A Twitter case study
...in Twitter format:
We launch ZeeVee. John Dvorak tweets "What's this about?" 900 followers flood the website. The #3 traffic referrer that week.
Will expound more in followup post.
From slick to primitive: video transforms our world
Isn’t it fascinating how video production quality has changed so radically? Those of us who’ve been around the communications block awhile remember the days when corporate videos were works-of-art. They were thoughtfully (sometimes painfully) conceived and slickly executed. The more time and money invested, the more powerful the impact, the more positive the perception. That was the operating model for decades.
YouTube turned the world of video upside down.
At first, corporations stayed away. They viewed YouTube as primitive consumer entertainment with no application to their world. They couldn’t see a viable business benefit. Then the early adopters stuck their toes in the waters of social media, posting video content with a business connection.
Over time, YouTube – and other viral video social networks like Veoh, Viddler, Vimo – have become an efficient and highly cost effective way for businesses to create grassroots visibility, interaction and community. An increasing number of companies now understand the positive impact on their brand persona.
Now they’re starting to have fun, just like the kids. They understand how video presents one of the sweetest ways to create and maintain a corporate personality. Instead of going slick, they’re going rudimentary, unsophisticated, guerilla.
Who cares if that video taken on the floor of a trade show is low resolution and the camera is moving around? People have not only grown tolerant of low-end video production quality, they accept it, often like it, and watch it like crazy.
YouTube also did one more thing: it reversed the game of authenticity. Old school video used to be highly regarded; the slicker the more viable. But now the reverse is true. The more rudimentary (with a dose of reason of course), the more credibly it’s viewed. I’m not talking fake authenticity (like Lonelygirl), but true genuineness.
This is such an epic transformation. We’re just beginning to see its impact.
10 reasons blogs are the ticket
Blogs aren’t a fad and they aren’t going away. According to Technorati there are more than 15.5 million active blogs updated in the past 90 days. There are 184 million bloggers worldwide according to Universal McCann’s Wave 3 study. Traditional media is trying to morph like crazy; the New York Times, for example, now has 53 different blogs.The Editors Weblog, a publication of the World Editors Forum “gets it” and is advocating “new rules of media.” They say “traditional media must evolve or die” and the first place they should start is by changing their mindset.
Blogs are historic, transformational and yes, even revolutionary. Here’s why they matter:
- Before blogs, we experienced a one-way media model. The traditional media gathered viewpoints, synthesized findings, shaped opinions and published their collective wisdom view. Blogs are grassroots, two-way, organic, bottom-up. Blogs created a communications channel that never existed, changing the media game for the better.
- Traditional media was autocratic. Maybe the magazine, newspaper or TV news program would agree a product, topic, company or angle was newsworthy, maybe they wouldn’t. If they didn’t see it your way, your message died a quick death. But the rules have changed. Increasingly, information breaks first in blogs. Then the traditional media notices it. Blogs are a speedy form of communication and are real-time news generators.
- Blogs give us a voice; they are democracy personified. You don’t have to agree with the blog you read, but a blogger has a right to express what he or she is thinking. Blogs give ordinary people power.
- Information was often tightly controlled. Companies and governments told you what they wanted you to hear. Or didn’t tell you what you needed to hear. Now there’s a way to find out what’s happening. All the time. Blogs make selective and/or secret information available, breaking down control barriers.
- While a blog can be one person’s view, a team view or a collective view, there’s always a compounding network effect. Blogs are a way for people to share information and connect with each other. Blogs create linkage, increase a Web site’s Google rankings and drive traffic to your Web site.
- We’ve witnessed on many occasions how one blog can have tremendous clout. Check out www.consumerist.com if you want examples of how individuals can shake up a big company. Blogs help make companies accountable.
- Blogs create an entirely new, vibrant community for companies (and others) to engage with. Corporations can engage in conversations with potential buyers, customers and other stakeholders, and vice versa, without any filters. Blogs build relationships and deepen brand loyalty.
- This word-of-mouth online network isn’t filtered by anyone; it’s honest and personal. Blogs are a direct channel; they cut out the middle-man.
- Consumers/customers want to buy from companies they respect, admire and enjoy engaging with. Blogs give heretofore stilted, impersonal corporations a human voice and personality.
- Thought leadership is arguably one of the best ways to differentiate. Content is king online; the more quality content you publish, the more your message gets shared and understood. Blogs are a perfect medium for consistently expressing thought leadership.
‘Deltalina’ soars
Social media has redefined the notion of “15 minutes of fame,” whisking just plain folks more rapidly into a sometimes blinding limelight. The latest example is a veteran flight attendant, Deltalina, giving gobs of personality to her airline’s brand. Her appearance in Delta’s slightly edgy flight safety video has morphed into a ridiculously successful (and quite timely) campaign for the airline, as well as her springboard to the A-list. Even more remarkably, it’s got people actually caring about flight safety talks. All of this is propelled by mainstream media covering social media and social media doing its viral thing.How to get bloggers to write about you
Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow offers up 17 sage tips for getting bloggers to write about your site. Embarrassed to admit we're weak on some of his linkage recommendations. We'll need to fix that.
