So your new online video is so good that if the Academy gave out Oscars for web video, Hugh Jackman would have handed you a statue last week. But it doesn’t matter how good the vlog or webisode is, if nobody sees it. One of the most important and most neglected parts of online video use is the distribution. If done correctly, it could help your video go viral.
Here’s what most people do: They put it up on their own website and promote it in the social media sphere. That’s a great step, but they could still get more mileage out of it. So, they put it on YouTube, which is a great idea because YouTube is massive. But they shouldn’t stop there.
They need to keep posting it on as many video sites as they can. They are smaller than YouTube, but in aggregate, they can bring you more traffic.
Going Beyond YouTube
You may be tempted to ignore some of these smaller sites, but that’s a big mistake. In a smaller pond, your video is a bigger fish and can attract more views in total. For instance, last week, an Advent vlog was the featured video on Viddler and we ended up with nearly 1,000 views in a week. The chances of being a featured video on YouTube are much lower. Also, the Viddler editors blogged about our video. When was the last time YouTube did that for you?
The same video on YouTube continued to get a steady, but a modest amount of views during the same time. We have experimented with other videos and it’s clear that there’s not a lot of competition across platforms. In general, the people who would watch your stuff on Viddler are not the same people who would find your videos on YouTube. Think of it like bonus views.
Here’s a partial list of the great videos sites that get lost in YouTube’s shadow:
Viddler
Vimeo
Metacafe
Daily Motion
Yahoo!
Myspace
Break
Howcast
Veoh
5min
Blip.tv
Cross Promote on Social Bookmarking Sites
Another bonus to pimping out your video on any site that will take it is that you can cross promote them on social bookmarking sites and get more links to your content. So, you could post a link to your video that goes to YouTube, your site, Viddler, Vimeo, etc. If done correctly, this can help your video gain tons of exposure. (See our blog entry about social bookmarking.) The math is exciting compared to a traditional blog post:
1 Blog post on 1 website bookmarked on 50 social media sites = 50 links.
1 Video posted on 20 websites bookmarked on 50 social media sites = 1,000 links.
This is simplified, of course. Digg.com doesn’t want duplicate content, but other sites don’t mind as long as the links have different URLs. You should also switch up the titles and description to see which ones garner the most attention.
The down side
If you’re trying to monetize your video or drive traffic directly to your site, this may diffuse your efforts to varying degrees. At Advent, we’ve found that the more we spread things around, the more people end up on our site. Still, you’ll have to experiment to find out what works best for you.
The other problem is the time it takes to upload the video with tags, titles, and descriptions on all the different sites. It could be an all day affair, which doesn’t make sense for most people. Luckily, there are free tools that can help. My favorite by far is TubeMogul.com.
How to Use TubeMogul.com
With TubeMogul, you upload your video to their site and enter title, tags and description. Then it uploads your video to a score of different sites all at once. Since you need to sign up individually at each video site, it can take a long time to set up. Plan on an hour or two. Once this is done, however, it only takes minutes to shotgun your video out all over the Internet.
To be able to submit to the more advanced and specific sites like 5min.com, which hosts only how-to videos, you will need to apply for permission from TubeMogul. The application is quick and easy, they just want to know that you’re not a spammer. When I did it, they got back to me in less than a day.
TubeMogul.com also has a basic analytics tool that tracks and compares your videos across all the different sites. It’s really fun, but somewhat limited. A pay version has more in-depth statistics and keyword data.
This site also has a promotion area that lets you social bookmark your videos, but I found that using SocialPoster.com or SocialMarker.com still works best.
Beware
Some of our clients have asked us about paying for distribution services. I’ve looked at several sites, and it never seems like a good return on investment. I recommend you do a quick evaluation of how much time you have and how much value you expect to get out of the video. It may work well for you. For the most part, however, it’s best to do it yourself. Besides, with TubeMogul.com and SocialPoster.com, you can be quite efficient.
Don’t let your videos go to waste
No matter what you do, don’t let your videos just sit there. Each video you have or will have is a piece of intellectual property that can bring you traffic, business and recognition, if you put it to good use. Spread them around as much as you can and see what happens.