When it comes to video, no brand seems more dom­i­nant than Buz­zFeed at the moment. Buz­zFeed Tasty is the most-watched over­all cre­ator in the Tubu­lar Labs rank­ings, with 1.9 bil­lion views in Feb­ru­ary 2016. Buz­zFeed Food ranked fourth with 823 mil­lion views that month and Buz­zFeed Video, which ranked #12 with 621 mil­lion views that month. What insights can video mar­keters gain from Buz­zFeed?

With a lit­tle help from my friends and col­leagues at ReelSEO as well as the “cool nerds” at Tubu­lar Labs, here are 29 strate­gic insights video mar­keters can bor­row from Buz­zFeed.

1. Develop A Cross-Platform Distribution/Promotional Strategy

Things have changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the Buz­zFeed Video chan­nel was launched in August 2011. Today, peo­ple watch Buz­zFeed videos on Face­book, YouTube, Vine, Insta­gram, Snapchat Dis­cov­er, and oth­er video plat­forms. In oth­er words, video mar­keters can learn from Buz­zFeed what build­ing a cross-plat­form video strat­e­gy real­ly means.

2. Create A Content Plan That Meets Your Brand’s Goals & Engages Your Audience

BuzzFeed’s CEO, Jon­ah Peretti, start­ed talk­ing about the brand’s dis­trib­uted strat­e­gy to inter­nal teams in Jan­u­ary 2015. Instead of focus­ing pri­mar­i­ly on BuzzFeed’s web­site and apps, and using social net­works as a way to send traf­fic to them, the brand was going to aggres­sive­ly pub­lish its con­tent direct­ly to plat­forms like YouTube, Face­book, and Snapchat. So, the lat­est results are the prod­uct of a con­tent plan that was unveiled inter­nal­ly more than a year ago.

3. Create Great Content

A suc­cess­ful cre­ative con­cept can have an enor­mous impact on a chan­nel. Com­pelling videos can bring in new view­ers, intro­duce them to the rest of your con­tent, and build a loy­al fan base. For exam­ple, both BuzzFeed’s Tasty Page on Face­book and Tasty chan­nel on YouTube descrip­tions say they are about “Food that’ll make you close your eyes, lean back, and whis­per ‘yessss.’ Snack-sized videos and recipes you’ll want to try.”

4. Employ A Help, Hub & Hero Strategy

The YouTube Cre­ator Play­book for Brands rec­om­mends employ­ing a pro­gram­ming strat­e­gy that includes help, hub, and hero con­tent.

• “Help con­tent” includes tuto­ri­als that answer the most pop­u­lar search queries in your con­tent area.
• “Hub con­tent” is reg­u­lar, sched­uled con­tent that pro­vides a rea­son to sub­scribe to a chan­nel and return on a reg­u­lar basis.
• “Hero con­tent” refers to the big, tent-pole events that are designed to pro­vide a mas­sive step-change to your audi­ence growth.

BuzzFeed’s var­i­ous chan­nels use a mix of all of these con­tent strate­gies.

5. Develop Show Formats That Are Highly Shareable

With the rise of social media plat­forms, shar­ing has become one of the most impor­tant ways to find and devel­op an audi­ence. While you can’t guar­an­tee any video will go viral, you can make it more share­able by using some proven tac­tics. For exam­ple, view­ers are more like­ly to share a video that elic­its a strong emo­tion­al response. Check out “Moz­zarel­la-Stuffed Slow Cook­er Meat­balls” by Tasty. Accord­ing to Tubu­lar Labs, it has 153 mil­lion views and 3.9 mil­lion shares on Face­book.

6. Consider Video Length Because It Matters!

My friends and col­leagues at ReelSEO took a deep dive into over 24,000 videos with more than 10,000 engage­ments to find out what video lengths work best on each plat­form. YouTube videos aver­aged near­ly 15 min­utes in length while Face­book videos were just shy of a minute and a half. In oth­er words, the most engag­ing videos on YouTube are near­ly 10x longer than the most engag­ing Face­book videos.

