Five Ways to Save Your Video Content from Devouring Itself

Video content poses unique challenges to content marketers, content managers, and content strategists. Especially since it is often hosted on constantly evolving, proprietary platforms. The incorporation of outside links in YouTube videos is a fine, current example.

Search and content have a long, dysfunctional history. Search algorithms change to address unsavory content practices. New unsavory content practices pop up to exploit newfound vulnerabilities. This cycle continues, and will, for the foreseeable future.

These algorithm adjustments also apply to video content. I happened upon an article on ReelSEO, written by Chris Atkinson, detailing the introduction of including outside links on YouTube videos, and its potential search and content implications.

(These platform-specific announcements are especially important to we content folks, as they often have a direct impact on the whats and hows of our content delivery.)

Link to anything you fancy

Link placement within videos has been an option for years. Up to this point, YouTube has limited the nature of those links to other YouTube videos, YouTube channels, or fundraising appeals. Most recently, they added "merch" as an option for channel owners to link to YouTube-approved retail sites like iTunes, GooglePlay, etc.

Now, the floodgates are open. Links to any site are now allowed on any YouTube video. Gone are the days of only placing a link in the video description area. CUE THE PARTY HORNS. Sort of.

Some video content creators will abuse this. I guarantee it. Others will link to too many things in a video, causing confusion. We'll see videos so laden with links, calls-to-action, and more that your old GeoCities page will seem like a serene utopia in comparison. Link to the Facebook page! Visit this microsite! Fill out this email signup form! LINKS!11

Start by creating great video content

The best case scenario here sees content creators using the in-video link option to focus their channel-specific video messaging even further. We want to provide the best content experience possible, links clicked, Watch Time, and otherwise. How do we do that with video?

1. Create content that people want to watch. Think palatable, not gimmicky. Effective and straightforward trumps trying-to-be-funny or attempted-edgy on most occasions.

2. Make content clear and concise. Make your point in as few seconds as possible. Be direct helpful. PEOPLE LOVE THAT. A shorter video makes the link placement have less of an SEO impact. It's easier to watch a shorter video, from a life-expectancy point-of-view, too.

3. Focus on a single topic, concept, or task. The linear presentation of a video and its (new) links precludes an easy message hierarchy. Stick to a single message, and don't try to do to many things at once. Otherwise, you're likely lose your audience on all of the things in frustration and confusion. 

4. Give it context. Resist the urge to start off videos with a Ken Burns-style mini-documentary about the company. Instead, give them the background they need to make use of the rest of the video. If your messaging is consistent, this context should flow easily from one platform to the next.

5. Tell the story. Use a video's linear constraints as a force for good. Take advantage of it with an equally-linear storyline. Beginning, middle, end. Even if it is a :30 second piece. To quote Steve Martin's character Neil Paige from the holiday travel film, "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles": "When you are telling these little stories, here's a good idea: Have a point."

Place the link carefully

The ReelSEO article touched on another important part of this equation: inclusion of a "Watch Time" variable as a metric used in SEO. In other words, the longer a viewer watches your video, the better your stature in search results.

The Watch Time metric will be a considerable challenge for some. It's not exactly new; YouTube has been doing this since March 2012. This is fine for short videos with a quick and concise close.

However, longer videos were often published with the optimistic mindset of "viewers can watch a little, or they can watch all 18 or 32 minutes." The impact was the same. Now, the opposite is true. Watching a portion of a video to the end, once started, now has a potentially detrimental effect on the placement of the video within search results.

Atkinson notes that this presents a paradox of sorts. Ideal link placement within the video becomes a Schrödinger's content cat situation:

• Place the link at the beginning, where more people will see it? (Assuming more people will start your video than watch it to the end.) 
• At the end, to receive more SEO mojo? (At the risk of fewer people actually seeing and clicking on said link.)
• In the middle, to strike a perilous balance?

