These days, trying to maintain a consistent presence on social media is a hefty task. With people glued to their mobile devices and refreshing their screens on a regular basis, it’s easy to get lost in the flood. So even if you have a recognized brand or content that gets discussed at the water-cooler, how can you actually move beyond simply racking up views or “likes” and turning that into an ROI? Let’s take a look at a few internet personalities and see how they’ve managed to carve an income out of their creativity.
1 - The Gregory Brothers, known on YouTube by the handle Schmoyoho, have mastered the art of turning the viral video into a significant ROI. Their technique employed in the “Auto-Tune the News” series digitally alters speech to follow a patterned melody. The result is amusing and infectious. These are qualities inherent to achieve viral status, but they also take their work a step further: releasing the hummable tunes from their most successful videos for sale on digital download platforms.
This practice eventually landed the brothers recording sessions to release solo albums and a commission to compose music for the Netflix series “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, and even brought their unique comedy style to a segment aired in the 83d Oscar Awards telecast.
The lesson here? Don’t just be clever or funny.
Pair your videos with a product that people can take home with them.
Pair your videos with a product that people can take home with them.
2 - John and Hank Green, whose YouTube channel currently has over 2.5 million subscribers, have taken the form of vlogging to a successful new plane. Video blogging, which is usually characterized by directly addressing viewers in a quickly-edited barrage of one-liners, soundbites and graphics, is a more malleable substance in their hands.
Their focus bucks the trend of in-the-moment pop culture discussions and instead focuses on celebrating education, science and nerdiness. Culminating in what was known as "The Project For Awesome", the Greens organized a campaign in which dedicated viewers (who collectively call themselves "Nerd Fighters") created videos spotlighting their favorite charities to encourage other participants and viewers to donate. To date, they've raised and donated over $5.3 million to charity.
The Greens' innovative way of engaging with their followers has since garnered them a concert appearance at Carnegie Hall, an audience with President Obama, and film licensing deals for their written work.
The lesson here? Use a format that can currently grab people's attention, but make sure your content is purposeful and eschews the flavor of the week.
The Greens' innovative way of engaging with their followers has since garnered them a concert appearance at Carnegie Hall, an audience with President Obama, and film licensing deals for their written work.
The lesson here? Use a format that can currently grab people's attention, but make sure your content is purposeful and eschews the flavor of the week.
Linking a call to action with your content can help inspire more loyalty to your brand as well as enact real change.
3 - Lastly, let’s move away from individuals who have already found success and instead talk about you - and what E Video Productions, LLC can do to help shape a viable ROI out of the cornucopia of social media platforms. Whether you’re fluent in the language of Pinterest or you are the CEO of a company who needs someone to help you maintain an online presence, developing the right kind of content will be essential.
So what does “content” entail? It might be a still photo on Twitter. It could be a looped 3-second video embedded in an Instagram feed. It could be a YouTube series or an article shared on Facebook. What matters here is that you develop an understanding of what your audience wants to take away from their experience of interacting with you – whether that’s 2 seconds or 2 minutes.
The challenge is understanding how each platform works and using its to your advantage. If you’re catering to business professionals, use LinkedIn to generate discussions about industry trends that lead back to what your company specializes in. If your target audience is teenagers, bombard the market of apps and games on hand-held tablets and smartphones with a vibrant ad campaign. Social media itself may not be an entire industry yet, but it thrives on being an integral part of many different types of industry.
The lesson here? Don’t discount social media as a way for people to pass their downtime at work.
Make Social Media work for you.
E Video Productions, LLC consistently delivers an expertise in realizing your vision. From concept to delivery, our video services will help you stand out from the ho-hum drone of people who post simply to show that they’re active without considering what their content is actually about. Partner with us and you’ll be on your way to achieving a conversion of views into profit.
Make Social Media work for you.
E Video Productions, LLC consistently delivers an expertise in realizing your vision. From concept to delivery, our video services will help you stand out from the ho-hum drone of people who post simply to show that they’re active without considering what their content is actually about. Partner with us and you’ll be on your way to achieving a conversion of views into profit.
Evan Grysko evan@evideoproductions.net
Production Assistant
E Video Productions, LLC