7. Optimize Video Content For Mobile Devices

Face­book had 1.44 bil­lion mobile month­ly active users as of Decem­ber 31, 2015. And it’s worth not­ing that 94 per­cent of Tasty’s 1.9 bil­lion views in Feb­ru­ary, 100 per­cent of Buz­zFeed Food’s 822 mil­lion views that month, and 54 per­cent of Buz­zFeed Video’s views that month came from Face­book.

8. Upload Natively To Facebook

Any­body who is cur­rent­ly involved in the online video space in any capac­i­ty should be aware that upload­ing native videos to Face­book is reap­ing incred­i­ble ben­e­fits for a num­ber of brands and cre­ators. If you want to rack up Face­book video views, then make sure you upload the video direct­ly to Face­book, and also take advan­tage of the “Fea­tured Video” and Playlists fea­tures.

9. Use Facebook’s Call To Action Feature

Did you know that brands with a Face­book Busi­ness page can use a Call-to-Action fea­ture to dri­ve users to watch a show­case video – whether that’s a native Face­book video, a link to a YouTube or Vimeo clip, or a video host­ed on anoth­er plat­form? You can guide view­ers towards an explain­er video, a cam­paign video, or videos about any spe­cial offers you are cur­rent­ly pro­mot­ing.

10. Collaborate With Influencers

Brands need to reach out to cre­ators who are able to take on the brief and expand on it with their own per­sona and voice, in a way that their audi­ence will rec­og­nize and respect. Pet food brand Friskies famous­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed with Buz­zFeed on “Dear Kit­ten,” and gen­er­at­ed mil­lions more views across the web.

11. Stick To A Regular Programming Schedule

For your con­tent to per­form as well as it pos­si­bly can, devel­op­ing a con­sis­tent, pre­dictable pro­gram­ming sched­ule encour­ages view­ers to return to your YouTube chan­nel or Face­book video account and see what’s new. It’s also help­ful because plan­ning out each video ensures that each works togeth­er and fits into the larg­er vision for your video mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. For exam­ple, 57 videos have been uploaded to BuzzFeed’s Tasty chan­nel on YouTube in the last 30 days and 102 videos have been uploaded to Buz­zFeed Video’s chan­nel on YouTube over the same peri­od, accord­ing to Tubu­lar Labs.

12. Get Your Metadata (Titles, Tags & Video Descriptions) In Shape!

Opti­mized titles and descrip­tions, as well as the use of tags, help YouTube videos get found in search results. This includes YouTube search results as well as Google uni­ver­sal search results. YouTube is the sec­ond largest search engine. A study by Search­metrics last year found that videos appear in 55 per­cent of Google uni­ver­sal search results. For exam­ple, if you Google the phrase “bal­leri­nas learn how to twerk for the first time,” you will see a recent YouTube video from the Buz­zFeed Video chan­nel on YouTube ranked #1.

13. Optimize For Watch Time, YouTube’s #1 Ranking Factor

My friends and col­leagues at ReelSEO believe that the num­ber one rank­ing fac­tor for YouTube right now is “Watch Time.” Accord­ing to the YouTube Cre­ator Play­book for Brands, “Videos with low­er watch times appear low­er in search results.” Opti­miz­ing for Watch Time involves many fac­tors, not least of all is cre­at­ing con­tent that view­ers will watch. Read ReelSEO’s defin­i­tive guide to watch time for more details.

14. Chose A Compelling Video Thumbnail

For both YouTube and Face­book, thumb­nails are one of the most impor­tant fac­tors for peo­ple to decide if they are going to watch your video. It’s the visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what they could watch. It’s also no sur­prise that most YouTube chan­nels have the most organ­ic views from relat­ed videos. If your video thumb­nails are not amaz­ing, you will miss tons of views.

