How do I get more video reviews on a new site?

[94501]

Hi,

I'm working on a site that has video reviews of various places. It's general information/experience that most people possess and production-wise they are selfies. These videos are then transcribed and, voila... searchable content.

My problem is this... how do I get large numbers of people to go to the trouble to make a 2 minute selfie? I thought about HARO, since one could work in a plug for something, but they have a site traffic threshold that this new site isn't at.

Any and all ideas on how to efficiently generate this content for a new site with very little traffic would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[EricaMcGillivray]

You want to do / can do a couple a things:

1. Make sure it's really super simple stupid easy for people to upload their videos. You'll need to do lots of user testing to make sure anyone can upload their stuff. Make sure you call it out and ask people to do so.

2. You can gameify it someway. Example, you might start by giving people a 10% discount for uploading a video.

3. You can seed a few videos. People tend to do things when they see others do it. You can use your staff to do it and show it off. Or you can send free merch to bloggers/influencers and ask them to make videos. You can't force them, but this can seed your pages for a start. I did something similar years ago, and it was very successful.

Hope that helps!

[94501]

Hi Erica,

Thanks for the post. I've seeded it with reviews. The main trouble is getting folks there to even come in contact with the idea of posting a video. Good points about interface and gamifying. The site doesn't sell anything, so can't give a discount.

If anyone has any more ideas, please post. Thanks!

[EricaMcGillivray]

Random extra thought: You could give people discounts to the places that you want them to record at.

[94501]

Do you think folks would do a video review if they could get a link to some local business... part of the mention in their review? If so, how would I publicize that without getting slammed by the G?

[EricaMcGillivray]

So Google does not allow people to buy links or exchange a link for a link. They also penalize for low-quality / spammy link building. Those are the two things that they don't like.

Here at Moz, we gamify our Q&A and blog comments with MozPoints. At 200 MozPoints, you get the first link in your profile followed. This works for us because we also heavily moderate in order to make sure people aren't gaming the system just for MozPoints. (Happens all the time.) Also, if you write a guest blog post for us, your links will be followed, but again, it's okay because we edit and make sure the links are relevant and moderate, moderate, moderate. Additionally, we have so many links pointing to us from a variety of sources and a ton of relevant links in both directions that a handful of potentially off-topic links are a drop in the bucket.

[94501]

Hi Erica,

Yeah, I get that about Google and links. just trying to come up with some reason why anyone would go to the trouble to submit a video review.

Moz is kind of tough comparison, since it's an industry leader with many reasons one might post.

Thanks... Mike