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Originally published at Internet.comFor beginners, simply attracting eyeballs can be the toughest job of all. A panel of experts tackled the topic of promoting videos at this week's Streaming Media East conference and offered this advice to budding filmmakers.
BarelyPolitical.com found major success with Obama Girl.
How do you get people to talk about your work? There's a lot of great video online, and it can be hard to cut through the chatter and gain a wide audience. That's why a panel at this week's Streaming Media East conference in New York City was dedicated to helping people promote their work.
The session was moderated by Kevin Nalts of WillVideoForFood with panelists J. Crowley (Black20.com), Ben Relles (BarelyPolitical.com), Paul Kontonis, (For Your Imagination), and Kip "Kipkay" Kedersha (top MetaCafe producer).
Panelists described the different tools they'd found effective for gaining an audience. Kontonis talked about a media campaign where top YouTube video makers were hired to respond to promotional videos. Crowley said that creating serialized content was an effective way to gain sponsors.
Relles, who's site had major success with Obama Girl, suggested that video makers create characters that tied into the major news events people were already talking about. In that way the video piggyback onto the issues and becomes part of the conversation. He advised people to work fast and have a 24-hour turnaround time.
Kedersha found that creating short, how-to videos worked for him. A how-to on converting a flashlight to a laser gained a lot of hits, he suggested, because he went through the steps quickly, forcing repeat viewings.
Seeding videos to related blogs is also an effective tool. Crowley said that a video from his site about a Tetris-inspired movie was seeded to video game blogs.
"Blogs are always starving for content," Crowley added.
Author: Troy Dreier
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