March 26, 2008
This is One Virus You NEED to Catch
What was the last business email that you forwarded? If that email kept getting forwarded and forwarded, it could have been the start of a viral marketing campaign for a business.
Viral marketing has become an unstoppable marketing force for businesses both off and online. It is a technique that uses people’s pre-existing networks to promote a company’s or a product’s brand awareness.
The term ‘viral’ comes from the same concept as a virus - it spreads! But, in this case the spreading is a good thing.
One of the most effective viral marketing techniques involves videos, or podcasts. YouTube has revolutionized the podcast phenomenon with over 200 million clicks per day happening on their site! You can leverage this technology as well as several other viral video marketing techniques to grow your business online.
When implemented effectively, viral video marketing can rapidly expand a business online. Millions of short video clips are uploaded onto the internet every day; both by amateurs and professionals.
Amateurs upload the videos for fun or amusement, while professionals create the videos to drive traffic to their website to earn PPC income, affiliate advertising income or to sell their products and services.
What is a viral video?
According to the wikipedia, a viral video is a video clip that gains tremendous popularity being passed around through email, IM, blogs and other social media networks. Click here to read more about their definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_video.
The most important thing to consider when you are trying to create a viral video is that it needs to be something unique, informative, funny or something that captures the attention of the audience’s interest level. Viral videos gain effectiveness by the amount of people that it comes into contact with. And, it will only get passed around if it is really great.
This is one of the funniest videos quickly spreading round the net. It has nearly 10 million views so far! Imagine if you, as a marketer were the creator of this video.
One thing to keep in mind is that videos don’t always have to be relevant to your business to help you to drive website traffic to your site. For example, if someone sees a great video on YouTube that takes them directly to a business website, they may stay on the site and take time to click on an ad or to opt-in for something while they are there. As long as the video attracts viewers, you have the opportunity to increase your business revenues. The most common places for you to make money on your site are through affiliate advertisers, pay per click ads and the sale of any products and services that you offer. Another huge benefit is that if you leverage opt-ins, you could quickly build your subscriber list, allowing you to market to those leads over the long term. Most people don’t click on an ad or buy a product on their first visit to a website-so, you need to bring them back again and again.
One of the newest internet marketing tools is called Social Media Optimization, or SMO. SMO is like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website but using a different platform. SMO uses social networking sites to build links to their websites.
How can a Viral Video help make Money for your Business?
People often like to see something before they like to read something! Hence, video marketing has gained tremendous popularity in the last year as a marketing strategy for businesses of all types.
One of the first ways that it can help your business is by generating clickthroughs and subscriptions to your opt-in offers. Offer Free e-books, research reports or newsletters of added value to gain new leads for drip marketing. Additional opt-in leads of course means extra money making opportunities. The new website clicks comes from the links that can be embedded into the videos themselves.
Keep in mind that videos that do not have any specific marketing message or motive can generate profits for your business through clickthroughs. As long as people click on the video, you can gain additional traffic to your website.
How do you maximize your videos effectiveness?
1. Video clips are best when they are short - 3-5 minutes at the maximum. People tend to have short attention spans and when they are browsing through a site of millions of videos, you only have a few moments to grab their attention.
2. If you want your videos to have viral potential, they need to be provocative, entertaining, interesting and unique.
3. Avoid including a commercial effect as these types of videos are not generally viral in nature.
4. Optimize your videos with tags and links so that they are easily passable and easy to find.
5. Design it so that it can be re-mixed
6. Make it shocking
7. Use fake headlines
8. Use a powerful video title- you can use a catchy and misleading title to start and then change it over time to get additional clicks
9. Utilize the thumbnail option when you submit your videos to other sites- people like visuals
10. Release a number of videos in a row and let all of your website visitors know that there will be a series. If the first one is great, people will link back to see the rest.
Here are some other ways that you can leverage the power of videos for your site:
• You can add a video clip to your blog and generate additional click through income by adding social networking links.
