Pitch Us Your Ideas On ContinentalContact Tour and Sport Tires!

Discount Tire is our awesome client and they have asked us for some interesting ideas to promote their two exclusive tires through you, our network partners! Here are the Continental ControlContact Sport and ControlContact Tour YouTube videos. Check below for details on how to pitch us!

ControlContact Sport

ControlContact Tour

1. GTChannel is asking you to send us video ideas which you can produce on your own to promote the above two tires.  
2. Proposals will be accepted until 5PM EST May 27th, 2016. Send to info@gtchannel.com with the Subject Title: ControlContact Pitch. 
3. Include video description, length of video and cost. 
4. Video must be viewer friendly (PG) and have the ability to guide viewers to a designated link to purchase the tire. 

Thanks and we look forward to hearing from you guys!

GTChannel Crew

GTChannel and Network Partner SmurfinWRX Collaborate on Top 6 Drifting Videos

Recently we had an awesome opportunity to collaborate with one of our top creators in our network, SmurfinWRX. We asked Mike (SmurfinWRX) to host a Top 6 Drift Videos countdown show for our channel. His channel started blowing up mid 2015 and we thought it would be a great chance to collaborate and further promote his channel and also get a fresh face to host a show on our channel too.

Watch the video and leave your comments and let us know what you think.

We want to do more and more of these types of collaboration projects in the future with our network partners.  If you have a show idea you want to pitch, you can also reach out to us. You know how to get in touch with us!

Are You Using Facebook Videos To Grow Your Audience?

Facebook reported in their 2015 financial report that 100 million hours of video is being watched everyday. That is still very small compared to the 6 billion hours of video watched by YouTube everyday. But Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that "Video is an important part of the Facebook experience", and the company will continue to put resources into video. It's apparent that videos directly uploaded to Facebook have WAY better reach than YouTube links on your timeline. That's Facebook's unfair advantage it has as it can control what gets seen and what doesn't.

In October the social media team at GTChannel started to aggressively upload videos on to Facebook to increase our Page Likes and Reach.

We started at 240,000 likes in October and now we are at 314,00 and growing at an average rate of about 1,700-2,000/week.  This rate is also growing. Our goal is to reach 1M likes by the end of the year and we are trying new things everyday.

So here is what you should be doing now.

STEP 1 Create a Page.
If you don't have a Page yet, firstly you should create a Page on Facebook. Personal accounts have a limit of 5,000 friends and you also don't need to fill your personal timeline with car stuff all of the time. Pages have more features fit for what you are trying to do as a creator. You also don't want to annoy your aunts, uncles and friends who aren't into cars as much as you are. Your Page is your essentially your Facebook version of a YouTube Channel so include all of the vital information about your brand here. After you've created your page, you can go ahead and invite your friends who will appreciate your page.

STEP 2 Start Uploading Videos!
You will be really surprised with the difference videos do on Facebook compared to regular posts. But what kind of videos should I post?
Keep the long stuff for your YouTube Channel and put up shorter versions, outtakes and more viral moments on Facebook.  People's watching habits reflect which videos do well on Facebook.  Facebook videos do better on day one but YouTube videos do better in the long haul. Check out the GTChannel Facebook page as a reference and see what we are doing.  We're not just sharing our own stuff, we share everything we feel our audience will like. Even sharing Facebook videos have a greater reach than regular posts!

STEP 3 Use TEXT In Videos
Continuing on from people's watching habits...Facebook videos are all auto play but muted.  They start playing when you scroll down on your timeline.  But they are all muted so inserting large text in the first 10-15 seconds of your videos helps drastically to get people to click to listen or watch the entire video.  Once you got them hooked, you have a  better chance of them commenting, liking or even sharing that video.

STEP 4 Learn From Insights

Facebook Insights has gotten better and we can learn a lot about what is working and what is not. Don't just shoot blindly. Take a second to see the stats, learn from it and then repeat.

As a network of automotive creators, we feel it is important for our creators to get as much reach as possible. Facebook will soon roll out with a monetizing platform and we don't want to wait until then to start growing an audience. We all need to start uploading more videos to Facebook because more and more people are watching videos on Facebook.

-TK

Top 8 Car Commercials from Super Bowl 50

The Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event in America and always ranks top as the most watched TV events of the year. The commercials they air during the mega event has also become an event of itself and a way for brands to make a name for themselves.  Car companies have been on this bandwagon for years now and each year they try to "up" the competition. We've compiled our favorite 8 which were shown during the big game.

