Not-So-Viral Videos

Jealous of the massive publicity accruing to sub chain Quiznos for its racy and semi-unofficial “2 Girls, 1 Sub” online video ad? Wish you could come up with something like Chipotle's “30 Seconds of Fame” online video ad contest, the first edition of which generated 17.3 million YouTube views at zero cost to the company? If so, you're in luck, even if your restaurant doesn't have a big ad budget or dedicated marketing staff to make the video for you.

First the easy part: Come up with a rough script and shoot the video yourself. Outsource from there, hiring a freelance video editor to create the finished product. Most charge roughly $20 an hour. Then upload the video yourself to YouTube or another online video site. It's a simple process.

So how do you then get people to watch your video and pass it to their pals? It used to be out of your control, until companies involved in the emerging “viral video seeding” business came along.

“Marketing experts from leading agencies around the world agree that viral video seeding is rapidly becoming a more efficient tool for pushing campaigns,” says Web 2.0 outfit sevenload.com's Andres Heyden.

Which is to say, active seeding — a paid service — makes videos appear to be much more popular than they actually are, hoping they become truly viral from there. If you want to boost your online exposure to certain demographics — we're betting almost every teenage boy in the U.S. will check out “2 Girls, 1 Sub” — you may wish to give this technique a shot.