YouTube is about sharing. About uploading content for others to enjoy. It's about freedom of expression and the ability to choose how and when you are entertained.

The flip-side of this is that it's also a copyright nightmare. If YouTube is about sharing then people are sharing stuff for free...and somebody somewhere down the line is losing revenue.

In the ongoing dispute over the copyright infringement of YouTubers the world over, Viacom recently demanded that Google handover the details of every YouTuber who had uploaded or downloaded material...not only to sue the backside off those who upload the content but also to establish the trends of the audience.

I'm questioning whether or not a clip or 'series' of clips can indeed generate a regular audience...and whether or not people would indeed 'tune in' for content on YouTube.

As a little-fish-in-a-big-sea experiment we're going to upload a documentary clip as an online 'series' every Friday at http://www.youtube.com/seraphimpictures for the next ten weeks. The first went live on Friday and averaged 12 views a day over opening weekend. I'm curious to see whether there's a snowball effect - not just through viral marketing, but also through a TV-style 'addiction' mentality with people keeping watch to see how the story progresses.

Has anyone else out there tried anything similar (or would like to?) and if so, what sort of successes or failures did you get?

Daniel

hi Dan

I think if you find something you are more than likely going to click on related links etc.. and my husband (who is now an addict) generally looks for the same kind of thing. Depends on the message being given i think.

just noticed the date on this.. doh! how have you got on?

We are in the process of sorting some stuff to upload and see what happens....!

Regards
Cheri

Youtube can be the best marketing tool on the internet. I know someone who can guarantee top 5 youtube video within 24hrs.

Hi Cheri,

We got on OK with the trial earlier in the year - we broadcast a six-part documentary that averaged around 250 views per episode during the original six weeks. Based on those figures we then released an eight-week series which got slightly less over the course of the run.

As expected, most of our viewers were from the UK and US, but we noticed that we were getting significant hits from South America...I ran some of our keywords through a Portugese translator and we then received a surge in numbers from Brazil etc. I tried the same with Spanish and French and got similar results, although Italian keywords didn't generate much of a response.

Half way through I also added the YouTube Feed to my ecademy account so that my contacts could automatically see when the new content was uploaded.

Both series have been taken down now - I'd looked at similar projects and found that the production companies had a better response by limiting the potential viewing time rather than just leaving the footage there indefinitely. All in all, it was a success and introduced our company to a wider audience - also helping to showcase our corporate work.

Daniel