/post/257954329/an-seo-video-primer

Creating “compelling titles” may be buzzwords that copywriters love to throw around but the reality is that there is no proven set of titles that work for all niches or videos. You have to experiment.

However, titles that are mysterious, zany, or even downright infuriating can attract curious eyeballs, as well as Googlebot and other search engine spiders (with some on and off page SEO work).
As for the video content itself, there are many examples of really well made videos going almost unwatched online. And there are also downright awful videos that have gone viral.

What gives?

For starters, remember that there are many thousands of videos being uploaded every day and the chances of your gem being found on `quality` alone are very low.

The `trick` is to develop a campaign to seed your videos widely on the Net so that there are multiple opportunities for people to see and tell others about them. That means making use of not just the video sharing sites but also a full blown social marketing campaign, enlisting Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, Blogging, Articles, Email Marketing and Press Releases to help.

This is where GollyGoose adds value to the mix by bringing together the buyers and sellers of video content. Buyers can look to acquire a portfolio of videos from which to construct a controlled marketing blitz, while savvy sellers concentrate on meeting specific needs for video content - any one of which might become the next viral `hit`.

Finally, we’d ask you to ponder this question.
Does a video really need “millions of hits” to be thought of as “viral”?

We think the answer is “probably not.” There’s a digital goldmine in targeted online video for those marketers with eyes to see. In this dig, we’re all data miners.

GollyGoose Team

When surfing the Net are you actually aware of “online video advertising?” Perhaps the safest answer is “it depends who’s looking” since the Net caters to both mass audiences as well as many special interests.

For example, take the 100 million plus YouTube views that Britain’s-Got-Talent singing sensation, Susan Boyle, racked up in a matter of days. Her exploits attracted a truly international audience - pity that YouTube and ITV didn’t have an advertising deal in place while the masses were watching.

(Especially with Google Adwords also supporting video ads on a cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) basis, there’s a ton of keyword driven money stuck in ‘pause’ mode while these media titans get their act together.)

Anyone following the ongoing and sad(?) decline of the print newspaper advertising model knows that the fourth estate are not taking this lying down. Most all the major newspapers and magazines have invested heavily in an online presence and offer advertising spots ranging from text ads to video billboards. But the darkening economic outlook and a new realism on ad revenue estimates means that the average online video CPM of 20$ will probably have to drop to around $8 to be competitive with average US TV rates.

(Source: A survey done by video Ad company BrightRoll.com, as reported in techcrunch.com. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/27/brightroll-video-ad-rates-dropped-12-percent-in-first-quarter-and-the-pre-roll-is-still-king/)

What’s even more astonishing about Brightroll’s survey is the apparent attempt by mainstream media ad executives to shoehorn the popular ‘pre-roll’ 30 seconds TV ad slot approach into an online video equivalent. How do they know it works so well on the Net? Who are these pre-rolls targeted at? Just two questions that come to mind

Some more savvy Net advertisers are following a different path. Rather than push web viewers into a pre-roll ad, they’re taking advantage of major trends such as online casual gaming to insert branding ads into the games - in return for free access. They’re also picking up on online demographics such as the increasing numbers of female gamers.

For the most part we’ve been talking about industry heavy hitters here - both the advertisers and the video networks have deeper pockets than the many indie video producers who’ve had the Net to themselves up until recently. To adapt and survive, the most creative are working with active communities online (particularly bloggers) to create appealing web shows that influence rather than prod to consume.

Regards,
Mark McClure