The viral video is the marketing director’s dream, and many video producers would love nothing more than to create a series of viral videos. It’s easy to see why. These promotional types of tools allow you to capitalize on one of the most popular forms of content marketing.
If you suspect that your videos don’t get enough views, here are five things you can do to remedy this issue:
Interview an Expert
Many publishers who want to gain traction for their video are hindered by the fact that they’re not experts in their field, or if they are experts, no one knows about them. If you find yourself in this predicament, an easy remedy exists: interview an expert.
This has some advantages right off: You’re capitalizing on someone who already has an audience. That means that you are not the only person who will be promoting your content; your expert du jour will also promote the interview on his/ her website, social media channels, and other outlets.
This builds organic traffic for your site in a way that you never could on your own. Not only will you get views from the expert’s site, but search engines will crawl your site and the site where your content is located. People searching for that expert’s name will find your video via web search.
To make the most of this technique, you want to set up a process, but don’t box yourself in. While it’s nice to have an expert interview that includes a video, it isn’t a requirement. You can conduct email interviews, which not only helps experts who are on the shy side but also allows you to interview people who are busy or who live in drastically different time zones from yours.
The best way to include this sort of information on your video is to write a news report of sorts about it. Basically, you’re going to highlight what was talked about in your email interview and use quotes. For example, you might say something like, “Renowned psychologist, Dr. I’m-an-Expert, says that it’s best to read before you go to bed if you have trouble sleeping,” or whatever.
Promote, Promote, Promote
While saying that you need to promote your content sounds contradictory to the information that was given in the previous paragraphs, it isn’t. Post links to your content on sites like Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter to help them gain more traction.
And speaking of Twitter, you may want to participate in activities like Twitter chats in order to promote your content. For example, you might be a foodie who creates cheap vegan recipes. participating in food-related chats on Twitter allows you to meet like-minded people. These people might be other experts you can interview. They might also become Twitter followers who will retweet your content, if you build enough of a relationship with them.
Marketing strategies like these require you to participate in the long game. A video that’s been online for a year before it goes viral still counts as viral content. Always play the game with this in mind.
Use Keywords and Metadata
Add plenty of keywords to the video’s description tags. The key for this to work is to not settle on just one keyword. Rather, content producers want to find several related keywords that describe the content of their video. For example, if your video is about cooking with nuts, don’t just use keyword phrases like “cooking with nuts,” use variations of the keyword phrase like “cooking with peanuts,” “recipes with cashews,” or “how to make recipes with nuts.”
You’ll want to do the same thing with the metadata for your content when you post it on your website. Search engines like Google will crawl your site, which registers the subject matter of your content. This, in turn, attracts web searchers who are looking for the type of content your video features.
Transcribe Your Videos
A video transcript can be your best friend in terms of web searches. If you know that your video’s content appeals to a broad audience, then transcribe it. This allows you to introduce more keywords to the mix.
Let’s say you’ve landed an interview with someone like Jamie Oliver, the renowned chef. Transcribing the video allows you to not only use his name in your content, it also allows you to introduce related words like “cooking,” “food,” and “recipes.”
You can even go beyond the transcription by writing up a keyword-rich intro and outro. These two additional elements allow you to introduce keywords to your description. These keywords will eventually bring people to your site and introduce the contents of your video to them.
Keep It Short
A long video can be the death of viral content. Most people just don’t take the time to watch really long presentations. Even 10 minutes can be too long.
Inevitably, when this topic is introduced, people will ask how they’re supposed to edit a 20-minute expert interview down to three minutes. The way you do this is to break up the interview. Each question, if it’s long enough, can be the subject of one short video. You can always create a full video and link to the full interview video in the comments section of sites like YouTube or on your website.
This practice does more than just work with people’s limited attention spans. It also allows you to legitimately create separate blog posts about the content of each video. You can then create a master page that links to all your video content.
You will not only increase your website’s traffic, you will also increase the number of ways that people can find you. Instead of one entry topic—say, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver—you now have a number of related subtopics like “healthy eating,” “home cooking,” or even “good chicken recipes.”
Creating a viral video doesn’t have to be complicated. If you do things like add more keywords to your descriptions, make a short video instead of a long one, and work to promote your current video, the ever-elusive viral video could be your reality. It’s only a matter of analyzing what you’re doing now and making course corrections so that your content becomes more shareable.