Viral Movie Promotion

Did you know that YouTube was the second biggest search engine in the world?

It’s true, and with the rise in the trend of viral movies set to dominate the social media arena more so in the future, now is the time to start planning your movie content / virals / series to seed. This article will hopefully give you a little more insight and guidance into the various stages and pitfalls from production to successful seeding and tracking.

The BIG idea

Let’s start with the idea itself. Spend a couple of hours scouring YouTube watching what your competitors are uploading for a little inspiration. Take a view and be honest about just how useful the information provided / how viral / how professional the movie is. Ask yourself ‘how does it make me feel?’ Does it make you want to send to your friends, laugh out loud, inspire you… or perhaps makes you think “what a bunch of amateurs my competition are, how can they in be in business producing that sort of rubbish”!

However it makes you feel, brainstorm with your colleagues / friends and come up with that killer idea that’s going to set the industry alight and for all the RIGHT reasons!

Ideally the movie should be around 45 seconds and definitely no longer than 1.5 mins at the very max… your audience will rarely give it anymore time!

The Production

So how are you going to produce this movie? Is it going to be ‘raw’ and shot on a little Flip camera by yourself, or perhaps you’re going to invest a little more time and money and call in a professional videographer. You’d be surprised at just how little the production costs are these days, and I predict that the cost of production will reduce further based on the sheer volume of internet movie companies that we’re going to start seeing pop up over the next 2 years. A top tip is to contact your local college and work with some of their top movie production students… they’re keen, cheap and normally quite friendly! Just be sure to check their work first and don’t be scared to ask them what they think of your idea and how they’d improve on it as well as envisage shooting and editing it.

Be sure to prepare a good brief and sketch out the scenes, like a story board so as they have something to follow to the ‘T’. Let them get creative, don’t cramp their style… remember who the experts are here.

Last word on production, whilst all those trendy Soho creative studios may be uber cool wearing their flip flops come wind, rain or shine… don’t be fooled that the more you pay for production the better it will be and therefore the more views it will get. Yes, in some cases this is true – if you’re looking to create a Hollywood blockbuster then they can probably do a far better job and your money will be well spent. Produce your brief and go to at least 3 different outfits, including a Soho agency of course.

The Edit

Much like the above, let the videographer work their magic on the initial draft, then play it to your friends and colleagues and get their feedback. If it doesn’t work then ask yourself ‘why’? Can it be fixed or should it go to the video graveyard along with your potential career as a Hollywood producer.

As they say in the game, “it’s all in the edit” so work closely with your editor to get it right. Don’t commit the ultimate sin in viral movie land and just say “sod it… let’s get it up and see what happens” because 9/10 times it will be an utter waste of your time and money with absolutely no ROI!

Oh… one last thing. Be sure to somehow brand the movie, perhaps with an outro or intro, or perhaps more subtle/clever branding (e.g. someone in the movie clearly showcases the brand somehow). Obviously the messaging within the movie will no doubt hold a relevance to your business/brand too!!

This is what I’m talking about… it even made the National news:

The Optimisation & Upload

A huge mistake made by so many brands who launch their viral movie expecting 10 million viewers in the first hour of release is that they forget to keyword optimise their movie. Think about it, if you don’t tell the likes of Google what the video content relates to then they won’t know where to list it in their search results… it’ll get lost in all that noise.

So, the key is to carry out some keyword optimisation research using the web tools available to you. List all the obvious keyword strings and separate them with a comma. You can have as many as you like, but we suggest you stick to 100 well researched mid - long tail keyword strings.

Now go set up your YouTube channel and follow the instructions to upload your finished movie, not forgetting to add all your keywords. You’re nearly done…

It’s not just YouTube you want to pay attention to, there are many online movie channels that you can add your content to in addition to YouTube – check out Metacafe and Vimeo for a start – same deal as above.

The Seed (promotion)

Right, now onto the important bit… getting your movie out there. Simply uploading the movie to the various online movie channels just isn’t enough. You have to be proactive and share the content with prominent blogs and sites in your niche that will not only achieve the views for you, but hopefully drive traffic your way. But where do you find likely targets and how do you know their traffic is much cop? Start by scouring blog directories such as www.blogarama.com and www.technorati.com and make your list (primary, secondary and tertiary targets). Then use www.trafficestimate.com to get a rough idea as to whether they are worth the effort or not.

Be sure to offer the top 3-5 sites a 24 hour exclusive on showcasing the movie, they’ll appreciate you thinking of them and therefore you increase the chance of them showcasing it. When your 24 hours is up hit the rest of the sites. Remember that it’s quality more so than quantity at the start of the campaign. More often than not if you achieve coverage on the more prominent sites you will find the video goes ‘viral’ as many of the smaller niche sites follow these.
There are some rules of engagement when it comes to targeting these sites including your accompanying email and social media release etc, which we will cover in another article at some point in the not too distant future.

The Tracking

Now it’s time to start using some basic FREE tracking tools to pick up all that fantastic coverage you’re going to get. Using your primary keywords set up some Google Alerts (if you don’t know what they are, Google it!). These will pick up 70% of your coverage. Other tools to be aware of are www.keotag.com and www.whostalkin.com (picks up keywords across a range of social media) and www.blogpulse.com, which picks up conversations on blogs (all very clever stuff).

GOOD LUCK and remember to give us a call if you need any help. We work with clients all over the world on a regular basis achieving some fantastic results.