I stumbled on a Youtube channel where they either have the know-how, or have invested money in making some professional video content. They have lapel mics, use autocue, graphics and film effects are added in edit. Its all tied into a very professional website with a blog and clear categories.
To the people the information is aimed at its informative and simple, although the films are possibly a little bit too long in duration (around 6 minutes each).
Lets say the channel is called ‘Bestadvice4u’. (It’s not- but when checking if the username existed for the purpose of this exercise, I signed it up to Youtube anyway!)
I want to touch on where they are going wrong.
OK. They're uploading videos almost every day. Which means using all their resources very quickly. One a week is good enough for what they offer. I recommend a Sunday- its surf-day!
They upload three videos at a time. Which means when any of their subscribers opens Youtube on the front page, only the last video uploaded from that account will appear. Subscribers will never know the other films exist unless they go to the channel page- I made the mistake of uploading several films in one go and couldn't understand why only the last film was getting any hits. So just upload one film at a time per week.
They’re not ‘reading’ results. All the films from the first week only have 20-30 hits, and all have just 1 star. It looks bad and it’s hard to admire them as experts in their chosen field when nobody is watching or responding. So look at what you are doing- if its not working don’t just carry on!
They don’t provoke a response. You need to encourage comments, post the film to a blog, or add a video response- people then come back to see what has been said. Something is wrong when viewers don’t do this.
They may well just be using Youtube to post the videos into the blog on their website and taking advantage of not using their own bandwidth. But clicking the statistics and data shows usually only 1 or 2 people are viewing the videos from the blog. One will be the blogger checking the link worked, the other click the person in the film watching themselves! If things are that bad hide the links (you do this by clicking ‘hide’ next to the links).
My conclusion? ‘Bestadvice4u’ has got money to spend. They’ve had a website made with bells and whistles, it feels professional and they know what they are talking about. But nobody is listening.
The solution.
Delete all but the last few Youtube films.
Find other people talking about the subject (you will have literally millions of Youtube videos from people vlogging the very problems they solve).
Post advice in comments, send a sincere message with advice, add them as a friend. Don’t spam and send hundreds- just half a dozen would start the ball rolling.
Video content and a professional website and blog are not enough when it comes to being discovered, a little interaction can get the results you need.
Today I'm talking about a video I made which features participants from all around the world giving the same message.
Back in September 2008 I was asked to help out with a tribute film to a young Turkish man who is believed to have been the victim of an 'honour killing' because of his sexuality. The film went live on my 'JonathanRobinson' Youtube channel this Sunday, and is here:
The film information on the Youtube page here explains more about Ahmet's circumstances and situation, so I just wanted to add a bit about how the video took shape.
Finding participants was very difficult. Requests were sent via Facebook and Youtube. Many guys offered to do the film but the footage finally arriving in my inbox was another matter. At first we really wanted guys that haven't been in any other Youtube films, but again it was hard to get guys who have never done anything like this before to start on such an emotional issue. So most of the participants are people who are regular posters to Youtube anyway who knew how to use the camera and send video files.
Luckily Eduard from Bearcelona had recorded a good half dozen well filmed messages, which lifts the quality of the film.
The next hurdle was making each filmed section consistent in style and shot size. I did a guide on how to film the piece to camera and most of them followed it. The problem was how they sent the footage- I wanted everyone to send it via my preferred file transfer site 'yousendit.com' in the formats requested, but the footage in all manner of file types was arriving via various email addresses and file download services. In the confusion one or two clips may have got 'lost in the system' so unreserved apologies will be due if and when people start asking why I decided to omit them! The truth was I was really struggling to find participants so everyone I could use was used.
Editing it was the easy bit, apart from adjusting sound levels and having to move some shots to centre of frame so the shots all looked as similar as possible. The graphics were created by Eduard from Beacelona, which is his specialist area.
The response has been very good- there has not been any hate comments, the nature of the subject matter means it was a likely viral as far as sharing amongst the 'gay bear' community (currently 20% of views are viral), and interesting to see 29% of the views are from embedded players (24 in total). Also the repeated message gives a clear invitation to viewers on how to repeat a response in the comments...
This mash-up of participants from around the world all taking part in the same film will be something we will see a lot more of (I haven't seen it done before, so please let me know if you have). Its biggest drawback is in the required planning.
It has given me ideas on some future films, which I'm going to start work on soon.
