Viral Videos: Should Every Blogger In Every Niche Be Producing Them?
By Matt Jones on Mar 27, 2008 in Blog Marketing
Over at RyanShamus.com a great resource has been published about producing, distributing and marketing a viral video. So far the article has managed to amass roughly 100 diggs (and still not hit page 1).
Ryan has listed just about every site you will need in order to get the most out of your viral video and he has given out some handy tips too.
I’ve seen lots of bloggers recommending video blogging and I can clearly see the benefits of that, but reading Ryan’s post got me thinking…
Are Viral Videos Really Effective For Every Niche?
Ryan’s advice about getting the video itself popular is all very good. However, creating a “viral video” basically seems like the video equivalent of writing an off-topic blog post for digg.com, only for it to send masses of un-targeted and largely useless traffic.
On the flip side, who would turn down having tens of thousands or more visitors to their Website for next to zero cost? After all, some of them are bound to be interested in what ever it is you are offering.
Video marketing may be the way of the future, but that does not mean that every marketer should be making them now. Viral videos are 1 more weapon added to the Internet marketers arsenal, and that weapon will grow to become more powerful over the next few years, but surely they are nothing more than ‘another weapon’.
What Type Of Video Should All Marketers Produce?
I am by no means an expert on viral videos, but if getting millions of mainstream viewers on YouTube is not what you are looking for, then what is?
Different types of video marketers can use:
- Video Blogging - See 45n5 for a classic video blog.
- Viral Videos - Remember Charles Trippy’s viral video fever?
- Explanation Of Product Videos - For those who have just released a new product and want bloggers in a certain niche to be able to embed a video that explains their product. When BlogRush launched, the founder John Reese used this type of video to great effect.
- Laughable hyped up sales pitches. When a man wearing a second-hand suit suit tries to sell you a product that will make you X million dollars with ‘no risk’.
What do you think about viral videos?
In the meta-blogging/make money online niche, can “viral videos” in the sense Ryan talks about be used?
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I appreciate the fact that you point out the pluses and minuses of viral video marketing. It may not be a good fit for every market, but, as you point out, traffic is always a “good thing” (aka Martha Stewart).
Yes, the question is is the traffic worth the effort of creating the campaign?