Link to appropriate web pages from your video (And vice veresa.) Strive for a seamless experience across platforms with branding, messaging, and tone & voice. Great content makes it all a more satisfying endeavor, all around.

More content tips from Neil Paige:

(Top image adapted from "Skip containing discarded VHS tapes" by Flickr user Rob Pearce.)

Is that a complete news studio in your pocket, or...

Have you ever been witness to some piece of technology, earlier dismissed, that now proves to be a an obvious chunk of awesome?

Count me in on the streaming live video front now.

As the McCain/Palin ticket graced the fringes of the Twin Cities metro on Friday I had a unique opportunity to witness some of it live. Not in person, not on the television, and not on a mainstream media news site. Instead, it was on www.theuptake.org.

The Uptake is an aggregation of citizen journalists, using a central site for coordination and distribution. We can now say that citizen journalism is nothing new. However, the critical difference is now that technology allows them to stream live video from their compatible devices [ a hacked iPhone in the clip I viewed, as the cameraman described it to an interviewee. ]

These streams are available on theuptake.org live as they happened, and also in archived form after the fact. They use the service Qik for the live video back-end, and blip.tv for archived/produced pieces.

I have been aware of the technology since Qik's release, but thought that it might be an answer looking for a question. The tech itself seemed sound enough, but the missing link to me was in notification to potential viewers. How would people that wanted to see the video know to visit The Uptake to partake?

The answer was now simple, as it was how I found out. One of my Twitter followers, @noahkunin, is a correspondent for The Uptake. He sent out tweets that preceded the event, and while it took place.

Now, the picture is complete. The tech to harness the moment live to teh Internets is in place, an aggregator like The Uptake is in place to coordinate the coverage, and, a suitably viral method to notify people about it is also in place. The archive in is place; it is the last and oldest piece.
What does this mean?

It means that now things will be covered in a way that they haven't yet been covered. Citizen journalists are not only equiped with a phone/camera/video camera in their pocket; now they are packing what is just shy of a complete news studio. And that is a big deal.

Amazon: Video on Demand

[ image courtesy of moneboh / Flickr ]

Our friends at Amazon.com this week announced a Beta of their video on demand service. It has been described by the EVP of Amazon, Bill Carr, as an outgrowth of their Unbox video download service. People were bummed they had to wait for the video to download to begin viewing.

Netflix just announced that their streaming video service, originally offered on their website and then through a dedicated set-top box, will now be available via the XBox 360 this fall. This of course means that Netflix and Microsoft are now in partnership. That seems like kind of a big deal.

These two items in the same week? Good thing it wasn't last week, amid the destroyer-class hysterics of the iPhone. Which brings up a good point -- people are still going to go home to sit in front of a screen. Granted, wireless personal devices are going to be the major focus from here on out, as this article from Information Week indicates. But, not everything will be consumed on a personal device. From Apple.

Yahoo to add video to photo sharing site Flickr

[ image courtesy of Robert of Fairfax / Flickr ]

Word on the street is that Yahoo, proud owners of one of the most prominent photo-sharing sites on the Internets, Flickr, will be offering video hosting.

This is interesting to me, in particular, as I downloaded the Flickr Uploadr for photos just this morning. [Soon I will have a great need to share photos, and this looks to be one of the easiest ways.]

There are some truly odd restrictions, though. According to this article, only Pro users [those paying the $24.95 annually] will have access, and even then they will only be able to upload videos with a duration of less than 90 seconds.

The other option is for folks to put their videos on YouTube for free. Videos up to 10 minutes in length. For free.

I don't know that the value proposition is great enough for folks to pay the $25/year to have their videos next to their photos. As long as those videos are less than 90 seconds. There are more benefits to the Pro membership than this new video hosting, so perhaps those already paying will see it as an added benefit.

I would image that Yahoo's reasoning behind the project is this:
1. Most videos that people want to share are less than 90 seconds
2. Most people are not interested in your video past the 90-sec mark.
3. Bandwidth cost savings.

Maybe I'll go pro and report back. Who knows?
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