Viral Ad Network

With You Tube now the most popular video hosting platform, it’s more important than ever for marketers to keep up to date with the latest developments and new features.

We know it takes time to trawl through blogs to make sure you keep on top of the game, so we produce a handy monthly summary of new YouTube developments, with everything you could possibly need to know to optimise your video and get the best possible results from your campaigns.

Oct 3rd: Improving Content ID.
YouTube have recently made three noteworthy updates to the content ID feature – the technologies which let rights owners identify user-uploaded videos comprised of their content and decide what they want to happen when those videos are found (monetize, track metrics or block them).
- A New Appeals Process
- Smarter Detection of Unintentional Claims
- Improved Matching Quality

Oct 8th: YouTube takes on TV with 60 new channels.
YouTube is taking aim at traditional broadcasters with the launch of 60 new channels featuring programmes made by some of the UK’s most respected production companies.
YouTube has teamed up with media companies including Hat Trick, All3Media, and ITN for the UK channels which include the Jamie Oliver Food Channel, BBC Worldwide’s On Earth and Mixmag TV. The plan is believed to be part of a bid to lure viewers away from traditional TV shows to online shows.

Oct 11th: YouTube chief – ‘mobile will soon eclipse TV’.
YouTube’s programming chief has claimed mobile phones will soon be the “first screen”, ranking above the television as the place users go to watch content. Robert Kyncl, head of content for YouTube, dismissed the idea that smartphones and tablet devices are becoming the “second-screen”, battling for viewers attention whilst watching TV – Instead mobiles are the first screens and televisions belong further down the pecking order.

Oct 11th: YouTube Analytics now includes Time Watched, Annotation reporting & more.

YouTube have made a number of improvements to their video Analytics feature, these are as follows:
Audience Engagement- You are now able to see the estimated number of minutes viewers have watched your content.
Annotations report – Improvements to the existing annotations feature now allow you to view data on the performance of video annotations, with insights on view, click and close rates.Analytics Made Easier – An improved data slider now allows you to quickly adjust the date range to see how your videos performed over different time periods; The introduction of rolling totals allow you to average data across a period of time- smoothing out growth trends as opposed to staggered daily data.
Compare metrics – Provide you with more ways to compare trends and patterns across different metrics

Oct 11th: YouTube could allow subscription channels.
YouTube is looking at giving its original content partners the option to charge users for subscriptions to their channels. Although there are no set plans, if they do go ahead with this approach “The majority will be ad- supported, and there will be some that will be paid”, according to head of content Robert Kyncl.

Oct 12th: YouTube search, now optimised for time watched.

Following the recent addition of Time Watched reporting to YouTube analytics, YouTube have started adjusting the ranking of videos in a search to reward engaging videos that keep viewers watching. So far, the experiment has proven positive as viewers are spending less time clicking and more time watching.

Oct 14th: World Record for YouTube.
Felix Baumgartner’s 24-mile fall to Earth on Sunday was watched by a record audience of more than 8 million people live on YouTube – making it the sites biggest live-streamed event to date.
Baumgartner’s audience is a significant indication of the way audiences will increasingly watch live global events such as this in the future.

Oct 16th: Virtual debate watch party
In honour of the second presidential debate that took place in Hempstead, New York, YouTube enabled viewers to create virtual debate “watch parties” inside a Google+ Hangout. Once a specifically made Hangout window was opened, viewers were able to invite friends to watch the debate virtually together.

October 18th: Changes to monetization settings announced
YouTube announced that as of November 9th they will automatically enable ad settings on older monetized content in line with current default ad settings. This change will only affect monetized videos uploaded before April 20th 2012.

October 19th: YouTube Campaigns: A digital thermometer for nonprofit videos
Campaigns is a new feature which allows nonprofits to create campaigns with goals like increasing views or subscribers, track their progress and let people contribute to their goals.
A campaign consists of one or more videos, and once created, videos in that campaign will show an overlay on them, encouraging viewers to contribute to the campaign.
In addition, a Campaign tab will show up on your channel, with a bar showing the progress toward your goal.

