Online video is one of the best venues to engage an audience - don't even think about excluding it!  This new medium allows the video creator to communicate a message on multiple levels - via visual imagery, the spoken word, music, and visual text.

It may sound like a commercial for a Montessori school - but this is the way people learn, and consequently, the way legendary brands are created.  

As a case in point, think of traditional internet marketing; when was the last time that a paid search listing or banner ad raised your blood pressure or induced you to forward something to a friend?  Get the point?  

With online video you can also reach a huge audience for a minimal investment, thus the ROI of online video marketing can be astounding. 

Consider that according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau; more than 50% of the US population will watch video online next year.  That's 155.2 million people, and we're just talking the US! 

Increasingly, people are watching a lot of video as well.  According to comScore, Americans watched 9 billion online videos just in the month of July.  

Like everything else, there is no "free lunch" - the video-sharing sites don't charge to host your content, but getting your target audience to watch and forward your video is no easy feat.  That's where we come in. 

Since we are tracking videos across the major video-sharing and social networking sites, we know a thing or two about what works and what doesn't.  

"Secret Formula" - .50C + .15M + .20T + .15P = Success  

The formula above says that creating a video is a weighted function of four components:  

50% C = Content and Production - this is storyline, style lightning, production, etc.

15% M = Metadata - the text title, keywords, descriptions, and categories that help people find your video

20% T = Thumbnail - the packaging which draws people in when displayed on the page

15% P = Promotion - just good old fashioned marketing

These aspects help communicate your message far and wide in a way that makes an emotional connection with the viewers in a way that motivates them to pass it along to others.  Now, we will dive into each component of the secret video marketing formula. 

Content and Production - (.5C)

We know now that 50% of creating a great viral video is about content and production.  The goal in this stage is to create something remarkable, literally, something that causes people to remark - and in doing so to effectively convey your message. 

We've noticed that certain categories tend to garner the interest of large audiences.  Regardless of your message, utilizing a proven content category to package your message is a good way to spread your message wide and far.  The remarkable comes in many shapes and sizes:   

• Humor - everyone loves a laugh, but many of us like to make others laugh as well; this is what makes comedic videos so viral.  
• Talent - true talent is rare and fascinating.  If you can showcase true talent people will forward your video.  
• Celebrities - we are fascinated with celebrities, and any videos featuring a celebrity are very viral, in part because there are hundreds of websites that follow celebrities and will embed these videos.  Beyond virality, celebrities endorsements have a powerful influence on decision making.  
• Kitsch - don't kill the messenger, but a remarkable number of the most popular videos we are tracking also contain one or more of the following qualities:  
  • Special effects - the Ray Ban sunglass catching video is a great example.  In general, any video that generates debate generates viewers.  
  • Animal/pet tricks - man is drawn to animals just as he is to fire…it's hard to explain, but it seems to have to do with primitive wiring in the brain.  
  • Cute kids - one of the draws of online video is that real people capture real moments, and nothing is as straightforward as a child just being herself.  
  • Repetitive, catchy music - certainly not a new concept, but with infinite channels come many more opportunities to put up the experimental jingle.  
  • Physical injury - thank goodness it's not me!  
  • Pranks - thank goodness it's not me!  
  • Spoofs - ride the coattails of the tried and true.  

The trick, as with any marketing effort, is to both be remarkable AND communicate your message.  Use the right package to make your video a hit, but don't create a vehicle without passengers. Make sure the content is doing what it supposed to do.
 
In the online video community, discussions around production are typically in reference to video quality - as it relates to camera, sound, compression, and editing. 

Some believe that higher production quality is an important component in gaining popularity for ones online videos, while others believe that the popularity of the medium is authenticity, and that lower quality video has a genuine nature that gets lost with higher quality. 

Given the plethora of widely seen videos over the internet, this concept of quality hasn't seemed to correlate with audience size or popularity.  One thing is for certain: high quality human components of production, such as shooting and editing, make any video more watchable. 

