YouTube Optimization Series: Part 2 – Asset Development and Popularity Optimization

Posted on Jun 27, 2012 in Digital Visibility | Comments Off

With content analysis in hand, as discussed previously in our YouTube Optimization Series Part 1: Gap Analysis article, the next step in optimizing your YouTube channel consists of developing and optimizing the content for popularity.

So what exactly is popularity optimization?

Popularity optimization is a process to improve your content and surrounding assets, to deliver your brand more video views. The benefits this type of optimization deliver include more awareness, and higher ranking within social search results.

We should mention that popularity optimization is not a guaranteed approach to ensure your videos hit a tipping point and “go viral. However, popularity optimization nurtures conditions in which this tipping point will occur. It also increases the views and engagement with all your video content.

There are 3 primary components to popularity optimization, as follows:

Part 2, Step 1: Ensure you develop the right assets

Developing the right assets that appeals to your target mindset is the most critical step in the process, which is in part why the content gap analysis in part one is so important. Understanding who your audience is, what they’re interested in and talking about, and then developing video assets to funnel that interest is the critical foundation of popularity optimization.

Part 2, Step 2: Wrap an awareness campaign around your content

It is a truism in digital marketing that if you build it, they will not necessarily come, so it is critical to involve all your marketing channels – where appropriate – in an awareness driving campaign. Examples of how you can drive traffic to your videos include:

  • Rich media email campaigns to your existing customers
  • Social media optimization by cross linking (ie. Post and Tweet about your content)
  • Explicitly ask your audience to view and comment within supplementary channels and in the video description itself
  • Influencer outreach and link syndication
  • A targeted paid search campaign

Part 2, Step 3: Increase your social search visibility

Your social search ranking – that is, your rank within YouTube – is an important factor to drive popularity. Social search visibility is a self-reinforcing cycle – the more visibility your video has in social search, the more traffic you typically drive. The more traffic you drive, the higher likelihood your content will be viewed, and then the higher YouTube will rank your content for social search. To build this self-reinforcing cycle, the first two components of popularity optimization as discussed are critical, as is technical optimization of your video (as discussed within part 3 of this series).

Just as search engine optimization (SEO) optimizes against technical elements & algorithms to help your website show up high in search engines, YouTube optimization optimizes against technical and popularity factors to increase rankings and popularity in social. By ensuring you build the right content and establish the right awareness initiatives as discussed within this article, you will be setting the foundation for a self-reinforcing cycle of popularity which then delivers high visibility in social search as well as content engagement.

ZOG Digital can be reached at info@zogdigital.com, or through our website: www.zogdigital.com.