Aug 21st 09 Posted by Fritz McDonald in Featured Articles, Strategic Creative

Making Movies: What YouTube is Really All About: I

Okay, so you get the brand in social media thing. You decide, like many of us, that video is the way to go. Why? Because it’s the one piece of social media you think you understand—we all grew up watching television, right? How hard can it be?

Turns out, it’s almost always harder than we think…and disappointing when your prized YouTube video earns two views and no comments after three months. What happened to all that viral action you were promised? As with social networks, just building it is no guarantee that anyone will come…and YouTube videos that get noticed are not so easy to build. Scan any number of institutional YouTube.edu pages and you’ll see lots of videos averaging well under 100 views. Why does this happen? For one thing, you are seeding video content onto what might very well be the largest site in the world, amidst an uncountable number of competitors—remember the vast secret storage room at the end of the first Indiana Jones? Google has been nice enough to give higher education its own field to play in, but the network as a whole existed long before the .edu site and many viewers have been conditioned to visit the larger site first—and judge the contents of everything they see based on their experience there. Additionally, most of us work under the false assumption that there is a clearly defined YouTube style: raw, in-your-face, amateurish, funky, grungy, etc. But as Scott Leamon, one of my most trusted Stamats social media experts says, YouTube is a channel, not a genre. As I’ve said before, if it were true that raw videos dominated YouTube, then Myrus Ciley’s polished-MTV-style-high-production-value videos would not consistently rank among the top ten most-viewed videos week after week. This week, Justin Timberlake has earned 93,032 views and commercial/video hybrids created by agencies like Fallon, London are among the strongest viral videos anywhere on the Web, gathering views in the millions.

But Our Students Are Doing It?!

If simply throwing up an amateurish production won’t help, you say, then why do our students’ homegrown efforts grab so much of our limelight? Good question. Yet, it’s not the quality of their videos that command attention—and not just the X-rated antics some of them seem fond of. It’s the insight they display into audiences and their unabashed creativity. Students know—without having to be reminded—they are making something for their peers. And although they are not all budding film directors, your students take interesting creative risks. All the seeding strategies in the world—matching channel with content—can’t make up for a weak idea. What your students know how to do instinctively is to create an instant emotional connection with their audiences. Sure, the emotions can range from Hallmark cute to Judd Apatow funny, but they are always aiming at something. In order to do the same, you need to know who you’re playing to. Why would prospective students, for example, be amused by a video starring your president? Many don’t even know what a college president is yet, let alone think he or she will be a laugh riot.

Action!

So, where do you start? Take a look at what college students are producing—some of my recent favorites include (the number of views are growing):

• “W&M Students Break ‘Thriller’ World Record”—60,348 Views
• “Plane/Car Crash-College Student Video Project”—162,239 Views
• “Taylor’s College Interior Design Students Winning Video”—1,782 views
• “Metamorphosis II”—1,641 views (this was one of several videos created by students at Millersville College for a course on Western Literary Traditions—yet more proof that this generation may be more interested in the liberal arts than we give them credit for)

All of them have the same problems amateur videos commonly have with length, look, composition, etc. But this is due to limited resources and training, not creativity. Get past the shaky cameras and you’ll see some real ambition behind these videos. Each one plays on different emotions—I particularly like the moody aural subtext of the Taylor student work—and each, in its own way, is a short film. No other art form is alluded to as much as film in student work, except perhaps pop culture…and that should be a lesson we learn. What do students really want to see when they look you up on YouTube? Movies.

To Turn Your Videos Into Movies:

1. Fake ‘em out: create something that will have audiences debating whether what they see is real.

2. Make it remixable: create a video designed to be remashed by audiences. Think in terms of starting something, but making it purposely incomplete or open to interpretation.

3. Make it entertaining: tell a story and don’t be afraid to make stuff up. This is a narrative medium.

4. Make it funny: you know this.

5. Make it universal: play on emotions we all—or at least all of your prospective students—feel.

6. Make it dramatic: don’t jam brand taglines or messaging into every video you make. Think of this medium as the leading, enticing edge of your campaigns, not the viewbook. Let drama and story do the hard work of appealing to audiences.

7. Make a sequel: If you’ve made something that works, why leave viewers asking for more? This generation loves sequels.*

8. Make it speak for itself: don’t add pretend comments or have your admissions staff view the thing 1,000 times.*

For Your Next Production

The big goal on YouTube is to get users watching your videos, talking about them, subscribing to your channel—and most important of all—sharing your videos on their blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter, etc.

But enough from me. I’d really like to hear what you all are doing with video. Please send links and comments about Great college videos you’ve seen, as well as tips, suggestions, and lessons learned. The three most interesting comments will be asked to be guest bloggers for Stamats.

*Big thanks to Josh Warner’s article on Advertising Age

Photo by: Scott Kinmartin