Alas, no matter how many times you’ve learned how to buckle your seatbelt and return your seat back to its full upright position, you’re still obligated to re-learn every time you fly.

Luckily some clever aviation brands have taken it upon themselves to relieve their passengers of their woe by snazzing up their videos and unleashing them on the YouTube masses – and they’re really popular.

In the last three weeks alone four airline pre-screening videos accrued 4.7 million YouTube views – the most popular of which, a collaboration between Disney and KLM, nearly topped the vidIQ/Adweek Top 10 YouTube Brand Videos chart last week. These brands are leveraging collaborations and influencers in extraordinary ways in order to drive earned media and build brand equity – all things we’re very fond of here at vidIQ. Watch the videos below, check out their stats, and discover what they’re doing right or wrong.

Air New Zealand’s “Betty White — Safety Old School Style #airnzsafetyvideo”

Betty White’s collaboration with ANZ solidifies this air safety video as an instant classic.

Great number of shares on Facebook and Twitter. Well tagged! Solid, engaging description. Includes an end-card and annotations promoting other content. Cons:

End-card/annotations could be more engaging. No brand engagement with their commenters (proven to improve views by 4X). Could be promoting more links in description. KLM’s “Disney’s Planes: spectacular pre-screening on board of a KLM plane”

While it’s not a safety video per se, KLM’s pre-screening collaboration with Disney builds awareness for Pixar’s forthcoming “Planes.”

Above average Watch Time. Great number of shares on Facebook, Twitter. Well tagged! Good description length. Cons:

No end-card promoting other videos/a CTA! No links in description. No brand engagement with their commenters (proven to improve views by 4X). Virgin America’s “Safety Video #VXsafetydance”

Virgin proves everything is better with a robot-dance ensemble wearing flotation devices.

Great number of shares on Facebook, Twitter. Well tagged! Solid, engaging description. Cons:

No end-card promoting other videos/a CTA! No brand engagement with their commenters (proven to improve views by 4X). Could be promoting more links in description. Delta’s “Holiday In-Flight Safety Video”

Delta proves it’s never too early to start advertising Christmas with a creepy human-sized nutcracker.

No tags! Huge loss of organic traffic because of this. No description! How is your viewer supposed to know what action they should take next? No end-card promoting other videos/a CTA! No brand engagement with their commenters (proven to improve views by 4X). Could be promoting more links in description. Know any other great airline industry video examples? Let us know in the comments!

Bar chart showing social media engagement by airline on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube platforms

October has been a big month for a much-unloved fixture of air travel – the dreaded FAA mandated airline safety lesson that precedes every takeoff.

Airline Safety Videos Take Off On YouTube

"And just like that we’re back from SXSW 2013!

During SXSW 2013 interactive, geeks from all walks of geekdom (myself included) descended on Austin like wildebeests at a watering hole. From Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal’s humorous and inspiring keynote on performance anxiety, to a presentation I attended by Thomas Pickens on Developing Meds in Space to Save Lives on Earth, there was an impressive array of discussions on technology and science that spanned every topic imaginable. Trying to document all the sights and sounds of SXSW here would be a nearly impossible feat, so instead I’d like to concentrate on an overarching theme I noticed during my time in Austin; YouTube is the next big thing in social enterprise.

Out of all the panels I went to see, nowhere was this more apparent than at the B2B Social Marketing: Blazing New Trails panel I attended where the VPs and Directors of Social at Salesforce, Xerox, and Cisco spoke about their craft. Since their inception, Facebook and Twitter have dominated the social conversation, so it was interesting to see that a majority of the time spent on this panel (and elsewhere) was around YouTube strategy. At this juncture, it is clear that VPs of Social and CMOs have Facebook and Twitter figured out; social media management software and audience development tools for these platforms have existed for quite some time (I’m looking at you, Buddy Media / Wildfire Interactive!) and the best practices are well documented. However, YouTube is still very much the Wild West, and marketers are scrambling to understand this platform as brands rush to double down on original video content.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in YouTube search, which, if you’re Salesforce, dictates how 60% of your content is discovered, according to Jamie Grenney, VP of Social and Online Video. SEO hasn’t necessarily been a factor in traditional social media marketing, but it has emerged as The Great Differentiator between winners and losers on YouTube. Which is precisely why we are investing heavily in YouTube SEO.

We couldn’t be happier to be innovating in this space at such an exciting time; our tools and best practices act as a democratizing force that empower YouTube marketers and ensure they won’t miss out in the scramble for YouTube.

Panelists speaking at SXSW Interactive 2013 conference in Austin, Texas, featuring laptops.

For every similarity that exists between YouTube and Facebook / Twitter, there are drastic differences that present unique challenges.

Marketing

Airline Safety Videos Take Off On YouTube

SXSW 2013 Recap: YouTube’s Big in Social Enterprise