Reel SEO is a terrific website that offers all kinds of valuable insights about online video and search engine optimization strategies. This morning, I received their email newsletter and I was surprised to see an article written by Jeremy Scott that is picking on the State of Massachusetts for a recent video marketing campaign. State Of Massachusetts Launches Ill-Conceived Tourism Campaign On YouTube
It turns out, the State of Massachusetts has a campaign that is trying to keep students educated in Massachusetts from leaving and settling down elsewhere. A website set up for the campaign, features videos from various Boston celebrities including Ray Allen, Kevin Faulk and Todd English. Each of the local personalities, talk about their positive experiences and suggest that Massachusetts is a good place to stay. According to an article on Boston.com, the budget for the marketing campaign is less than $75,000.
The Reel SEO article does acknowledge that the videos are well produced and that it is good that the State of Massachusetts is at least trying their hand at social media and online video. However, they go on to make fun of the lack of views on YouTube. They also suggest the videos do not seem to have purpose and they are not interesting or fun enough to go viral.
YouTube views can be a misleading indicator of failure. Reel SEO should know better. Although a video only has a few video views on YouTube a viewer never knows if maybe the same exact video appears somewhere else with 100,000 views. Also, the site and YouTube channel are sure to get more views as more content is added in the coming months and years. I’m sure Reel SEO did not have an instant audience on day 1 but instead grew their audience over years.
I’m guessing the ultimate goal of the website and the videos is to simply start a conversation about students taking their education and leaving Massachusetts. I’m sure the creators are also happy to see traffic for the primary site Massachusetts It’s All Here coming from the videos.
As the videos get found more, I’m sure they will wind up on more blogs and embedded more on Facebook and throughout social media. And with more exposure, I’m sure the views will increase exponentially. The relatively small $75,000 investment should have long lasting effects.
We don’t know which Massachusetts video production company produced the videos. If your company would like to take credit for the videos please comment below.
Rewatchable is a corporate video production company based north of Boston, MA