Marketing Tom - Digital Marketing

Prepare For A 'Seesmic' Change In The Way You Interact With Content

Most people are now pretty au fait with the idea of commenting on blogs, leaving feedback on sites like Amazon and eBay and even offering their thoughts (adding value) to community websites. We are getting much more comfortable with leaving our opinions on shopping sites and adding value to conversations that take place on blogs and similar media. Admittedly, the profile of those who write, read and comment on blogs and videos is very different across the globe. In Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's ground-breaking book on Social Technologies, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, they say that the percentages of people who read blogs in the USA, the UK and Japan is 25%, 10% and 52% respectively; those that comment on blogs are 14%, 4% and 20%. It would obviously appear that some countries are a little more reserved than others, though as a Brit I have seen that we are starting to cast aside our 'shyness' and be a little more vocal on community-related sites.

Well, just as we have gotten used to leaving text replies and feedback on sites, some organisations are also asking us to reveal a little more of ourselves and inviting us to leave video feedback on their sites. Mainstream media like the BBC and Washington Post and even conference organisers are creating platforms whereby viewers can leave video comments. If you watch news channels, like Sky News, you will also be very aware of the way that user content (in the form of video) is ending up on their sites.

A number of video upload sites are already starting to make their mark, many of them with the typical Web 2.0 trademark names: Phreadz, 12Seconds and Qik and logos! I am trying to get invites for Phreadz and 12seconds so can't comment on them; Qik on the other hand is open to anyone and is very interesting as it allows people to stream live video from their mobile (cell) phones. One of the clips I saw was from Laura Fitton, presentations consultant and speaker and Twitterholic, who has even started to stream the presentations she gives. Boy, where was this technology when I was at Uni!

One that has particularly caught my attention is Seesmic, a video micro blogging site, which was set up in October of last year by French entrepreneur Loic Le Meur. I first came across this application a few months' back and remember thinking that the possibilities for its use by businesses were endless. The idea behind it is quite simple: you post a video, probably from the webcam on/attached to your computer and invite people to post replies to it. You can already find the BBC on Seesmic, through their Have Your Say site, and on the Washington Post one of their journalists, Chris Cilliza, last month invited people to post video comments on an article he wrote about John McCain.

Without a doubt this form of feedback is starting to find its legs and is beginning to appear on people's radars and I think that 2009 will see a huge increase in the use of video feedback by all manner of organisations.

Permission Marketing and Strawberries

I spent this afternoon strawberry picking with my son, daughter, wife and a couple of good friends. It was nice to spend time with family and friends and take a break from the Internet and developing my business. The weather was glorious (you know it won't last in Wales) and we managed to pick a couple of kilos of strawberries at Hendrewennol in the Vale of Glamorgan. Needless to say, the kids (and adults) managed to eat a couple of kilos themselves whilst picking!

What was interesting was that on the way out the person on the cash desk invited us to write our personal details, including email address on a piece of paper. She told us that when the picking dates for different varieties of fruit were about to begin, they would email us notification. Brilliant! When I deliver the eMarketing Award course I always recommend to students that they look at offline techniques to try and build up their contact base. And this demonstrates that principal beautifully.

From a Web 2.0 perspective the possibilities for this business are endless:

What about blogging?
Uploading images of the crop and people picking them on to Flickr.
Using RSS to notify people of start dates for crops.
What about YouTube videos?
Have they considered Facebook and using Social Ads.

As you can see I took time off from the Internet but I didn't completely switch off from it!

The Queen Broadcasts on YouTube

If you wanted to know just how far social media has come over the past year, look no further than the Queen's Royal Channel on YouTube. This year Queen Elizabeth II will broadcast her 50th Queen's Message this year but the difference will be that people  will be able to view the broadcast on YouTube - probably a little after it is Broadcast Live on UK terrestrial TV. The Royal Channel itself went live at one minute past midnight last night and will, like all other YouTube videos be available for people to leave written and video comments. For those who are interested, there are broadcasts from 1957 and some rare footage rarely seen before on teh channel.

Google on Google Reader

Google have come up with a very simple, yet very effective, way of teaching people about the benefits of RSS - obviously with reference to Google Reader. It just goes to show that with some A4 printouts, a "flat" white board and a digital camera you can create great video.

The Rise and Rise of Citizen Marketers

The other day I was told about two very interesting videos on YouTube. One was from Sony Bravia and the other was a spoof follow-up video. The Sony Bravia video was created to highlight the vivid colours of its HD TV and was filmed in Glasgow last year. The video is superbly done and features hundreds of explosions of paint - it follows on from their 2005 Bouncy Balls commercial, which featured 250,000 balls bouncing down the streets of San Francisco.

