Viral Video: Exploiting the YouTube Trend

By Will Morgan

The ingenuity of MySpace, one could argue, lies within its fan-oriented content — blogs, road diaries, photos, and music, all readily accessible for no charge. It is the stuff of a music lover’s dream. Why? Because it all works towards decreasing the gap between artist and audience. And as MySpace continues to weave its promotional spell throughout the music industry, a different and highly potent engine has emerged to spearhead the next generation of viral marketing tools — YouTube. Where once you could read a band’s account of their inane pranks and four flat tires during a 20-hour drive, now you can watch it all unfold as if you were in the backseat. With online video, artists continue to lessen the degrees of separation through an intoxicating combination of music, image, and entertainment. One does not need to look very far to understand the contagious influence of online video, either — OK Go have been riding their treadmills to the bank since their music video for “Here It Goes Again” debuted and Two Gallants have become glorified rockstars since fighting The Man down in Houston. From another perspective, News Corp paid a bargain price of $580 million for MySpace, while Google shelled out $1.65 billion on YouTube. And increasingly, record labels and promotion companies are directing more and more money towards video content and away from traditional radio. With more than 100 million people streaming video content every month, one can understand the promotional potential. But with the vast number of videos currently posted on YouTube and elsewhere, how does an artist differentiate him or herself from the pack and cash in on the remarkable buzz factor of viral video? We lay out several important factors to keep in mind not only as you roll tape, but also as you distribute your internet image to the masses.

THE CREATION PROCESS

Many independent artists simply do not have the budget to make a true music video, and the same can often be said for independent labels as well. Here, however, it is important to remember two things: firstly, YouTube requires such massive compression that all videos look fairly unprofessional, and secondly, it is the value of the video that attracts viewers, not the quality itself. That said, use the budget you have available to create an entertaining story that will attract non-fans purely for its visual appeal. The typically short-attention-spanned viral market does not respond as prolifically to artistry unless it comes from an established source. Try building tension until the very end of the video, thereby not only letting your audience hear the song in its entirety, but also logging those all-important play counts. Footage from live performances, while useful for inclusion in DVDs or EPKs, does not translate particularly well to buzz-driven sites. An informal poll taken at a music video panel at CMJ revealed that fans would rather see an interview with the artist rather than a music video. Here again we see the desire to know the artist more intimately and outside of the traditional realm (namely the generic music video). When you go on tour, do a radio interview, or even have the night off, bring a video camera and record the whole experience. Fans are fascinated by what their favorite musicians do off the stage, regardless of how mundane it may be. These video blogs, which can be posted to your MySpace page, your own website, or any of the countless video hosting sites, greatly overshadow the still-popular tour diary. There are several inexpensive but capable digital camcorders on the market that can handle your day-to-day recording needs. No matter what camera you buy, though, MAKE SURE it is digital. You do not want to spend precious hours digitizing all your tape footage at the end of your tour when you could have uploaded it instantly from your computer in the middle of your tour. The Pure Digital Point and Shoot camcorder is a highly-rated unit with a built in USB arm that retails for $129.99. Another option is to simply stock up on the CVS One-Time-Use camcorder, which for $29.99 provides all the basic features, including an email option for sending clips. Give one to all your bandmates and you can maximize the amount of insider access you are able to offer to your fans. You can also upload videos directly to YouTube from your mobile phone if it has recording capabilities. Simply set your mobile upload options in your YouTube account with default tags and titles and send the file to your specified email address. Editing software can also be purchased for very little cash — or none at all. For those musicians with Macs, you can use iMovie for all basic video-editing functions. The program comes standard with every computer. Other cost-effective options include Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0, which retails for $99, or WinDVD Creator 3 Gold ($49.95) for PC users.