• Social networking links can be RSS feeds, tags, trackbacks, reviews, comments, ratings and through direct links such as del.icio.us, dig, furl, Yahoo and Blinklist.
These easy tags at the bottom of your post make it easy for people to add your blog link to other social networking sites, increasing your chances of it becoming viral. Ratings on many of these sites can allow your video clip to rise in popularity simply through the democratic process as well.
How do you make your videos?
You can create videos to attach into your current website content, you can tag videos in YouTube and you can create your own videos to launch onto other sites.
If you are looking to simply create your own short video on your current website, consider using the services of mymuvee.com which allows you to easily drag and drop in material, add audio and launch a simple solution within 30 minutes. These simple videos are great to add onto your website for your current website traffic.
Here are some other sources to help you create your own videos:
• Instant Video Generator
• Jump Cut
• Blog TV
• UStream
If you want to add effects to your own video:
• Eye Spot
• Cuts
• Bubble Ply
• VMix
• Movie Masher
If you need an online video converter:
• Zam Zar
• Media Convert
• Vixy
• Hey Watch
• MonAvi
You can also create videos from your home using modest video equipment and a microphone or you can have them professionally recorded. Be sure to take into account background noise when you are taping your own video and make sure that you are against a solid background.
One of the best tools to create a video yourself is hellodeo.com. You can also use Bubble Guru or StumbleUpon.
If you are on a budget, you can have students complete them for you.
If you are not interested in actually creating your own video, you can leverage videos that have currently been made through other video sites such as YouTube.com to drive traffic to your website.
How do you use YouTube or other Sharing Video Sites to make money on your website?
First, you can request permission from people that already have videos on YouTube to link them to your site, or you can create your own videos and upload them using the same process.
Step 1: Hunt on YouTube for the videos that you would like to link to your website. Search for videos on a specific niche, related to your business or that are simply just interesting. When you are looking for a video to link - search the most recent posts that have a moderately high viewer count. Once you have found one, ask the creator for permission to link it to your website in return for payment or coverage.
You can test many different YouTube videos for your site, so pick as many as you would like to start.
Step 2: Download and save the chosen videos to your computer. You can use many different software programs to help you do this but my favorite is vixy.net. It is a free service that will allow you to download the video into a flash drive, FLV file or to a MPEG4 file. And the best part is that you don’t have to download any software onto your computer to use it.
Step 3: Convert the videos to an AVI format. The reason that you want to convert the videos into an AVI format is so that you can import all of the files into Windows Movie Maker without any problems. If you don’t already have Windows Movie Maker on your computer, you can download it directly from Microsoft for free.
Step 4: Add your links to the videos and your customized text. Make sure that you have also added a separate title block.
Step 5: Upload your video onto YouTube.com.
The embedded links in the actual videos will help drive traffic to your website.
YouTube.com Tips
1. Make sure that you use lots of relevant keywords to tag the video clip with. This way, when people type in those keywords, your video will gain additional recognition.
2. Don’t forget to insert your URL into the description of your video. This is a vital way for people to click on your link directly from a video posted on YouTube.
3. Choose many niches that will draw a large audience of viewers as well as interesting or controversial topics as the combination will drive more website traffic.
4. Consider using a banner at the top of the video to help drive website traffic.
5. Use several different videos to get the most traffic possible to your site.
6. Constantly add new videos with links to your sites. The best to choose are the ones that were most recently added to the website.
How do you market your videos?
The best way to market your videos other than by inserting links and tags into the videos themselves is to use services that post your videos to several sites all at once. These are some of the best resources to help you do this:
• Video Upload Pro
• Hey Spread
• Video Post Robot
• UnCut
• Video Google
• Blip.tv
• Daily Motion
• Vimeo
• Traffic Geyser
In addition to submitting your videos to the top online video services, also do the following:
• Submit your video to other blog sites - business and social
• Embed your videos into forum threads that you post on other people’s sites
• Use MySpace or other social networking sites to post your videos
• Send the video to your email list
• Include the video link in your E-books, E-zines and Free reports
• Embed the link into your resource box at the end of posts onto other people’s blogs and into articles that you are writing and posting. If you use an article directory service, you can also get mass distribution with a single submission.