The spoof video is a simple 1-minute clip which  'captures the aftermath' of the paint explosion in Glasgow. I just love the humour of it - there is something of The Office's Gareth (UK version) behind the character. I am not sure who was behind it (possibly some marketing firm) but it seems to capture the very essence of Web 2.0 - individuals seeing something in the media and reacting to. And why not? Today we have the tools - video, blogs and audio - to be able to react very quickly and effectively and get the message out to a huge audience. In this case I think the spoof complements the Sony ad - but I suppose that marketers should be aware that it can also go the other way.

Sony Bravia Advert

Spoof Advert

Video's Reach Extends

The other day I was adding some videos to my Amazon DVD Rental List when I came across a YouTube-style video player embedded on the page. The video was a trailer clip for the blockbuster film 300- Amazon was allowing you to pre-order the DVD already. I'm not sure how they have been doing this but it was the first time I had seen it on Amazon's own site.

It got me thinking that embedded video clips will become par for the course for a wide range of businesses in a short period of time. Got a new product launch - create a clip; a new book release - add the book signing clip; watched your team win football - watch the post-match interview; the list is endless. I can honestly see that videocasting will become mainstream within the next year and it will be done by companies from large multinationals down to small businesses operating in the sticks.

Even publishers, like the Wall Street Journal, are now making it easy for bloggers to add content from the newspaper to their blog - in this case you don't even have to log in directly to your blog to post. And companies like Brighcove are allowing you to create your own video channels, where you can embed video clips on your own site or use clips from third party suppliers. There certainly is a video revolution afoot!

State of the Internet: Mary Meeker

For the past couple of weeks I have been downloading Web 2.0 podcasts onto my iRiver MP3 player. Most of them came from the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, where there were some great 'conversations': Eric Schmidt (of Google), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Bob Parsons (GoDaddy), to name but a few but the podcast which I remember most is the Mary Meeker: State of the Internet, Part 3 one. The main reason is that she delivered 37 PowerPoint slides in around 10 minutes - I have used a number of them on the eMarketing courses that I deliver.

Here are the downloads:
PowerPoint Presentation Slides
Download Audio
Download Video

YouTube to Offer (Google) Ads

As many people have thought YouTube has given in to temptation and will soon be delivering Google Ads to a video near you. John Battelle seems to like the fact that one of the founders, Chad Hurley, describes it as sharing the ad revenue with the founders and not as delivering Google Ads. John Battelle had this to say about a recent conversation he had with Chad at Davos:

I spoke to Chad briefly at Davos, and I am certain he and the folks at Google are deeply studying the best models to roll out ads on the site. My guess is there will be any number of units available (one might be just three seconds long, he told the BBC), and when folks upload their videos, they'll be presented with a choice of the kind of ads they might want to roll into their video, and also, various placement options (ie, before, after, middle, above (?) etc). There will probably also be some kind of passive AdSense play a la Revvr.

YouTube Meets Lonelygirl15

We are certainly entering crazy times. A couple of weeks back I reported that Google's ad revenue will surpass that of UK commercial TV channel, Channel 4 (next year it will beat the biggest commercial channel in the UK, ITV1) and this week Wired magazine is talking about how Google plans to make a dent in the $67 billion that US advertisers spent on TV last year. As you may have guessed this will be made using their latest commercial vehicle, YouTube.

Other interesting articles that are featured in this edition include Lonelygirl15, a behind-the-scenes look at the people behind the most popular online video blog (ever!?).

Another article looks at how Chevrolet asked users to come up with their own video spots for its Tahoe SUV.

NBC Silences Dixie Chicks

Stowe Boyd comments on NBC's refusal to run an ad, which promotes the Dixie Chicks' documentary Shut Up and Sing, because it is "disparaging to President Bush". Well, I'm a liberal sort of guy who thinks that people should be able to judge for themselves, so here goes.

                 

The official Shut Up and Sing Trailer from The Weinstein Company.

This is what Harvey Weinstein, distributor of the movie, had to say:

It’s a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America. The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is profoundly un-American.

From my (British) perspective, I find it deeply disturbing that certain elements of American society should adopt the attitude that they do - burning Cd's? telling people to go France? and (and this really does beggar belief )the American Red Cross turning down a donation of a $1m? Let's not beat about the Bush here (no pun intended!) - the ONLY reason George Bush sent American troops to war was over oil!

Stowe first saw the ad on Technorati and mentions the fact that you can copy and paste the Javascript from the ad into your website, blog, etc in order for it to display there. Neat!