Summer Bugs and Summer Buzz: A Social Media Optimization Case Study (with Cicadas)
The following semi-edited conversation took place on Facebook. A country singer I know from Nasheville, TN asked me ‘off the cuff’ about how to start optimizing her video for Facebook. What follows is her original question and my comments/guidance.
Cute pics of your kids!!! Since you are the internet expert, I wondered if you would check out the link to my video and if you had any suggestions to help it “go viral” – although that sounds dangerous – that would be so great! Thanks! See you soon! Kathy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvJrEPEx27A=====================Let’s see – first thing would be to get all your friends to “like.” Then I’d start thinking about other sites and destinations that would get a kick out of it. I see you’re already on it (Cicada Mania).
Sometimes I just think in terms of keywords… cicada, insect enthusiasts, kids songs, children pop music, etc. This list could be huge. I’d use something like the Google Keyword Tool to gather up an excel spreadsheet of all possibles (this allows you to see who’s clicking on what, too). WordTracker is another.
Once you find a good batch of sites, I’d start promoting their stuff that’s related to cicadas and to kids music. Then eventually you ping them with a request to like or post your video.
You can also use something like TubeMogul to make sure you’re up on all the video sites at once (it does the tagging and everything all in one fell swoop). I think they may charge these days. So, you can do it manually. But it’s something to look into.
Youtube, Yahoo Video, Viddler, Vimeo, AOL video and others… there are lots.
I’d use search.twitter.com to follow topics like cicadas and kids music. You can set this up separately as a research project in something like HootSuite (I prefer this one, because you can schedule posts for an entire week/month all at once and then forget about it).
Start conversing with those conversation threads on Twitter. Eventually you may be able to turn up some press/media this way.
You might start a campaign to follow journalists and media people (even bloggers) who are passionate about nature, kids music, insects, etc.
Again, promote their stuff first. And join in their conversations. Then softly pitch a plug for your video. They may just find it by following your Facebook and Twitter profiles and seeing what you’re up to.
Similar things can be done with YouTube.
Tagging is another issue. I didn’t check to see if your tags are in order on your YouTube site (your keywords from Google keyword tool will be helpful here).
Finally . .. . rinse and repeat. And get those cicadas out of your hair! 
[Kathy asked some more questions - my answers follow]
“Like” on YouTube will be good, but a Facebook page with the video that gets ‘liked’ will probably be better. So.. both.
That’s a good idea making your own Facebook page for it (business page that has no limit on followers, etc.). I would update my personal page and message friends, asking them to like the Facebook (business) and Youtube videos.
It’s possible to convert a Facebook personal page (e.g. you at KKA) into a “fan page.” That’s what I was referring to earlier when I wrote business page. These have no limits as to followers. Personal pages max out at 5,000, I think.
However – this can be dicey, because you lose all the content you have on your personal page (last time I checked). But, you do transfer all 610 of your current friends over to the fan page. That’s something to consider.
It’s also nice to have them separated. You could just ask your gang of 610 to fan your Sicka Cicadas page.
I’m mixing terms here. It used to be called “fan” but a simple “like” now accumulates on that Sicka page. So you’ve got 4 there now, including me.
