videoadvertising

This Wednesday, video commerce solutions provider, Liveclicker, will be hosting a free webinar along with me titled “Best Practices & Tips for Boosting Video Commerce SEO.”  Join us to learn what leading retailers are doing to optimize their videos for SEO both on and off the product page as well as some basic and advanced tips for e-commerce video SEO.

You can register for the free webinar here!

What am I going to cover? Great question as I’m so busy that I haven’t yet started the presentation ;-)  That being said, I plan to cover my take on what retailers can do to better navigate the ever-changing landscape of video SEO.

I’ll be offering some basic and advanced tips for video SEO, all of which are just as important for e-commerce video SEO (and I plan to include several examples from retailers). I’ll also address a few common pitfalls and questions asked about e-commerce video SEO…

I plan to touch upon the following topics and questions:

• The changing nature of search and what’s important today.
• Why you need to use YouTube and how best to utilize YouTube:
• • How YouTube search works.
  • General best practices for YouTube.
  • A few less-emphasized tips that will help your videos rank better and gain more views.
  • How to use YouTube’s features to help drive viewers back to your site.
• On-site video SEO best practices:
• • When are transcripts helpful or necessary?
  • What is schema markup, how does it work, and what’s it’s current and future state?
  • What are video sitemaps, best practices for video sitemaps, and how to get around various video publishing issues with video sitemaps?
  • Best practices for optimizing video content for social sharing.
• And probably more stuff that I haven’t yet finalized in my overwhelmed head.

Anyway, as much as I seem to procrastinate on presentations, they always end up being well received and while I don’t want to guarantee you that you’ll learn a million undiscovered secrets for video SEO, I’m pretty sure that you’ll find the presentation informative.

I hope you can join us! - Register here.

Nearly a year ago, YouTube rolled out their “auto-generated channels,” which are channels created to curate content based on relevant topics. Think of them as YouTube-created playlists. When they first appeared, auto-generated channels were strictly limited to the “Top YouTube Collections” tab and intended for broad topics such as “Snowboarding” (see image below). However, it was recently discovered that YouTube is now taking these auto-generated channels one-step further.

Auto-generated channels are now appearing in such places as YouTube search results, video watch pages, and even Google search results. What’s even more interesting is that they are pulling some very niche topics for their auto-generated channels.

Auto-Generated Results in YouTube Search Results

As a Video SEM Specialist working at BLASTmedia, a social media marketing agency, I’m continually working with clients on their YouTube marketing strategies. Included in this is the task of optimizing videos for targeted keywords to appear within YouTube search. For one client in particular, many of the videos I’m optimizing are related to “inventory control software” (definitely not as common as snowboarding, but still equally important for small business owners). Recently I noticed an auto-generated channel appearing in the search results just below one of the videos I was optimizing for the keyword, “inventory control.”

But what’s even better is that my optimized video content was included in the thumbnail of the auto-generated channel. Now, think about the impact this has a users’ search habits: Seeing two similar thumbnails parallel to one another only reinforces the fact that your content is likely the optimal choice.

Of course, YouTube has yet to disclose their algorithm for choosing which content to include in the auto-generated channels and its search thumbnail, but I think it’s safe to say these auto-generated channels or “playlists” contain highly relevant content based on the given topic. Here’s a statement directly from the YouTube blog:

“Lots of complex algorithms are working behind the scenes to give you the channel you’re looking for, for example, being able to tell when the word ‘Chicago’ means the music band and when it means the movie/musical. We’re still tweaking everything to make sure it works just right for you, so let us know what you think of the channels or learn more in our help center.”

Auto-generated Channels on YouTube’s Video Watch Page

Not only are these auto-generated channels creeping into YouTube search results, but they also appear to have invaded the video watch page:

But what’s interesting is that this auto-generated channel is not based on a topic. No, in fact the channel was created based on the channel and its content. YouTube has pulled content from the YouTube channel itself and curated it into one single place (one that users can subscribe to as well!) Of course, this doesn’t take the place of a well-optimized and socially active YouTube channel, but it’s still worth noting.

