Top 10 Web Content Urban Legends, by Ricky Van Veen from CollegeHumor

The following is a rough note-taking session at the Mashable Media Summit, at Internet Week 2010. Enjoy! People will want to watch your branded content. The first thing you have to ask yourself is, "why would someone want to watch this?" If you can't answer that question, don't make any content. Is your content different enough? Brands need to flexible; the more layers of bureaucracy, the more sterile your content will be. People will be patient with your content. 35% of your audience is gone after the first 30 seconds. Take down barriers for accessing your content. People will find your content. Companies get "viral video fever". It's basically faith-based marketing. 95% of your views are gonna come from YouTube anyway, so just upload it there. The Internet isn't like TV, where you can buy infomercials and hope people see them when flipping the channels. Team up with established brands to gain credibility. The internet is a level playing field. A link on Drudge Report is gonna send more traffic than a kid's blog. But social media levels the playing field. Realize that there are power users; take advantage of them. We have no idea why things go viral. There are no rules for making a viral video. A viral video does have one characteristic though: the user has a reason to pass it along. Focus on the person watching the video, not the video. CollegeHumor has a good strategy: 2-3 minutes max, the hook in the first 20 seconds, clear title, and topical sweet spots. Font Conference is a great example of this. Experience leads documentation. There is a new generation that puts documentation above experience. Document now, experience later. No one is looking at the president and his wife... they are all looking at their cameras or phones. If you are a marketer, create experiences that show how cool your users are. You should build your own community and tools. Other people are building awesome stuff too. If you can use it, you should. Let's keep things professional. When companies produce content, they don't usually want to show the people behind the scenes. Personality will drive your brand. Show the creation process. Traditional media is irrelevant to the web. Not true. TV still matters, and everyone has them. The average America watches 151 hours of TV a month. Apply traditional media to new media and watch the world change. People will create good content for you. Getting people to create to content is hard. Getting them to create good content is even harder.