From this week's issue of Informationweek: 17 Tips for Getting Bloggers to Write About You
Still not sure Twitter chatter matters, but...
The microblogging platform, Twitter, remains my Godot. I'm still waiting for someone to show me how it can be a useful PR and marketing tool. To that end, Jeff Jarvis has done a better job than most in making the case in a recent post on his blog.
I'm still not buying it...yet. I'm still in the same camp as Getting To First Base authors, Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo: maybe I'll change my tune in 6 months, but right now Twitter is primarily an ego distillery.
Yet Jarvis' argument that Twitter's cut-to-chase format is ideal for things like real-time political reporting, as well as the interesting new apps being built with its open API, has tempered my skepticism.
Now if someone could only point me to a decent, measurable case study...
Can journalists and bloggers play nice in the same room?
In his recent blog entry , veteran CAD journalist Roopinder Tara addresses the “blogger vs. reporter” debate. This post is based on his first person experience of “co-mingling” with bloggers at an industry event. Roopinder intends to write a series of postings on this very issue. Many of us in the PR community are wrestling with the very same topic.
Traditional journalists have a code of ethics to abide by, while many bloggers post what they want when they want. Can the two happily co-exist? Will bloggers become more like journalists, and journalists become more like bloggers?
The answer lies somewhere in between, I’d guess. We’re already seeing crossover, as “traditional” reporters are turning into bloggers, including Om Malik and Paul Gillin. The blogging community has a voice, and that voice seems to be getting louder. PR practitioners would be foolish to ignore it.
CNN Diggs it
Mediaweek is reporting that CNN is jumping on the social news bandwagon with a new site called iReport.com in which any citizen journalists can publish content unvetted by CNN editors. It will function much like other popular community-governed news sites like Digg, Reddit and Mixx, though more YouTube-like video centric.
So is CNN finally crying uncle to the unfettered social news onslaught that has eroded its web readership? After all, it's been dabbling with user-generated content since 2006 through its iReport submission site, though with strict editorial oversight. According to the report:
CNN executives acknowledge that iReport.com’s openness is something of a departure for a news organization that prides itself on accuracy and editorial judgment. But iReports have become increasingly popular, and in many cases have even proved beneficial in the reporting of breaking news. Some of the most compelling footage from last April’s shootings on the Virginia Tech campus came from the 420 user-gen video clips CNN received, while last year’s California wildfires yielded more than 11,000 submissions.
Bond with your bloggers!
I was in San Diego last week, speaking at a client’s annual customer conference. More than 5,000 people attended this popular event.
One of the most noticeable transformations we witnessed this year was the rise of the blogger. Out of the 150+ journalists who attended from around the world, about 10% were bloggers. Despite being “non-traditional” journalists, our client had the wisdom and insight to embrace their bloggers and make them part of their community.
Sure, some bloggers are a bit funky; with a different demeanor, attitude and style compared with the typical Fourth Estate (if there is a “typical” Fourth Estate). But bloggers have become a fresh voice in communications flow because they have bottom-up (vs. traditional top-down) grassroots impact as “citizen journalists.”
Bloggers at the San Diego event weren’t ostracized or treated differently; they were mainstreamed with all the global press. They had the same access to senior-level execs and were invited to every press event.
I bring this to your attention because of today’s news about Target, the retail giant.
Today’s New York Times ran a story about Target’s reaction to ShapingYouth.org, a blog focused on how marketing impacts children.
The blog’s author called the company to complain about a new Target ad showing a woman with arms and legs spread out on a bull’s eye. “Targeting crotches with a bull’s eye is not the message we should be putting out there,” the blogger told the company.
I’m not here to pass judgment on the Target ad. A Target spokesperson told the NYT it appeared in a Times Square billboard and in sales circulars. But I would like to highlight Target’s corporate reaction to the blogger, delivered via e-mail.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets,” a public relations spokesperson wrote to ShapingYouth. “This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.”
A Target spokesperson told the NYT, “We do not work with bloggers currently, but we have made exceptions.” The spokesperson said the company is reviewing its blogger relations policy and “may adjust it.”
I believe such an adjustment would be in Target’s best interests. After all, it’s a grassroots world and consumers are empowered like never before. Anyone can become a blogger. The impact of an ardent voice on a company’s brand reputation can be instant, widespread and profound.
A music industry descending
Seth Godin posts one of the best analyses of the music industry's fading star -- and how to fix it -- I've read in a long time. Lots of good wisdom for those of us in communications who are not in the music business as well...
...particularly his long-tail insight about a musician's success not requiring billions of fans, and particularly the "Bob Dylan Rule":
Remember the Bob Dylan rule: it’s not just a record, it’s a movement.
Bob and his handlers have a long track record of finding movements. Anti-war movements, sure, but also rock movies, the Grateful Dead, SACDs, Christian rock and Apple fanboys. What Bob has done (and I think he’s done it sincerely, not as a calculated maneuver) is seeking out groups that want to be connected and he works to become the connection point.By being open to choices of format, to points of view, to moments in time, Bob Dylan never said, “I make vinyl records that cost money to listen to.” He understands at some level that music is often the soundtrack for something else.
I think the same thing can be true for chefs and churches and charities and politicians and makers of medical devices. People pay a premium for a story, every time.
