Archive for March, 2010

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YouTube Undergoes The Knife: See The New Facelift

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 by admin

You may notice yourself looking twice as you view a video on YouTube today. No, it’s not your eyesight, nor is it a pesky browser bug. YouTube has undergone a serious facelift to update and revamp its video page. With a new look and several new features, YouTube has strived to create a clutter-free and ultimately more user friendly page – A transition that is one of the biggest redesigns in its history.

So, what are some of these changes and how will they benefit the YouTube experience? Simplifying the look will help viewers focus on the video itself which is at the heart of the redesign. To create a more streamlined search there is a “next up” video list in which you can add videos to your queue on the right side of the page. Syncing up descriptions and stats, along with grouping actions such as sharing, rating, saving, or flagging will result in a more organized page layout. And let’s not forget about the rating system. As most of YouTube’s users select either 1 or 5 stars, the rating will be changed to a “Like” or “Don’t Like” model – Common terminology to other social channels such as Facebook.

With several other tweaks having been made for a more enjoyable viewing experience, the redesign was well-thought out before making the transition. The YouTube team has spent time gathering feedback and looking at data to ensure the changes made resonate well with users. But as always, change can take time to get used to; especially on a site that has been pretty stagnant when it comes to dramatic design changes.

If you switched to this new format when it was first introduced a few months ago in beta, you may not notice anything new and have probably gotten comfortable using the new page. Tech savvy news publications have been posting updates during the process to promote user transition.

Will YouTube continue to increase its success in being one of the major social media outlets with this new video viewing format? Stay tuned.

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Posted in Google, Social Media | No Comments »

Vevo.com- embeddable music returns

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 by Michael Orlinski

Vevo.com- The Hulu.com for Music Videos...

The three mammoth record labels of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI joined forces a year ago to create a new video distribution site called Vevo.com.  The site has been billed as the “Hulu.com for music videos”, and similar to Hulu, Vevo.com displays pre-roll and screen overlays on each music video with a top-tier advertiser. The goal of the site is not to replace YouTube for music video views, but to return revenue to the music industry from viral views. As YouTube is currently the go-to source for music videos, the big three wanted more control of their content. Eric Schmidt even attended their launch party back in December, so within Google the site is not seen as a threat, but rather a partner.

YouTube Embed code and music

Ok Go's viral video "Here is goes again" with Embedding disabled

However, the cost benefits for the music executives can have increasingly negative effects on smaller music acts trying to break through to the “big time” by using embedded videos on sites such as YouTube. On February 19th Damian Kulash, lead singer of the band Ok Go, published an op-ed article in the New York Times which highlighted his frustration with EMI’s new strategy of disabling the embed function on their YouTube channel.  Ok Go, best known for its ‘06 hit viral video “Here It Goes Again”, where the band dances in unison on treadmills, became popular through users embedding their YouTube video on other sites such as music blogs. The embed function on YouTube helped the obscure band garner tens of millions of video views on YouTube, which helped earn them a Grammy for the video’s song. While the label got free advertising and increased music sales off their new top 20 artist, they did not receive any revenue for those embed video views.

So began the Music Industry v. YouTube negotiations. In the past year, all three record labels involved with Vevo negotiated that YouTube would pay them a percentage of the advertising revenue for each view of their artists’ videos. In the negotiations it was also decided that the embed feature that helped many bands such as Ok Go get on the top 20 be removed from their artist pages.

The numbers are shocking:”When EMI disabled the embedding feature, views of our treadmill video dropped 90 percent, from about 10,000 per day to just over 1,000. Our last royalty statement from the label, which covered six months of streams, shows a whopping $27.77 credit to our account.”-Damian Kulash, NYT 2/19/2010

Looking at the industry’s past with paying DJs to “hype” their artist, it seems illogical to disable a feature that helps artists get heard, especially via targeted music blogs. Vevo was the big three labels’ solution to re-enable an embeddable format that users can use to share artist content virally, while retaining full control and creating another potential advertising avenue.  Today, the labels’ apparent strategy is to use Vevo as the video management agency for all of their artists’ online video assets. Vevo’s strategy with YouTube appears to have changed in the past two months, to start to building awareness around their own site while still allowing some functionality for all worldwide users on YouTube. The benefit for Vevo(aka the big three) is they now have control of embeddable content while  having two revenue generating marketing channels via both sites having embedded calls to action for purchasing songs via Amazon or Itunes.