Video marketing can be a powerful tool to drive new users to your website, to generate PPC income, to generate affiliate advertising income, to sell your products and services and to keep your existing website visitors coming back time and time again.
Resources:
Video Sharing Sites:
YouTube.com
A great website to upload videos and download videos for your site.
Income Generation Sites:
Clickbank.com
Clickbank is one of the internet’s leading retailers of digital products. You can buy, promote and buy digital products on this site.
Paydotcom.com
This site allows you to sell your products and services through their online marketplace.
Video Conversion Sites:
Vixy.net
Zamzar
Media Converter
Hey Watch
Mon Avi
These services allow you to convert a Flash Video/FLV file into MPEG4 file online.
Video Creation Tools:
Windows Movie Maker
Instant Video Generator
Jump Cut
Blog TV
UStream
Add your Own Effects:
Eye Spot
Cuts
Bubbly Ply
VMix
Movie Masher
Video Promotion Sites:
Hey Spread
This is a great video promoting website service. You can access a professional, robust and scalable video promoting website service when you use this company. This service
Video Post Robot
This is a great service to use for uploading your video to multiple sites with the push of a single button.
Video Upload
UnCut
Video Google
Track Your Video Hits
Tube Mogul
TubeMogul's analytic technology aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers improved understanding of when, where and how often videos are watched, track and compare what's hot and what's not, measure the impact of marketing campaigns, gather competitive intelligence, and share the data with colleagues or friends.
If you like this post, I would really appreciate a digg or stumbleupon. The url to digg this article is http://digg.com/business_finance/This_is_One_Virus_You_NEED_to_Catch
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Filed under Web 2.0 Techniques by Ryan Shamus
Comments on This is One Virus You NEED to Catch »
[...] friend Ryan just wrote a great post about using video to get viral traffic to your website or blog. Ryan goes into a lot of detail about the various ways you can use video to make more money. Ryan [...]
I am sure your viral report had given me some insights on what's next i can do for a profitable website.
[...] to make your videos viral and if you want to learn more about how to do this, young Gavin over at RyanShamus.com has just written a great article on how to make your videos [...]
I saw a great scary viral video called project 10, it uses the techniques you mentioned. The key is to have a valid message. And to have a 'related' product. And to have another method of sending out the video, just as affective as facebook you can use traffic exchanges to promote your youtube video that promotes your system, or blog.
Wow, how long did it take you to write this thing. I'm pretty sure you could teach a newbie such as myself to do this now. Really great post thanks a lot. Maybe I will try this video thing.
I wrote up a 80+ resource guide not too long ago. I see many on your list that are on mine. Very good post and that guy in the video did a heck of a job!
Excellent post! I have had a few successes myself driving traffic to our company site via making a video and uploading them to YouTube.
Thanks for the informative post.
This is most helpful. Thank you. Deserves a Digg, and votes too.
Good article. I'm amazed that there are only few bloggers who write about this stuff.
I started experimenting this a year ago and I've used some of the titles you mentioned but the one I used the most and found it very helpful is PHP MELODY (from http://www.phpsugar.com). Their app allowed me to organize all the viral videos in one place and also helped me promote the site not just a few videos.
This Youtube idiot is lame and the only reason this piece of shit video has gotten this many hits is because of a video he did a while back. He's a 1 hit wonder. That video is an example of exactly what NOT to do.
WOW Ryan Great Post . Better start making videos now
and see how it can get me new visitors .
Very nice list and very practical.
There are small marketing company actually using those tips and generate pretty good results.
I think it's matter of time to blow out the video marketing industry.