1. Honda Ridgeline: Freddy Mercury maybe rolling in his grave but there is something fascinating about sheep singing Somebody to Love.

2. Runnin' with the Devil - Acura NSX: What is this, like the third year in a row Acura has aired a commercial for a car that still isn't on the showroom floor? It's beyond belief that they've pulled it off once again. David Lee Roth can't sing worth crap. But when there is no music, there is nothing to be out of tune with! This acapella version of Van Halen's Runnin' with the Devil actually works.  

3. Audi R8 V10 "Commander": An old retired astronaut gets his mojo back by sitting in the cockpit of his son's new V10 Audi R8.  If this doesn't get you going, nothing will.  

4. Kia Optima "Walken Closet": We toast for most things with Christopher Walken in it. Well, maybe not when he played Captain Hook in Peter Pan... But Kia's "Walken Closet" is worth a toast. 

5. JEEP: As a former CJ7 Jeep Scrambler owner, I had to sneak this one in.  Jeeps are not cars, they are 4x4s that happen to be allowed to drive the same roads as cars.  But Jeeps are made not only for the road but to be out in the wild and this commercial exemplifies that lifestyle.  

6. MINI #defylabels: The BMW brand bought on some celebrity power for this year's Super Bowl ad with Serena Williams, Ryan Renolds, Harvey Kytel, T-Pain, Tony Hawk, Abby Wambach etc to convey the #defylabels message. 

7. Toyota Prius "The Longest Chase": Bank robbers take the all new 2016 Toyota Prius as a getaway car. Initially the authorities scoffs at the idea of chasing, the s-l-o-w reputation, Prius but the new hybrid somehow manages to get away. Ok we get it, but just because you see it on TV, don't take the Prius to rob a bank. 

8. Hyundai Genesis "First Date": Funny Man Kevin Hart plays psycho dad and uses the Hyundai Blue Link Car Finder feature to stalk his daughter on her first date. Which agency came up with this original idea? Hart is so on fire now that he can make any lame commercial concept work. Background music "Another One Bites the Dust" by again Queen.  

YouTube Partner Program for MCN-affiliated channels

There was a message sent out by YouTube to channels that belong in MCN(multi-channel networks) this morning.

You can go ahead and click through and agree.

In a nutshell...

• This is a re-agreement to the partner program you are already apart of.  
• The verbiage in the old agreement when partners signed years ago was dated. It is updated now to take into account all the new revenue models and features YouTube offers now.  Things like Fan Funding etc.  
• There is no difference in the way you work with YouTube and GTChannel. 
• GTChannel and YouTube worked together to make this possible. You will benefit by gaining access to new features such as revenue sharing on eligible third party content in your video. (e.g.cover songs or videos that use music)

False Copyright Claim by GTChannel?!

Recently we have been receiving claims by YouTuber users outside of our network regarding false copyright claims by GTChannel.

This is unfortunate because some partners in our network are clicking on the "Enable Content ID matches" during the uploading process.

Just to clarify, you should only click on "Enable Content ID matches" if you own the copyright to the video you are uploading.  

DO NOT enable Content ID if you are uploading any of the following. 

• GAME PLAY footage. Whether or not this is footage of you playing, your friend playing or something you found on the internet, game play footage copyright is owned by the game company.  Not the player.  
• Music videos and live music performances. 
• MOVIES and TV shows. Do we really even need to get into this? Don't click it!

Check out this video that explains what Content ID is. It is there to protect the rights of the copyright holders.

When our partners click on Content ID on game play footage they do not own, the user is hit with a claim from GTChannel. Not only does this make us look like complete a__holes, it is illegal to claim content we don't own. We do not condone this action but can't stop it unless our partners learn that Content ID should only be enabled if the video was shot and produced by the partner themselves.  

If you are a YouTube user who has been hit by a false claim by GTChannel, we apologize and urge you to "dispute" the claim. That way we can see it and release the false claim. 

Here is a link on How To Dispute a Content ID Claim. 

Digital Video Ecosystem Map

Here is an interesting look at the current digital video ecosystem by Mode Media. It's grouped different platforms together into continents and spread them across a map like infographic. 

There is nothing we don't already know in here but it's a great way to sort different platforms and services and how they can be categorized in a visual way. 

Original article on Techcrunch.