While OkGo has decided to leave EMI based on EMI’s decision to “wring revenue out of everything we make, including our videos” many of the labels’ artists now have a [artists name]VEVO channel on YouTube with all the music videos from their previous profiles. Artists such as Beyonce still have their previous channel, but all favorite videos and the majority of links are now pointed to the beyonceVEVO channel. The future relationship between artists and YouTube will be interesting as Vevo currently only has a comment field for user interaction. Could Beyonce have the same success with “single ladies” on a platform that does not promote user interaction and user submitted versions of her video? Is the goal to have users watch videos on Vevo and then interact on YouTube?

What are your thoughts on Vevo.com and the music industry’s embargo of embeddable content on YouTube? Any predictions on Vevo.com’s success now that artists videos are linked with Vevo?

Posted in online video | No Comments »

Some Basic Tips for Writing Facebook Ad Copy

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 by Bianca Garcia

If you’re advertising on Facebook (and you should be), below are some basic tips to get you started in writing Facebook ad copy:

1. If you have a tag line, use it.

What makes tag lines so great is that if you you keep repeating it, it sticks in your customers’ minds: Just do it. Because you’re worth it. When you care enough to send the very best. Got milk? I’m lovin’ it.

Advertisers should make sure to use parallel messaging in their advertising efforts, across all mediums and channels. This not only breeds consistency, it also helps to generate some solid top-of-mind recall for your brand.

2. Look at your best performing Google search ad.

Sure, you can’t fit your traditional Google Haiku into a little Facebook Ad Space Unit (unless you’re doing a homepage engagement buy, then you’ll have more real estate for ad copy). But make sure to leverage your learnings from your Search campaigns, especially if you’ve been running a Google campaign longer than you’ve been running Facebook campaigns.  Real life proof that this works: a few months ago, we rotated in our best performing Google search ad (tweaked to fit character limits) into a Facebook campaign. During the week that it launched, the Google-based ads greatly outperformed the other ads, generating the most impressions and clicks.

3. Write several versions.

Start with at least two to three versions of each ad concept, then after a couple of weeks you will be able to tell which versions are performing better. You can then write new versions again based on those ads, and rotate those in the mix. It is also recommended to refresh Facebook ads after a couple of months to lower banner burnout and to keep content fresh.

4. Make sure to obey Facebook’s Rules.

Don’t make the mistake of writing Facebook ad copy, have your clients approve the ads, only to find out that Facebook will reject it. Check out the Advertising Guidelines,  Common Ad Mistakes and Facebook Ads Best Practices to prep yourself.  Also, they are called “best practices” for a reason – they are highly recommended because they work!

5. CUSTOMIZE.

If you can only follow one tip – this is it. This is the cardinal rule. The very best practice ever. The most important thing to remember when you’re writing Facebook ad copy.

The beauty of Facebook ads is that they let advertisers really, really target their audience. And since you are already reaching a very specific market, you should make sure that your ad speaks to them directly. Customize your ads so that you are connecting with their interests. This way, the Facebook user will see a “personalized” ad and be more likely to click your ad or become a Fan of your page. For instance, if you’re targeting female dessert lovers on Facebook, and you’re ad contains the word “chocolate”, don’t you think your target audience is more likely to be interested in it, than say, a random ad from a bank?

These tips may seem very obvious, but sometimes they are still overlooked. The Facebook audience – and the data that Facebook offers – is really a goldmine for advertisers, and Facebook ads are a cost-efficient and effective way to reach your audience. Good luck!

Do you have your own tips on writing Facebook ad copy? Share them with us!

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Posted in Advertising, Facebook, Google, Industry, Online Media, POV, Paid Search, Social Media | 1 Comment »

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