Leen2112 Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 The story is... [color=#222222]After making our first band video we set out to promote it best we could. We sent links everywhere and posted most other places, It was great when we found It was on places we hadn't put it on ourselves, we even found It on a Japanese site. The view count was going up fairly quickly and we had around 3000 views in a short time.[/color] [color=#222222]Great until our singer mailed to say 'hey look at our views now' It was at 16,000!! [/color] [color=#222222]What he had done Is use a company called Viewbullet, you pay per 1000 of views/likes etc. Now before folk shout 'cheat' I say again, our youthful singer took it upon himself to do this. His view being similar to Lance Armstrong In the way that he felt that Other bands MUST be doing the similar as how come every other crap band has thousands of likes etc[/color] [color=#222222]Viewbullet say It is completely above board and It’s all part of some big marketing thing blah blah but that didn’t stop youtube emailing us shortly after to say we had breached terms&conditions and the video had been pulled down! They continued to say that we were allowed to re-post it.[/color] [color=#222222]It is annoying how they don’t seem to care about videos that contain bullying/racist content but That’s a whole other thread![/color] [color=#222222]We have now re-posted It and It starts from 0! No comments either and our own views all gone. Then we realise that everywhere we posted it now Is just a screen saying 'this video is not available'[/color] [color=#222222]Gutted! [/color] [color=#222222]We did actually get a refund from the company, but by then It was too late. You live and learn, but as I've been doing this stuff for 25yrs I thought I'd seen most scams.[/color] [color=#222222]Today I got an email from the company saying they had a sale on and did we want to..............![/color] [color=#222222]Thanks for listening.[/color] [color=#222222]Leen. [/color] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lettsguitars Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 (edited) Oh well. He tried at least He is right though in thinking that a lot of these things are happening. The most virulent scam of all is the facebook thing where people share like, say, a picture of a cancerous baby with a like button saying 'like this if you dont like cancer' Every idiot in the world wants their friends to know that they dont like cancer so they like it. The likes are then actually linked to a company that suddenly appears to be very very popular. It is big business and people will always fall for the scams. I see it like this, if you are not getting enough views fairly then that is a clear reflection of your product. The best way to achieve viral status is purely sending links to friends. If they like it they will share it. If they dont they will simply say 'that's awesome mate' and then swiftly move on to liking a picture of some chickens with chinese fish flu. Edited January 28, 2013 by lettsguitars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xilddx Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 I've heard about similar companies, some are fairly legit but many are not. Ouch mate, that's crap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lettsguitars Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 I think the fact you got your money back says it all. The company are honest scammers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wateroftyne Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 We live in a world where the amount of views, likes or friends you have is hugely overrated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyfisher Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 I may be missing something here, but what's the point in artificially bumping up the view count on YouTube if nobody has actually viewed it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howdenspur Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 Thanks for this alert - we've been doing a spot of promoting and who knows where my enthusiastic band mates might be posting... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjones Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 It's like buying 10,000 copies of your own single to get to No1. By the way Leen......... [b]DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT![/b] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leen2112 Posted January 28, 2013 Author Share Posted January 28, 2013 [quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1359410429' post='1954470'] I may be missing something here, but what's the point in artificially bumping up the view count on YouTube if nobody has actually viewed it? [/quote] In our case we had a lot of views. Some say that you look more pro or you get taken more seriously if you have loads of views or likes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skol303 Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 There are companies that offer the same thing for SoundCloud plays and Facebook/Twitter followers. I don't think it's ever legit - I'm fairly sure the terms and conditions of these sites prohibit it. Most of them have smartened up and are now wise to it (Twitter had a big purge of fake followers last year), but it still happens. I entered a remix competition last year that was decided on SoundCloud plays... I was chuffed to get something like 500 plays. The winner had 14000! :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leen2112 Posted January 28, 2013 Author Share Posted January 28, 2013 [quote name='gjones' timestamp='1359410608' post='1954481'] It's like buying 10,000 copies of your own single to get to No1. By the way Leen......... [b]DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT![/b] [/quote] We paid to get 250 copies of our EP......Is that the same? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Musky Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 I was reading a post on music think tank about a similar service just the other day. The stats made interesting reading, in as far as it proved a pretty pointless exercise and actually buried any useful data and potential fans amongst the fake hits. http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/youtubes-dirty-little-secret.html Sadly I think that appearing 'pro' or more credible isn't something that can be acquired as easily as fake views on a youtube page. Going back a few years I think it was expected that bands went out of their way to collect Myspace fans, without anyone seriously thinking the band had a fraction of that number of real world fans - if any at all. The only benefit was to show promoters that a band they had never heard of had in fact put in some effort and might actually do the same for a gig. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
molan Posted January 28, 2013 Share Posted January 28, 2013 As someone who's worked in online marketing pretty much since it existed I can safely say that these ways of artificially paying for views, downloads, site visits, likes, app installs, search clicks, links etc etc have been around from day 1. As others have said, some are legit but, unfortunately, many are not. In fact quite a few of them can seriously damage your web credibility and reputation. I'd steer well clear unless you're certain you're getting something that's actually worth having. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjones Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 [quote name='Leen2112' timestamp='1359416292' post='1954589'] We paid to get 250 copies of our EP......Is that the same? [/quote] No you'd have to buy them or download them on amazon or something for them to register (because there's no record shops left to buy over the counter anymore). I hope I'm not putting ideas in your head? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHUFC BASS Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Let the music speak for itself. If you feel the need to get a bazillion views on your vid then maybe you're missing the whole point of playing music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fumps Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Aww mate thats a pain ! gutted for you guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leen2112 Posted January 29, 2013 Author Share Posted January 29, 2013 [quote name='WHUFC BASS' timestamp='1359452587' post='1954827'] Let the music speak for itself. If you feel the need to get a bazillion views on your vid then maybe you're missing the whole point of playing music. [/quote] Again can I say we were doing fine until our singer all by his ownsome did this. This thread really is to highlight the potential pitfalls. Also being In a tech metal band means we're all about the music anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 The artificial "popularity boosters" never work. Anyone who is using "Likes" and YouTube views to gauge the popularity of a band will be tracking how those increase over several weeks compared with what they were at the first time they viewed the relevant sites. Sudden spikes in popularity or a large number of likes/views followed by disproportionally small increases will automatically raises suspicions of artificial manipulation. If a band/video/song really does go viral, then it will show up across all social media and break out onto other websites. That can easily be checked. In using these services you're fooling no-one but yourselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fumps Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 It is gutting when things like this happen. It's a shame the singer went this direction but some bands would probably fall down this trap which is a shame really. I'm sure you guys will suitably Chinese burn him for this mistake lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger2611 Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 [color=#A9A9A9]Let the music speak for itself. If you feel the need to get a bazillion views on your vid then maybe you're missing the whole point of playing music.[/color] I genuinely thought you had put "if you need to get a brazillian" and thought yeah that oughta get you a few more views! Sorry must pay more attention when reading Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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