MediaJoltz

Last night I had the privilege of presenting to one of Paul Allen’s classes over at the Provo Labs Academy Building. Lee Gibbons of Podango was there as well, presenting on using audio (podcasting) in your marketing. I wanted to write up here the things that I taught so that you might be able to start thinking this weekend what you might be able to do to put “more motion in your marketing.”

The Online Publisher’s Association released survey results about Online Video Viewing. Here are some points that hit home for me:

-123 million Americans will view online video at least once a month in 2007

-66% of video viewers have watched online video adds

-44% of those have taken an action on what they had seen (ie sent the video to a friend, went to website, etc)

LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD

The internet has leveled the playing field for small businesses. You no longer need to worry about buying ad space or airtime to get your video out into the world to be seen. You now have the chance to upload the video to the internet for little or no cost. This also means that you don’t have to worry about paying for airtime in several geographical locations because the only limit you have with the internet is if your target audience doesn’t have it. InternetWorldStats.com now reports 1,173,109,925 people use the internet in the world today.

OPPORTUNITY

When you look at successes like the Diet Coke and Mentos guys, or the Doritos User Generated Contest winners, these ads didn’t originate from an ad agency where they were thought of in a creative brief. These came from regular people who had an idea, a camera and a computer-things that are all accessible to you.

EXAMPLES

Dove Evolution Video

Blendtec Video

You have Dove, a household name getting millions of views for this awesome video they did. They have a huge marketing budget and are having great success. Then you have a local Orem, Utah company who doesn’t have the big budget Dove has, but they are experiencing the same amount of brand recognition and success Dove is. You can check out my post where I interview George Wright, Marketing Director of Blendtec to find out why he decided to do the WillitBlend campaign and why they chose video on the internet.

LEGITIMATE SOURCE

Online video, viral or not, has been proven to be a legitimate source for branded information when it is done right. The pipes are getting fatter and video online is becoming crisper and clearer every year. I once had someone ask me “why should we worry about shooting video that looks great to begin with, when internet is just going to destroy it?” To them I say, because in a very short while you won’t have the internet to blame for the crappy image you uploaded and you’ll have to shoot it all over again. Care about what your video looks like today, and it will last a lot longer and go further for you than if you didn’t.

QUALITY

If you recall the Dove and Blendtec examples you will notice the difference in quality of the video itself. Dove’s video looks smoother, crisper and more professional than Blendtec’s. You DO NOT have to spend thousands of dollars to get your video shot. I know you’re jumping up and down right now, but let me pull you back in for a second. This doesn’t mean that Uncle Bob is the best one to shoot your video either. You have to take into account the look and feel of your company, and what you want your video to portray. A video of a blender slicing and dicing up any kind of object is okay to look raw. A raw looking video from a soap and skin care company might not be so good. (I’m in the process of putting together a service sheet for you to fill out on this website if you need some costly videowork done. Doesn’t mean you’ll get the multi-award winning Businessweek Top 25 Entrepreneur Director of Photography, but the video will get done and look decent at the end of the day.)

SEO and ANALYTICS

Why should you care that Google bought Youtube, well because of Google Universe. Straight from their own press release:

“Beginning today (may 2007) the company will incorporate information from a variety of previously separate sources-including videos, images, news, maps, books and websites-into a single set of results.”

Google buying Youtube has reinforced the idea that video is now more than just your funny clip, but that it is fast becoming a serious source. Now when you search on Google, they will incorporate videos along with other sources into that search. If you are in multiple sources, ie the news, any audio files, video, images, you will be more findable to the people looking for you.

There are also alliances being made between video sites and analytic companies that will enable you to know who is watching the video, how long the stayed to watch it and if they shared it anywhere (by email, to a blog, to Facebook, etc) so that you can measure more easily how your video is working for you, or if there is something that isn’t working too.

CREATING RELATIONSHIPS

This is my pet peeve. I think that if you are going to be successful in life you create loyal clients, not customers who are just another transaction. We are far beyond push and interruptive advertising. Marketing is more than just advertising campaigns, its about creating real relevant relationships with your audience. Use video to develop those relationships, to provide a rich, engaging informational experience that they will WANT to share with others. We have all heard about the Tivo and DVR, please don’t assume that people online are different, that they want to watch a 30 second commercial about your business, give them something more-they are asking for more.

Yes today is Pioneer Day in Utah, the celebration of the first Pioneers entering Utah in 1847. Reflecting on the trek cross country that I just took in two cars with my Treo by my side with email and text and the luxury of stopping at gas stations.

And wow how the world has changed. Who would have thought we would have video on our cell phone or watching television from our computers. Who would have thought that I would have some best friends in Boston or UK and have never met them before?

I think of the pioneers and their handcarts and often wonder what life would be like, heck I wonder what my life would be like without a cell phone! Seriously though, we’ve got tons of technology in general with refrigerators, radios, microwaves and air conditioning, cars and planes. Now in terms of media we have vhs to dvd and now hd dvd’s and streaming video. We’ve gone from radio stations to podcasting, from letters to social networks.

