• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, January 2, 2013

Lists are painful and bountiful at this time of the year. Occasionally they’re even useful. The Australia and San Francisco-based online media company Sitepoint.com gave Joshua Hardwick, co-founder of United Kingdom’s production company, Shorty Media,  an opportunity to list the 12 common online video mistakes marketers make.

It’s a pretty straightforward accounting of common goof-ups. Publishing it will not prevent the same mistakes from happening in 2013. We are flawed.  In fact, though Hardwick promises 12 common mistakes, he lists only 11. That is life.

Hardwick’s lament are online videos that are:

• Too promotional;
• Or not promotional enough;
• Too lengthy;
• Suffering from poor Website placement on your own site;
• Not aimed at a clear audience;
• Boring;
• Burdened by for an overload of information;
• Focusing too hard on trying to go viral;
• Only uploading to YouTube;
• Laboring with a confusing concept;
• Or generally, videos that are just done poorly.

 A few of these points are really right on the money, though I may have never thought of them quite so blankly as this list forces me to do.

 For example, as a consumer, it’s odd to actually complain that online marketing pitches seem to lack a very clear pitch. That’s not my problem. But being in the media biz, I’ve got to wonder if the marketer ever showed the bad video to anyone else except,  perhaps, a too-polite buddy or a dutiful spouse.   

The most painful “mistake” is trying too hard to go viral. Usually this involves a failed attempt to be funny, which ends up creating consumer disdain for the advertiser.

All LOL-ing is not equal. Sometimes people are laughing at you. That’s the kind of engagement you can do without.

Certainly, there is a 12^th (and maybe even 13^th ) common online video marketing mistake that hasn’t been covered here. Fire away! It’s our unconscious ability to recognize common mistakes that make truly successful online videos so uncommonly enjoyable to watch.  

pjbednarski@comcast.net