Marketing a brand through various channels on the Internet is some of the easiest and most cost-effective strategies any business owner can undertake. As inexpensive and easy as some of the methods of online marketing can be, business owners still need to move forward with a plan to get the best results. Part of any business/brand building campaign must include video content, and the holy grail for any video content is the prospect of that video going viral. Some of the best video marketing content out there are videos that people share on your behalf.
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What Are Viral Videos?
Viral videos are a marketing technique that uses social media to increase awareness of a brand. It's viral because it spreads like a disease, through word of mouth, but the word-of-mouth were talking about here isn't simply someone verbally telling another about the video. The word-of-mouth spread for a viral video takes place through social media. Tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social media can allow people who enjoy your video content to share it with their friends. It's through the sharing and liking of a video that the content gains traction and the brand gets recognition.
Viral Video Series “Will it Blend?”
One of the best examples of a successful viral video campaign is the "Will the Blend?" series produced by Blendtec. Blendtec is a manufacturer of a line of various types of blenders. These blenders can blend just about anything and their videos prove it. Starting in 2006 they began producing videos. The viral marketing campaign was simple. This company blends various items, puts that content into the video, and uploads the video to YouTube.
One of the companies most successful videos currently has close to 10 million views on YouTube. The video titled "Will it Blend? - Glow Sticks” is only 1:30s in length and doesn’t just do a great job explaining what the blender can do, it is very cool when these sticks light up. The glow sticks do what they were intended to do and glow bright green as they're being blended. It is probably due to the nature of how cool it is to see glow sticks blend that the video has been viewed and shared millions of times. They have repeated this process with golf balls, iPhones, iPads, and hundreds of other unique items that might be difficult for inferior blenders to blend. The company has hundreds of videos and many of them have reached the 1 million views count. In terms of his successful viral marketing campaign, “Will it Blend” by Blendtec is one of the best ever.
Viral Videos Take Strategic Planning
Successfully creating a viral marketing campaign takes a lot of creativity and planning. Obviously the purpose is to promote your product, but most video viewers don't want to be inundated with your product as the main spotlight. That is a commercial, and commercials very rarely go viral. Instead think about coming up with a compelling story that relates to the product. Try to keep the content two minutes or less. Any longer than that and you'll quickly lose the attention of the Youtubers who might like and share your video.
Once you have your video ready to go and start promoting, you and every person on your team should post the video on their own Facebook, Twitter, as well as email a link to the video in your/their contacts. If done well this will get you started on the right foot with lots of views quickly. Make sure you encourage people to like and share your video as they watch it. On a final note, post videos regularly and often because you never know what video might catch fire and go viral. When people discover your videos and like them they'll want to watch all of the videos, not come back in two weeks for the latest video if possible.
At the end of the day, video content is one of the best ways to build a brand. If you can combine creative video making with your brand messaging in such a way that people want to share your video with others, then it is a success.
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Advertise using traditional methods. While the use of print media may be declining in the face of electronic communications, many consumers still read newspapers and magazines. You may be able to use the declining significance of print publications to your advantage by negotiating a lower advertising rate. Create attention-grabbing advertisements that prominently display your product and explain its value.
It doesn’t have to be all about social media!
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Yes, definitely the traffic that YouTube could bring to your website is litmitless, I mean… only If you’re doing it the right way and YouTube knows that, that’s why their system is now almost impossible to be fooled! Yes, YouTube can bring you a lot of visitors to your website but It’s almost impossible to keep your links on the site, most of YouTube videos get deleted and accounts banned because of spam and that’s why YouTube doesn’t trust anyone, uploading videos has become a powerful tool for marketers and business. Helpful post.
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I’ve been contemplating using YouTube for promotional purposes because it seems like you could get a lot of traffic just by posting videos. I’m more of a silly person so I’d have to post something goofy, or possibly a tutorial.
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Will the Blend? brilliant. That’s some funny stuff. Great article.
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It is a great campaign, I want to buy it just to blend things that shouldn’t be blended! 🙂
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Creating a Youtube channel and uploading videos has driven a lot of relevant traffic to my websites despite the fact that I don’t get thousands of views. It’s definitely one of the most important things you can do!