YouTube added to the internet’s usual end-of-year celebrations by releasing it’s now annual video retrospective. YouTube #Rewind2013 is an epic collaboration between some 50 or so top YouTube personalities, who re-enacted the most popular videos of the calendar year. But the beautifully shot music video with a beat masterfully mixed by DJ Earworm wasn’t the only stunt the world’s largest video sharing site executed to celebrate its most viewed uploads of 2013.
The marketing team at YouTube took a page from LinkedIn’s playbook and emailed the online video trendspotters among us (who opted in for occasional emails from YouTube) something to brag about. The first 1% to 5% of viewers who watched select videos from this year’s Top 10 trending list were sent congratulatory messages.
Here’s an example (straight from the inbox of current Homebrew partner and ex-YouTuber, Googler, Second Lifer, and early Ylvis fan, Hunter Walk):
It’s not exactly like turning YouTube into a game of Missile Command, but it’s still a fun way to promote the site. And it’s sure to make anyone smile who discovers he or she was the first to see a pop culture phenomenon or piece of well-known online video ephemera.
Photo of a cat watching a cat on YouTube by McBeth.
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