Online video is something of a dark art. Get one right and they can spread across the Internet in minutes. Get one wrong and it sits unloved on YouTube barely breaking double figures in terms of viewers. Exactly what the magic ingredients are that make the difference between success and failure is a question many businesses wrestle with on a regular basis.
Dyson took an interesting new approach with the above ‘teaser’ vid that recently appeared on its site. I forwarded it round a couple of colleagues to gauge opinion with feedback ranging from ‘tremendously lame’ to ‘fascinatingly simple’. The positive – it stirred some curiosity about exactly what was evoking this kind of reaction from the audience (”oh my gosh!” “wow!” “what is it?”) The negative – people probably don’t like it enough to forward round their networks (in anything other than a professional capacity at least). Side note – it looks like this space-age bladeless fan was what stirred such a response.
So what does a video need to achieve the dream of truly going ‘viral’? The WSJ gives a good outline in this piece, but in general, they tend to be one or all of the following:
- Visually striking: This doesn’t always have to be astonishing feats like Samsung’s Extreme Sheep LED Art. A recent trend seems to be multimedia content driven by numbers and fast music. Everyone, after all, loves a stat.
- Rich in Humor: This recent effort from Symantec is a great (and bizarre) example, using 70’s heavy metal band Dokken and a frozen chicken to demonstrate the perils of surfing the web without security software.
- Appeal to an existing audience: This AMD video of enthusiasts overclocking their processors is a great example of content that appeals to a relatively specialist fan-base but generated huge traffic volumes – over 700,000 views. (Disclosure: AMD is a current client.)
What is clear from the above is that the product or technology you’re trying to push doesn’t necessarily need to be the focal point of the video (or, in some cases, feature at all.) The major hurdle, however, is getting a multi-million dollar organization to take what is often perceived as a risk. The challenge we face is twofold – one, convincing the organization that investment is worthwhile when a product or exec isn’t necessarily going to feature and two, actually getting the content to achieve the kind of views you promised the client it would.
I attended a recent presentation from Tim Washer, Manager of Social Media Communications at IBM, who gave these tips on how to turn a potentially risky proposition into reality in a business environment:
- Find an internal champion. Someone within the organization with influence who is open to new ideas and use them to funnel the idea up the food chain
- Experimentation is key. If you have an intranet, try producing videos and sharing internally within the firewall before they hit the web at large.
- A little self deprecating humor goes a long way.
Demonstrating success is the other critical ingredient. Proving that videos like the above can build momentum is vital in getting any kind of client buy-in that this kind of multimedia is a great way to build online traffic and visibility using multimedia.
Whether you liked Dyson’s effort or not, there’s no question that it got people talking. It also proves there’s more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to generating buzz around online content.
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Narrative that leaves room for conversation around a video’s content is another key aspect. Humor and mystery work so consistently because they compel people to share with other people so they can talk about it of figure something out…”who’s behind this video?”…”can you believe how funny this is?”…”what an idiot!”…all intended reactions that spark sharing.
Not that every video needs to be goofy to share, and certainly not every video needs to go ‘viral’ to be effective, but all too often companies forget to answer a basic question for themselves – “would I share this?”
Joseph Kingsbury, Text 100
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