Unruly Reveals The Science Behind Viral Video Sharing

Last week, online video technology consultants Unruly released “The Science of Sharing”, a white paper describing the best practices companies should observe when creating sharable viral videos. The white paper was released a couple of days after YouTube announced that they were making channel management easier.

To research and write the white paper, Unruly analysed statistical data gathered using Unruly ShareRank™, the company’s patented online video ranking software, based on views, shares and engagement. According to the white paper, which you can apply to have emailed to your inbox:

[ShareRank] is powered by a proprietary algorithm containing 100+ variables, trained from a data set of over 329 billion video views and 10,000+ consumer responses to predict the social impact of video content. 

Unruly measured the impact of 12 different commercials which were televised during Super Bowl XLVII and released online. To work out why each video was or was not successful, Unruly rated each on its content and the emotional response it evoked in the audience. The success of each advert was dependent on how often it was shared on social media networks.

Each video was marked on the strength of the psychological response it elicited in the viewer, as well as the strength of its social motivation: why people would want to share the video and how likely this was to happen. The two scorecards below, both from the white paper, show the exact categories considered and the scale to which videos could be considered sharable:



The two adverts which scored the highest, Budweiser’s “Brotherhood” and Ram’s “Farmer”, evoked strong emotional responses of warmth and happiness in the audience, who were motivated into sharing the video to spread this emotional experience and to get a reaction.

”Brotherhood” was the most successful ad overall, achieving an Unruly ShareRank
score of 7.9 and an impressive share rate of 18.6%. “Farmer” came second, with a ShareRank score of 7.3.

In the white paper’s conclusion, Unruly draws attention to the fact that neither of the top ranked videos used humour to elicit a response, setting them apart from the majority of the Super Bowl commercials. Citing the data gathered during the study, Unruly advises companies to avoid humour as an emotional response, if possible, in order to “stand out”:

Hilarity is a fickle trigger – brands need to be exceptionally funny, or their content falls flat. We recommend brands move away from humor for future media events in order to be remembered and shared.

Viewers, Unruly says, need to feel an extremely strong, positive emotional response from a video if they are then going to share it with their friends. Videos which evoke emotions on the stronger end of the scale are three times more likely to be shared than videos that evoke weaker responses.

In other viral video news, YouTube has made channel management much easier, making it possible for users managing multiple channels using a Google+ account to create new ones from the same account.

In an announcement last week, Staff Software Engineer Brett Hobbs encouraged channel managers to take advantage of the new, useful feature. Of course, the feature won’t only benefit users: YouTube channel managers who haven’t got a Google+ account will create one, increasing the social networks membership figures.

Do you agree with the findings of Unruly’s white paper? What do you think makes videos more sharable?       

Instagram Launches Video Feature Similar To Vine

Yesterday, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom announced that the new version of Instagram would allow users to record short, Vine-like videos on the app, describing the feature as "everything you love about Instagram — and it moves".

Facebook revealed that there would be an announcement about a big change to one of its features a week ago. The social media world quickly realised that the update would be an Instagram video feature, putting the service directly in competition with Twitter’s affiliate Vine.

Vine was an instant success when it came out early this year, climbing to the top of the download charts and capturing the imaginations of its 13 million users. Vine’s meteoric success was a wake up call to Facebook employees, who realised that they needed to quickly release a competitor using their affiliate image sharing service Instagram.

Although Instagram’s video creation software is similar to Vine in principle, it has many new and interesting features that set it apart from its Twitter-owned competitor. For example, Vine videos can only be up to six seconds long, while Instagram videos can be between three and fifteen seconds.

Instead of pressing the screen in general to record, users press a little record button near the bottom. Pressing the screen will auto-adjust the video’s focus, an improvement on Vine’s unfocused video filming. A ‘Cinema’ function improves the video even further by stabilizing the image.

Instagram allows users to not only add filters to their videos – the filters are similar to picture filters, but with new names – but also choose a cover frame to appear in the Instagram feed, or the Facebook news feed. Users can also edit their videos mid-record by deleting recorded sections.

Unlike Vines, Instagram videos don’t autoplay and they don’t loop, which, depending on your preference, makes them better or worse than Vine videos. Instagram also learnt from a number of Vine mistakes, releasing on both Android and iOS at the same time and incorporating hashtags from the start.

It is unlikely that Vine will be killed off by Instagram video but, thanks to Instagram’s 130 million-strong user base, ten times the number Vine has, it will probably become more popular.

What do you think of Instagram video?

