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How to get more views for your YouTube videos
There’s no more compelling way to tell the story of your brand than with YouTube video but using YouTube effectively for your company or organization does take serious effort.
In this Social Media Week DC presentation, Mary Fletcher Jones of Fletcher Prince http://www.FletcherPrince.com will talk about the marketing advantages of YouTube for your business, agency, or nonprofit organization.
Mary will suggest practical tips for producing high quality video that obtains lots of views, focusing on the core aspects of content, production quality, and search engine optimization.
Download the slides and notes for this presentation here: http://www.slideshare.net/Fletcherprince
This session was recorded live at Thomas Jefferson Library in Falls Church, Virginia on February 14, 2012 for Social Media Week DC.
Please excuse the production quality; it is not up to our usual standard since this is a video taken from a Livestream broadcast on a webcam — but we promised to make this content available to our attendees.
Thank you for watching, and please subscribe to Fletcher Prince on YouTube!
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Presidents and Social Media: Reflections on President’s Day
Happy President’s Day! George Washington’s birthday is Wednesday, and Abraham Lincoln’s birthday was on February 12, but who’s counting? Many of us have the day off!
Did you ever think about historical figures and imagine how they might have used social media, if it were at their disposal in their time?
I see George Washington, the father of our country, on Facebook. George Washington and his wife, Martha, played host to hundreds of travelers at Mount Vernon. In addition to being a surveyor, statesman, and general, President Washington was known for his impeccable manners. I think George Washington would have gravitated toward Facebook to keep up with all the friends he made over the years. And he would have had LOTS of online photo albums!
Our second President, John Adams, was an influential person known for his ability to connect with and persuade people to his views. He was sent on diplomatic missions and also served as an ambassador. A LinkedIn man if there ever was one.
Third president Thomas Jefferson would be a blogger. Thomas Jefferson also liked to socialize but he spent many solitary hours alone every day, reading and writing countless letters. He donated his library to form the Library of Congress. And he was a foodie. He brought ice cream and macaroni and cheese to the United States. With these qualities, I think he would take to blogging like a fish to water. And so would have his friend and fourth President, James Madison (but Dolley Madison would have definitely been on Facebook!)
Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president, may have been drawn to Quora. A self-educated man and a lawyer, who also served in Congress, President Lincoln gave one of the world’s most famous and most succinct speeches, the Gettysburg address (only 272 words). He had an interest in addressing and solving problems. Quora would be natural for him.
Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, our 26th President, was a former cowboy who went to Harvard and read more than 10,000 books in his lifetime. He loved to travel and went on safari in Africa. He traveled to Europe. He explored the Amazon River in South America. He rode in a plane in 1910. He used to go skinny dipping in the Potomac River in winter time (brrr!). And he loved nature and established five natural parks. He was always DOING something and going places. I think President Theodore Roosevelt would have loved Foursquare. He would have been the “mayor” of everything 
32nd President Franklin Delano Roosevelt would have made videos for YouTube. The President who invented the fireside chats wanted to connect on a personal level with his constituents. I think he would have been drawn to the personal nature of YouTube video and the trust-building power of online video communication.
I think our 35th President, John F. Kennedy, Jr., would have preferred Twitter. Twitter has been the platform of activism and the coffee house of journalists (as well as the playground of celebrities!). And he was a young president, who was interested in change and cutting-edge innovations. For those reasons, I believe he would have found Twitter irresistible. He surely would have had a smart phone!
Nonprofits, apply now for YouTube Next Cause
YouTube has just announced its new program, YouTube Next Cause for nonprofits. The program provides nonprofits with the tools they need to turn video views into donations, volunteerism and awareness.
Organizations that are part of the YouTube Nonprofit Program (full eligibility requirements) are eligible to apply for YouTube Next Cause. Apply online http://goo.gl/ODbI6. Applications for YouTube Next Cause are due February 27, 2012.
Selected nonprofits will be announced on March 5th, and selected participants will be invited to an April 2 one-day summit in San Francisco, where they will receive in YouTube fundamentals and promotion and community engagement tips. One-on-one consulting sessions to grow their YouTube presence will also be offered.
Social Media Week DC Recap, Photos, and Links to Resources
Mary Fletcher Jones, presenter, Social Media Week, DC with Susan Rink, guest speaker, and David Hyson, designer and Fletcher Prince creative director
It was a tremendous amount of work on the part of many people, but I am happy to report that our three presentations for Social Media Week DC on Tuesday, February 14 were a resounding success!
Keep reading below for links to the presentations online, and our report on the results of this presentation…
Thank You, Presenters
Thanks go to our special guest presenters who joined Mary Fletcher Jones at the podium, and who did a fantastic job!
