Online video goes viral

     Before YouTube made video commonplace on the Web, you’d only see small forays into corporate video, and usually these efforts were mundane and predictable—stuff like broadcasts of the CEO’s speech at the annual meeting. Well, OK, some people might have watched, but unless the CEO made a dramatic gaffe (picking his nose while talking, perhaps), a video like that was highly unlikely to go viral.

     The idea of companies using video for Web marketing is still new. Video follows both blogs and podcasting on the adoption curve at organizations that don’t have a service that naturally lends itself to video. Some companies are experimenting, often by imbedding video (typically hosted at YouTube) into their existing blogs.

     Creating and publishing a simple video is really easy; all that’s required is a basic digital video camera and a YouTube account. There are all sorts of available enhancements and editing techniques to make video look more professional, but some organizations prefer to go with the grainy and jerky “homemade” look. Other companies (like IBM) create a regular series of videos that might be delivered through a video blog (vlog), an online video channel at a company site, or a “vodcast” (a video series syndicated with iTunes or RSS feeds).

     Source: The New Rules of Viral Marketing (David Meerman Scott) e-book