Paying attention to lighting, framing the shot, and crisp editing is not only more pleasant, it's often required to make the picture viewable in a small window and on sites with file size restrictions.  

Bottom line: choose production components that fit with your message, content, and intended audience.  

Some great resources for tips on video production can be found at such sites as:  

http://videomaker.com
http://studio.metacafe.com/ 
http://ourmedia.org/learning-center/video
http://www.digitalvideosolutions.com/  

Metadata (.15M)  

Each video-sharing site let's you create "tags," which are words that describe your video.  These tags, along with the title and description of the video, are the basis for how your video is located by end users on video-sharing sites like YouTube.  This is a simple concept, so it's remarkable that so many content creators screw it up.   

Good use of metadata for video has recently become a requirement.  Search engine optimization and search engine marketing used to be the realm of text only, but with search engines like Google and Ask adding video to their search results ("Universal" and "3-D" search, respectively), optimizing the metadata around your videos is increasingly important.  This means creating rich and relevant video titles, descriptions and tags. 

There are only a few specifics that you need to know about tags.  First, max out the tags, title and description for every site.  The more metadata describing your video, the more likely someone is to find your video.   It's surprising to see so many uploaders let so much opportunity go to waste by adding few or non-descript tags. 

Second, your tags, and particularly the category you choose, should be relevant to your video.  We have seen video creators go from little viewership to becoming regularly featured producers simply through a better choice of category. 

If you are hosting a video on your own site, the same rules apply.  But in such a case, be sure to create a relevant file name for your video.  It is also advisable to have just one video per page with a simple text title and description place near the video itself. 

It's important to keep in mind that most videos are watched in social networking sites, blogs and content sites - not video sharing sites. 

This means that while you may post your video to YouTube or MetaCafe, many of the views are a result of people embedding that video into another site. 

The implication is that your video should be hosted on both your website and the video sharing sites for maximum exposure.  

One more hint on tags - the TubeMogul "Load and Track" tool shows you how your tags will look on each site as you are uploading videos, and soon will show you the most popular tags and video search terms to help you select appropriate metadata. 

Promotion (.15P)  

Videos that have relevant and rich tags and descriptions will be found and will be forwarded.  But, there is nothing wrong with supercharging this process, and this is where promotion comes into play. 

This is especially important as many video sites employ a "bubble up" methodology that promotes videos and content creators that receive the most views, subscribers, comments, ratings and forwards. 

Thus, then "bubble up" to the top of video sites and become even more popular.  So in the video world, popularity begets more popularity. 

Building a community is the single best method for promoting a video.  This isn't an overnight process, but can be done by using the infrastructure of the various video-sharing and social networking sites. 

This means subscribing to people's videos and leaving creative comments so that people click on your profile.  Also, it's important (and fun) to befriend people and invite them to subscribe to your video channels.

You can also join and be a meaningful contributor to various newsgroups and chat rooms.  If you can pull off these things, you've just created your own set of groupies that will watch your content just because of the relationship, and this applies to both companies and individuals. 

Yet another way to build community is to write an interesting blog and create a following, as well as responding to the blog posts of others. 

Also, you'll be surprised how open bloggers and category experts will be to plug your video in exchange for a "sneak peak" or an interview.  

Also, consider submitting your videos to other "Web 2.0" websites that employ voting systems to promote content.  Some of the most popular sites are Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us, and StumbleUpon. 

As your video or article gains more votes, the video will attract even more attention and may even end up in a featured or "top 10" type category which can generate hundreds of thousands of views in a day. 

Generally, deploying videos to multiple sites makes sense as different sites have different content niches and audiences.  Essentially, each site represents a community opportunity that you can tap into. 

TubeMogul "Load and Track" is an easy tool to deploy to multiple sites at once.  Here is a handy grid that provides some information on a few of the top video-sharing sites:  

Thumbnails (.20T)

The last component of our secret formula, and often the most overlooked, is the thumbnail.  A thumbnail is the single image that represents your video.  This is the image that someone will see before they decide whether or not to watch the video. 

