Brands large and small are turning their attention towards YouTube to capitalise on the immense audience and amazing marketing possibilities.

Youtube has more than 1 billion users. and video views are up 50% year on year. with view counts consistently exceeded a billion a day.

But with over 300 hours of content uploaded to YouTube each minute, how on earth do brands get their content to go viral? how do they know people will find it watch it and share it?

The answer is simple

They don’t.

Unless you are Beyonce or you have built up a dedicated online audience there’s a very good chance Your video is going to get lost into the ether. and generally they do.

There are countless examples of awesome videos by major brands and creators, which have barely managed a handful of views. they just get overlooked or missed. great content that has cost the earth sitting idle with a few thousand views

So is success on YouTube a lottery?

No, but to succeed you need to know the platform and its viewers. simply uploading and expecting next day stardom just aint gonna happen

So heres what you can do to best ensure you video gets seen

CONTENT IS KING

Most importantly your content needs to be quality. regardless of anyones marketing skills a video will only go viral if it is sharable. and generally people only share quality content. that doesn’t necessarily mean you need epic production values (although that helps) it means your subject matter needs to hit the mark, so be it funny, informative, interesting or entertaining. it needs to have serious  ‘sharability’ – ask yourself this – if you saw it on your timeline would YOU hit share?

SIZE MATTERS

People attention spans are gradually synchronising with that of goldfish. we just cant be bothered to watch anything for more than a couple of minutes without our attention waining. recent research has shown the optimum length for an online video is 54 seconds.so don’t waffle. get to the point and make it short, sharp and impactful.

TITLES THAT PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR

Do your research and find out the most popular search term that relates to your content. and use that search term in your title. YouTubes search engine is similar to that of google and recognises the written word not the spoken one.

TRANSCRIPT

Use the description box to write out a transcript of your video. every word that is spoken in your video should be in your description box. YouTube uses this data to help generate better searches for people so if it knows what your video features it will place it higher in searches.

THUMBNAILS

As your eye wanders down your YouTube search results it inevitably stops at a certain video. your attention is caught and your urge to watch goes haywire. but what triggers that response? generally its the picture right? we are after all pretty simple creatures

Much like merchandisers need to understand their targeted demographic to create enticing window displays – so do you.

Using the default thumbnail generated by YouTube is pointless. create a custom thumbnail that appeals to your targeted audience and sells the arse out of your content

PLACEMENT IS KEY!

Doing the above will absolutely give your video a much better chance of being discovered and inevitably seen and shared. but for brands who have invested heavily in their content, leaving its success to chance is not an option.

Thats why they come to companies like us for a viral seeding strategy

We have an extensive list of more than 15000 online ‘influencers’ who we approach to feature relevant content. These are people with popular blogs, bulging twitter accounts and massive facebook channels who we send your video to, When they feature  content it drives vast amounts of traffic towards it .. and that’s exactly what we ensure.

How else do you think a Dull is water cress bank ad gets 2 million views?

We also put together highly effective yet affordable pay pay click promotions that place your video at the front of popular videos, in side panels and suggested video panels

If you want to know more about our video marketing services please drop us an email to james@flatfrogfilms.com