How Long Do People Spend Watching Viral Videos?

When analyzing viral videos, there are a few criteria to consider to measure their effectiveness. The cumulative time spent watching the video is one such tool. For example, the Harlem Shake meme was incredibly popular in the early part of 2013. By one set of calculations, people spent a total of 2,782 years watching various Harlem Shake videos on sites like YouTube. The brevity of the videos – roughly 30 seconds each – undoubtedly helped, as the very nature of viral content is that it appeals to a general public with attention spans that are being pulled in multiple directions. The shorter the video, the higher the likelihood that people will watch it.

How Are Popular Videos Shared?

Another factor that measures the success of viral videos is how often they are shared. Everyone from private uploaders to record industry executives pays very close attention to the popularity statistics on social media outlets like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Every single ‘Like’, ‘Share’ or e-mail indicates a new potential customer, a new potential launching pad for a new round of sharing.

Going back to the Harlem Shake example, even other short advertisements, like those shown during the Super Bowl, couldn’t hold a candle to the popularity of the Harlem Shake: only 7.9 million views to the 24.8 million of a number of Harlem Shake videos, and average ‘Likes’ on YouTube of 20,500 against 127,000 for the Harlem Shake.

Choosing The Right Moment To Go Viral

Even when the video is released, and watched, becomes a key data point. Some videos (particularly the shorter ones) might be more popular during the workweek, as employees become bored and look online for distractions. Knowing when an audience is most likely to be on YouTube (or any other sharing platform) is key. It’s comparable to television networks scheduling popular programs for weekday evenings, when people get off work, and moving unpopular or failing programs to Friday night, when people are less likely to watch television.

Know Your Audience

A data point of importance to viral marketers is understanding the kinds of people who are most likely to share the content. Videos featuring cats, for example, are targeted to animal lovers, in the hope that they will share the video with other animal lovers in their social or professional circles.

However, sharing a cat video in a sports category, and assuming that it will go viral anyway, will get you nowhere. In a profile of a company using business intelligence to make viral video predictions, Forbes magazine points out that a large audience is not the same thing as an ideal demographic. Go for quality of audience rather than sheer size of it; you’ll get better website traffic, higher quality leads, and less wasted time and hassle on low-quality ones.

Conclusion

Viral videos are the holy grail of online marketing, but it’s not easy to predict what will go viral. Popular viral videos range from the Harlem Shake to “Charlie Bit My Finger” and there seems to be few connections between each one other than the stars aligning (ie, these four data points aligning). If you’re going for a viral video, keep these points in mind, and good luck! If you get lucky, you just might strike internet gold.

The post 4 Essential Data Points for Viral Videos appeared first on AuthorityLabs.

• What advice would you give to people trying to break into the industry?
• What can speakers do to make their presentations more useful to you?
• What do you think about the Matt Cutts video on the  penguin 2.0 update?
• What tool would you sell a kidney for?

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Every tool reviewed in this post came from Annie Cushing’s Must-Have Tools Google doc under the Data Visualization tab. The Google doc has fourteen tabs of amazing tools covering all the bases of internet marketing, so definitely check it out.

Creately

Creately is an organizational tool that allows users to easily create flowcharts, mind maps, Unified Modeling Language diagrams, database models, and mockups.

Free Features:

• Drag and drop interface
• PDF, JPG, or PNG exports
• Five public diagrams
• Search engine exposure
• Ability to securely embed diagrams in webpages
• Real-time collaboration for 3 members
• Online only

Upgrade Features:

• Unlimited private and public diagrams
• Real-time collaboration for an unlimited amount of members
• XML exports
• Project sharing with clients and coworkers
• User management on projects
• Online tool and/or desktop application

An example of a wireless network diagram made with Creately’s software:

Price: Free with uprade option

Infogr.am

Infogr.am is an online tool that allows you to create your own infographics.

Free Features:

• Six infographic templates
• Ability to add photos, video, charts, text, and maps to the infographic
• Your own Infogr.am library
• Social media sharing buttons that you can add directly to the infographic

Pro Features ($18/month):

• 10 infographic templates
• PDF or PNG downloads
• Private URLs for sharing
• Password protection

Infogr.am infographic examples:

The Infogr.am interface:

Price: Free with upgrade option

Pixlr

Pixlr is an online photo editor that allows you to create your own charts, infographics, and images for free.

