I was reading about Facebook’s new patent on a process on how influencers become influencers by how others react to their activity and then I went to search for a YouTube video out of 4 accounts (over 1500 videos) and I logged in and did a search based on the topic.
I had to go through a few accounts till I found the video from 2009. Cool.
So then I made a new video and as I was about to load my video outro I thought wouldn’t it be cool if I annotate my outro with a “Search my videos by Topic.” But it’s not an option. Really?
Having that option for YouTube’s biggest clients would give users the ability to use the path of least resistance to search and find more videos to watch from that channel, thus adding more value and giving that channel a higher authority quotient to the viewer. They would subscribe most likely and come back more when they are notified of other videos. Most likely will go to their other social media destinations.
But what if you took it farther. Gave the channel owners and YouTube better metrics as to what viewers are searching for AND what they are not finding. This is similar to Facebook’s recent patent of what makes an influencer tick.
Because without it the viewer may or may not search and may or may not act differently when on a fresh search versus a channel that is done right.
Let’s take whole foods. They pump out a ton of videos and if they had a “Topic Search” annotation on their videos , outro, etc. I bet the conversion rate would increase 40% at least. Why? because of the kind of content and how they have different dimensions to that content. People might see a squash video then search for squash recipes and bam they are on another video by wholefoods. If the content is right then the video will consider wholefoods as an authority not only for the type of produce they want but also a reinforcer of the lifestyle by being a source for great recipes. This is just one example.
Now lets talk about the metric of the 404 video or the video they searched for but no results found came up. This would be awesome for YouTube to send this to the channel owner so they could produce content that would meet the demand of the viewer AND reinforce the channel. The subscriber would do the search, not get what they want , channel would be notified, channel makes video and subscriber gets update days later and thinks its fate that the channel made it.
This also helps YouTube improve their formula because by allowing this it makes the channels smarter and more in tune to the channels viewers needs.
What do you think? Post your thoughts below