If you want to aspire to be the top in whatever niche you are in or aspire to whether that be sport or business it always worthwhile to look at what the top players do and have a closer look at how they have achieved their success and study their habits.

The thing to keep in mind with these YouTube stars is that with the demographic of YouTube being predominantly 18-34 year olds (they make up 34% of the viewing audience) that if you are a little older you might not find the top ten to your liking.. I certainly have felt the cringe factor cut in while viewing some of these videos but hey I am not 34!

Before we take a closer look let’s look at some more of the latest facts about YouTube.

• The monthly unique visitors to YouTube in May, 2010 totaled over 103 million
• An average of 24 hours of video is uploaded every minute
• 5.8 billion videos were streamed in the US in June , 2010
• 2 plus billion videos are viewed globally every day
• 1 hour and 12 minutes is the average time spent on YouTube per month in the US
• 47% of the global internet audience visited YouTube.com in April, 2010

Source: Flowtown

Yesterday we listed the top five ranked YouTube stars, today we look at those that round out the top ten.

Ranked Six

Shay Carl is a 21 year old who is very prolific with over 300 videos on his YouTube channel titled “Kalebnation” and again comedy is the thing (it didn’t make me laugh though). Total views in the past year stand at 192 million with Tube Mogul estimating his earnings at $140,000.

Ranked Seven

This is Greg Benson with his channel called “Mediocre Films” which he produces and publishes once a week (yawn…comedy again).  What does he say about himself on his channel

“Hiya! We’re the idiots who bring you Gay Leprechaun, Retarded Policeman, Excellent Questions, Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show, Celebrity Sock Puppet Theatre, Greg Hits Hollywood and lots of other insane stuff. NEW VIDEOS EVERY THURSDAY!!!”

Greg’s video views total 159 million and the estimated banner ad earnings stand at $116,000 as estimated by Tube Mogul an online video aggregator and distributor.

Ranked Eight

This comedy duo (Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox) call their channel  ’Smosh‘ with the viewing numbers around 154 million with estimated earnings  at $112,000. (I certainly felt the cringe factor engage here)

Ranked Nine

So here we have a YouTube channel called “The Young Turks” and it is a daily talk show with a focus on politics with some news, pop culture and entertainment thrown in for good measure.  On viewing it the presenter’s demeanour and style remind me a young Jay Leno.  What does their profile say

“The Young Turks (Winner – Best Political Podcast & Best Political News Site of 2009) were the first original talk show on Sirius satellite radio and the first live, daily webcast on the internet”

Total views to date stand at 153 million plus and estimated earnings for the last 12 months approximately $112,000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ranked Ten

This is the Australian, Natalie Tran who uses her YouTube titled “Community Channel”  to discuss some of the day to day issues with Gen Y women but done with a clever dose of subtle humor and satire and has currently attracted  138 million views with estimated earnings of $101,000

For me the learning from all of these whether you hate or love the content is that they are passionate about what they do. In essence that is the number one secret to their online video success.

What do you think?

Image by by Rego – twitter.com/w3bdesign

YouTube and online video has continued its growth as broadband and higher internet speeds not only become faster and cheaper on fixed line but also as mobile broadband continues to spread globally with smart phones such as the iPhone and new platforms such as the iPad providing hardware that makes viewing online video compelling even on the move.

This has lead to the emergence of star video bloggers on social media channels such as YouTube to obtain and grow traffic numbers that make your eyes bleed.

What are some of the latest growth statistics for online video

• Facebook is the fifth largest provider of  videos
• Facebook users upload 20 million videos a month
• Online video growing 4 times faster than TV
• 12-34 year olds are the vast majority of the video viewing population
• More than 177 million US internet users watched video content in June
• 90% of 2009 -2010 broadcast TV was on the Internet

So with this availability of online video there are some emerging stars and some might even make you laugh. (These are the top ranked YouTube stars including traffic and banner ad revenue estimates according to research performed by Tube Mogul an online video aggregator and distributor )

Ranked Number One

Shane Dawson (Channel known as “Ask Shane & Others) who provides sketch comedy in a teenage sort of way (not my type of content) but with 431 million views that are aggregated from his weekly online videos on YouTube you can’t argue with the numbers and he certainly is providing content that is hitting the mark with his target audience. Apparently his estimated earnings last year from ads was $315,000

Ranked Number Two

Dane Boedigheimer (also known as the Annoying Orange) This is clever comedy starring a talking orange with very short videos often under 2 minutes that certainly made me laugh. Views to date number are in excess of 349 million. Estimated earnings last year $288,000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ranked Number Three

Philip Defranco with a YouTube Channel called “The Philip DeFranco Show” that provides parody and satirical content and with 248 million views in the last year must be  doing something right. Estimated earnings in the past 12 months approximately $181,000. (I was able to watch this channel for about 60 seconds)

Ranked Number Four

Ryan Higa with again a sketch comedy YouTube channel (seems to be a consistent theme emerging here). Ryan’s YouTube channel’s last 12 months has seen over 206 million video views and his estimated earnings are in the region of $150,000.

Ranked Number Five

Lucas Cruikshank with his YouTube channel titled ‘Fred” which seems to be targeted as a Children’s online TV channel.  Total views in the past year 200 million with estimated earnings of $146,000

So with YouTube only starting in 2006 it is amazing to see these traffic numbers and to view these emerging YouTube stars and their creativity.

I am certainly looking forward to the next 5 years to see what this web world will look like and where social media will be.

In tomorrows article we will look the next 5 ranked YouTube stars.

What does impress me with Facebook is that it is willing to constantly try new things and its evolution is a moving feast that sometimes annoys and teases with changes to features and functions.