15. Use Playlists To Group Similar Videos On Your YouTube Channel

Playlists allow you to col­lect, orga­nize and pub­lish mul­ti­ple videos togeth­er. This increas­es watch time and cre­ates anoth­er asset that will appear in search results and in Sug­gest­ed Videos. You can cre­ate playlists using your own videos, oth­er videos, or a com­bi­na­tion of both. For exam­ple, BuzzFeed’s Tasty chan­nel on YouTube has 6 playlists, while the Buz­zFeed Video chan­nel on YouTube has 56 playlists.

16. Optimize Your YouTube Channel Description For Discoverability

The first few words of your chan­nel descrip­tion appear most fre­quent­ly across the site, so high­light your most impor­tant brand­ing upfront. Include your upload sched­ule, espe­cial­ly if you host mul­ti­ple con­tent types or series. For exam­ple, the Buz­zFeed Food chan­nel on YouTube says, “Check back every Tues­day, Thurs­day & Sun­day for Tasty Food videos!”

17. Consider Featuring Channels Your Brand Supports On Your YouTube Channel Page

Fea­tured Chan­nels are chan­nels you choose to pro­mote on your chan­nel page. For exam­ple, Tasty’s YouTube chan­nel fea­tures Buz­zFeed Food, Buz­zFeed Video, Buz­zFeed Blue, Buz­zFeed Yel­low, After Par­ty, and Buz­zFeed Vio­let. Relat­ed Chan­nels are pro­mot­ed chan­nels pop­u­lat­ed by YouTube that appear low­er down on Tasty’s chan­nel page. Rec­om­men­da­tions are based on chan­nels that are sim­i­lar to Tasty’s.

18. Create A Subscriber Trailer For YouTube

In 2013, YouTube launched a com­plete redesign for YouTube, and among the fea­tures intro­duced was the abil­i­ty to cre­ate a chan­nel trail­er for new view­ers. Your chan­nel trail­er is like a movie trail­er — use it as a way to offer a pre­view of your chan­nel’s offer­ings so view­ers will want to sub­scribe. For exam­ple, the trail­er on the Buz­zFeed Video chan­nel is enti­tled, “Peo­ple Try to Recre­ate Icon­ic Dis­ney Food Scenes.”

19. Take Advantage Of YouTube Interactivity

In March 2015, YouTube intro­duced “Inter­ac­tive Cards.” These Cards allow the cre­ator to add an extra lay­er of inter­ac­tiv­i­ty to their video con­tent, on a per video basis. Most impor­tant­ly, the new Cards dis­play on mobile, as well as desk­top, and include cus­tom images, titles and call-to-action text. For exam­ple, start watch­ing “Slow Cook­er Ribs” at the 30 sec­ond mark and you’ll see Cards appear on the right side of the video.

20. Converse With Your Audience!

Your fans want to feel as though they’re help­ing shape your brand. Give them that rare chance to con­nect with your brand by pro­vid­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for feed­back or, bet­ter yet, involve them in your con­tent. Among the best prac­tices for con­vers­ing with view­ers are:

1. Mak­ing an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion.
2. Always ask­ing for feed­back.
3. Let­ting view­ers know their com­ments mat­ter, and that you’re lis­ten­ing.

Remem­ber: your fans can also con­verse with oth­er fans in real time. For exam­ple, “Food­ies Kill Their Food for the First Time,” has 62,900 com­ments, mak­ing it the most com­ment­ed on video on the Buz­zFeed Video chan­nel.

21. Give Your Audience Unique Ways To Participate In The Content

While being con­ver­sa­tion­al with your view­ers can help build loy­al­ty, YouTube chan­nels can take engage­ment fur­ther. View­er involve­ment can vary. You can share view­er ques­tions and feed­back in your videos, or incor­po­rate their actu­al con­tent into your brand chan­nel. In some cas­es, you can let view­ers dic­tate the con­tent itself.

