Click here to view the embedded video.

Have a great Easter!

If a campaign has more than one video (perhaps different content, or as part of a series), Channels are vital for bringing all the assets together in one place, allowing casual viewers who come across a video on their daily internet travels to discover more related content. These genuinely engaged users are often the key to campaign success, so making their journey as easy as possible is crucial.

I recently came across this article on optimising your YouTube channel for SEO, from SEOptimise.com. It gives some great tips, which should help advertisers and brands improve their YouTube channel search-ability. I’ve outlined the main points below, but it’s definitely worth checking out the full article.

- Pick descriptive title tags – it’s important to think beyond the video content itself, and consider adding more descriptive tags in addition (e.g. with a music video – what genre?)

- Link internally with Video Responses and Playlists – making Google indexing more effective

- Use annotations – to encourage ratings and comments – Comments are not only useful for SEO, but also important for measuring campaign sentiment and engaging with viewers.

- Build external links, and link from your video description – YouTube has a character limit of 27 in the description before it’s shortened with ‘…’ – adding a link to your external site (perhaps a campaign microsite) within this limit will help drive traffic from the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In collaboration with JWT and other agencies, we’re doing our bit to spread the message and help the situation in Japan. The video is now live on the Viral Ad Network, and we’d really appreciate it if you could share the video in any way you can – tweet, post to Facebook, blog – every little helps.

When planning a viral video campaign and associated seeding activity, we think YouTube provides the perfect home for content. Don’t just take our word for it – 94 of Advertising Age’s top 100 agencies have run YouTube based campaigns.

Here’s what we feel makes YouTube the perfect platform:

- People are familiar and comfortable with it. Whether on YouTube.com itself, or viewing an embedded video elsewhere, people know what to expect when they click “play”. Removing any element of doubt should increase willingness to engage with the content.

- It’s easy to share. YouTube make it very simple for people to share links or embed the content on their own sites. This promotes natural sharing and spreading of content which is key to viral success.

- It allows discussion. The ability to easily comment means you’re able to gauge audience sentiment (good or bad).

- There’s a strong link with social media. Being able to quickly tweet or share to Facebook maximises the reach of the content. It’s worth noting that on average, 46.2 years of YouTube video is watched on Facebook per day, and a single tweet sharing the video results in an average of 7 new YouTube.com sessions.

- Content is viewable on a variety of devices, including mobile (crucially on iPhones and iPads).

- You can track campaign performance easily. Not only with the obvious increases in view count, but with the insight YouTube provides.

- Channels allow you to build a branded experience, building loyal subscribers over time.

- Even when bought media (seeding) promotion ends, the content remains on YouTube for people to search and view with no hosting costs, increasing long term value of the activity.

By using a version of YouTube’s syndicated player, the Viral Ad Network is able to harness the advantages of the platform to add real value to advertiser campaigns. Check out our example ad units here to get a better idea of how it works.

Facts and figures from Website Monitoring.

Photo courtesy of Liquidlizard.co.uk’s Flickr

Just had to share it! Cheers Dave

In parts 1 and 2, we covered online video and online games as mediums for your online campaign. In this final installment, we look at microsites as a solution.

Microsites are the only medium that offer a fully customisable brand experience. The flexibility and control over content (there’s nothing to stop you integrating the video and game you may have produced into a microsite) certainly makes it an appealing medium. However, as with the other mediums, there are drawbacks. Here’s some pros and cons to help you decide if it’s right for your campaign.

Pros:

- You have full control of the branding. With a microsite, pretty much anything goes. Have as little or as much content as you need.

- You have the full attention of your audience. The viewer isn’t distracted by other content as with embedded videos or games. They are fully immersed in the experience you create.

- You can use experimental technology, such as HTML5, to offer an innovative experience for your target audience. (Check out The Wilderness Downtown as a great example)

- It’s easier to meet direct campaign objectives. If your campaign requires email address collection, a certain number of signups or downloads, anything is possible. You can track call-to-actions easily.

- There’s a lower chance of your content appearing in places you don’t want it to.

Cons:

- Expensive. Not only to make, but to seed/media buy. Because the user is taken away from the site they were initially viewing, seeding has to cost more to keep publishers happy.

- It interrupts the user experience. Rather than being able to casually interact with an ad on a site, they are redirected to a different page – which has some of the negative connotations associated with pop-ups.

- They’re less embeddable/portable. Bloggers and website owners who wish to write about your campaign do not have an asset to hand, meaning their readers have to visit the site for themselves to experience the campaign.

- People are increasingly consuming more content on mobile devices. A study by consulting firm Parks Associates showed that the under 35 demographic are “starting to ditch the web browser in favour of apps”. In addition, microsites aren’t ideally suited to the small screens of smartphones.

That concludes our short guide to choosing the right medium for your online campaign. We’ve looked at online video, online games, and microsites. As stated previously, your campaign may well require a combination of mediums. Hopefully by weighing up the pros and cons of each, you can concentrate on the most suitable medium to meet your campaign goals.

