Setting Goals and Measurements for Video

What does it mean to “go viral”?

It means that your video is being passed around beyond where you initially put it. It means that someone other than you, or the person who uploaded it for you, has picked it up and done something with it.

What are they doing with my video?!!

Primarily they are linking to it or embedding it into their own site or blog. Many blogs are creating material around book video and are enticing readers to their site with the video and then offering other things once you get there. Some are reader’s blogs, fan blogs and industry blogs. But there are people who are downloading it to their computer or their iPod/iPad so they can watch it again and again. Some are commenting on your video or rating it. Whether it is being passed around through email or via mobile phone once it is sent out by someone else it has gone viral.

How Do I Measure The Success Of My Video?

To answer the question I must ask one: What was the goal of the video? If you don’t know then you’ll never know how successful it was.

If your goal was to get as many views as possible you can just count views. You can use tags that are sexy, inflammatory, disturbing or popular. Create a description designed to bring people to the video.

If your goal is to generate sales how will you measure your videos ability to do that? Do you have a “buy” button next to the video on your site? Are you an associate of a bookseller that allows you to monitor the sales from those buy buttons? Are you at least getting the video to high reader-trafficked sites? You need to identify how you will measure this. Can you compare your sales from this book to the sales of your last book? That’s a tough one because the marketing department may be doing something new as well and then you’re not sure what upped those sales. Identify how you will measure this if this is the reason you’re using a book video.

If your goal is to create awareness of your book and/or name (brand) how will you measure the effectiveness of the video to help do that. This is a little easier to do. The number of views, comments, ranking and sharing of the video tell you that someone paid attention to the video. Engaging with the video is actually more important than simple views. No matter what, if someone watched your video they DID something in order to see it. It isn’t like television where you are able to interrupt something to show your advertisement. Someone WANTED to see your book video. But, when they go far enough to DO something to it for with it they are engaged and more likely to remember your name or the name of the book.
If your goal is show established readers that you have a new series this is a wonderful vehicle to do that with. It is easy to let them SEE what the new series is about. It is important, then, to not only be on social networks where you hope to find new readers, but to get on book-specific sites such as bookseller sites, book review sites and reader sites. Don’t waste your time putting your video on author sites. Yes, authors read. But, usually authors on author sites are interested in their own work. You need to get your video on reader sites. You can determine the success of your video by the number of reader-sites that take it and display it for you.

If your goal is to establish that you’re writing an entirely NEW genre then it is important to get on social sites in which that genre is popular and to get on reader sites to let people know about the change. If you are writing under a pen name then treat this video as though you are a new author. Get your name out to as many sites as possible, both social media sites and reader-specific sites. Blogs that allow video embedding are a great way to push that new genre as well. I see a lot of author missing this opportunity. Embed the video and talk a little bit about it. To determine if your video has been successful according to your established goals, take a look at the number of sites you got it onto. Review the number of hits and be sure to give extra credit points for reader-sites and bookseller sites.

The bottom line is to have a goal, make a plan and follow up to see the plan helped to achieve the goal.