- Susan Rink, Rink Strategic Communications (subscribe on YouTube)
- Brad Simmons and Mehreen Sheikh, The World Bank (subscribe on YouTube)
- Brittany Brown, The U.S. Army (check out the social media strategy here)
- Kristen Milhollin, The GoodSpeaks Project (nonprofit news calendar resource here)
We had a packed room for our Social Media Week DC presentations on February 14
Thanks, too, to Tim Fahey of the Dirigo Agency for capturing some video moments of the day, Thomas Jefferson Library for allowing us to use their room and equipment for the Social Media Week DC presentation, and to iStrategy Labs and Social Media Week for organizing the registration.
Results
We were very pleased that 250 people registered for our Social Media Week DC sessions in advance. By noon, we had standing room only (80+ attendees) in the conference room at Thomas Jefferson Libarary in Falls Church. At one point, 174 viewers were tuning in remotely via our Livestream broadcast. We also increased our Facebook Page friends and Twitter followers.
The feedback we have received has been gratifying — here are just some of the comments
Brittany Brown, Social Media Manager for the U.S. Army, presented an impressive editorial calendar example
we received!
Great session on Creating Editorial Calendars for Social Media. — Kevin Oliveri
Thank you for all the tips on marketing my blog. I’m definitely learning and I’m going to start scheduling my posts. — Rose-Ellen Eastman
Great YouTube presentation. Thanks for all the takeaways! — Frost Miller Group
Thanks for all the useful blog tips! — Annie Chambers
Thanks to Mary Fletcher Jones for three great sessions today. Lots to blog and think about. — Jesse Stanchak
We enjoyed everything we heard today from Mary Fletcher Jones — Carousel 30
Thank you Mary Fletcher Jones and Social Media Week DC — we learned some really great tips from today’s sessions — zcomm
Thank you for your invaluable YouTube, editorial calendar, and blog presentations today. — Jacqueline Leeker
Thank you for a great presentation. I’m putting together my editorial calendar today. — Joanne McAlpine
Sessions Online Now
If you missed our Social Media Week DC sessions on YouTube, Editorial Calendars, and Blogging, or would like to review the content, here are some links to check out
Presentations. All three presentations are on SlideShare (http://www.SlideShare.net/FletcherPrince). Be sure to download these presentations and view them in PowerPoint, on Notes view. You will see additional details that are not viewable on the slides themselves.
Live video clips. We recorded all of the sessions in their entirety, and they may be viewed on our Livestream archive (http://www.Livestream.com/FletcherPrince). Just scroll down to the area beneath the player on that page, and you will see those most recent videos in our online Livestream video library.
Livestream does not allow us to edit these videos (unfortunately!) so please skip forward about 25 minutes for the longer one (the first two sessions on YouTube and Editorial Calendars) to get to the start of the presentation, and skip forward about 14 minutes for the shorter one (to get to the start of the presentation of the third session on blogging).
YouTube video. We also captured some higher quality video footage which we are currently editing into short clips, and we will put those edited videos on our Fletcher Prince YouTube Channel (http://www.YouTube.com/user/FletcherPrince). Thank you for subscribing!
Flickr Photo Set. Check out the photos from the day. We would love to see your photos, as well. You can share those with Mary@FletcherPrince.com
Thank you to all who attended, and most of all, we appreciate your kind referrals for new business and projects in social media, marketing, PR, and design. We are looking for work! If you have questions or leads, or would like a complimentary consultation, please call Mary Fletcher Jones (571) 269-7559.
Thanks for your retweets and comments.
How much do you know about YouTube and online video?
Image via CrunchBase
Here are some lesser-known recent statistics and research findings…
- Online video viewing increased 43% in the United States last year.
- YouTube views increased 25% last year.
- YouTube videos receive 4 billion views/day.
- More than 500 tweets/minute contain a YouTube link.
- Online video is 141 times more likely than a website to generate a “click-through” in search engine results.
- 72% of small businesses say YouTube is highly effective for marketing.
- 72% of senior congressional staffers think YouTube is somewhat/very important for communicating their members’ views
- YouTube is the second most used social media channel among Federal employees and Federal contractors.
- More than half of CEOs and senior executives watch a work-related YouTube video at least weekly.
- 65% of senior-level executives have visited a vendor’s website after watching an online video.
- 67% of senior-level executives said an online video influenced them to make a business-related purchase.
- 58% of journalists have YouTube accounts.
- 53% of journalists say online video makes a corporate website useful.
- 47% of charities are on YouTube.
- 86% of four-year colleges and universities have a YouTube Channel
Question of the week: How can I make my YouTube video go viral?
Viral videos — videos that are shared and exceed 100,000 views on YouTube — have certain characteristics in common. Videos become “viral” when they are shared among people (just like the common cold). Viewers eagerly share it via email and social networks.