On August 13, Facebook launched a Facebook “live” video channel which is run from its Headquarters in Palo Alto, California.  It certainly isn’t YouTube ..yet!!  but it does seem to be a pilot to gauge reaction and to test technology.

On viewing the live channel what I noticed was that the quality of the live video was patchy but if you look at the site you can see where Facebook might take this in making online video more social.

In this screen shot below you will see that while the Facebook ‘Live’ video is playing that you can

1. Invite friends to watch
2. Chat with Facebook friends while you are watching the online video
3. Post it to Facebook and share with your Friends

This of course makes watching a video a much more social event that can be shared and commented about while viewing.

There are rumors that  some media companies are looking to embed their video content and channels on Facebook such as the UK’s Channel 5 as reported on webtvwire.com.

The potential for broadcasters to get access to Facebook’s 500 million users is huge and would leverage Channel 5′s audience far beyond its current viewing audience.

For its part, Facebook will have more people staying on the site for longer as they watch full episodes of recent shows. While Channel Five will likely increase its on-demand audience, all of which will be seeing ads managed by the broadcaster.

The opportunity for social online video  is enormous, just imagine if you were able to watch the recent World cup on Facebook and be able to comment and share with friends live.

So watch this space, social online video is coming to a Facebook channel near you… so YouTube watch out!

So would you watch and share with your friends Facebook online video channels?

]]> http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/08/19/is-facebook-about-to-make-online-video-more-social/feed/ 3 http://www.jeffbullas.com/2009/12/08/how-zappos-plans-to-use-50000-online-videos/ http://www.jeffbullas.com/2009/12/08/how-zappos-plans-to-use-50000-online-videos/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:42:22 +0000 jeffbullas http://jeffbullas.com/?p=2462

The use of online video is continuing to grow and develop as higher broadband speeds become more widespread worldwide and the appetite by the younger generation for viewing rather than reading.

The old chestnut phrase , “A picture is worth a thousand words” begs the question, “How many words is a video worth?”So how do Zappos utilize online video and how effective is it?

They use video to engage with the buyer as much as possible. The use of  video is to create “virtually” the reality experience of a bricks and mortar  store, as if the buyer were in store and “more”.

They use online video to

• Describe their shoes
• How to use the product
• To demonstrate

Note: The videos are about the products, are with real Zappos employees and not models or actors… a bit of authenticity happening here, not stock photos with incredibly handsome and beautiful people.

They are testing interactive video on their site for Nike products. The company has launched interactive product videos.

The website provides the following 9  Functionalities, Features and Future Plans

• Allows viewers to click on items in the clips before landing on product detail pages.
• It can signal to consumers if an item is out-of-stock, discontinued, or part of a special offer.
• If the viewer mouses over a shoe in a video, it becomes highlighted, alerting the person that the item is clickable.
• Users are then taken to a product detail page in a separate browser window where the item can be added to a shopping cart.
• Zappos.com’s media player also allows shoppers to post the videos to their Facebook and Twitter profiles while the clip continues to roll.
• The 10 product videos currently on the site are each around one minute long.
• plans to leverage the interactive videos by incorporating them into its  user-generated-content program (UGC).
• Its “Daily Shoe Digest” is one of the few e-mail newsletters — in any niche — featuring UGC (User Generated Content) 100 percent of the time.
• Site visitors will be encouraged through future marketing messages to create product video reviews that will also have the interactive features.

Selling products directly from online video content, known as “hot-spotting,” is an advertising niche that’s growing slowly but surely. For instance, earlier this year, H&R Block began utilizing YouTube’s annotations allowing viewers to click on specific items in a video linking to a landing page or another video. And last year, clothing brand Express sponsored Vogue magazine’s online reality show, Models.Live, which featured clickable overlays in a manner combining product placement and direct response marketing.

So what are the effects of using video?

Zappos’s experience has shown “It obtained increases of 6 to 30% in conversions ..for products that use video”.

Note: This has prompted Zappos to strive for 50,000 videos !!! next year (they have about 8,000 currently), they will include “10″ fully working studios in house in 2010 to handle all of it.

Zappos, last month partnered with Overlay.TV and rolled out “Engagement Pages” for specific brands, where the videos engage users with clickable overlays. These overlays allow users to shop within the video content, pull up additional information and click through to product specific landing pages. Users can also record product video testimonials directly from the engagement pages.”

Online at Zappos you can see the shoe from “7″ angles and “3″ different magnifications (see Nike page at Zappos) and the screenshot below.

Note: This goes a long way to overcoming the issues of online shoppings  “experience gap” that shopping at bricks and mortar store provides.

This is starting to show how “real” an online store can become, as online video enables a more pervasive and integrated experience within an ecommerce website.

For a good resource on Online Video “Best Practice“  see Reel SEO article.

So how are you using online video to good effect? Like to hear your stories and the tools and apps you are using.

It was when I was reading a Comscore report on how many online videos that the US consumer was viewing each month that I came to a realization that “being found online” was not just about “textual content” anymore but that video was the new ”teeming hotspot”. The latest generation don’t so much as read but “watch videos”  

I was raised  in the era of books, reading and offline content.. because the Internet was not even on the horizon whenI was growing up .. in fact colour TV was simply “amazing”. .. man had just landed on the moon… Ugg boots were “cool” and “Flares” were still the rage.  The  “Yellow Pages” were the place to be and fax broadcasting was the new frontier of marketing.

So if you want to be found you need to be not only using “Google” but  also “YouTube” as it is the second largest search engine after Google.

So after that completely “non-influential introduction”  Do you think online video is an important strategy in getting found Online? Yes or No