Google Search Results

As YouTube expands the visibility of its auto-generated channels, it is not much of a surprise that they would show up in Google search as well. After a recent search for “YouTube duplicate content” within Google search, it was clear that YouTube auto-generated channel results had permeated into Google SERPS.

Clicking on the above search result for “Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues” yielded this landing page on YouTube (note it’s an auto-generated channel centered around the keyword “Duplicate content”):

While the result above definitely proves this notion, it has yet to be seen how often this is occurring, as the other keywords like “inventory control” and “Eton blog” do not yield any of the same results in Google search.

It’s yet to be determined how widespread these auto-generated channels have become, but YouTube seems to be confident enough to begin displaying them more publicly. For Video SEMs, it’s another facet for your content to attract even more eyeballs. And isn’t that what we all want?

Are you seeing these auto-generated channels more frequently? - Drop us a comment below and let us know what you think about the apparent push of auto-generated channel throughout YouTube and Google search.

Scott Thompson "was a terrible CEO for Yahoo," venture capitalist Fred Wilson said at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Last year, we took a look at some amazing YouTube statistics.  And now, we can see that over the past year, those amazing statistics from last year look awfully small compared to what YouTube is doing now.  In general, we know that 800 million people around the world use YouTube each month, a stat that I’m sure we’re going to see increase to a billion soon.  And nearly all 100 of AdAge’s top 100 advertisers have run ad campaigns on YouTube and Google Display Network–98 in fact.  And one of the biggest topics in online video is mobile access, which YouTube saw triple over the last year.

YouTube Traffic Stats

Here are some highlights:

• 72 hours of video are uploaded every minute, or more than one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second.

The YouTube blog, which is celebrating the YouTube’s 7th birthday, made this announcement.  I was going to write 60 hours per minute (which is amazing), but then this came out and changed it…again.  This is more than twice the 35 hours of video every minute we talked about last year.  Just a crushing amount of video being uploaded as you read this.

Click here to watch this video.

• 3 billion hours of video are watched a day.

Up from 2 billion.  These are numbers your brain cannot comprehend.

• 39 countries, and 54 languages.

Up from 25 countries and 43 languages.  The YouTube global approach has always been a huge emphasis, and they continue to squeeze video in every region of the world possible.

• A view count of 1 trillion in 2011, or 140 views for every person on Earth. 

If you couldn’t comprehend billions, you have no chance of comprehending trillions.

YouTube Partners Statistics

This is something likely to increase dramatically over the next year, as the partner program has opened up its eligibility.  Still:

• 30,000+ partners in 27 countries.

These people are making some money on their videos.  In fact:

• Millions of dollars are paid out to partners per year.

Of those millions, there are:

• Hundreds of partners making six figures a year.

You can bet guys like Philip DeFranco and Ray William Johnson are in that group.  And, what’s more:

• Partner revenue has doubled four years in a row.

That’s amazingly consistent!  The trend should continue this year as well.

YouTube Monetization Statistics

• 3 billion videos a week worldwide have some sort of monetization.

You have a good chance of making a little money if your content is spot on.

• Hundreds of advertisers you TruView in-stream and over 60% of ads are skippable.

Hmm…this skippable thing has all sorts of angles.  I know the advertiser doesn’t pay if the ads are skipped, and being able to skip ads is a good thing for some consumers.  I wonder if we’ll be able to skip ads much longer, though, especially with YouTube’s play for big ad dollars at upfronts recently.

YouTube Product Metrics

The big one here:

• 600 million views a day from mobile devices.

YouTube says this more than tripled in 2011.  Mobile is a huge part of watching online video.  This is a little over 20% of all the views on YouTube.

Another remarkable stat:

• The YouTube player is embedded across tens of millions of websites.

The ability to share YouTube videos over nearly everything on the Internet has always been one of the top YouTube features, and the reach of YouTube extends beyond their homepage to tens of millions of websites.

Content ID Program Stats

YouTube’s Content ID program allows copyright holders to either profit from, get stats on, or block videos which contain some or all of their own content.  The stats here are pretty amazing as well.  As mentioned in last year’s post, Content ID scans over 100 years of video every day.

