Choosing Between Viral and Managed Syndication

Brightcove believes that publishers deserve to choose how they manage their media businesses. To meet the needs of our publisher's requests, we have provided publishers with the ability to choose between Viral and Managed syndication. This primer will explain the difference between these strategies, help you understand the issues, and accelerate your decision making regarding your approach to Brightcove syndication.

What is Viral Syndication?

Viral syndication, sometimes described as "frictionless", or "open" syndication is characterized by the free flow of your content across the web. It works by providing affiliates with embedded html code that they can place anywhere on the internet. Viral syndication makes it easy for anyone to become an affiliate, gain access to your html publishing code, and to re-distribute your content to their friends, their friend's friends, and so on. Viral syndication is very powerful and the benefits are many. They include:

Viral syndication does not require registration by affiliates. Anyone can become a distribution partner for you. Someone interested in distributing your content faces no immediate distraction caused by affiliate applications, reviews or approvals. An interested party can take action immediately to re-distribute your content minutes after discovery.
Swift impact due to explosive growth in views and affiliate distribution partners
Deep community reach and impact - viral distribution is frequently passed from friend to friend. People are more likely to watch a video sent to them from a trusted friend.
Contextual placement of your content in the environment of its fans
The ability to increase exposure on community sites and personal pages on social networks such as MySpace

Viral syndication is a popular strategy. However, it is important to understand the draw-backs to this approach before you jump in head first:

Embedded html code limits reporting. There is currently limited reporting on viral syndication and no reporting on a per affiliate basis. This hampers your ability to optimize and manage your affiliates.
You cannot review and screen affiliates for approval prior to providing them with your content. Anyone can distribute your content - which unfortunately includes some potentially unsavory characters
Referring URL information is incomplete. As a result, you will not be able to discover where your affiliate views originate.
Since HTML code is static, you cannot single out one "viral" affiliate for termination from your program. If for some reason you want to disable a viral affiliate, you will need to disable the player that they are using. Disabling a player will disable the player for all affiliates.
See the Syndication FAQ for further information about the embedded html code.

Which Strategy is Right for Me?

If you are looking to grow your affiliate program quickly and believe that your content is appealing to heavy users of social networks, then viral syndication may be a good fit for you. If you are not concerned with where your content may appear on the web, viral syndication can be a fantastic way to accelerate the distribution and reach of your content. However, if you are concerned about how your brand might be perceived in unknown territory, if you want to actively manage and communicate to your affiliates, or if you require reporting, economics or contact information, then Managed Syndication is probably a better bet for you.

What is Managed Syndication?

Managed Syndication is characterized by a controlled approach to a publisher's syndication activities. In general, publishers who elect Managed Syndication do not make players available via the embedded HTML code setting. By limiting the player code options to Javascript or Actionscript, publishers can enjoy a higher level of control over their affiliate program. For example:

Publishers can control who joins their program and who gains access to their player codes.
Publishers can restrict the domains that their players are able to play on. This gives publishers the ability to disable a single non-compliant affiliate if warranted.
All managed affiliates must register. As a result, publishers may choose whether they want to automatically approve their affiliates or whether they want to manually review, screen, and approve them.
Publishers will have the ability to communicate to their affiliates. As a result, publishers can manage and optimize their affiliate channel. This is especially useful as a publisher's program matures and they are looking to grow the program.
Publishers can choose to make their players private. This is useful if a publisher wants to restrict a player to a select group of affiliates.

Managed Syndication gives publishers a wide range of choice and control over their syndication approach. But that choice comes with some potential challenges. Consider:

Affiliate recruitment will likely be slower when affiliates are required to cycle through a registration process
Publishers will not have the ability to make their player code available directly from their syndicated players.
Affiliate management is not automatic. Publishers need to think about how they will apply resources toward managing their program.

Can I Participate in Both Approaches?

It is possible to participate simultaneously in both closed and viral syndication. Any player that a publisher makes available with HTML code will contribute to the "viral" portion of their program. Affiliates who are solely interested in a publisher's viral players will not be required to register to get access to the player code. All other players will require affiliate registration.

Reporting for the viral part of your program will be aggregated and limited, while the managed portion of your program will be richer and available on a by affiliate basis. If at any time a publisher decides to pull in the reigns of the viral portion of their program, they will only need to disable their HTML syndicated players.

To get additional information or guidance for your syndication strategy, please email the Brightcove Affiliate Team at affiliates@brightcove.com. We're growing rapidly so please forgive our response time!