The Beginner's Guide to Viral Marketing (Episode 3 of 5)

By Saskia Wilson-Brown, originally for Current TV

Congratulations! You have succeeded in making a video, and have successfully uploaded it to one of many fine online video hosting sites. That, for some of us, may feel like an achievement in itself. 
 
But let’s get real for a second: So what? 

It only counts if people see it.
 
Be it a short documentary, an indie animation, a video blog or even a slide show of your niece’s 3rd birthday party (and we sincerely hope it’s not the latter), there are tons of ways that you can maximize your audience and help turn your video into a viral hit. 
 
This is a 5-part weekly blog series that will provide an introduction on how to best get eyeballs to your content. Simple.

Episode 3 follows.  Catch other episodes here:

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4 
• Episode 5 

EPISODE 3 - Beyond the embed: Beginner's Guide to Promoting

Oh go on, save some trees and promote your video virally. Postcards are so passé.  The cool thing about Myspace, Facebook, Indiegogo.com and social networking sites is that in addition to embedding your video on your profile, you can spread the word through bulletins, comments and much more!  But, there's a world beyond these sites. Here are a few tips on how to engage with it.

The Friends & Family Plan: A proud brother or best friend can double your reach. Be sure to let your family, friends and co-workers know about your video. Ask them to put a link in their email signatures, embed it in their Myspace and Facebook pages, link from their websites, and whatever else you think you can get away with asking them. Mainly, ask them to tell their friends, and watch the word-of-mouth spread. Remember that people respond best to emails that are short (4 lines or less), have clear calls to action and include a prominent, easy to click link at the end, in a line of its own.

Banner ads & Widgets: Design yourself a little banner ad that links back to your video item page.   Upload your banner design to Myspace for easy image hosting, right click on the image, select ‘copy image location’ to get the image location URL. Then, paste that image location URL into the following HTML (where red indicates fields that should be customized) and paste it in the comments sections of all your social networking sites, blogs, and newsgroups. Ask your friends with websites to include the banner on their sites, too. 

<A HREF="http://www.videosite.com/yourvideoitempage"> <IMG SRC="http://www.myspace.com/yourbannerimagelocation.jpg" border="0"> </A>

 

Also, you can use your project's GoGoWidget if you're on IndieGoGo. (More on widgets). The cool part about the GoGoWidget is that it reflect real-time info, like you're project's funding status.  So it looks like a banner that is always up to date... no matter where it shows up on the web.  Encourage your friends to post your GoGoWidget too.

Linking to your video item page URL: Here is HTML code you can use to link to a URL. Simply paste this code in any HTML compatible field: This code will then insert text of your choosing that links to your video when you click it.

<a href="url">Text to be displayed</a>
 
Ex.: <a href=”http://www.videosite.com/yourvideoitempage”> Check out my newest video!</a> 

 

Blogging: There’s nothing like a good blog presence to make a video explode with views. Set up your own blog on a blog publishing platform (wordpress.com is a good one, or tumblr). Ask other bloggers to include some coverage of your video. You can also mention it in your responses to other people’s posts.  Do a quick Google search for blogs that relate to the topics in your video. If you’ve made a pod about an artist, find art blogs or fan blogs. Be sure to also hit the blogs that relate to the film world.

Targeted Newsgroups: You say your video is about a cat-lover who embarks on an adventure to rescue all the stray cats in New York? There are probably about 500 newsgroups and online communities dedicated purely to cat lovers, animal welfare, New York-centric, short-format non-fiction films. Do a Google search and post like heck, being sure to include the link to your video.

Twitter.com:  A handy and well-designed little information feed with customizeable widgets that can be plugged into your blogs for live updates from your cell-phone or laptop. Make friends, and your updates could arrive to their cellphones via text. 

Delicious.com & Digg.com: Sites that allow you to bookmark pages, and vote on websites. The more bookmarks, the higher the likelihood that someone will find your video item hosting page. In their own words, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by their users. Join up, add the toolbar button, and ‘digg’ your video like a madman. 

Indiegogo.com: Indiegogo provides the platform and tools to showcase your project and build your audience. Get yourself set up with a project profile, and start sharing your project with the online communities, forums, organizations, and bloggers whose members and readers would be interested in your film. On IndieGoGo, fans can learn about your project and share it via twittering, digging, yahoo buzzing, inviting friends, etc.  The site is set up to make it easy for fans to help with just a few clicks.

Audience.withoutabox.com: A social networking site for filmmakers. Fill out your profile and write about your video. Audience does not take Flash embedding or HTML linking, so be sure to include the link to your video’s item page for people to copy and paste into their browsers. 
 

**A quick word about subtlety:
People quickly become suspicious when you go overboard on the promotional thing. Be sure to strike up meaningful relationships with people, don’t spam, and promote to people who might genuinely be interested in your content. Also remember people want to engage with content that strikes a personal chord. They’re more likely to spread the word with you if they like you. So be cool, be subtle, and be genuine. 

 

NEXT UP: Your video was acquired for distribution? Here’s what you do.