Jeben Berg, Creative Director of Cross Platforms Solutions, YouTube, Google led the next general session on how to effectively use the platforms to connect with customers.
Jeben's first point is that YouTube is not TV, so you need to think differently about it.
How big is YouTube? 81.6 million unique US visitors, over 300 million when you include international audiences. There are 15 minutes of video uploaded every 60 seconds.
YouTube's audience mirrors the online population. In other words anybody that can get online, will go to YouTube.
There are two types of videos, user and partner. User videos account for 91% of all video uploads. The remaining videos are partner videos.
The big question is how do you stay on top and stand out in such a large sea of content? Jeben says there is no single formula for success.
One of the questions that always comes up is responding to negative comments, it's about controlling the flow and interacting. The recent Dominos Pizza crisis was resolved when Dominos responded via YouTube.
Another concept is buoyancy, that is keeping your content afloat, and rising to the surface. It's a difficult task. Nike has always been very progressive with online advertising. They opened their YouTube account in 2005, and started posting right away. Now, they continue to feed the channel and cross-link their content.
Search hierarchy is this: Title, Description and the Tags.
Your content should be self contained. It should be able to live on its own. If I need to search outside the initial video to learn more or get context, then the moment is lost.
BlendTec does a great job with this. Each video tells a story in a simple, self contained way. If you stumble upon a video on another site, the story can stand by itself.
Next, be who you are. Snuggie learned this recently. They also went along with the criticism they received. By participating they continued to drive interest in their product.
Brands also need to be thick skinned. Take the criticisms and roll with them. In the end it keeps the content relevant and on top.
Choice is not an option, people expect choice. Street Fighter has been using annotations to link one video to another. A single video leads to many interactions.
One of the hottest things on YouTube is competition. By our nature we all compete, they will quickly create there own sports and events, just to achieve status.
Episodic innovation is also very successful, once you have an interested audience, continue to build upon it.
Next tip, pull on the heartstrings. Think the Susan Boyle video.
Memes are also a very powerful tool, be prepared to embrace them. A number of trends started by the Obama campaign, spilled over to pop-culture and to brands. Once again, roll with it.
The most valuable pieces of real estate are free. There are a number of YouTube users that have huge audiences, build relationships with them.
Up next is the last general session of the day followed by more breakout sessions.