Why Advertisers Need YouTube

YouTube reaches more U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 34 than any cable network. With one billion unique users per month, YouTube helps brands engage with people who aren't just willing to watch videos; they're actively seeking them out.

A video marketing strategy on YouTube can benefit your brand's social media presence on other networks, too. When Old Spice ran its "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign, it gained over 80,000 Twitter followers in two days and increased its Facebook engagement by 800%. What do these numbers mean? Well, for Old Spice, they meant a 107% sales increase.

This infographic by MDG Advertising illustrates the growth and consumption habits of YouTube viewers, and shows how your brand can turn content into revenue with a video marketing strategy.

What's the best YouTube video marketing campaign you've seen? Let us know in the comments section below.

Homepage image via iStockPhoto, dem10

YouTube's New Tool Makes it Easy to Create Slow-Mo Videos

What turns an average video into a spectacular one? Slow motion.

Working under the premise that “slow-mo makes everything better,” YouTube added a new slow motion enhancement tool to its built-in editor on Tuesday, making it accessible to everyone who uses the site to create videos.

YouTube’s built-in video editor already has a number of different effects that users can harness when editing their videos. The slow-mo effect was developed in-house at YouTube, using frame analysis to blend intermediate frames together. The result: Videos look like they were shot with a high-speed camera.

Videos that feature slow-motion effects seem to be popular on YouTube. For instance, the Slow Mo Guys channel has more than 2 million subscribers and 220 million overall views.

Check out a slow-mo video created with the editor, above. The original video is posted below:

What are your thoughts on YouTube's new slomo feature? Will you use it? Tell us in the comments, below.
Images courtesy of iStock Photo, plusphoto

YouTube Introduces Paid Channels

After months of rumors, YouTube finally introduced a pilot program for paid channels on Thursday.

YouTube will now let a few dozen of popular channels charge viewers a subscription fee of 99 cents or more per month, the company announced in a blog post. Each of these channels will offer two weeks of free viewing before charges kick in and some will provide discounts for those who sign up for an annual subscription.

Some of the YouTube channels that are part of the pilot program include Big Think Mentor, Comedy.TV, PGA Digital Golf and Pets.TV.

"This is just the beginning," YouTube said in the blog post. "We’ll be rolling paid channels out more broadly in the coming weeks as a self-service feature for qualifying partners."

The move comes with relatively little risk for YouTube and the possibility of generating significant revenue by taking a cut of subscription fees and advertisements that air on the channels.

Would you pay to watch videos from your favorite YouTube channels? Share in the comments.

Image via Getty/Lionel Bonaventure

20 Video Ideas For Your Business’ YouTube Channel

So, you have set up your business’ YouTube channel and you’re ready to start uploading videos but, frustratingly, you have no idea what to post. Here are a few ideas of different videos you could post to engage with potential customers and clients, while also raising brand awareness. If you haven’t created your YouTube channel yet, I advise you read my post on Social Media Today first.

1. Events

Record the events you hold and post the videos on YouTube. If you have footage from previous events you have held, post them as well.

If you attend any events, record what happens and post it on your channel. Post videos of interesting industry-relevant talks and business shows you go to. Show your subscribers what these events are all about.

2. Live Streams

If you want you can live stream events, or anything else for that matter. If your subscribers need to be up-to-date with everything that happens, invite them to watch your event on a live stream.

3. Presentations

Post videos of any of your presentations which display your ability to keep an audience’s attention. If you have any extra slides that you want to add to the presentation, post those as well. Upload the slideshow itself if it is particularly good, adding a voiceover for clarification.

4. Adverts and Promotions

Upload videos to accompany social media promotions that you run on Facebook and Twitter, or just create adverts specifically for YouTube.

You don’t have to be a big company to create an advert: Dollar Shave Club made the advert below and it went viral, garnering over 10 million views and winning the company a lot of new customers.  



5. Tour the Office

Show people where you work and what you do on a normal working day. Making it clear that your office is full of normal, hard-working people can make your business more personable.

6. Interviews

Interview the founders and the board members of your company. If you have products that only your company makes and distributes, interview the people involved in the creation process.

7. Meet the Staff

Introduce the people who work in your business. Invite them to talk about why they enjoy working for the company. Ask them what they think makes your company stand out from the competition. Talking heads videos are very popular at the moment, especially with web companies like Google and Facebook.

8. Tell your Story

Make a video about the history of your company and embed it on your company website. If you have an interesting story to tell, tell it. Business’ with inspiring foundation stories can help to create more buzz around the industry they work in.

9. Products and Services

Introduce new products and services, and describe the benefits of your current ones, with videos that you post on YouTube and embed on your website’s product pages.