If your thumbnail is bad, it often doesn't matter if you got all of the other components of the formula right.  

So what makes a good thumbnail?  Typically thumbnails that are relevant and match the video title, description, and tags are all you need. 

Beyond this, try to select the image that best captures the essence of your video.  Unfortunately, each of the video-sharing sites has a different methodology for determining which frame will comprise the thumbnail. 

At one point, for example, YouTube used the frame that is in the very center of your video as the thumbnail, then they used 1:20 into the video, and now you have a choice of three frames. 

Other sites give you more options.  It will pay off to invest the time to understand how the thumbnail is determined for every site where you deploy your video.  

If you have any doubts about the power of thumbnails just check out this video on YouTube - http://youtube.com/watch?v=nhSZs-aAZbo. 

The video features a thumbnail of Britney Spears topless, but the viewer is soon disappointed to see that the video never delivers upon its promise. 

In fact, the video has no content, just two frames played over and over - this hasn't stopped close to 7 million people from watching the video!  

CASE STUDIES  

There are thousands of successful commercial videos that have gone viral, but we thought we'd share with you a few of our favorites: 

Nike - "Touch of Gold" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsO6D1rwrKc  

This video features Ronaldinho - one of the most famous footballers in the world.  He is sitting on the practice field and all is quiet, when he is presented with a gold box containing a pair of gold Nikes. 

After putting on the shoes, he goes on to hit the crossbar with a soccer ball four times without the ball ever hitting the ground.  You find yourself wondering, "Did he really do that?" 

At the end, the url nikefootball.com is displayed - the message comes across loud and clear.  As of 9/24/07 this video has been viewed closed to 17 million times on YouTube alone and continues to garner around 30,000 views daily.   

Video characteristics: grainy quality, celebrity, special effects   

Blendtec's "Will It Blend?" video series - www.willitblend.com  

Think blenders can't be viral?  Blendtec created a video show, complete with theme music and a host that feature their blenders pureeing everything from iPhones to Chuck Norris dolls. 

The videos are hilarious and definitely convey the message that Blendtec blenders are not to be messed with.  While the videos are distributed on video-sharing sites, the company also built an entire website around the concept. 

As of 9/24/07 the videos have generated well over 30 million views!  Think about what that would cost on network television.   

Video characteristics: humor, special effects, integration with retail website, building community (they take requests of what to blend)   

FrenchMaidTV's "How To Register A Domain" - www.frenchmaidtv.com   

Think of the last trade show you attended - the most popular booth was probably the one seeded with scantily clad and beautiful women.  Take that same concept, inject steroids, and you have FrenchMaidTV where good-looking French maids demo products. 

In this video, the maids show us how to register a domain on GoDaddy.  Beyond the obvious attraction, the videos are well produced and feature over the top humorous French accents and interesting story lines, reminiscence of an old Benny Hill comedy spoof. 

Video characteristics: good-looking women, humor, pushes boundaries  

Summary

Online video is a powerful medium for marketing because of its engagement potential, SEO value, and measurement opportunities. 

There are specific steps one should take to maximize the chances of producing a wildly popular (and widely viewed) web video campaign, and specific tools to help manage those steps. 

Remember to choose content that is remarkable and incites an emotional connection with the viewer, recognize the value of metadata to help your videos get found and thumbnails to draw in viewers, and last, use the platforms at your disposal to build communities around your video messages. 

Online video is a powerful marketing tool if you use it to the fullest!  

Article From:  TubeMogul.com   

List Of Video-Making Websites  
 

http://photobucket.com/  

Photobucket is the most popular site on the Internet for uploading, sharing, linking and finding photos, videos, and graphics.

Your free Photobucket account can store thousands of photos and hours of video. Photobucket also offers free tools for making slideshows of photos, videos with music.