[...] at RyanShamus.com a great resource has been published about producing, distributing and marketing a viral video. So [...]
Great post.Would you mind if i copped this post to my blog?
Thanks to everyone who has posted a comment on this article. Im glad you all like it. The main aim was to create a resource page which people could come and read and refer back to.
NEM - I dont mind if you write your own post on your blog and then link back to my viral video article. This is a good thing. But, you cant copy the post and paste it on your blog. You would be duplicating the content by doing this.
Please let me know if you require any further clarification.
Thanks
[...] The Article :: Digg It [...]
Ryan, don't you think it's stupid to advice people to copy succesfull video from Youtube on their computer, and then upload the video with a link to the their blog.
This is one of the reasons Youtube videos has so many clones.
Except that, the advices are greatm but this…
Hi Phonecto, Thanks for your input. One solution around this is to ask the owner of the video to embed your url next to their video so you are not duplicating videos.
But… I also think that youtube.com is so big with so many visitors that duplicated videos are not really a problem at present.
If I see the same video duplicated, ie. the same screen shot, and length etc, I just skip over it and watch another one. Ideally you should host your own video under your username rather than duplicating it under the other persons.
I do think that in the future, youtube.com will start to filter duplicated videos, and will start to notice videos which are exactly the same length and file format, and may omit them from their search results.
The way around this is to either change the file format or add or subtract things in the video to change its length.
In this article I am trying to give people ideas on how to use viral videos. Ideas which people may not have thought about before. I know duplicated written content has always been a problem and Google manages to filters it, but people continue to duplicate it and sometimes it has a place. The same will apply to videos.
Nice work. You didn't just touch on the topic you put a full blown "how to" out there. Very nice job-thorough.
I had some success when I did a side by side of one of my videos with one by Demetri Martin
I signed up YouTube today, and still was not sure how it works, and then–I found your very-well-written how-to, thank you so much.
hi, i was referred to your site by garryconn.com and garry conn was correct; your advice is very helpful to people like me who have little idea how to start using the power of video viral marketing. with thanks and appreciation.
That's a fantastically Wonderful article!
Just what I was looking for..
Thanks for sharing this great insighful and informative post!
Yours,
- Wakish -
[...] Gavin from RyanShamus.com has created a truly monstrous article that does a great job of explaining how to create and market videos. Video is without a doubt going to keep growing for a very long time and the potential for driving traffic and making money is truly amazing. You can find the post here: This is One Virus You NEED to Catch. [...]
[...] from ryanshamus.com (who is a commenter and guest blogger here at One Mans Goal) has just posted a great article on viral videos that I would highly [...]
Now, how do we add links to the videos? Are these links that can be clicked on or just shown?
Hi Bloddard,
The links on the video will just be static, unfortunately you cant click on a link on a youtube.com video so anyone who wants to go to your site will have to type in the url.
Another way is to add the link to your youtube.com video description, just add it like http://ryanshamus.com in the description field and it will show up next to the video.
To add your url to your video, you will need to use some kind of video editing software. I use Camtasia or ULead Video Studio.
Here is a good post that will help you find some software to do it free.
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/01/free-video-editing-software-for.html
Any other questions, please feel free to ask.
[...] This Is One Virus You NEED To Catch - Viral videos that is… Ryan Shamus has put together a wonderfully informative post about what viral videos are, how they can help you, and how to make them, share them and market them. I'm just starting to experiment with video, I shall be returning to this post a lot in the coming weeks. [...]
hi to every one,
This article is simply the best.
arnie
Great article! Great blog! I just subscribed to your rss feed;-)
Greez from Germany
Felix
cool article. i dont think you can use the term viral video without mentioning chocolate rain.
[...] friend, Ryan Shamus, just wrote a great post about using video to get viral traffic to your website or blog. Ryan goes into a lot of detail about the various ways you can use video to make more money. Ryan [...]