5 Ways Online Video Providers Can Attract Gen Y

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Posted on 31st January 2011 by in Website Optimization

It’s my pleasure to introduce Amanda Dhalla to the Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog. As part of our Research and Consulting team here at Elastic Path, Amanda brings 12 years of ecommerce experience to our consulting practice and research reports. You may remember her from our recent webinar Selling Software to Consumers: Upgrade Now!. Today Amanda shares a sneak peak of our latest research on monetizing digital content.

It’s old news: online video has exploded in the last three years as more viewers demand and watch video for education and entertainment. YouTube is now the second most popular search engine after Google. Yet, while our appetite for online video shows no signs of abating, monetization remains a struggle for media providers and content owners.

So where’s the bright spot? Gen Y viewers, according to a recent study conducted by the Elastic Path consulting team on consumer behaviors and attitudes towards online video. (Download a complimentary copy of the full report). By accommodating the unique needs of this segment, the largest American generation since the Baby Boomers and defined in our survey as people aged 18 to 34, digital distributors can improve their chances of growing revenues. Here are 5 ways to appeal to Gen Y:

1. Promote and reward higher consumption

Gen Ys are the biggest consumers of online video. Two thirds watch at least weekly, across a diverse range of services, from YouTube and iTunes to video aggregators (e.g. Hulu, Netflix) and network websites (e.g. NBC, FOX). Along with personalized recommendations and advanced search functionality, smart media providers will offer tools for creating video playlists, volume discounts, and rewards to regular viewers (like every nth movie free) to boost customer attachment and repeat visits.

2. Make the purchase process frictionless

Having grown up with ecommerce and watched digital content become mainstream, younger consumers are significantly more likely than the average population to have already paid and be willing to pay for online video content. Providing non-credit card payment options can capture younger consumers who don’t own credit cards, while a fast 1-click checkout process like Amazon Video On Demand’s enables instant access:

Amazon Video On Demand

3. Enable multi-device access with shorter content for smaller screens

Younger adults are increasingly using mobile devices to view content when and where they want. One in four now watches video on their smartphones. Developing unique content for mobiles can support main content offerings for the larger screen and increase overall viewing time. Shorter clips like deleted scenes, trailers and even ads suit the limited attention span of multi-taskers and people on the go. Flexible, developer-friendly video publishing and ecommerce systems can help with multi-device distribution and monetization.

4. Promote social sharing to gain viewers

Gen Ys love to share their influence and information, and are twice as likely as their parents to frequently recommend videos to friends. Media distributors who encourage Facebook Likes, social sharing, ratings and reviews, and referrals will directly benefit from an increased audience for their content. Since smartphone users spend lots more time on social networking sites (particularly Facebook) than PC users, this goes double for mobile video providers.

5. Offer ad-free viewing and à la carte extras

Over 60% of younger consumers would consider paying a premium to view ad-free content, many having already done so. Companies that don’t offer the opportunity to opt out of ads through paid content risk losing out to competitors who do. Gen Ys are also more willing than older viewers to pay for high definition and 3D content, back catalog or special feature access, and interactive video content where they can recommend characters or soundtracks, vote on plot twists or follow multiple story arcs. Offering pick-and-mix upsells like these to your offerings can improve engagement and lead to higher revenues per viewer.

Interesting in learning more about monetizing digital content?

Download a free copy of the full research report Monetizing Online Video 2011. Alternatively, watch our on-demand webinar, Monetizing Digital Content – the Rocky Road Ahead, where we explore consumer attitudes towards paying for online content.

Five ways to get links from fan sites

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Posted on 31st January 2011 by in Search Engine Marketing

Posted by RobOusbey

Whatever your site’s topic, whether you are very niche or broad, B2C or B2B, a retailer or a publisher – there are likely to be independent fan sites that overlap with the subjects on your site.

By fan site, I mean fan clubs, unofficial sites, etc – these types of sites are typically run by people who are very passionate about their particular topic. They often serve as a very rich source of information and news about their subject – and are often very keen to link to any appropriate information that gives value to their visitors.

I’ll give a quick introduction to identifying the niches to target and finding appropriate sites to talk to, and then give some tips about how you could get them to link to you.

Choose a Niche

SEOmoz members are a hugely diverse bunch, so I’ll give just a couple of examples to illustrate how this can work. In reality, this is where a bit of brainstorming and ‘thinking outside the box’ could help you identify some potentially useful types of company & website.

So, by way of examples (and I’m just looking out of my window here for ideas of companies, don’t read anything into this list):

  • An online store that sells second-hand books:
    • This type of retailer has it pretty easy: aim to find the fan sites of particular authors or series of books,
    • Don’t just go after the biggest names either – there are definitely some more ‘cult’ authors that aren’t as well know but have strong online followings.
  • The website of an auto mechanic:
    • Approach the fan sites of particular car models,
    • Aim to target fan sites on the subject of any particular repair expertise you have as well, such as classic cars or four wheel drives.
  • A chain of hotels:
    • This company could look towards the fan pages of the particular cities they have properties in,
    • They should also consider anything that makes a particular hotel unique; is it near a sports stadium, or in a particular style of architecture? 