22. Promote Your Channel Across Your Videos & Encourage Viewers To Subscribe

When view­ers have found your help, hub or hero videos, what’s next? One of the best ways to turn one-time view­ers into a loy­al audi­ence is to invite them to like your Face­book page, sub­scribe to your YouTube chan­nel, or fol­low your Insta­gram account. For exam­ple, BuzzFeed’s Tasty has 50.8 mil­lion fol­low­ers, includ­ing 47.4 mil­lion on Face­book and 2.9 mil­lion on Insta­gram. Buz­zFeed Food has 21.2 mil­lion fol­low­ers, includ­ing 20.4 mil­lion on Face­book. And Buz­zFeed Video has 21 mil­lion fol­low­ers, includ­ing 9.7 mil­lion on Face­book, 9.3 mil­lion on YouTube, and 1.7 mil­lion on Insta­gram.

23. Define Your Community & Give Fans A Reason To Keep Coming Back For More Videos

Com­mu­ni­ties will hap­pen with or with­out you on YouTube. You want to make sure you’re the one lead­ing the dis­cus­sion in a fruit­ful direc­tion. For exam­ple, respond to com­ments in the first few hours after you pub­lish a video. These first com­menters are your loy­al com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers.

24. Shoot Your Video In Vertical

Shoot­ing video in ver­ti­cal is still a big no-no to many, but oth­ers are under­stand­ing that con­sumers view ver­ti­cal in a dif­fer­ent way these days. Face­book sug­gests that “When you shoot video, hold your phone hor­i­zon­tal­ly – this makes sure that your video takes up the entire screen when some­one watch­es it.”

25. The First Few Seconds Count

When your video plays in the Face­book News Feed, it will play silent­ly and auto­mat­i­cal­ly. This means you should try to grab view­er atten­tion with bold imagery or a great shot to entice them to turn on the sound and con­tin­ue watch­ing. For exam­ple, you could shoot a prod­uct at an incred­i­bly close point of view, then quick­ly zoom out to reveal what it is. You could also try a shot filmed in slow motion or at a high­er rate of speed.

26. Turn Your Video Into A Video Ad

Many brands use paid pro­mo­tion on Face­book to push their con­tent, espe­cial­ly in the days after they’ve uploaded it native­ly, when views may be dwin­dling. And many brands also lever­age paid video adver­tis­ing on YouTube to put their con­tent in front of the right audi­ence. For exam­ple, “Peo­ple Take the Milk Chal­lenge // Pre­sent­ed by Buz­zFeed and Got Milk?” ranked #7 in the Cana­di­an YouTube Ads Leader­board for Novem­ber 2015 and #10 on the leader­board for the Unit­ed States that month.

27. Confirm Your Best Performing Videos

Like the Top 10 con­tent report in YouTube Ana­lyt­ics, you can use Facebook’s “Top Videos” sec­tion to con­firm which of your view­ers are gen­er­at­ing the best per­for­mance for you. You can check across a spe­cif­ic date range, or across all videos all time. Click­ing through to a spe­cif­ic video will give you met­rics on engage­ment, reten­tion, and oth­ers. You can access “Top Videos” via the Videos tab in Page Insights.

28. Understand Audience Retention Metrics

Like the Audi­ence reten­tion report in YouTube Ana­lyt­ics, Facebook’s reten­tion curve will give you data and feed­back as to where in a video the major­i­ty of your audi­ence tends to stop watch­ing. There will some drop off at the begin­ning of a video as a user scrolls past it in their feed, but if you keep their atten­tion and they drop off lat­er in the video, you can use that feed­back to ascer­tain why.

29. Track Performance & Engagement Metrics

Like the Engage­ment reports in YouTube Ana­lyt­ics, Face­book will track any engage­ment your video attracts, such as likes, shares, and com­ments. These met­rics give you an enor­mous amount of data about how your con­tent is per­form­ing, and pro­vide valu­able insight into what you can be doing to improve them going for­ward.