Many viral videos are “accidents.” They were not produced to go viral. Typically, the videos offer shock value (bride accidentally falling into a swimming pool) or humor (talking cats). Viral videos are almost always brief (typically less than 2 minutes in duration). Other video content that becomes viral includes videos featuring celebrities, and “how-to” videos that build a huge following (Michelle Phan’s makeup videos). Michelle’s videos are a good example of viral videos that involve advanced level planning and production qualities — those are planned to go viral.
This is a good example of a viral video (incorporating humor, originality, and some shock value — the cross dressing and profanity) that just happened yesterday. My friend, Ray Ortega, posted it on his Facebook profile. I saw it, loved it, and shared it on Facebook and Twitter. At that time, it had 311 views. In 24 hours, so many people had shared it, the views rocketed to more than 350,000 views.
Sometimes, it seems like a video just becomes viral because of luck. Let me give you an example: Dieselducy on YouTube. Just one of his many elevator videos (yes, they are just videos of elevators) has more views than all of the videos on my Fletcher Prince Channel put together, and for that matter, more than nearly any public relations agency on YouTube. Certainly, they achieve viral status, and how humbling is that?! He has managed somehow to put together content, that for reasons many of us would find hard to understand, resonate with a large audience. My son happens to be a big fan, and I have to say they do kind of grow on you. Anyway, whatever the reason, viral videos strike a chord among viewers, and in this way, they are rather successful communications forms.
Is it possible to “make” a video you have produced for your company or nonprofit go viral? You can certainly increase your chances for obtaining more views by creating shocking or humorous content (both are extremely difficult to do, and I only recommend it for certain kinds of brands).
You can also increase views for any YouTube video through
- Optimization (proper tags, titles, descriptions, and playlists)
- Promotion (embeds, blogs, Twitter, email)
- Advertising — YouTube offers a variety of well-tested options
I do not believe I have had the fortune to have produced a viral video, myself. The most views I have ever achieved on a single video would be about 35,000, and I don’t consider that count to be in the viral category. That said, YouTube still contacts me to run advertising on my videos, and they feature them from time to time. So, I know my videos have influence.
Think about your goals. Do you want your video to go viral, truly? Or do you want to reach a targeted audience? Most viral video producers are obtaining advertising revenue from their videos, and may already be in the YouTube Partner program. If you’re trying to make money from videos, you want to produce viral content.
On the other hand, maybe getting out your message is more important to you and your company or organization. In that case, strive to reach your targeted audience with video content they find relevant, useful, and informative. And a note: make it interesting! Videos should not be talking blogs. The visual aspect is what it is important.
Everyone on YouTube, self included, wants more video views. But just because your video isn’t viral doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.
Related articles
- Watch The 9 Most Popular Viral Videos Of The Week (huffingtonpost.com)
- The Most Watched YouTube Videos of 2011 (myq105.radio.com)
YouTube, We Need to Talk
There comes a point in every relationship where people just need to hash things out.
Today, I am asking you, YouTube, please don’t impose the March 1 “upgrade!” on all subscribers! We don’t want it!
For those who want it, great.
But you PROMISED we could switch back to the old design. Even in your new documentation guide, there is wording about how we can switch back to the old design if we prefer. But now, all of a sudden, there is this notice that the Channels will ALL be switched to the new design on March 1. Not voluntarily. You’re just going to do it.
There are so many drawbacks to the new Channel design! You’re taking away our publicly viewable friends and subscriptions, and so many other aspects that made us social on YouTube. I used to find new Channels to subscribe to by looking at what other people subscribed to on their Channels. Hey, we all did. It was an important way of building audiences. And now, poof. That will be eliminated. Why, why, why?
The new format, in my view, is not user-friendly, and nearly impossible to brand. All the Channels now look the same. We can’t organize our channels by playlists anymore. We can’t make them the color of our brands. We can’t choose a font. The text amount we used to have to describe our Channels, companies, and purpose has been drastically cut. And the hyperlinks we had in our profile descriptions don’t work anymore, either. Just check out Michelle Phan’s site if you don’t believe me.
And where are my Channel comments? I had some nice ones. In the new format, they’re just gone.
The truncated video descriptions that appeared on our Channels that encouraged people to watch the videos are gone. Now they have to click through to the watch page to see what the video is about. We can’t organize the modules in the way we would like. The customization options we know and love have been taken away from us.
I liked being able to feature other Channels on my Channel. My whole portfolio was organized around it. But I’m not the only one who uses that feature. So does the Federal Government. Why are you giving us fewer options to keep people from exploring content on YouTube? How does that work for you?
Hey, if I could pay to keep my Channel like it is, or buy the branded Channel option, I sure would. I don’t know how many times I’ve contacted your advertising rep to do just that. But I’ve never received an answer. I guess you don’t want my money anymore than you want my input!