Toufee

The Easiest and Fastest Flash Movie Maker Online!
Creates Stunning Flash Animations and Websites with Ease
No HTML or Technical Skills Required - It’s all click and point!
Includes 127 Effects, 75 Transitions, 23 Filters and 200+ Presets
Direct Import Images, Sound and Video from YouTube, Flickr, etc
Publish to YouTube.com, Embed in your Blog or Download as SWF!
Create flash banners for your websites in less than 5 minutes 
Over 100,000+ users who use Toufee daily cannot be wrong!


http://jingproject.com/  

Think of Jing as a supplement to all your chat discussions, email threads, forum posts and blog entries.  It sits nicely on your desktop, ready to capture and share your stuff at a moment's notice.  Simply select an area of your screen, capture it as an image or record it as a video, and then click Share.  Jing conveniently places a URL to your content which you can paste into any of your conversations.

While there's truth in describing Jing as a SnagIt or Camtasia Studio “lite,” the key difference is about workflow.  Jing is designed to be fast-visual communication shared with others in a variety of locations. Capture. Annotate. Share. 

You can literally record your video, and have it on the web live with TWO of a mouse clicks.  One to Hit "record" and a second to hit "share."  The brilliance of Jing is in its simplicity... And, it's FREE!

It works on both PC's and MAC's!  The only drawback is that your videos are limited to 5 minutes in length.  If you need more time, you'll have to use Camtasia which is costly. 

http://www.onetruemedia.com/ 

One True Media was founded in January 2005 by Mark Moore and John Love after they experienced first-hand the difficulties of mixing and sharing video. 

As parents with young children, they discovered what many do – that family videos pile up because most of us lack the time or interest to master complex video tools required to convert media into compelling stories.

This is why the One True Media team has worked so diligently to create a service that is both powerful and fun to use. We hope you agree.

Our mission is to empower you to express yourself in new and creative ways with the media that matters to you most - your own - and to share your creations with your most important network - your family and friends.

So we’ve hired the best people we know to bring technology to bear in pursuit of “one true media” which:  

• Makes the creative process fast, fun and rewarding  
• Is powerful but easy to use  
• Enables you with one click to transform your creations into shareable online videos and DVDs  
• Works equally well with most media types and formats
  

   

Other Video Resources  

http://www.tubemogul.com/  

With TubeMogul, users upload videos once and TubeMogul deploys them to as many of the top video sharing sites the producer chooses.

TubeMogul's integrated analytics then provide a single source of metrics on where, when, and how often the videos are viewed.

TubeMogul's free beta service has been live since November of 2006. In January 2008, TubeMogul announced the launch of its Premium Products, which include a host of new professional features.  

Image Resources  

Below are links to both inexpensive sites and sites offering free images in searchable databases (but check terms of use.)  The quality ranges from "excellent" to "not too bad."  

Inexpensive (but good)

(1) iStockphoto.com
One dollar for low-rez images and two-three dollars for higher-rez images. 

(2) Dreams Time
About one dollar for high-rez images for members.

(3) Shutterstock
750 royalty-free downloads per month for $139 (US) subscription.

(4) Fotolia
One or two bucks an image.

(5) Japanese Streets
Excellent source for Japanese fashion, street scenes, people, and much more.  $1.50 per pic via PayPal. 

(6) Photocase
A German site (English and German versions). Low-cost download options.

(7) Stockxpert
Great pricing and great images.  Easy-to-use site. Uses credit system.

Fonts (free or cheap)

(1) 1001Fonts.com
A lot of free fonts. You get what you pay for, but many are pretty good.  Find by most popular, highest rated.  Articles, message board, etc.

(2) 1001freefonts.com
4000 fonts for $9.95 (download).

(3) iFree
This Australian site links to free stuff in Australia and worldwide, like fonts, freeware, etc.

(4) Indezine On Fonts
There are so many font sites out there.  The folks at Indezine are good to narrow it down. They list about ten.

(5) HighFonts.com 
Database of about 3000 free fonts.