Features:

• Online tool, no downloading necessary
• Ability to save created images as a JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF or PXD (layered Pixlr image) to your computer, Flickr, Picasa, Facebook or your own Pixlr library online, if you create an account
• All the basic functionalities of Photoshop

This is also a great tool to have at your disposal for those times that you need a photo editor but aren’t at your usual work station and don’t want to use Paint. (Eww.)

The Pixlr interface:

Price: Free

Many Eyes

Many Eyes is an online data visualizer and chart maker tool.

Features:

• 22 data visualization types to choose from
• Ability to upload XML data or free text to create visualizations
• Ability to create interactive HTML data visualizations you can embed in your website
• Embed codes or as a static image option you can share via email, Facebook, or Twitter

Important: You have to publish the visualization to download it, and all data entered into Many Eyes is publicly viewable, so don’t put confidential company info into it.

Many Eyes data visualization examples:

Price: Free

Wordle

Word clouds are all the rage but can be really useful to marketers. There are so many applications we can use as marketers, such as visualizing all the title tags of our website (or a competitor’s!), anchor tags (from inbound OR internal links), URLs, ranking keywords from a source like SEMRush or Keyword Spy, etc. Wordle makes that pretty easy and has a surprising number of customizable options for a free tool.

Features:

• Allows you to create a word cloud from a sample of text or the URL of any blog, blog feed, or any other web page that has an Atom or RSS feed
• Generates a random word cloud from your text with options to customize the language, font, layout and colors used
• Advanced option allows you to assign weight and hexadecimal colors to words that you would like emphasized
• Option to either print your word cloud or publish it publicly and receive an embed code to put the word cloud on a webpage
• Ability to maintain phrases by replacing spaces between words you want to keep together with a tilde character (useful for mapping actual keyword phrases and not just individual words)

Here’s a word cloud I created from the United States’ Constitution:

Price: Free

What data visualization tools are you using?

The post Enrich Your Data With These Free Visualization Tools appeared first on AuthorityLabs.

So how do you go about building your brand online?

1. Find Out Who Your Target Customer Is

In order to know how to effectively speak to your audience, you need to know who they are. Is your ideal customer an educated businesswoman? Perhaps he’s a rebellious yet intelligent high school student. Maybe he’s a blue-collar worker living paycheck to paycheck. Know who he is, and learn to speak his language.

Focus groups are one way, but the availability of all types of people social media makes this task a breeze. Get online and find out what your customer is talking about, what she wants, and how she likes to express herself. Then build a voice for that customer.

2. Identify What Makes You Different from Your Competitors

Image via Flickr by Rafael Anderson

Chances are, you aren’t the only company offering what you do. But, you’re not like any of the rest. What sets you apart? How are your employees or products or services better or different from the rest? Incorporate these differences in your voice. For example, Ben and Jerry’s tremendous success isn’t just from great ice cream. It comes from their ability to make their products sound different from Barber’s or Blue Bell.

Maybe you’re the little fish in the big sea. Or, play the irreverent one, the humanitarian one, the liberal one, or the snobbish one. Whomever you choose to be, make sure this identity is attractive to your target customer.

3. Find Out How to Communicate Your Difference to Customers

Image via Flickr by groop_lab

Once you know your customer and identify what sets you apart in their minds, find a way to express this unique relationship. If your demographic is well-educated, give them lots of information. If they’re curious, lavish them with fun facts.

Approach a rebellious group with irreverent talk. Impress mothers with your warmth and caring, or make them laugh through the messes and tantrums with humor. Connect with them on the level of who they are and what you are in relation to them.

4. Get Inspiration from Similar Voices

Image via Flickr by Matt Wynn

As you develop your brand voice, there’s nothing wrong with peeking at what others do successfully. However, it’s a good idea to look outside your industry for inspiration. Otherwise, you’ll end up sounding just like one of your competitors.

Not only is this a turn-off (and confusing) to potential customers, it’s also a possible route to a lawsuit. If you’re a high-end clothing retailer, take a look at what luxury car companies are doing. Food manufacturers can glean great ideas from wine makers or even shoe sellers.

Once you develop your brand voice, stay true to it. From your website, your trade show exhibit booth, to your social media presence, maintaining your voice consistently is the only way to become that well-known, fully trusted friend customers recognize in an instance.

The post The 4 Step Process For Creating Your Brand Voice appeared first on AuthorityLabs.

This is valuable data and these are mistakes I have personally had to fix for new clients often. Please watch and share.

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