So a few nights ago, when I heard about the Jonathan Roy beating (see my previous blog), I got hold of a newscast of the incident and posted it on YouTube.
What did I expect? A few hundred hits, the standard stuff, perhaps a thousand at most by the time it’s run had ended. What happened? Over 48,000 hits and counting! Talk about a great marketing medium.
I had posted a link to this blog, as well as one to the home site PuckWise.com. So of 48,000 views, how many translated into site hits? Not as many as you think. Only about 250-350**, from what I can tell.
One site that tackles YouTube marketing very successfully is HockeyFights.com. David Singer has done a great job of posting hockey fight videos on YouTube very rapidly and regularly and has built a great hockey community. (In the interest of full disclosure, I exchanged a few emails with David recently in hopes of getting a link from his homepage to the site. This proved unsuccessful unfortunately, but he seems like a nice enough guy regardless!)
So what’s to be learned from all this:
1. Controversial hockey stories spread like wild fire on YouTube – people love brutality.
2. YouTube can be a successful marketing medium if done correctly and updated frequently.
3. If you’re Patrick Roy or related to him, hockey fights can get you charged criminally!
Well, onwards and upwards. There have not been any major changes done to the site lately. Unfortunately some of my other projects have taken a front seat. However, the next time someone stomps a leg, or beats someone mercilessly, you’ll be sure you can find me on YouTube!
** Most sites feel that disclosing traffic numbers is a big no-no. I think that’s silly personally! I have nothing to hide when it comes to traffic and I think it’s in the best interest of the development community to share numbers and help web communities grow, especially when it pertains to hockey online.