You’ll find out soon enough that there are fan sites for almost every niche you could ever imagine. Don’t worry about getting a bit abstract in your thinking here.

Of course, some sites won’t have to look too far to find topics that have gained a fandom. For example: if you’re a radio station, then there may be fan sites for your station or for your presenters. If there can be a website explicitly for fans of Ikea in Ohio, then really – anything is possible.

Finding Fan Sites

Honestly, there’s only a little advice that I can give here, beyond ‘Google is your friend’.

Getting Links from Fan Pages

As with almost every proactive linkbuilding tactic – and with this kind of outreach in particular – we’ll have most success when we offer something to a site that earns us a link from them.

With that in mind, here’s my five favorite tactics for getting links from this type of site:
 
Events & Invitations
 
Look out for opportunities to organize or to be involved with special events. In the simplest form, use this as an opportunity to meet some of the enthusiasts that you’re trying to get to know; if you want to meet petrolheads, then go to an auto show. You could sponsor some kind of ‘social-media-meet-up’ or ‘bloggers drinks party’ at these sort of events if you want to put yourself out in front of the right people.
Some businesses have the opportunity to add value to some events; for example, when Stephanie Myers announced her plans to do a junket for fan sies (see May 17, 2010), any hotels, bars or restaurants in her area could have offered to host the event for her and some fans. This should have received at least a few really valuable links from the attendees’ write-ups.
 
Similarly, every TV station really should plan ahead by taking their list of forthcoming talk-show guests, and inviting members from every fan site of those guests to watch the recordings. It would be fair to ask them to write about it in return for the tickets, and they’d be encouraged to link to the show’s webpage from that article.
 
Sweepstakes & Giveaways
 
I’ve written before about link building by running competitions, but it’s worth mentioning again here. If you pick an appropriate prize, fan sites should be particularly keen to link to this kind of giveaway. Ideally, see if you can aim for some kind of ‘money-can’t-buy’ prize.
 
For example: you’re running a night club, and Fatboy Slim is DJing one evening – so you get him to sign a turntable slip mat. You can then give them away via your website, and it’s a great chance to contact every fan site for Fatboy Slim, breakbeat music, etc.
 
Exploit Rivalry
 
In many cases, you might find there’s a whole bunch of fan sites for one particular topic; for example, there are more than a few Twilight Saga fan sites – and I imagine there’s some rivalry, particularly amongst the top dozen or so largest sites. Alternatively, you might use this tactic where a rivalry already exists, such as between college football teams – and by proxy, their individual fan sites.
 
You could create some kind of competitive feature, such as a survey or quiz that will rank the sites’ members against each other. For example: "Which Pac-10 Team has the most comitted fans?" or "Harry Potter Trivia: Which fan site’s members are the most knowledgeable?"
Create these features in a way that will encourage the sites to refer visitors to you by linking, and then make sure to let them all know about it.
 
Widgets
 
LocateTV have an awesome embeddable widget that can be customized to appeal to fan sites. (Eg: visit a show page and click ‘Add to my site’. You can see the embed in action on fan sites such as ElvisPresleyScrapbook.co.uk.) This high-quality type of widget can be used by savvy editors of fan pages, and gives a good quality link back to LocateTV.
 
Of course, an embed can be much simpler – even a simple image could do the trick, which could be updated as often as necessary. For example: an entertainment news website could create images such as "Latest Britney Spears News: Release date for new album announced" – and then invite every one of the celeb’s fan sites to embed the linked image, pointing to the category page for that person on the news site.
 
Feature Them
 
You might choose to engage with fan sites, perhaps to feature them in a list that you publish (e.g.: "The Top 10 Fan Sites of Renaissance Composers") or to interview that site in particular (eg: "Interview: Superbowl predictions with Larry from PackerChatters.com".)
 
LocateTV has done well to stay engaged with the fans of TV shows and TV actors in their fan site list features and interviews.
 
You could at least get the featured sites to mention you, but approached in the right way, this kind of content could be very linkworthy and social media friendly; for example, Education Portal’s "Top Shakespeare Blogs" post was well tweeted, by those in the list as well as other Shakespeare fans.

 

Remember: fan sites are pretty special, particularly since they tend to be keen to link to good quality content about their subject. Just don’t abuse it: they generally have savvy webmasters who can spot if they’re being taken advantage of.

When you start thinking about fan sites, you’ll realize quite quickly that there’s lots more opportunities that are specific to your site, beyond those I’ve outlined here.

It’s always fun to talk to people who are truly passionate about something (whether that happens to be Elgar or Ikea), so go ahead and enjoy putting some of these ideas into action.

 

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