Social Video Production
February 6th, 2012 in Animation, Augmented Reality, Insight, Promotional, Social, Training, Video Production, Viral Posted by Lee
We all know how viral video works – people share a video that makes them laugh, cry or wince… and that usually contains a hook or a gimmick. Viral videos are typically funny, outrageous or perplexing, and viral advertising has become an effective way for brands to communicate with the public and reach a wide audience. Viral videos of course don’t start life as viral videos – their success is often accidental and sometimes quite baffling (the Google ‘2204355’ fried chicken guy, anyone?). The viral market can be difficult to predict – you just don’t know what the next big thing will be and it’s even harder to know why they do.
Social videos, however, start life with a target audience, a seeding plan, and every intention of being liked and shared. Social video production takes viral marketing and heightens its effectiveness through targeting it at the right audience – social videos are made and marketed on a platform of analytics to ensure that the right people are seeing and sharing them, and are made specifically to exploit the concept of the viral video. Engaging the audience is half the battle, so it’s important to know who that audience is and what they’ll want to share. YouTube and Facebook both retain statistics on their users -their age, gender, ethnicity and household income, and on their web usage – what they’ve previously watched, liked and commented on. This ensures that videos are reaching the most effective and suitable audience.
Social videos usually take the form of product videos, commercial videos and video advertising. Video reach is now the most effective and important way of measuring a video’s popularity – the amount of impressions a video has made is a great indicator of how successful a campaign has been… basically the bigger the number, the better. Through seeding campaigns, it’s easy to guarantee a number of views, likes and shares, and to give social video the push it needs to get onto the right places.
A major strength for social video is its impact on the viewer. Having likely arrived in your inbox or on your wall through the recommendation of a friend, you’re likely to watch it with a more positive mindset. You‘ll also probably give it your undivided attention, and then click a single button to pass it on. Users are engaging with content and interacting on a more regular basis because social video campaigns aren’t ramming brands down their throats. In most cases, social video and viral marketing campaigns are being tastefully launched without branding at all… less is more, nowadays. The key is very much not selling, but allowing people to buy.