I had my most successful video ever, if you judge success by virality, last week.
I published a video about Simeon Burke being convicted in the District Court of a public order offence.
Four days later, it has been viewed 68,562 times, has generated 103 comments and 377 likes.
This video, even after only 4 days, has outperformed, by the metrics above, all other videos I have published on my YouTube channel over a period of 10 or 11 years.
But it is not a video like this that makes my YouTube channel a success.
The success of my YouTube channel lies in the other 663 videos I have published to date. These videos get much small viewing numbers, and much less engagement and comments.
But it is those videos living out on the long tail that generate clients and income for my office.
I have discovered recently, without quite being conscious of it to date, that these videos living out on the long tail that generate real returns.
Not vanity metrics in an area of law that I do not even practice.
Still, it’s nice once in a while to have my brand built by a one off, unrepeatable, ‘hit’.
P.S. The guy who coined the phrase, “the long tail”, is Chris Anderson and his book is The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More.