10. How To

Make ‘how to’ videos about your products, or about products within your industry. ‘How to’ videos are very popular on YouTube. If there isn’t a good explanatory video for a product relevant to your industry, creating one could help publicise your company.

11. FAQs

Answer the most common questions that your customers have with videos. Embed it onto the FAQs page on your company’s website to accompany a text version of FAQs and answers.

12. Experts

Conduct interviews with experts and respected figures within your industry. By associating yourself with leading figures within your industry and getting them to enter into engaging debates, you will raise your business’ profile.

13. Hints and Tips

Upload videos of useful hints and tips for those working in your industry. For example, I could create a video recounting everything I say in this blog post and post it on YouTube.

14. Testimonials

Ask your contented customers to record videos of themselves using your products and services, explaining how they were really useful. Or you could invite your customers in and make the videos yourself.

15. Contests

Run contests and competitions using YouTube by uploading videos with contest information on the site and them embedding them on the competition page. Competitions which ask entrants to like pages on Facebook or subscribe to channels on YouTube will increase social media engagement.

You could even run contests asking your subscribers to post the best video online, challenging them to create a video of the most innovative use of your product. You could then upload the best videos onto your channel.

Nissan’s advert below invited customers to use a hashtag to contribute ideas for a new car:



16. Blog Posts

Make videos to accompany the blog posts you write and embed them in your blog. Explanatory videos will help you get the point of your articles across. Also, videos help web pages appear higher in Google searches.

17. Podcasts

If you have a regular podcast show, why not visualize it? You could record a weekly/ fortnightly/monthly video with updates and announcements, or you could create graphics to accompany your voice recordings.

18. Responses

Read out emails that you have received and answer the questions they ask. Customers will appreciate the fact that you have taken the time to read and respond to their emails. Posting the videos on YouTube will ensure that everyone can see them, making it less likely that the same questions arise over and over again.

19. Announcements

Celebrate a milestone or your company’s anniversary. Announce new products and services that are in development. build interest and excitement for your upcoming releases.

20. Archive

If you have an archive of old videos, post those that you think are relevant and interesting to viewers. In the past, companies have uploaded old adverts to YouTube which have gone viral, raising brand awareness and increasing customer interest.


What sort of videos do you post on your business’ YouTube channel?

How To Make The Most Of Your Business’ YouTube Channel

YouTube is by far the most popular video sharing site online. 72 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute, there are more than 1 billion unique visitors to the site every month and they watch over 4 billion hours of content in that time. These astronomical engagement and audience figures make YouTube a must-use social media site for companies who want to promote themselves using visual media.

So, how do you make the most of your business’ YouTube channel? It is imperative, of course, that you get the videos right, but the rest of your channel needs to be maintained as well: before the videos, you need to create the right channel to represent your business; after the videos, you need to promote them online and monitor the success of your content. Here are a few hints and tips on how to make the most of your channel.

1. Before the Videos

If you are making videos for YouTube, you need the right equipment. Do you have a camera and editing software? Do you have sound recording equipment and employees who know how to handle it? Of course, depending on the quality of the videos you intend to create, you could always use a mobile phone with a good quality camera, a much cheaper and easier option.

So, you have the equipment, now you can start creating your channel. If your company is a large, umbrella corporation, you could have a number of different channels for different brands. For most companies, however, its advisable to just have one channel: think of it as a brand page, which everyone will associate with your company.

Name your channel after your brand, if you can, or as close to your brand name as possible. Use industry keywords in your about section and upload an interesting and original background. Make sure the theme of your channel connects with your business. Manage your tabs. Have your subscribe button and logo prominently placed, with subscriber and view counters in the corner. Don’t forget to put links to all your other websites and social media profiles at the top of the page.

Do you already have an archive of company videos from events or old advertisements? Don’t dump it all on your YouTube channel, select the videos that are relevant and interesting and post them in intervals.

2. The Videos

There are dozens of kinds of video that you can post on YouTube to promote your brand and increase engagement with the public online. Here are a few quick ideas: presentations of products, interviews with staff and experts, a tour of the office, a video explaining your product, a customer testimonial. Another good idea is livestreaming your events on YouTube, advertising them beforehand to ensure a large audience.
Title and tag your videos with relevant keywords. YouTube is a Google affiliate, so videos posted to the site appear high in relevant searches. YouTube itself has the second largest search engine on the web, after Google, so you need to ensure that you optimize your video descriptions with keywords so that they appear high in searches. Tags are especially important to get right, as they affect what videos get displayed in the “relevant videos” section.