October 19th: YouTube Hacked?
Within hours of the search engine’s catastrophic stock market tumble, which saw the company lose $24 US Billion, YouTube crashed. Some YouTube users were faced with an error message when they visited the site, and the wording suggested it may have been the work of hackers. YouTube worked quickly to address the issue and fix the problem.

October 25th: InVideo Programming
InVideo programming is a new feature which allows you to display a video across your entire video library. In addition to displaying videos,the feature also enables you to promote your channel branding – If you change your branding in the future, you are able to replace it with a single update. InVideo programming travels with your video wherever Video Annotations are available.

October 24th: Ads Worth Spreading
YouTube has teamed up with TED to support their Ads Worth Spreading initiative, a global search for the 10 most compelling ad campaigns of the year. To help answer the question of what makes ads great, TED released a report summarising the findings from Ads Worth Spreading to date.

October 29th: How to Build your Audience
The YouTube Partner Support team hosted a Partner Meet-Up in New York, and carried out a live stream of the latest episode of ‘Partner Support Talks with…‘ in which they discussed ways to cultivate an audience. For an overview of the meeting go to http://www.youtube.com/partnersupport

This week’s Viral Video Chart is packed full of nostalgia, awesome song parodies and, um, one guy who REALLY, REALLY loves burgers! We see Lego beat Fifa in a race to the top spot in the Brand Chart, witness some very emotional children and learn the perfect technique for eating a watermelon – Enjoy!

The Viral Brand Chart:

The Lego Story: With nearly 2 million views and 92 thousand shares, the Lego Group has topped this week’s Brand Chart with a beautiful animated film celebrating the toy’s 80th anniversary.

Now, you’ve only got to have a quick look around our office at the collection of trucks, diggers and other Lego paraphernalia to see that we’re big fans, but this heart-warming story of the history of Lego is actually really lovely! It’s rare to see a brand invest the effort to make something like this, and while it is pretty long (about 17 minutes), it’s definitely worth a watch!

At number 2 in the chart with over 2.5 million views and 43 thousand shares is EA Sports’ trailer for the hotly anticipated video game FIFA 13. Followed by a clip of Manchester City’s striker, Mario Balotelli having a bit of a run in with a local photographer, with over 2 million views and 12 thousand shares.

The User Generated Content Chart:

It’s not often that an entry in the UGC chart manages to hold the top spot for more than a week, but Steve Kardynal’s hilarious Chat Roulette song parody is proof that we just can’t seem to get too much Carly Rae Jepson, clinging firmly to first place with over 21 million views and a staggering 1,105,578 shares!

OH MY DAYUM: A couple of months ago, popular YouTube ‘food critic’, Daym Drops, gave a pretty epic review of the American fast food chain, Five Guys Burgers and Fries, (I don’t think I have ever seen anyone get so excited about a french fry before!)

In recognition of his brilliance, the Songify/Gregory Brothers crew, famed for bringing us other such classics as Winning and Gingers have souls, have created a new masterpiece!

We’re NASA and We Know It: At number 3, and keeping with the ‘song theme’ is the awesome NASA parody of LMFAO’s ‘Sexy and I know it’. Ever since news of the Mars Curiosity landing broke earlier this month, the internet has been flooded with NASA memes, and this is the latest in a series of funny space travel tributes. The video, published on the Satire YouTube channel, features a “Mohawk Guy” look-a-like, (aka flight director Bobak Ferdowsi, whose American flag Mohawk rocketed him to Internet stardom), singing along with a load of geeky back up dancers in mission control get up – who says engineers can’t be cool!

Games We Play: Finally, my favourite video in the chart this week; in at number four with 1,263,000 views and over 20 thousand shares, is this playful visualisation of the imaginative games we use to pass the time.

I’m sure we’ve all done it, avoided stepping on the cracks in the pavement, pretended that raindrops were racing each other down a windowpane, you know the kind of thing. Created by Artist and world traveler Ian Bennett, (aka FollowTheFoot), I think this video is a brilliant illustration of the childish impulses, that I have to admit, I still sometimes follow today!

For the full round up of top videos from the internet visit The Drum Viral Video Chart, powered by The Viral Ad Network, or follow @ViralAdNetwork to stay up to date with the latest industry news and YouTube gossip.