Top 10 Ways We Got 50,000 Views on YouTube

July 7, 2009

After 12 days online, “Pixels and Bricks: Post-It Donkey Kong in Raleigh”  hit 50,000+ views on YouTube.
Here are 10 things that contributed to our lucky number:

1. Donkey Kong!…Everybody loves Donkey Kong! Little did we know that YouTube watchers also LOVE post-it notes, stop-motion and gigantism at least as much as we do! That perfect storm resulted in a video people wanted to view…and send to others.

2. A reason to create that had nothing to do with getting 50,000 views. In our case, it was a parade entry for Kirby Derby 2009, our neighborhood block party with a “Pity the Fool” 80’s theme. A vision got us started and a high giggle factor saw us through.

3. The perfect setting. Taking the characters outside to snap some pictures made us realize we were literally working right beside a Donkey Kong set. How could we NOT do something with that?

4.  I love it when a plan comes together…  Seeing the set got everyone’s juices flowing. We immediately created a story board, built additional pieces and got some (more) beer to con everyone (Gamil, Gamila, Fatcat Strategies, Thirdparty Labs) to stay late on a Friday evening to carry the characters through the shoot. Aside from the creation of Donkey Kong himself, the whole thing happened in one day.

5.Put it online when it’s hot. We had over 230 raw photos plus credits and music to be created. On the other hand, we had a short window of momentum from Kirby Derby aftermath. We chose to take advantage of that momentum rather than agonizing over quality, putting it online just a few days after the event. The Kirby Derby website, our friends, twitter and facebook connections, and a story in newraleigh.com got our numbers moving as soon as we uploaded the video.

6. Don’t compete with big news events or holidays. Oops -we didn’t listen to this bit of advice. Our video went online the morning after Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died. Our first week online was the week of July 4 holiday. We have no idea how/if that affected our numbers.

7. Have a high-traffic site –  lucky enough to get a LOT of national and  international gmail viewers daily. During the first week online, Donkey Kong was our top story. Our video reached the weekly 30th most watched in India, 50th in France, and 62nd in South Korea…who knew?

8. Spread the word to strangers who care -  through blog tip forms and twitter. We told all the big guys about it, but it was the smaller blogs (some gaming and some humor) that grabbed hold early. The first blogs that got serious traction (other than newraleigh.com) were The Daily What, Tumblr,  and a variety of other small ones, followed quickly by buzzfeed.

9. Spread the word some more. We made YouTube comments and video responses to related videos. We twittered about our success rate. We told more gaming blogs once our numbers rose higher.

10. Luck and chance. The combination of personal connections and viral momentum enabled the video to move past our sphere of influence very quickly. Eventually some slightly bigger blogs saw it, and today, Kotaku got hold of it (from Topless Robot and I Heart Chaos). In this one day, we went basically from 35,000 to 50,000 (and counting).

It’s been exciting to see what would happen once we released the video to the online community. Ultimately, the whole project was about having fun  through a little creativity. The fact that we got to share it with so many people has been an unexpected treat.

Stumble it!

Tags: , animation, Donkey Kong, pixels and bricks, Post It, stop motion, video, viral, youtube