YouTube videos can be as long as you want now, but it’s still best to edit your videos down – people have a short attention span on YouTube. Of course, if your video needs to be long, don’t worry: people will watch it if the content and is interesting enough to them.

YouTube allows you to choose between one of three screenshots from the video as the screenshot shown before it plays. choose wisely: the screenshot will effect how much engagement your videos get. Categorise your videos into specific playlists to make it easier for subscribers and visitors to navigate around the page.

3. Engagement

Do you want to allow comments on your videos? I’d advise against it: the majority of people who comment on YouTube are trolling. Of course, you can delete comments at any time, but there may be too many comments to manage.

Get people to engage by asking them to subscribe to your channel. Use annotations to promote engagement with your videos. For example, ask people to click on an annotation to view the product page of a product that appears in an advert you post on YouTube. make sure that your like, share and subscribe buttons are always prominently placed.

Embed your videos on your other social media sites and on your website. Create an introductory video talking about your company and embed it on the front page of your website, or create product videos and post them on your sales pages.

Use Google Analytics to measure the engagement of your videos. See what videos prove the most popular and with who, then optimise your channel and your videos to get the most interaction you can.

How do you make the most of your YouTube page?

Vine Introduces Trending Hashtags

Six-second video sharing service Vine has improved its app’s Explore tab with a new trending hashtags section, making it easier to discover videos depicting popular subjects.

“Since launch, there have been a ton of awesome, creative posts that don’t always make it to the popular sections”, said Vine Co-founder and CTO Colin Kroll on the company’s blog. “In many cases, these posts include a hashtag that the community is using.”

The new trending hashtags section will help users to find creative videos posted by other users who they don’t necessarily follow. To keep the service as up-to-date as possible, the Trending section shows hashtags that have risen rapidly and recently in popularity, rather than those that are specifically the most popular.


The implementation of hashtags on Vine comes as no surprise considering the fact that the company is an affiliate of Twitter, the hashtag luminary. A number of other platforms have taken up the hashtag mantle, including Flickr and Path. Facebook, meanwhile, is reportedly going to introduce hashtags soon.

This is the second improvement Vine has made to its service in the last few weeks: late last month Vine was updated to allow users to post Vine videos on other websites. The service has seen continued growth since its Twitter acquisition in October last year: according to StartupStats, Vine has grown 1,300 per cent in the last month alone.

What do you think of Vine’s new Trending section?

What YouTube's 1 Billion Monthly Active Users Milestone Means For Marketers

YouTube has announced on its blog that the video sharing and streaming site has surpassed the 1 billion monthly active users mark, the second social media site after Facebook to reach this milestone.

Like Facebook, YouTube took eight years, from its conception in February 2005, to hit 1 billion MAUs. Twitter, in comparison, has just celebrated its seventh birthday and has just over 200 million monthly active users.

So, 1 billion, that is a mindboggling amount of viewers! In the announcement post on the YouTube blog, the YouTube team have put that enormous figure into perspective, asking “What does a billion people tuning into YouTube look like?

• Nearly one out of every two people on the Internet visits YouTube.
• Our monthly viewership is the equivalent of roughly ten Super Bowl audiences.
• If YouTube were a country, we’d be the third largest in the world after China and India.
• PSY and Madonna would have to repeat their Madison Square Garden performance in front of a packed house 200,000 more times. That’s a lot of Gangnam Style!”

What is powering this growth?

In another post on parent company Google’s Agency Blog, Advertising Research Director Gunnard Johnson explains that Generation C, a phrase coined by Nielsen to describe a demographic “defined by the Internet, mobile, and social - consuming content when and where they want”, is to thank for YouTube’s high viewing figures.

Generation C, or Gen C for short, is the name given to a group of primarily young adults who are defined by their constant access to multiple devices, often having a screen in their living room, their office, their bag and their pocket, with each one capable of accessing the internet at any time.

”On YouTube,” says Johnson, “this generation thrives on 4Cs:

• Connection - Gen C watches YouTube on all screens, constantly switching between devices.
• Creation - Gen C is deeply engaged with online video, watching, creating and uploading videos on YouTube.
• Community - Gen C thrive on community, defining what’s popular on YouTube by sharing videos with friends and family.
• Curation - Gen C is made up of expert curators who care about finding content that matters to them.”

In the United States 76% of 18-34 year olds (the main demographic constituting Generation C) own smartphones, as opposed to 60% of the general population. Gen C spent 74% more of their time than last year accessing YouTube on these smartphones.

