Felix Cha creates richly detailed and highly produced video on a full time basis. Although very busy preparing for the Call-To-Action Conference he graciously give us some of his time.

His internal clients are trying to sell products, support an event or explain a complex feature. Each video that Felix produces fits into a precise communications chain. It may start with an Ad (PPC), a post, or even an email. The video has to serve as a communications bridge from the external communications that is attracting attention to next stage of messages that are designed to education, delight, nurture, or even transact.

Felix also talks about why these sorts of videos may not play well on YouTube or Facebook… and he explains why even though it is free, his employer (Unbounce.com) doesn’t host on YouTube. There is an overtime conversation that continues from where this interview ends. It is available on TalkingAboutEverything.com.

The post How Smart Marketers Use Video — Transactional Storytelling 101 with Felix Cha – YC Episode 5 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Breaking news about YouTube isn’t always understandable outside of its niche. I think nearly everyone older than 16 has a really difficult time understanding the appeal of videos about video playing. The British Paper The Guardian has reported (Monday August 31, 2015) that the YouTube channel The Diamond Minecart has become the, “most popular YouTube channel.”

Daniel from The Diamond Minecart – YouTuber & Storyteller

So what does it mean to be popular? Last week we spoke about Troye Sivan with the 195 million views his channel has earned since 2007. Let’s put that quickly into prospective. In July of 2015 the Guardian reports The Diamond Minecart had “402m” views; more than 2x the views of Mr. Sivan’s eight year old channel in a single month.

Let’s look at the #’s.. as of August 31, 2015 9:29 Pm EDT — TDM was created in Jul 14, 2012 and has 7,758,479 subscribers • 4,276,960,416 views — you are reading that correct 4.2 Billion views. SocialBlade the YouTube statistics site notes in August the site had “less views (368,820,000) and  gained 407,060 subscribes in the last 30 days.” The channel is hosted by Daniel Middleton.

In other news friend of FIR Alex Yong interviews entrepreneur Mario Armstrong about using periscope to “growth hack” his business. The link to the article is here.

I mentioned I would have a link to a Mike Levin video, while I have not been able to locate that video, here is a link to his channel.

The post The Diamond Minecart – It’s nice to be popular | Youtubular Conversations Ep 4 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

This show, YouTubular Conversations features a weekly interview or discussion plus twice weekly short news coverage of the YouTube eco-system. This is the first news segment. News segments will be “recorded live” and released every Saturday and Tuesday. The interviews/discussions are released on Thursdays.

This week I talk about two very different types of music releases on YouTube.

Troye with art from the “Wild” App

My first story is about Indian (Tamil) Rapper Sofia Ashraf who released a protest video aimed at Unilever. This topic was previously covered in the Digital India Podcast by Suresh Babu. Sofia’s video now has 3.2 million views and has the potential to breakout of India. Sofia is protesting the perception that Unilever has failed to clean up Mercury toxicity from an old thermometer  plant in the Kodaikanal region. The song is called Kodaikanal Won’t! Sofia shows off the real power of YouTube to play a role in the political arena. How the power of YouTube can put a largely local/regional issue in front of a larger international audience.

Indian (Tamil) Rapper Sofia Ashraf

The conflict in Kodaikanal has been long standing and Unilever had an official message about this issue published prior the the video: read here. Four days after the release of Sofia’s video there was an additional response by Unilever (August 8, 2015 release), and another release dated August 14, 2015.

My second story is about Troye Sivan and how he has turned his South African film roles (Spud, Spud 2, and Spud 3) and his love of singing into a personal platform on YouTube with more than 3.2 million subscribers (an increase of 1.2 million over the last 13 months). Since starting the channel in 2007, he has earned more than 195 million views and legions of loyal fans.

Troye is famous for being a young and out gay role model (5.7 million views) and known for his YouTube collaborations “Collabs” with other famous YouTubers including Tyler Oakley and Connor Franta.

Troye is releasing an EP and a cluster of music videos that will present a gay coming of age story. Telling the story across more than one video shows off the power of linking videos and stories: If you like and watch one, you will want to watch them all, plus the back story, the making of video, not to mention all the trailers and teasers, Etc.

A Troye Sivan fan using the Wild Art work on their own picture.

Although the world of “gay acceptance” has evolved since 2007, it is still notable that many famous Hollywood actors are rumored to be LGBTQi but choose not to out themselves. Troye by building his own out and proud platform has, perhaps, far greater control over his destiny.

Troye’s Links:

Sofia’ Links:

The post News: India Rap Protest and The Music of Troye Sivan – YouTubular Conversations Episode 3 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Harry Hawk talks with early YouTube phenom Adam Schleichkorn. Adam has had several YouTube channels over the years (with a combined more than 54 Million views) and was one of the first YouTubers to be interviewed on national TV. Today Adam is the Video Project Manager at Driven Local.

Adam Schleichkorn looks a TV showing an image of himself with the caption, “Fence Plowing.”

Adam’s current channel, isthishowyougoviral, was started in May 2012 and has 5,470 subscribers and more than 4.8 Million views at the time this blog is being written. HiddenTrackTV2 has 18k subscribers and 34.7 Million views, HiddenTrack12 has 5.4k subscribers and 12.5 Million views. AwesomeAnimals has 1.6k subscribers and 1.7 Million views.

Adam started youTubing while in graduate school and credits Patrick J. Aievoli, who is the Director of the Interactive Multimedia Arts Program at LIU for convincing him to capitalize on his early YouTube ‘fame.”

The post Plowing Fences with YouTuber Adam Schleichkorn – YC EPISODE 2 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

In the inaugural episode of Youtubular Conversations Harry Hawk (@hhawk) speaks with farmer and internet marketer Tommy Alderman of Alderman Farms (Aldermanfarms.net) where “Pasture Makes Perfect!” His marketing efforts have been cited as an excellent example of how farming families can and should use social media. Their YouTube channel was created Mar 16, 2012 and has had 1,374,843 views (as of August 20, 2015).

Alderman Farms is actively engaged on social media promoting the farm, their community and their livestock including American Guinea Hogs and Chickens. Tommy doesn’t seek to make viral videos but does have several videos with a large # of viewers. These videos are about fences and I will compare that with other fence related video in episode 0002.

Tommy with “Shaggy”

Many of the Alderman Farms videos get only a few hundred views. As I am preparing this post, the two-year old trailer has received 11,217 views and the channel has  6,672 subscribers.

There is a great debate within the YouTube community if individual channels should align themselves with multi-channel networks (MCNs). Tommy is a proponent of MCNs because their support allows him to focus on his farm. 

While being interviewed by Harry Hawk Mr. Alderman expressed interest in Podcasting and has subsequently created a podcast. It is clear that he has a spirit of exploration and is eager to try and experiment with new modes of communication. The entire interview with Tommy was nearly 2 hours. a largely raw and uncut recording of the entire session can be found on the podcast TalkingAboutEverything.com (Listen – 01:39:43).  

Links:

The post Building Fences with YouTube YC Episode 0001 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.