Commentary
Applied Video & Social Search
- by Rob Griffin , November 16, 2009
Shankapotomus, is all I have to say.
So I am sitting around with some friends last weekend watching sports on TV. We get to laughing about the E*Trade baby ads. Well, what do you know? We ended up whipping out the laptop and searching for the ads to watch them a few times. What a brilliant creative execution -- and how brilliant that we were able to re-enjoy the ads again together as friends.
Then of course, much to my friends' chagrin, I started waxing poetic about the merits of SEM, video, and social media optimization. After much grief, I gave up my proverbial podium and we went back to sports.
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Now it seems I have a much more appropriate podium.... My point is that great creative begets the need for video search optimization and social media integration. With video searches on Google growing at a rapid pace, and YouTube with 88 million unique monthly searches, -- of which branded commercial queries are the fastest growing category -- you can't ignore this trend
If you do a search on Google for "shankapotomus," E*Trade is very visible within the SERP. What impressed me here was that E*Trade has its result bang on top, with a user-generated video. Then look at the results underneath the two videos - Urban Dictionary, Wikipedia, Steve Eck's blog and a MySpace post. E*Trade's really done a good job of leveraging social media and video assets to monopolize the SERP, and there isn't even a sponsored search listing.
I don't think enough advertisers leverage this potentially valuable extension of their TV efforts. This is an excellent example of advertisers making some great creative and then doing the little extra things to ensure they can get the extra mileage out of their traditional creative and media investment. Those extra little things are not rocket science, but under-utilized. Simply putting your creative assets out there on YouTube and other sites for consumers to find and optimizing the listings to rank well is an important step.
After making it easy for audiences to find, brands need to make it easy for users to share and interact with the brand. This combination is crucial because if it's good, consumers will go online and look for the branded commercial, but also look to make it their own. All of this increases brand exposure and visibility within search.
It's not just on "shankapotomus" queries, either; the SERP for "etrade" also shows the importance of video and social extensions to brand searches. When you view the results, note that E*Trade owns the results from sponsored links through the above-the-fold natural listings. We have all seen Google's research regarding the benefits of top paid and natural placement aplenty, so I don't need to belabor that point.
This thinking also applies with searches within social communities. A Facebook results page for the same branded query shows that both E*Trade's core branded presence exists along with the actual creative.
As you can see, well-executed social and video search that leverages great creative only helps an advertiser's overall SEM efforts for increased visibility and brand exposures. This on the heels of a well-structured traditional media buy only makes the concerted effort that much more valuable for the brand. To me this example also illustrates the importance of coordinating paid and earned social media with a well-rounded search marketing strategy.
I hope this short example only inspires all of you to better optimize and leverage your video assets and social media to improve your overall SEM efforts.
To go along with this theme, let's use the blog space below to vote on a name for advertisers that don't do this. What is our industry's equivalent to a golfing shankapotomus? Readers, I ask you -- you tell me.
Not sure I agree with you. The SERP shows the video, yes, but nowhere can I get to Etrade's website. Unless I watch a video and somehow later type them search. On Youtube, where I went to watch the video, I see ads for Golf, Kodak and more. No Etrade. In fact, the video is "owned" not by Etrade, but the golf vertical within Youtube (Google-owned).
Bottom line, Etrade SHOULD be bidding on this keyword, because as it is, Google is controlling the message on this amazing term they coined and which is singularly unique.
You seem to be congratulating Etrade when in fact Google wins here. Huge win. Hole in one.
I am giving a talk to about 40 professional educators in the state of NJ on Wednesday. This article could not have come at a better time. One of the things I will be telling them to do is to make thier own simple videos and to post them in appropriate social media sites and other pertinent websites and blogs. Thanks for the great timing!
Scott, consumers don't search in a linear fashion. Studies show that odds are that if they see the ad and like it, when they want to watch it again they will type in something relevant to the ad - in this case shankapotomus. After, if they choose to find E*Trade, they will search again using brand related terms.
I think E*Trade should leverage Google. Granted they could extend this with some paid media within the golf channel. But at the end of the day placing the video on their site doesn't mean it will rank any better or increase the value and in fact I would argue the opposite true because on YouTube, which is the preferred location for video discovery, you have the social element (ranking, total views, comments etc) that will enhance [or kill] a creative's popularity. We are social people and like to do this stuff together and be part of something more than ourselves.
Also you don't know if E*Trade had paid placement against this when it launched - I believe around the Super Bowl. If they are smart, they had paid turned on then, but as natural listings began to rank they dialed back on the general queries and began to shift budget to brand queries, which they do pay for know.
Just my 2 cents.
Walt, your welcome on timing. It's funny how life works like that. I swear we all have some sort of collective thought mechanism. ;-)
TV advertisers who ignore search and social media leverage...
Adverstriches?
Adversaurs?
I'm the first to admit that if I have to explain the puns involved here then these suck ;)
I totally agree. What better way to convert a customer than have them come to YOU to watch the creative. I think in addition to showing the importance of SEO, SMO, and the like, it really shows the consistent need for well-done, entertaining, and poignant creative. No one would even care about e*trade if that baby wasnt so damn funny. As much as a digital presence is important, lets not put the wagon before the horse. You have to capture the attention first with a great ad for them to ever want to search for it on google to see it again. Just a thought.
http://www.redshiftagency.com/
Good effort Brian. LOL.
Kristin, fair point and I don't think anyone has put the cart before the horse. SEM is often the biggest beneficiary of other media.
All I meant to say was that one cannot ignore the importance of video and social optimization within search.
Here's some recent comScore stats to back it up:
- June '09 71mm video searchers
- June '09 409mm video searches
- Up 48% and 82% respectively
- 5.8 video searches per searcher
- 46% growth in paid video search impressions
- advertiser's share of voice for video search has doubled YOY
In this instance, “video” searchers and searches (and related metrics) are being defined as searchers that used modifiers in their terms such as video(s), episode(s), movie(s), show(s). Also these numbers represent searches on Big 5 search engines - - this does not include searchers/searchers that were performed internally on video sites, nor with a video search intent that didn’t include one of these words, (e.g. Family Guy).
When we start to try to quantify all video intent searchers across the whole internet, whether they contain one of the above modifiers or not, that is a very different calculation, and would encompass a much larger set of numbers. Searches on YouTube US alone last month were over 3.6B, as noted in qSearch.
So again the point was just that great video creative can't live on TV alone and consumer patterns show that search and social media is how we want to find our videos of choice.
Scott, Jumped in the conversation a little late: http://www.google.com/search?q=etrade+baby+ads&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Check that out...