How Beet.TV found success using video interviews as 'primary news-making process'

Six years ago Beet.TV - an online video outlet which reports on the online video industry - was launched by former CBS producer Andy Plesser. The site has remained dedicated to the production of short, to-the-point, video interviews with key industry figures on topical issues.

Two years ago Journalism.co.uk caught up with Plesser to find out about the success the site had seen so far. This week Beet.TV confirmed a new publishing arrangement with Mashable, which will see Plesser's video content carried within Mashable's own player, as of yesterday.

So we took this opportunity to check back in Plesser and find out why his approach has proved so popular.

In the last six years the site, which now employs two additional members of staff and three part-time contributors, has fulfilled a number of roles. Plesser says it's acted as "a process of learning and discovery about the business of digital video, video journalism and related topics", which the site aims to share with its audience through its interview videos.

It has also been a news source on the online journalism industry, with a focus on video, as well as a "briefing book" for those who come to the site via searches on related companies or people.

But key to its success is the securing of interviews with key industry figures who feed the curiosity of the audience.

"I think people are generally curious about influential people, their peers or people who are important in the business, people who are making news, and people who have interesting things to say," Plesser told Journalism.co.uk.

"What I've tried to do is to use our efforts in booking interviews and getting access to important people, and getting them to say stuff that is compelling.

"To go into the interview with the idea that it's not just 'well this is Joe, and Joe's an interesting guy and this is what his company is'. The interviews are not always news-making, but I believe in using video interviews as a primary news-making process. So in that sense creating a virtual conference."

The site records around 200,000 views a month via its primary player, and is also published by the Huffington Post, TechCrunch, YouTube, iTunes and syndication via AOL, via its embeddable player.

Interestingly its biggest single source of traffic is from CrunchBase, a technology company database run by TechCrunch.

"We're authorised to upload our videos to the pages of the companies that we cover," Plesser said. "That's become the single biggest source of traffic for us because people who are looking to companies to do deals with, invest, learn about, very often go to CrunchBase.

"It's very highly search optimised, so we get a lot of views there".

Plesser also runs "very exclusive conferences that are very high level", from which Beet.TV produces video excerpts of around three to four minutes "on a compelling segment and contextualise that video with the proper headline and proper text".

As for making the business profitable, he said the site has been able to create "a very valuable audience of digital executives who are important decision makers", and therefore appeal to the site's B2B advertisers.

"So basically we've established a very powerful audience and also a powerful network. People want to be associated with our content and fortunately there's a fair amount of marketing spend with these sort of B2B companies, the video services companies, and the video advertising services."

Plesser says Beet.TV also gets a share of advertising revenue via arrangements such as that with Mashable. And the future for this business model looks bright, he added.

"There's a great deal of technology and money entering this field and we're in a good place to offer commercial opportunities to these B2B sponsors and help them meet their audience both through visibility on the site and through our exclusive conference offerings."

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