CHOOSING YOUR PLATFORM

Every day, more and more services are created to deliver video content to fans at home, both on an independent and major scale. What’s more, the viral label extends beyond simply free video hosting sites that any internet user can watch. Alternative music shows, video blogs, live webcasts, web TV, and video distributors — all have dramatic viral potential, partly because the vast majority are free for both content generators and users. Certainly YouTube ranks as the priority site due to the level of traffic it receives, but a small amount of research into varying platforms will allow you to situate your video clips in the most appropriate and strategic places. This month’s directory lists a vast number of user-generated video content sites, just like YouTube. Many are more family oriented; others focus on music videos, so take the time to find out where your content will fit best. A second option to consider would be sites similar to VideoEgg.com. In addition to enabling you to post your video’s code onto your site so that fans can upload and share it with others, VideoEgg also distributes its video content to roughly 60 video hosting and social networking sites, including AOL, Current.tv, and Bebo. The amount of hits VideoEgg’s partners receive each day alone dramatically increases your exposure and potential audience. Alternative TV shows, while not accessible 24/7, do still hold a certain amount of local sway in the tastemaking game, and can be worth investigating. Those not on public access can also air curses and other less appropriate content, which often plays nicely with bands. These shows are ideal targets for your creative, witty music video and open additional doorways to live tapings, interviews, and the like. Lastly, if your content is produced well enough to turn heads when positioned properly, you may want to consider paying a distribution company to solicit your video to the more established networks. An excellent resource would be Hip Video Promo, a company that routinely deals with independent and small-label acts. Their well-established reputation means programmers pay attention when Hip Video Promo comes to them with content.

PLACEMENT AND FOLLOW-THROUGH

Once you’ve determined the ideal platforms for your videos, you must do more than simply upload your content and wait for the hits to start rolling in. Using YouTube as an example, be sure to fill out every category and provide every available piece of information. Tags are of particular importance because they will direct like-minded fans to your videos when they see your content labeled under, for instance, their favorite genre and hometown. Also, as trite as it sounds, check your spelling. If a curious listener googles your band name or song title to see a video and, despite the mounds of information you listed on YouTube, he or she cannot find it because you spelled the song title incorrectly, you are missing out on valuable hits. Hits, after all, are the main factor in determining which videos YouTube features on their main page. Once you have amassed a fair amount of hits, you can also email editor@youtube.com to recommend your video as a feature. As many may already know, YouTube has partnerships with MySpace, Blogger, and eBay, making it very easy to post your videos to those sites. YouTube provides step-by-step directions for this process in their online Help Center. You can also provide a full list of your viewable videos on your website with some simple copy and pasting of HTML code, again laid out in YouTube’s Help Center. An additional YouTube feature to exploit is their groups option, where you can create a video fan club of sorts. Consider keeping the group protected (meaning fans must get group founder approval to join) and post your more unique, outlandish videos to it, thereby providing incentive for fans to join. Or tell everyone at your club show to request being added so that they can check out the live video from that night’s performance. But perhaps most importantly, your greatest ally in promoting your video, whether on YouTube or elsewhere, is your mailing list. By simply including a link to your video in your weekly email blasts, you are increasing your exposure and working to break down those degrees of separation. If you also provide instructions on how they can share your video with their friends, you are setting in motion the undisputed king of buzz marketing: word-of-mouth. Outside of your mailing list, use all means of communication to make your fans aware of your video presence — hand out flyers with links to your video at shows, blog about it as you’re planning the shoot, shooting it, and have finished shooting (even if the video is already posted on your blog), and encourage your fans to film their own videos to your music. Your video can be posted on a hundred sites and never receive a single hit unless the mobilization of your fanbase is as good as or better than the video itself.

Video grows exponentially everyday, all at no charge to users — Universal has licensed its music videos to YouTube, EMI has done the same with Gotuit Media to provide on-demand videos on Time Warner and Comcast cable systems, MySpace launched MySpace Live to webcast live shows, and so it goes. The offerings run the gamut from major labels to unsigned artists, and viral video can be exploited by anyone well informed enough to position their video correctly.