Usually Product Manager Jon Henshaw is the first to announce Raven’s new features on our blog. But because he was preoccupied with an Open Letter to Raven Customers, and the office coffee machine is broken, requiring multiple trips to Starbucks, I offered to do the job.

Which means you get news, education and entertainment in the same post.

Raven launches YouTube Monitor

First: the news.

A YouTube Monitor has joined Raven’s suite of social media monitoring tools. With the YouTube Monitor, you can track video views, channel views and channel subscribers with a line chart over time. A list below displays the video’s title, description, duration and date uploaded, as well as its number of comments and favorites.

For each YouTube account you add, you can select up to 10 videos for advanced monitoring of unique views, comments and favorites. And as with all Raven tools, you can quickly create a professional, branded PDF report with data from the YouTube Monitor.

How to set up the YouTube Monitor

Next: the education.

To set up your YouTube account in Raven, make sure you’re working with the correct Profile and Website for this YouTube account. Then go to Social > YouTube. Click on “Add YouTube account” link. Raven will redirect you to the YouTube log in page; log in to YouTube and click on the “Allow access” button. YouTube will send you back to Raven Tools.

Then, unfortunately, you’ll have to wait. Data will be available from YouTube approximately three days after you add an account to Raven Tools.

Once the data is available, you’ll see a line chart featuring upload views and channel views, along with a list of all videos associated with that YouTube account. If you have added Google Analytics information to the Website you’re managing with Raven Tools, that information will show up on the line chart. Events that you have added to the Raven Tools Event Manager also will show up on the chart.

For advanced monitoring of up to 10 videos per YouTube account, click on the “Start” link in the far right column of a video row.

Once you have started advanced monitoring for a video, click on the “View” link in the far right column of a video row for more detailed line chart of unique views and activity (comments and favorites).

You can report from the original YouTube Monitor view, from the advanced monitoring view and from the Report Wizard.

Stuff on YouTube

Finally: the entertainment.

My email to the office read something like this: “Quick, everyone please send me a link of your favorite YouTube video of all time. Needs to be SFW. And not SFOW (Safe For Our Work), but SFAW (Safe for Anyone’s Work). Thanks, Arienne.”

Here’s our staff-favorite SFAW YouTube videos, in order of email response time to me:

1. Numa Numa
2. kittens inspired by kittens OR! Sasquatch music festival 2009 – Guy starts dance party
3. Orthogonal
4. slap chop auto tune remix
5. Cat Hiccups and Farts at the Same Time
6. Accigone
7. The best and most ridiculous fight ever filmed.
8. Don Hertzfeldt’s REJECTED (HD)
9. MONKEY VS. ROBOT!!
10. Weird mating calls of the leopard slug – Life in the Undergrowth – BBC Attenborough
11. Old Gregg
12. “Bach ‘n’ Roll” by The Dueling Fiddlers

I considered including the identities of the Raven staffers with their video preferences, but found their picks psychologically revealing. Plus, wouldn’t it be more fun for everyone if you had to guess? Match the video with the employee in the comment section, and find out if you’re right!

If you happen to be the first person to comment with all videos links matched correctly to all staffers, I’ll send you a set of Raven pint glasses wrapped in a Raven T-shirt.

Note: Irene Phelps did not participate, a testament to how much more time she spends working than watching YouTube at work. Also, she wasn’t in the office when I sent my plea.