Assuming you’ve got an amazing video (or one that just connects well with your target audience), how can you give it a good chance to get widely shared? I’m going to pick apart a study by Yuping Liu-Thompkins, Ph.D., which I think has some good insights into video seeding strategy.

The full study, “Seeding Viral Content: Lessons from the Diffusion of Online Videos”, is worth reading. But for those of you short on time, I’ve pulled out some top points.

What is seeding?

An initial batch of people has to see your video in order for it to be shared more widely. “Seeding” is a broad term that means getting the video placed where people can see it – through blogs, forums, aggregating sites, email lists, social media, etc. It can be unpaid (ex. via your own Facebook page) or paid (ex. via a seeding agency).

Generally, seeding is a different approach than advertising, but the line gets blurry. (If you pay YouTube to feature your video, is that seeding or advertising?)

The article we’re looking at today doesn’t make a distinction between paid and unpaid seeding, but is not focused on advertising.

Let’s get to the conclusions…

Numbers of seeds is not everything

The more the better, obviously, but you’ve got a chance even if you don’t have (and can’t afford) a large seed group. The better your content (message), the less critical the size of your starting pool is.

The results here suggest that the more seeds that are used to start a viral campaign, the more positive diffusion outcome is, supporting the “big seed” strategy proposed conceptually by Watts and Peretti (2007). In the meantime, this “big seed” strategy is not necessary at all times. As the general quality of the viral message improves, the need to use a large number of seeds diminishes significantly.

Start with your base – your existing supporters or customers

Regarding the type of seed consumers to use, our results showed that it is best to start a viral campaign with consumers who have a strong tie with the viral message originator. As these consumers are more strongly influenced by the message originator, using these consumers as seeds increases the probability that the message will be passed along to further waves of consumers.

Don’t focus on super influencers

…the current analysis showed that it is not ideal to use seed consumers with a large number of connections. The social cost of maintaining a large network leads to weaker average connection and as a result limited influence on subsequent generations of consumers.

Therefore, our results offer empirical support to the notion that, to achieve successful diffusion, it is better to have a large number of easily influenced individuals than to have a few highly-connected hubs in a social network.

Of course, celebrities are great for advocacy campaigns. They can bring legitimacy, sizzle and exposure. But for video seeding, they’re very likely not the most important factor.

Build your base

All of this points to a key strategy, especially for cash poor non-profits – build your base.

Regarding the type of seed consumers to use, our results showed that it is best to start a viral campaign with consumers who have a strong tie with the viral message originator. As these consumers are more strongly influenced by the message originator, using these consumers as seeds increases the probability that the message will be passed along to further waves of consumers.

Remember Kony 2012? Invisible Children already had 440,000 Facebook fans, a big email list and large a following on Twitter (across multiple accounts) before the launch of their hit video. 80,000 people across 126 cities camped out in public parks as an anti-Kony protest in 2006. That suggests they had a large and committed base of supporters willing to help spread the word.

It also helped that Kony’s base was mainly younger people, who (as mentioned in the study) are better content spreaders.

Diversify your base

When seed consumers share too few or too many common interests, diffusion outcome is not optimal. Instead, a moderately heterogeneous group of consumers can best increase the reach of a viral message to more diverse consumer populations.

…

As mentioned earlier, a larger number of connections represent a wider reach but potentially weaker ties between a seed and his/her friends…cascading is most likely with low to moderate number of connections.

You want a diverse enough bunch of people that the video doesn’t get stuck in a social network that’s too tight knit. But you do want overlaps within your seed group.

“Preaching to the choir” is a problem often faced by non-profit organizations. We’re constantly trying to reach outside our existing group of supporters (who are already committed to the cause).

How to do so is a topic for another day. Mainly, it involves deliberately creating messaging and marketing targeting receptive audiences outside your existing supporter list.

Being overly diverse isn’t usually a problem for non-profits since people who are attracted to your cause already have something in common.

Reality check – you’re special

All of this is good general thinking, and I certainly appreciate Dr. Liu-Thompkins’ research. But don’t use this as a formula. Look at your own context: What assets do you have? Play to your strengths.

For a lot of non-profits, you’ll probably need to get creative because even if a seeding agency is good return on investment, you might not have that kind of cash.

If you’ve got a celebrity involved, of course that’s something you can leverage. Same with Google’s adwords grants. Maybe you’ve got lots of student volunteers instead, who will spread it in their networks. Or maybe you can get earned media placements.

And remember this is one piece of academic research. It’s not the last word.

The main point Dr. Liu-Thompkins emphasizes is that you should look at video seeding as a strategic activity. Be deliberate, be smart, plan, experiment and learn from each attempt.

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools