by Aanarav Sareen on June 28, 2010
Yesterday various outlets published a story indicating that MSNBC.com, in its new redesign would be eliminating banner ads. While banner ads will still remain on the site, there won’t be as much inventory. In a quote from MediaWeek.com:
“We looked at all the stuff we have,” said Ashley Wells, the site’s creative director. “Video, photos, comments, that stuff was all disparate. When you bring it all together on the page, you need to load things dynamically, it’s no longer about page views. But page views were always a proxy for ad impressions. So you have to figure something else out.”
A lot of digital media pioneers have maintained the same stance for the past few months. While it will take a long time for pageviews to transition out of the digital ad culture, the trend is definitely starting. For example: comScore released its May 2010 U.S online video report last week. YouTube still dominates in amount of content and audience. However, Hulu is a close second — only in number of streams. When it comes to total audience size, it is at # 6. Interestingly, that is lower than Fox Interactive Media, which is owned by NewsCorp, which has a stake in Hulu. On average, Hulu viewers watch 27 streams a month compared to Fox’s 7.4 and YouTube’s 101.2.
In this scenario — should Fox charge a higher ad rate because it reaches more people or should Hulu charge more because it delivers more videos?
The online video space has long struggled with selling ads because many agencies still expect to see high-pageviews while purchasing media. Hopefully this trend will help content creators and advertisers alike.
by Aanarav Sareen on June 25, 2010
This is the last post in a 5-part series on how to create good online video. Read the entire series — image, sound, editing, distribution and promotion.
After distribution, promotion is the largest stumbling block for most content creators. While distribution spreads your content to dozens of sites, the chances of your show succeeding are extremely limited without promotion — paid or otherwise. Creating promotion programs for online media is no different than promoting a product. The largest difference is personality. Your show should have a personality, even if you’re working behind the scenes.
Paid vs. Unpaid promotion
Many content creators invest significantly in creating content. However, they don’t engage in paid promotion. Paid promotion doesn’t necessarily mean buying TV/radio/newspaper ads. It can be as simple as creating and distributing posters. Anything that helps offline and online audiences connect with your show is called promotion. Some of this is paid; the rest is unpaid and earned. If you have a promotion budget, I’d highly recommend investing a small portion of that in Google AdWords to attract an audience.
Social Media promotion
Social media has grown in size and audience considerably over the past few years. As a content creator, ensure that your show has a Facebook fan page. Since it is important to have a personality driven show, make sure that everyone involved on the show is also on Twitter.
Giveaways
Giveaways are easy to do and engage the audience in multiple ways. Do frequent giveaways. These don’t have to be big items. Products like show memorabilia and merchandising are fine.
Email marketing
Despite its abuse, email marketing, when used correctly is still a great form of promotion. To learn more about how you can use email marketing, you can watch my NBC segment here.
by Aanarav Sareen on June 24, 2010
This is the fourth post in a 5-part series on how to create good online video. Read the entire series — image, sound, editing, distribution and promotion.
When it comes down to it, the web offers the largest distribution potential for independent content creators. However, despite the potential, it is important to focus on specific venues so that you can build an audience. Without an audience, you won’t be able to support an active community. A dedicated audience also provides ideas — content or otherwise.
Fortunately, good distribution solutions are limited. Most of them are also free. The following list represents distribution options that should always be considered while distributing online video.
- YouTube: Google owned YouTube is the world’s largest online video site. It can attract a niche audience as well as a mass audience. Every show should have a presence on YouTube.
- Blip.TV: Blip has grown rapidly over the past 5 years. It is primarily designed for episodic content creators and has the ability to distribute content to set-top boxes, including TiVo. While it is a good solution, its player is a little buggy and may frustrate end users.
- iTunes: Apple’s media portal is tremendously popular and continues to grow as the company releases more mobile devices. It allows content subscription that is far superior to other solutions.
The above recommended solutions are all free and distribute your content broadly across the web. However, you also need to embed videos on your site. While you’re welcome to use the YouTube or Blip.TV player, I suggest signing up for Vimeo+. At $60/year, it is far more customizable and cleaner than any of the other solutions. Furthermore, its video encoding quality surpasses YouTube and Blip.TV
