The Insider's Guide to Social Video

The other day, I was honored to be asked to speak on a panel with other brand marketers at the Brand Innovators Chicago Summit.  The goal was to provide a perspective on how to utilize online video to create entertaining and engaging content.  More importantly how do we, as marketers, get our communities to share these videos with their audiences?  

If you're in marketing and working in the digital space, there's no doubt that video has been a topic of conversation at some point.  It's hard to keep track of how quickly the entire social landscape is changing let alone focus on one platform so I wanted to share some quick highlights I found while researching the most recent stats.

The following are from comScore's August 2012 data:

• 188 M U.S. Internet users who watched video content in August
• 37.7 B, yes Billion, online content videos
• 9.5 M video ads viewed

So, the question that now remains is not why we have to put video content out there but what?  

First, the video has to strike an emotion and be on target with the messaging your trying to communicate with your audience.  It could be fear, joy, surprise, sadness, whatever but the point is that it must resonate with people to be memorable.  Second, if you want to make a video "viral" it needs to be supported with paid media to capitalize on organic shares and views.  I'd say less than 1% of all videos truly go viral through 100% word of mouth.  

A few of my favorites are listed below.  Happy viewing and feel free to share!

DollarShaveClub.com - Our Blades are F***ing Great

The Hottest @ Abercrombie & Fitch Guys, "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen

Google Chrome: Dear Sophie