The percentage of Gen C watching YouTube on more than one device has also increased: 67% of Gen C watch YouTube on more than one device, while 15% access it during commercial breaks on television.

YouTube has created a handy infographic illustrating all the statistical information above. To see it visit Think With Google.

What does this mean for YouTube marketers?

It is vital that YouTube marketers tap into Generation C as a potential target audience and, therefore, a huge source of revenue. Gen C’s potential as a source of revenue is backed up by a statistic Johnson quotes on the blog post: “Gen C is a powerful demographic”, he says, “not only are they cultural tastemakers, they influence $500B of spending a year in the U.S”.

Top marketers have already seen the potential for YouTube marketing, with every single one of AdAge’s Top 100 brands posting content on YouTube.

Brands marketing themselves on YouTube must be constantly aware of the 4Cs if they wish to leverage Generation C’s influence over YouTube popularity:

Connection: Generation C is active on YouTube across all devices. In fact, Gen C’s activity on smartphones and on desktop devices peaks at roughly the same points during the day. Marketers need to create content that can be played on both desktop and mobile devices. If a video is best viewed in high-definition, it will be wasted on smartphone audiences. Also, any hyperlinks on the video must take smartphone users to sites that are compatible with mobile devices.

Creation: marketers should stay abreast of what’s popular and topical on YouTube. Most recently the Harlem Shake was YouTube’s big thing and millions of versions were uploaded to the site. Brands like Red Bull and Manchester City FC did their own Harlem Shake videos, both of which received millions of views.

Community: according to Johnson, viewers are “discovering videos socially - 9% of respondents said they watched a video on their smartphone because it was shared by friends in an email, while 18% watched a video because it was shared on a social network.” Marketers should encourage viewers to share their videos, incorporating hashtags for use on Twitter, or posting them on Facebook and Google Plus.

Curation: Members of Generation C love discovering something new and sharing it with their friends. 47% of Generation C find the majority of the videos they watch using search. Marketers need to give their videos titles which are both relevant and eye-catching. They also need to post regularly and during peak periods to ensure that the right demographics view their videos. Generation C only recommends the best videos to friends and family members, so brands and marketers need to make sure that their content is creative and original.

Johnson recommends two YouTube tools for brands who want to market their adverts across multiple devices:YouTube’s One Channel design ensures that brand channels are compatible with all devices, while TrueView video ads are cost effective adverts that charge marketers only if and when they are viewed.

In 2012, YouTube recorded almost the same viewing figures on smartphone devices as it did on desktop devices. To take advantage of the growing generation of viewers who can access YouTube 24 hours a day, whether on a computer, a laptop, a tablet or a phone, YouTube marketers need to ensure that they get the best out of YouTube’s advertising services, and that they upload the best advertising content possible onto YouTube.

Do you consider yourself to be part of Generation C? If so, what are your YouTube habits?

YouTube Updates Its Creator Playbook

YouTube has updated its Creator Playbook, an online guide on how to create a successful YouTube channel.
The new Playbook retains all the necessary information from its predecessors – how to create a channel, optimize your video output, and engage with the YouTube community – but the way the information is presented has changed: whereas the previous Playbook was a slide show, the current one has a tab format, allowing creators to easily navigate through the different sections.

YouTube released the first Creator Playbook in 2011, updating it earlier this year. The third and most recent version “includes brand new sections to address YouTube’s recent focus on watchtime,” says Audience Development Coordinator Lauren Vilders on the YouTube Creator blog, “such as, how to captivate your audience and how to create the best channel experience for your viewers.”


According to Vilders, the update, which is available from YouTube.com/playbook, also “highlights new tools like paid promotion, Hangouts on Air, and InVideo programming to help you reach the widest audience possible.”

YouTube announced earlier this year that watchtime would be its main focus when deciding which channels should have their funding cut. The new Creator Playbook update reaffirms a video’s watchtime as the most measurement of its success.


As well as updating the Playbook, YouTube has also redesigned the Creator Hub, where creators can keep abreast of Youtube’s announcement via the YouTube Creator blog, watch the videos posted by other creators and connect with YouTube on other social media platforms.

From the Hub, Creators can also sign up for YouTube’s new programmes and Classes, such as Next Creator. YouTube has also built Creator Spaces in London and, more recently, in Los Angeles  for creators to perfect their videos and learn from the most successful YouTube creators. Another YouTube production studio, complete with classrooms, state-of-the-art equipment, editing suites and a green room, is currently under development in Tokyo.

Have you used YouTube’s new Creator Playbook? How is it?