And the “Feed” setting just makes no sense at all. Seriously, is there a user demand for “Feed” activity? People want to see videos. If I wanted to see what a user “favorited” I could have looked at their “favorite” playlist, like before.
BEFORE
New Design. I don't like it. It's "blah."
AFTER
I don’t like the new version.
And most of all, you’ve never provided a reason why this is a good move for you, or for us. You can’t expect us to support or like this with no rationale at all. That’s not fair. Okay, you said it was more “flexible.” How is taking away options from Channel creators MORE flexible? You said it makes it easier for Channel creators to organize and showcase exactly what they want. Is it opposite day at YouTube? Because it does exactly NOT that. I know. I tried it out. And you said it makes it look and feel easier for viewers to find and watch content. According to whom? Where is the usability study on that? Because I think the organization tools you took away make it a lot more difficult.
I have four YouTube Channels of my own and I administer others for clients. I have tested the new format and I do not consider it an improvement. In fact, I hate it, and so do many who have been there for you since the beginning. Even your Channel doesn’t look good anymore. We worked hard on our Channels and you’re just taking them away from us. We help support you and you support us. There wouldn’t be a YouTube without us, though, and we deserve a choice.
You gave us a choice at first, then you decided to take it away. Please listen to us!
Join me for a free seminar on YouTube, 2/14
Do you create YouTube videos for your company or nonprofit organization? Would you like to? Are you getting all the views you want? Do you wish you had more search results?
Optimizing YouTube videos is an important part of getting a return on your investment for this marketing and engagement tactic, yet, so many companies drop the ball on this step. It’s not difficult to learn how to optimize your videos for search and more views, and I’d like to show you how.
Attend my free seminar on Valentine’s Day
As part of Social Media Week DC, I will be giving a free seminar on how to get more views for your YouTube videos on Tuesday, February 14, at 11:00 a.m. at Thomas Jefferson Library in Falls Church. That’s almost a month away, but I want you to register early, please, because we already reached 1/3 capacity in the first two days of registration! This is the basically same presentation I gave at Digital East in September, which was well-received. Only this time, there will be more time for questions and contributions from you. Register here to attend.
The event will also be available live on the Fletcher Prince Livestream channel for those of you who can’t attend in person.
Good to know: There is free parking in the library parking lot. Although the library will be closed, the meeting room will be open for our event. There will be Valentine’s Day treats! Bring your lunch and stay for the next two free sessions (brand-new presentations!), “Organizing Your Social Media” (Editorial Calendars) at 12 p.m. and “Jump-Start Your Blog” at 1 p.m. The library is located between two complexes of garden apartments just adjacent to Loehmann’s Plaza (shopping center with Giant and other stores), on the same side of Rt. 50. There are some places at Loehmann’s Plaza (McDonald’s, Subway, Giant) where you can grab a quick lunch to go, if you need to.
Directions
Thomas Jefferson Library, 7415 Arlington Boulevard, Falls Church, VA 22042
From the Beltway:
- Take Exit 50B (old Exit 8E), Rte. 50 East (Arlington Boulevard).
- Go through the first light (Jaguar Trail).
- Go 0.4 miles to library on the right, just before the traffic light at Allen Street.
- The library is a new, modern-looking brick building surrounded by garden apartment buildings (there is a service road in front that runs parallel to Route 50/Arlington Boulevard).
From Seven Corners:
- Go 1.3 miles west on Rte. 50 to the third traffic light (Allen Street).
- Turn left on Allen Street, then immediately right onto service road that runs parallel to Route 50.
- The library is a new, modern looking building surrounded by garden apartments; the second brick building on the left.
Public Transportation:
Metrobus Route 1B and 1C travels between the Dunn Loring-Merrifeild station Metro Station and Thomas Jefferson Community Library. For more information, visit the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Virginia Bus Schedules. Fairfax Connector Route 401 travels between the Dunn Loring Metro Station and Thomas Jefferson Community Library. For more information, visit the Fairfax Connector Home Page.
4 Media Relations Tips from Jennifer Nycz-Conner (video)
Jennifer Nycz-Conner, of the Washington Business Journal, is known to local public relations practitioners for her helpful advice on the best ways to work with the news media.
In this Washington Business Journal YouTube video, she presents four recommendations for working with the media.
1. Familiarize yourself with the publications and news shows you target. Read the publications and watch the programs.
2. Build relationships with reporters before you contact them about your story. Learn what kinds of stories they write about.
3. Provide exclusives. The news environment has become very competitive. The one thing news outlets really need is information people want to hear that they haven’t learned about somewhere else.
4. Respond as soon as possible when a reporter calls. Now that reporters write online content, as well as print, and the news cycles is 24/7, it’s more important than ever to respond quickly.
Subscribe to Washington Business Journal on YouTube.
Subscribe to Fletcher Prince on YouTube.
