You can have the most compelling content in the world, but if people aren't aware of it and can't find it easily, it won't make any difference. From search engine optimization to social media marketing, there are myriad strategies for getting your content in front of as many people as possible. At the
Online Video Platform Summit, this session "
If You Publish It, Will They Come?", assembled some of the brightest minds in online video search and discovery, social media optimization and entertainment to examine the art and science of getting your videos seen. Tim Siglin wrote a great summary of this session
in a post on Streamingmedia.com, that captured some of the key points the panelists discussed on the importance of both video SEO and social media recommendation. The following quotes in this post are excerpted from his post.
ReelSEO's Mark Robertson moderated the discussion and opened the session with new data from TubeMogul which pointed out that while Google is still generates the highest volume of video traffic from search, "referral traffic from Facebook and Twitter is growing faster than traditional engines as a source of video views."
Frank Sinton, of
MeFeedia added that, "The portion of video watched when it has been recommended by a friend is significantly higher than viewing times for content found by search."
Mike Sommers of
KickApps noted that the problem with video is that Google's search engine bots can't understand what video content is about as well as humans can. He said that search engine optimization (SEO) is evolving into friend engine optimization, "which is building your website in way that makes it sharable, that invites people to take our content, notify your friends about it and then drive traffic back to your website."
Patrick Starzan of
Funny or Die, said that search is a bigger factor when it comes to their content being played and but social media media gives them more engaged viewers. He said, "Our optimization may be driven by top celebrities we've worked with-Lindsay Lohan searches yield Funny Or Die as one of the top "found" sites-but then viewers spend a lot of time browsing and viewing other videos."
Adam Singolda of
Taboola, agreed that search and social media are both important and that said that publishers spend time optimizing their sites, "and look closely at the anchor videos which bring viewers to your sites, but remember that most sites-including those with interesting videos-are primarily still not video-centric sites."
Read more of
Tim Siglin's article here and watch the video below for more of the discussion.