• More than 3,000 partners use Content ID, including all the major players in TV, movies, and music.

And according to the later stats on the page, a third of the monetized views on YouTube are due to Content ID.

• 8 million reference files.  Over 500,000 hours of material are in the Content ID database.

This doubled over the last year.  That’s beyond exhaustive.

Social Stats

• 500 years of YouTube video are watched every day on Facebook, and over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute.

Once again, it’s the sharing aspect of YouTube that makes it so tremendously successful.

• 100 million people take a social action on YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc) every week

• More than 50% of videos on YouTube have been rated or include comments from the community

I’m actually surprised it’s not a little more, but that shows you the extremely vast amount of content that is on YouTube: some of it is rarely seen and thus gets no social actions.

• Millions of videos are favorited every day

People are always looking for good content and will tell you exactly how they feel about it, which is the good/bad thing about YouTube.

That’s not all of them, but the main ones.  If you’d like to take a look at more amazing YouTube stats, take a look at this page.

Hulu is making a big splash this summer with a fairly large investment in original online video series showing that it is just as important to their business model as TV content is. It has to make you wonder what kind of meetings are going on in that board room at times. I suspect that, with the ownership partners pushing to have pay TV authentication (the requirement that users have a pay TV subscription in order to view content from the networks), Hulu CEO Jason Kilar is looking at other ways to keep the company viable as doing so would probably put a serious pinch on user numbers.

I’ve made it abundantly clear that I’m against pay TV authentication because the majority of content Hulu offers, and people want, is basically free over-the-air from the major networks and that I think it would pretty much destroy Hulu. But that’s all something for another day when I, hopefully, get together with the Hulu CEO for a quick interview (for a new series I am starting here).

But today I want to talk about Hulu’s major push into online content. After some mild dabbling in the past they are going full bore now with three original shows as well as pulling in some other exclusives from outside the traditional US channel lineup. Which begs the question, “If Hulu is paying for the rights to offer the content, why would users then also have to have pay TV to see it on Hulu?”

Today, Hulu announced their summer lineup of original web series (three of them – see below) and other shows that they’ve gained exclusive rights to (seven of them). The three shows will include the likes of Kevin Smith, Richard Linklater (filmmaker), Lance Barber and covers a wide range of topics from movie reviews to strange travel destinations and full-on in-your-face comedy. The seven exclusives they’ve invested in draw in things from UK via BBC and Canada via HBO Canada that Americans might not otherwise have a chance to see, effectively making it all original content.

The commitment to content made for the online audience as well as their pursuit of interesting content from abroad shows that Hulu knows the power of their service and their streaming offering and that by differentiating the service from just being a cloud-based DVR service for standard network TV shows, they are paving the way toward a more Internet-centered video entertainment lifestyle.

Sure, you can still catch up with shows like Smash, 2 Broke Girls and Touch on Hulu, but the content is starting to expand well beyond the massive library of old movies and current on-air American TV. That is the drive which, I think, will make Hulu a service that will be around for a long time to come.

Getting mired in content that will bring with it requirements for external subscriptions is a bad idea and I think this new slate of content shows that someone very high up at Hulu realizes that and knows they need to get content from other sources to offer a more divers array of interesting content that is not directly tied to cable or satellite providers in the US. The latter just need to open their eyes to the way audiences want to get their content and get on board with it because they’re stuck in an old business model full of bloated channel packages and high prices which offer little in the way flexibility. Online video isn’t going to just dry up and disappear and even Google is betting on it becoming the norm instead of the exception.

Here’s the full list of original and exclusive content that Hulu will be firing up this summer.

HULU ORIGINAL SERIES

“Spoilers”

• For fans of: “Inside the Actors’ Studio,” “Comic Book Men,” “Real Time with Bill Maher,” “Conan,” “The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon”
• Kevin Smith’s Movie “Revue” – a mix of lively group chats, interviews with movie and pop culture icons and animated shorts. New episodes premiere every Monday beginning on June 4; Entire series available on August 6

“Up To Speed”

• For fans of: “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations,” “The Cruise,” “Waking Life,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Exit Through the Gift Shop”
• A Travel Show About The Road Less Traveled – Each week “Up to Speed” follows tour guide, historian and flaneur Timothy “Speed” Levitch (“The Cruise”) as he visits the monumentally-ignored monuments of America’s cities. Premieres on Hulu and Hulu Plus in August.