My questions to you are, how has technology helped/hindered your day to day activities? Would the pioneers see us today as lazy or innovative? Do you see yourself as lazy or innovative

Well I’m back from a long trip home to PA and I was reminded over and over how machines fail. Mechanical problems with the planes flying in, problems with the moving truck breaking down and then on the drive back out to Utah car air conditioning going on the fritz.

I brought this back home and applied it to the problems I have been having with my Garage Band software on my computer. I have two podcasts that I was suppose to post while I was away but because of editing problems I wasn’t able to edit them. I was also suppose to be posting blogs but for some reason my software for my Treo wasn’t working to blog while I was away either.

I was very frustrated with this and thought it would be a good post for when I got back. Sometimes things don’t work. While I want technology to work every time, we just aren’t in an advanced world where machines aren’t going to break down every now and again.

What technology has done though, is allow us to be able to reach out to a broad community and find out if others have had the same problems and what they did to resolve it. We now have many avenues, online forums, social networking sites where we can go and ask the world wide community. So branch out and talk to others around you.

 Mediajoltz 05 Podcast [6:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

First I want to apologize for my lack of posting. I am in the middle of moving my mother from Pennsylvania to Utah. And then this past week I got hit with the flu, not fun at all.

Today though, I want to discuss a topic that has been showing up like on Chris Brogan’s blog post: Why join another social network?

With all the places you can go and join, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Myspace, Linkedin, and then all the blogs and podcasts you can listen to, it is very easy to become overwhelmed with trying to keep up with it all. I agree with Chris when he says you don’t need to try and be in it all. The point where your balance in life as well as your work starts to suffer, is when you need to cut back.

Today I cleared out 20 blogs from my aggregator- it was at a point where I had not been able to read all the posts and started to feel overwhelmed. I kept trying to get up earlier and earlier in order to have time to read them all-but it still wasn’t working. I found myself deleting a lot of unread posts thinking “I’ll go back to the site later.” When I realized that I wasn’t, it was time to ditch.

So here is how involved I am in social networking and what I use each application for:

Myspace: I have a page, but that’s all, I created one and left it. I check it once a month to see if there are any messages.

Twitter: I am on every day. This is where I keep in touch with friends and get up-to-date information on what is going on. While there are a ton of prominent people in a new media work sense I try and keep in touch with through Twitter, it still has more of a social community atmosphere rather than a doing business making money right now feel.

Linkedin: I get on every day. I spend about an hour answering the messages in my inbox and searching through the Q/A part of Linkedin. I use Linkedin for business connections as well as getting sound advice from peers. I once asked a question and one hour later, I had 30 different people send me their answer. How cool is that?

Jaiku: I am on Jaiku and check it once in a while, but don’t use it like Twitter-more people are on twitter.

Pownce: You need an invitation to be on Pownce and I would love one-hint hint…so I can check it out and find out how much I am going to integrate it into my everyday activities.

Facebook: this is a mixture of business and family. I have a lot of friends and family on facebook and keep in touch with them with pictures, video and the like through this application. I also have some associates I keep in touch with through facebook too.

I do listen to various podcasts and read blogs and I’ll leave the blogroll call for another post.

Don’t get so involved that you lose site of the vision of social media. It isn’t a race to see who can have the most Twitter friends, or ask the most questions on Linkedin. It isn’t about being the most popular either.

I use these tools to associate myself with those I see as strategic partners and friends in life. An example of that is I wanted to meet and become friends with some people here in Utah and was never able to get a hold of any of them through email or cell phone, so I went where they were-on Twitter, and have now found some great friendships with them-you know who you are and I want to say you guys rock!

To sum it up here is a question a friend posted on Linkedin:

From my answer you can tell that I am very passionate about this and hope that you will be too!

“I like the social networking sites because I am able to:

A. keep up with friends and family not close. I can’t be on the phone talking to them all, all the time, but through things like facebook and twitter I can get up to the minute information on the people I care a lot about. I like Youtube because it provides an easy way for my mother who lives across the other side of the nation to see what is going on in our lives, when we open her christmas gifts, paint the house or even just visit fun places.
B. I have a chance to meet and make friends with people I otherwise wouldn’t be able to. I have tons of friends I hang out with, I also have people I consider friends whom I’ve never met-and never would considering they are in other parts of the world.
It is definitely still a balancing act between the online world and the real world. Some people take either one way too far, either they hide away in their houses, or are repulsed and never meet cool people online…You also have to be careful of social burnout and not doing too much and becoming overwhelmed.
Social networking and new media as a whole allows us to meet people and join conversations you never would have been able too before.”

This episode goes over an idea about how to cut your costs when looking at a media project…

And thanks to the Podsafe Music Network a place where artists can upload their music for podcasters to use.  A big shout out to Alamantra the band from Alabama who provided Surf Babe-the music I am trying out for my podcast now!

 Mediajoltz 04 Podcast [6:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download