Categories: Articles

Does 3,495 Views On YouTube Mean It's Viral?

On February 12th, 2008 (about four days ago) I posted a video to YouTube called, Apple Macbook Air Sony Vaio Parody. I did three things after that: I wrote this Blog posting called, Apple Macbook Air Sony Vaio Parody – My First YouTube Attempt, posted a tweet on twitter and posted the video on my Facebook profile.

As of this moment, the video has 3,495 views, 27 people rated it (4/5 stars) with 24 comments.

Is it viral?

I had some initial ideas around posting it in both Sony Vaio and Apple Macbook groups on Facebook and other online user groups, doing some Blogger outreach and even posting it on other video sharing sites, but I haven’t. There’s a small part of me that is curious to see how it goes if I do nothing at all. By taking a quick look at the YouTube numbers, it’s getting about one thousand views a day. I’m wondering if there will be some kind of momentum effect where it starts doubling or tripling as the days wane on, or if it caps at one thousand views per days and slowly dies off/down.

If you were keeping count, how would you score it? What metrics/analytics make sense, and at what point would you consider this a success (or failure)?

My only intent was to get a bunch of people to see it. There was no desire to drive traffic somewhere else or thoughts of data collection or client acquisition.

So, as these thoughts ramble through my brain I started taking some notes and soon realized that even if you’re using online video to Market some kind of product, service or idea, each campaign might have its own, unique, set of metrics that may have no relation to one another.

I wonder how that type of thinking will sit with the CMOs and Agency brass in this new economy?

Here’s the video if you have not taken a look yet:

For the record, there would be no video without my partner-in-crime, David Usher.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.