Comments on: Higher Ed TV: How the University of Minnesota got more than 1.5 million views in less than 2 months with one of their YouTube videos

By: Find out how some YouTube videos went viral with the Statistics & Data feature | collegewebeditor.com

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:30:05 +0000

[...] has been working on this formula for some time and with some noticeable successes including an online video with more than 1.5 million views in less than 2 months. She will explain what she has learned in the webinar she is scheduled to present on September 17, [...]

By: Alexa Harrington

Alexa Harrington — Sat, 02 May 2009 21:08:21 +0000

Excellent video! How can you go wrong with super heroes and physics? I wrote a post about the Randy Pausch video a while back. I’m sure that’s the most viewed because not only is it a wonderful lecture by an amazing man, it’s also got “poignant” and “heartbreaking” written all over it. It’s hard for other YouTubers to compete with a well-loved, soon-to-be-gone professor giving his last lecture.

–Alexa

By: Tom Hinds

Tom Hinds — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:39:43 +0000

Tristan…I love it! I can imagine how many high schoolers end up watching those videos. Amazing project to put together.

By: tristan alltimes

tristan alltimes — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:45:55 +0000

Somewhat as an aside to the main thrust of the conversation above but still science related anyway (and in answer to Les above). The University of Nottingham here in the UK developed some mini science videos which were posted to you tube and caused huge interest.

It has increased traffic considerably to Nottinghams site but you tube also approached the university to ask if it could place advertising banners across its vdeos as they were so popular and in turn they paid the university a substantial sum for the pleasure.

One direct example on return on investment of production in the first place.

Links: http://www.periodicvideos.com/

By: Les Gardner

Les Gardner — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:54:03 +0000

This is all very interesting.

We who are fundraisers would like to know whether there is any credible data that has been gathered from this or similar activities that tell us how many hits or views turn in to some kind of support for the University. Is there any data that shows the return on the investment in production, etc.?

Thank you.

By: Tom Hinds

Tom Hinds — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:45:26 +0000

Thanks, Karine! Very valuable. Some key points for me:

–They leverage high-tech research with pop culture
–The promotion is multi-pronged–both campus and partnership-based–and drives an initial set of viewers who take the video viral
–All the video metadata is correct and there is a YouTube HD option (see the video on its YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmj1rpzDRZ0 )
–They use analytics data that gives them the ability to determine not just hits, but other key bits of information such viewer origin and how long viewers remained engaged.
–It fits into an overall viral video strategy

Interestingly, I found it impossible to find this video from the university’s home page.

We have seen through Haagen-Dazs’ support of UC Davis’ honeybee research how powerful promotional partnerships can be. There is a video component (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOIP0UPiLvA for one example), along with a Web site, campus promotion, honeybee garden design contest, product packaging promotion and other PR efforts. The end result is that the honeybee fund is one of the best supported funds on our giving site, and UC Davis benefits from increased, positive public exposure.