If you’d like to know more, or would like to discuss how VAN can help seed your content, please get in touch.

Following on from part 1, in which we looked at online video as a medium, this post concentrates on online games. Games are an attractive medium as there’s a large and dedicated free game audience online. It’s a common misconception that the audience mostly consists of teenage boys – instead, it’s a mixed demographic (with a large proportion of adult females). To help you decide whether or not an online game would be suitable for your strategy, here’s some pros and cons:

Pros:

- They’re very engaging. If the game is really playable, it locks the user in. With your branding integrated into the gameplay, you won’t find a more receptive audience.

- There’s a dedicated audience (of online game players). If your campaign is suitable, you can target niche groups easily.

- There’s (slightly) less game material when compared to video, so it should be easier to cut through the noise. According to Dan Efergen of Aardman Digital, the first 48 hours are crucial. Push the game as hard as you can in this time.

Cons:

- It’s expensive. Developing a (good) game takes time, skill, and of course, money. You can’t rush the process if you want it to succeed (unless you’re very lucky).

- It’s less portable. Games aren’t quite as easy to embed when compared to video, and therefore aren’t as easy to share.

- It’s more difficult to buy plays for. If you need a “boost”, it’s more difficult to get people to play your game when compared to buying views for a video.

- Die hard flash gamers are cynical of branded content. It certainly helps to have these guys on side to share your game within their community, which leads to sharing outside too.

We’ll be posting some game case studies in the near future. In the meantime, if you’d like to know more about seeding your online game, please get in touch.

British Red Crossʼs Youtube channel has 490 subscribers and 127 friends and is currently 4th most viewed Non-Profit channel in the UK. They have over 100 videos on the channel, including recruitment drives, fundraising and informative pieces. They produce a variety of content, from celebrity-endorsed information videos, to entertaining but thought provoking viral content.

They are also very tactical in the way they promote this content. Although they produce a lot of content, they have focused media spend on the most shareable videos, maximising exposure and getting people to view the other content on their channel as a result of the videos’ successes.

Example Campaign – Konnie Huq: If I had HIV would you kiss me?

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of our first campaigns working with British Red Cross intended to draw attention to World Aids Day 2009. They made this thought-provoking video featuring Konnie Huq. The content is quite challenging and therefore quite shareable, but BRC wanted to maximise its impact online by giving it an initial boost with a media spend.

They bought 18k views across the Viral Ad Network in the run up to World Aids Day, with the video appearing on over 50 sites. Now a year on, the video has over 60k views and more than 60 people commenting on the film.

Billy Cometti, Digital Producer at British Red Cross, said: “Working with the Viral Ad Network enables us to ensure that our video communications reach the broadest audience possible, and to be able to measure the impact of our work. We’ve greatly increased our reach and effectiveness with their help.”

You can find out more about the great work that the British Red Cross is doing with HIV here.

Or, if you’d like more information on video seeding, please get in touch, and check out our recent post on charity marketing and online video here.

There are many formats available to the online marketer. At VAN, the most common channels we deal with are video, games, and micro sites. To reach your audience, you may need to use a multi-format approach, although sometimes a one channel strategy will be suitable to meet your campaign goals. What is certain however is each medium has distinct advantages and disadvantages. From our own experience dealing with these kinds of campaigns on a daily basis, we’ve outlined the pros and cons of each medium to help you make the right decision.

This first part concentrates on online video.

Online video is essentially our “bread and butter”. Our sister agency Rubber Republic specialise in producing viral films, whilst VAN deal with video seeding every day. We like to think we know what makes a great video, and also how to best go about making one.

Pros:

- Can be made to fit your budget. Production doesn’t necessarily need to be highly polished. Some of the best viral videos have a “user generated” feel.

- It’s easy to guarantee exposure by buying views. Using a seeding service such as VAN’s, you can ensure your video is seen. Just sit back, and watch the views rack up. If you have struck the right chord with your audience, the initial push from using a seeding service will kick-start the viral effect.

- Online video is a very portable medium. There are countless platforms for you to upload the video to. By using popular sites such as Youtube, users can embed the video on their own sites, promoting sharing (which is vital to viral success).

- By hosting your video on Youtube or other video sharing sites, you enable an additional communication channel to reach your target audience. This works not only through the content itself, but through activating your channel profile and making friends/chatting to people who comment on the videos.

Cons:

- Like most advertising you’ve got to cut through the noise, and video is a noisy place to be. Hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded every day – 24 hours of video every minute on Youtube alone. How will you make yours stand out?

- The audience is cynical. Users see branded videos every day, so you’ve got to work extra hard to persuade them to watch yours.

- The audience can be cynical, especially with branded videos. Don’t be offended by negative comments and be aware of the parody. The internet is rife with videos being “mashed up” and remixed into something else. Sometimes, this can be great for your brand – other times, it can be damaging.

If you’d like to know more about using online video, please get in touch. In the mean time, see how Cadbury used online video successfully as part of their digital advertising strategy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you have any questions about publisher security, please get in touch.