“We Got Next”

• For fans of: “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “The League,” “Men of a Certain Age”
• A Bro-mantic Comedy – “We Got Next” is a raunchy, sarcastic and out-of-bounds half-hour show about a pick-up basketball team of four guys who should never have been friends in the first place. Each week, the guys’ courtside banter consistently escalates into a run of terrible advice and poor decision-making. The series premieres in August on Hulu and Hulu Plus.

HULU EXCLUSIVES

“Rev.”

• For fans of: “The Office” (U.K.), “Peep Show,” “Spaced,” “Parks & Recreation,” “House”
• Meet The Rev. Adam Smallbone. From a sleepy, rural parish, the newly promoted vicar has moved to the busy, inner-city world of St. Saviour’s in East London. It’s a world in which he has little experience, and it shows. It really shows. The series premieres on Hulu and Hulu Plus on June 3rd from BBC Worldwide Americas Digital Distribution. Six (6) episodes in season one; seven (7) episodes in season two.

“The Yard”

• For fans of: “South Park,” “Family Guy,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Summer Heights High,” “The Wire,” “Archer,” “Arrested Development”
• A mockumentary miniseries that originally aired on HBO Canada, “The Yard” offers a bizarre juxtaposition of two rival cliques of elementary school children, where tension develops much like the quintessential crime-family thriller. Six (6) episodes. Premieres: June 7, 2012

“Derren Brown: Inside Your Mind”

• For fans of: “Criss Angel,” “Penn & Teller: Tell a Lie,” “Fact or Faked,” “Mythbusters,” “Lie to Me,” “Psych,” “The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon,” “Conan”
• Derren Brown is a performer like none other in the world. He uses psychology, magic, showmanship and suggestion to achieve things that for anyone else would be impossible. The series premieres on Hulu and Hulu Plus on July 7th. Four (4) episodes.

“The Booth at the End” (Season Two)

• For fans of: “The Booth at the End” (Season One), “Lie To Me,” “Bones,” “Castle,” “Grimm,” “Touch,” “Lost,” “Psych,” “Fringe,” “The X-Files”
• Xander Berkeley, best known for his roles as “George Mason” in FOX’s “24” and “Percy” in The CW’s “Nikita,” stars as an enigmatic man occupying the corner booth of a diner. He possesses the power to grant desires, contingent upon recipients performing mysterious tasks. Season two premieres on Hulu and Hulu Plus in July. Five (5) episodes. Premieres: July 2012

“Pramface”

• For fans of: “My So Called Life,” “New Girl,” “Awkward,” “Secret Life of the American Teenager,” “Up All Night,” “Skins” (U.S. and U.K.), “Hart of Dixie,” “One Tree Hill,” “Teen Mom”
• Jamie and Laura are two young, free and single teenagers who, after hooking up at a party, soon find they have a very big complication on their hands. Laura is pregnant. So even though they barely know each other, they now have one thing in common – and it’s getting bigger. Six (6) episodes.Premieres: July 19, 2012

“The Promise”

• For fans of: “Homeland,” “Munich,” “Persepolis,” “Pillars of the Earth”
• A BAFTA-nominated, four-part political thriller and love story. The serial drama examines the origins of the Middle East conflict in events that took place under British rule sixty years ago. The series premieres on Hulu and Hulu Plus on August 11th. Four (4) episodes. Premieres: August 11, 2012

“Little Mosque”

• For fans of: “Modern Family,” “Arrested Development,” “Parenthood”
• “Little Mosque” is a light-hearted and comedic fish-out-of-water tale about a small Muslim community that rents the parish hall of a small town church to use as a mosque.  Produced by WestWind Pictures, “Little Mosque” will premiere on Hulu and Hulu Plus this summer. 91 episodes. Premieres: June 28, 2012

At last week's OMMA Video in New York City, I sat and watched a handful of panels before mine, with the common denominator being: "Online video's doing great, but, well, not as great we all expected." If I were to go to the root of the symptoms and distill the cause, I'd summarize it as such: There's a major disconnect between publishers that have the audience, brands, sales force, ad relationships and trust, and those that have the kind of video views that advertisers seek.

Last week, Google introduced the Knowledge Graph.  According to Amit Singhal, Google’s SVP of Engineering, “The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about – landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more – and instantly get information that’s relevant to your query.”

The announcement included a video, “Introducing the Knowledge Graph,” which gives a deeper dive into the details and technology, in the words of people who’ve worked on this project.

Click here to watch this video.

My first reaction was: The Knowledge Graph is the biggest change to the way that people can discover videos since Google announced its critical first steps toward a universal search model back on May 16, 2007. But I wasn’t able to give it a try until the weekend.

Now, Google says, “We’re rolling this feature out to google.com users over the next few days.” So, I was willing to cut Google a little slack if their “huge collection of the people, places and things in the world and how they’re connected to one another” was still a work in progress.

Since I’d recently written about Demand Media, I logged into my Google account and searched for that term.  And I discovered bupkis – beyond the usual search engine results that I’d seen before the Knowledge Graph had been announced.

Now, the Knowledge Graph currently contains more than 500 million objects, as well as more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between these different objects.  But Demand Media isn’t on the list yet – despite ranking #18 in the comScore Top 50 Properties in March 2012 with 63.7 million unique visitors.  Maybe Google doesn’t believe that “corporations are people.”

Then, I searched for Charlie bit my finger and I saw the Knowledge Graph for the first time. The summary from Wikipedia read, “‘Charlie Bit My Finger – Again!’, more simply known as Charlie Bit My Finger or Charlie Bit Me, is a 2007 Internet viral video famous for formerly being the most viewed YouTube video of all time.”

Okay, so I had come up empty-handed with my first search but hit pay dirt with the second.  So, I went to YouTube Charts and started working my way down the list of Popular Channels.

I searched for Ray William Johnson and didn’t see a Knowledge Graph. Then, I searched for nigahiga and we had another winner! The Knowledge Graph summary from Wikipedia read, “Nigahiga. Since relocating to Las Vegas to study filmmaking at UNLV, Higa’s videos are either solo efforts or videos with other people such as KevJumba. They are known for their YouTube comedy videos, which have been viewed over 1.1 billion times.”

There were no Knowledge Graphs for smosh or machinima.  But, there were Knowledge Graphs for freddiew and Shane Dawson.

For freddiew, the summary from Wikipedia said, “Freddie Wong is an American filmmaker, musician, VFX technician and e-Sports player. He maintains two popular YouTube channels, “freddiew” and “freddiew2″. He is the older brother of fellow YouTuber Jimmy Wong.”

For Shane Dawson, the summary from Wikipedia said, “Shane Dawson is an American YouTube actor, comedian, and musician. Dawson is known for making comedy videos featuring many recurring characters, impersonations, and spoofs of popular music videos and television shows.”

When I searched for collegehumor, I saw white space on the right-hand side of Google’s SERP.  But, when I searched for annoying orange, the summary from Wikipedia told me, “The Annoying Orange is an American comedy web series created by Dane Boedigheimer in 2009. It stars Boedigheimer as an anthropomorphic orange who annoys other fruits, vegetables, and various other objects by using crude-humored jokes.”

I searched for Epic Meal Time and saw nothing out of the ordinary.  But I searched for KevJumba and was told by Wikipedia that “Kevin Wu; is a Taiwanese American comedian and YouTube celebrity who is best known by his YouTube username of KevJumba. As of December 2011, he is YouTube’s seventh most subscribed comedian and tenth most subscribed user overall.”

So, the odds of finding a Knowledge Graph for the 10 most popular channels on YouTube are 50/50.  The summary seems rooted in Wikipedia. And despite the obvious connections to YouTube, you currently see photos in the graph and no video.

