What is video seeding and why would you want to do it?
Well, first of all, video seeding is an important part of viral video production practice of obtaining a certain amount of initial viewership for a video with hopes that at least some of those viewers will share the video with their friends, thus ensuring that the number of views for the video increases exponential, that is go viral.
We have covered this subject extensively on the video seeding services page, so lets more into the the-hands-on part, that is: how to seed a video?
Video Seeding on Video Sharing Websites
The first logical step is to upload your video to some video sharing services, we recommend starting with YouTube and supporting with other posts on websites such as Vimeo. This step is a requirement, because to properly seed the video, you need to have a link to share, a link to YouTube will do the trick. Make sure to take full advantage of the options offered, such as title selection, thumbnail selection (if there is a pretty girl in our video choose her as the thumbnail!), description, tags, annotations, HD version, subtitles, etc.
Moreover, posting your video to a website such as YouTube can guarantee additional views by itself. The best case would be if you had the option to have your video posted by a power user – a person who has already posted many successful videos and has a lot of subscribers and friends on the given file sharing website. If that is not an option, try to at least build up your own account and your channel – interact with other users, subscribe to their channels, post meaningful comments on their videos – they WILL reciprocate.
Repeat on other video sharing websites, here are some to get you started: YouTube, Vimeo, Vevo (for music), DailyMotion, Veoh, MetaCafe, Flickr (Yes, they allow you to post videos too – not only images), Break, Yahoo! Videos, Blip.tv, Viddler, and many, many more!
#KonradsFreeNuggetOfGold: There are some aggregate web services (free and paid for) that will automatically post your video for you to all the most important video sharing websites!
Video Seeding On Social Media
Social Media is one of the most useful tools in viral video marketing – posting your video (YouTube direct link) and asking all your family, friends, mailman, staff at your company, and your ferret to share the video, give you a like, and a comment is a great start. Engage in meaningful discussion, join relevant message boards, join the right LinkedIn groups and talk to people, then share your video. The more the better!
Identify the Influencers
Influencers are the power users on social media and video website. They are powerful bloggers and journalists, in short: they are the people who can chose to share your video by doing which give you truckloads of free traffic! In case of our viral video success – the JK Divorce Entrance Dance – the biggest influencer that got us started was the College Humor website. You want to find the right people and make sure they see your video – research them and find their email, connect with them on LinkedIn, send them a friend request on Facebook, or use the theory of Six Degrees of Separation – find a mutual friend and ask them to suggest your video to the Influencer (SEO people call them linkerati by the way)!
Viral Video Email Blast
We all have those friends that send us the daily funny email string – ask them to share your video! Do the same yourself – email the video to all your friends! Ask them to do the same, have your company do the same, once again, the more the better!
Advertise Your Viral Video
You can always choose the easy way out and pay for advertising, such as sponsored videos on YouTube – this can be done right through Google Adwords as of their latest campaign update – or other high-traffic video website.
Use a Landing Page or a Dedicated Website
Instead of (or in addition to) posting your videos on YouTube, you can choose to create a landing page for your video on your corporate website. You can also take it a step further and create a dedicated website just for the video – if you do that, think HARD about selecting a good domain name – something funny and easy to remember would be perfect. This approach gives you more tools for marketing your video offline – an alternative to this is a URL shortener for your YouTube link.
Video Ad Campaigns on Youtube
Here’s a quick and easy way to get your video seen by hundreds or thousands of viewers depending on your financial resources. Paying for views through Google Ads (formerly – Google AdWords) has multiple advantages. It’s quick: simply set up a campaign, create your first ad group, add your first ad, and you’re good to go. It’s also relatively inexpensive – if done right, you pay only cents per view.
Most importantly, Google gives you multiple targeting options. You can define your audience, and target specific keywords. Google Ads also let’s you specify audience groups with predefined demographics, interests, and beliefs…
Google predicts their users’ interests and lets you target them by affinity segments (including custom affinity segments) , life events, and in-market segments (including custom segments). You can also define your target audience by data segments, customer match, and similar segments – all explained on the Google Ads Help page. Finally, Google Ads lets you define where you want your ads to show. Use content targeting methods, including placements, topics, keywords, and devices.