Social Media Marketing

The YouTube Optimization Experiment Aftermath

August 6th, 2009. Published under YouTube. 2 Comments.

Here is the aftermath of my YouTube Optimization experiment. On July 27, 2009 I recorded the Michael Jackson Flash Mob Tribute in Montreal.

The goal was just to have content. I know that my camera handling was very poor and my angle sucked. However, I knew that the Flash Mob would make the news and a lot of people would be searching for videos about the MJ Tribute. Flash Mobs in general are pretty cool so I knew I had interesting content. I wanted to share the event with the world but I also knew that I had something people wanted to see.

Stats:

Within hours:

• I got on the first page for Most Viewed of the day in the category Entertainment.
• I had more views than the Bande à Part (Radio-Canada) video of the Flash Mob.

It is important to note that the Bande à Part Youtube channel has a lot more subscribers (238 subcribers vs 3 subscribers), their video was embeded on multiple the major TV network web pages and it was also later picked up by Radio-Energie’s website (A major radio network).

Within 24 hours:

• I made it to the 2nd page of Most Viewed of the day in all categories.

48 Hours

• I recorded over 10,000 views.

48-72 Hours:

• I was in a tight competition with the official video, which was released a few hours after me (the official video was edited, showed all 4 flash mobs, had multiple cameras and had better angles).
• I recorded over 20,000 views.
• It took over 3 days for the official video to pass my amount of views and even when it did, we were very close. We were both only a few spots away from the first page of most viewed of the day in all categories.
• Once the official video got to the first page of most viewed, it was over for me.

5 – 10 days:

• For a week, I still had more views than Bande à Part’s Video despite them being a “Featured Video“. It took them more than a week to pass my amount of views.
• After 10 days, I recorded over 34,000 views, 59 ratings and 67 comments. Not too shabby for a badly filmed video.

Search:

In less than 24 hours…

• I was the first Flash Mob result for the search query: Michael Jackson Tribute Montreal
• I was the first Michael Jackson Flash Mob result for the search query: Flash Mob Montreal
• I was the first result for the search query: Michael Jackson Flash Mob Montreal
• My video was found for the search query: Michael Jackson Flash Mob
• My video was found for the search query: Michael Jackson (Yes, for only Michael Jackson!)
• My video was also found for the search query: Flash Mob

I stayed at the top of the YouTube Search Engines for my keywords for a long time.

Here is a screen shot of my YouTube Insights for discovery (click on picture to see full size):

After 10 days, 75% of my views were either from Search or related videos. I should of taken a print screen of the first 3 days, my search results were dominating.

Here is a screen shot of my YouTube Insights for demographics (click on picture to see full size):

• The genders for all age groups are 50/50.
• The 2 most viewed populations are between 45-44 and 45-54. I guess it makes sense because they are the population that embraced Michael Jackson when he was with the Jackson 5 and when he was at the top of his career.
• Despite being born after Thriller, the 13-17 generation recorded more views of the Flash Mob Tribute video than the 18 to 24 (who were also born after Thriller). This is most likely a proof that the 13-17 year olds use YouTube more than the older generation for their search of information.

Conversion

I created a blog post about the Michael Jackson Flash Mob Tribute in Montreal where I obviously embeded my video but I also embeded a YouTube playlist I created that had other interesting videos of the Mtl Flash Mob. My conversion were fairly low because despite having a link straight to my blog post at the beginning of the YouTube video description, a lot of people did not click until I added annotations with a call to action to read the description for more information. Nevertheless, I had 319 visits to my blog in 7 days. That is more than my average visits per month!

• 200 unique views in the first 2 days (Of my blog post)
• 364 page views in 10 days on over 34,000 video views.
• That is roughly a 1.07% CTR.

YouTube Optimization – How to Get More YouTube Views

So how did I do it? Here are the secrets to optimizing your YouTube videos and get more views:

…

I will have that in my next blog post

photo by: blakeburris

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