But, it’s still early days.

That’s why I expect the Knowledge Graph will help users discover new videos as quickly and easily as they can discover text and photos today.  So, keep your eyes open.

It's a schadenfreude moment for Rupert Murdoch, who snatched up MySpace for what then looked like a bargain, $580 million, and sold it for $35 million.

Advertising on Facebook has gotten a bad rap of late, but Group M, the media-buying unit of ad giant WPP, is licensing technology to make it easier for clients to spend money there.

House Beautiful is letting users post photos from its print edition directly to Pinterest using smartphone apps, the latest effort by a magazine to make print more interactive.

When fans wrote they wished Tim Tams would grow on trees on the brand's Facebook page, DDB Sydney and Tim Tam parent Arnott's decided they would turn that wish into reality. The agency, along with production company Mango, created an orchard where the biscuits grew on trees in Sydney's Martin Place. The spot, seen here, shows fans discover and pick the 100,000 Tim Tams off the shrubs. A Facebook appalso lets fans add their names to the commercial and personalize the content.

Chewing gum gets an upgrade with this brilliant product design stunt out of ageisobar Sao Paulo for Gang Chewing Gum. Recognizing that in moments of despair or deep thought, people are likely to chew on the end of their pencils, he agency created 5,000 'chewable pencils' and distributed them in schools in Sao Paulo. The activation began in March and continues, in perfect time for the Brazilian school system's exam season in May and June. It was so successful that Gang is considering making it a real product. To which we say, "Hell yeah!" Check out more pictures at right.

A customer of Ben and Jerry's came up with the idea for the ice-cream pint lock - to prevent others getting their hands on your precious pint. It's available from the Ben & Jerry's website.

Illustrator and graphic designer Noma Bar designed these poster for The Dutch Museum for Communication, which conducted research into the theme of privacy for its latest exhibition. Via agency KesselsKramer, the museum conducted an official survey, the results of which are now displayed in the museum and on its website. KesselsKramer also conducted a series of street interviews. Bar used some of the findings to create the posters.

Tears of sadness be damned. This is the kind of bravery we like. Dougal Wilson and WCRS capture this stirring performance from a little boy who has full faith in Safestore -- and implores the object of his devotion to rest assured that he will be safe as well. Beautiful cinematography (by Eduard Grau) and post production by MPC give this commercial a Hollywood-like sheen that works perfectly with its message.

Launching its Anarchy for Him and Her brands in Australia, Lynx (Axe) created an ambient campaign that could only be seen by those wearing special polarized sunglasses. LED screens were placed in the windows of an terraced house in Sydney, showing videos that included couples in steamy embraces, bizarre swimming dogs and more. However, the videos could only be seen when wearing the sunglasses, which were handed out to the brand's target audience of young partygoers. The campaign was devised by digital agency Soap Creative.

Bar Aurora/Boteco Ferraz and Ogilvy Brazil return with another stunt to remind people of their intoxication levels, this time, at the Karaoke machine. This time, karaoke performers at a bar sing into a special microphone hooked up to a breathalyzer--so the audience can not only hear how amazing-or terrible-their voices are, but also how much the singers have had to drink. Previous exploits from the partnership include an effort involving a $73,000 bar tab and a drunk valet who tries to make off with customers' wheels.

For the Financial Times, DDB U.K. finds another use for the stars from the flag of the European Union to show the effect a Eurozone crisis would have on President Obama.

Following on from last year's campaign, in which it enlisted cab drivers to talk about TED's ideas worth spreading, Ogilvy and Mather Buenos Aires has reached out to another group of great conversationalists. This time around, it's hairdressers. To promote TEDx Buenos Aires to ordinary people, it enlisted 60 hair stylists to come to the talks, and then chat to their clients about them. TED reckons it reached over 7,500 people this way - seven times the audience of TEDx Buenos Aires.

A Toyota Yaris owner makes a new friend after he rescues him from drowning in this spot from Badillo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi. The man would do anything for this furry little thing, and puts up with quite a few shenanigans. Except one day, things go too far.