Marketer's Lab

Antisocial Media

I maintain a presence on a couple social networks, but I'm not on Facebook, I don't Twitter and I only post to my blog every couple days. (Pause while marketers reading this gasp and then transition to chuckles about what a Social Media loser I must be).  My Google reader,  until a recent "reader bankruptcy" where I nuked everything and started over, was a logjam of unread posts and other content.  With all the buzz about everything social, my inability/choice to limit my social stuff has me feeling a little antisocial.

Yes we're in the "age of conversation" and 'everyone is smarter than the few" and we all need to be transparent and collaborate while we watch the "world get smaller", but how much is too much?  I came across a piece by Phil Johnson over at AdAge who did a nice post on this very subject.  Phil also points to a more inflammatory post by Peter Madden who calls out "Facebook as a freak show", not surprisingly drawing the ire of many a Facebook fan. Interesting to read the comments on the freak show post, here's a couple excerpts: 

From the "You just don't get Social Media" camp:

"you seem to be echoing the standard sentiments of a neophyte user"

"Um, is this a post from about 3 years ago that's been accidentally re-published? I can't quite believe it would be current."

"Facebook is an early look at the future of digital advertising and social/consumer CRM."

"Facebook is to the future of advertising as Google was for search."

"If this article is satire, it's only mildly amusing."

"If the author is serious, then he's just one more dinosaur stuck in the tar pit that is traditional advertising."

From the "Skeptical of Social Media" camp:

"I'm tired of hearing about who posted what on your message board. Get back to work"

"Facebook, like any form or social discourse, faces the risk that the overall tone of the conversation is dominated by the lowest form of discourse." - Robert Heath

"I guess if your looking for depth in an online community stop playing in the shallow end of the social networking pool"

"a conversation consisting of "Peter is getting on a plane in Las Vegas... Brittany is having french toast for breakfast... Gary has the sniffles" is a bore in ANY medium."

Religion, politics and now apparently Social Media?  Why is this so hard?  My theory is that everyone is looking for the "right answer", when there isn't one.  Every audience is different, every product is unique and the marketing dynamics for every campaign vary.  To claim Social Media, however you define it, works or doesn't ignores all these unique characteristics. 

I am wildly passionate about the opportunities Social Media makes available, but also appropriately skeptical that it's a magical world where all your marketing dreams can come true.  If there's one thing Social Media has taught us is that there are few absolutes, probably not a bad thing to keep in mind as we evolve along together.

If A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words...

I have to admit I'm pretty enamored with web video right now.  Web video is benefiting/suffering from much of the same hype as social media/social media marketing/etc. There's a wealth of coverage about how web video works with/against TV, how publishers are monetizing it, how marketers are using it and how it fits into the overall marketing and cultural media landscape.  Riveting perspectives and ideas out there in all the aforementioned areas, but I worry with so much attention on these other areas, we might be losing sight of one of the biggest web video opportunities.  The opportunity to bring a story to life. 

I think this is what advertising icon Lee Clow had in mind when he recently said:

“The ability to use the internet in terms of great brand storytelling is still at its infancy,” he said. “The internet advertising media, cross my fingers and hope to God, with bandwidth and with some ability, is going to become more artful; it’s going to become more interesting. … But it’s going to take creative people to embrace the possibilities of what you can do on the internet in terms of advertising and storytelling and make it a little better and smarter”.

It's easy to get sucked into the gadgetry, there are a multitude of incredibly exciting tools and applications making web video more affordable and accessible.  The technologies are tactical, web video strategy should be more about stories.  Many marketers just don't use the "marketing muscles" that drive the process of creating communication strategies involving video.  Not to stereotype too much, but it seems the B2B space has the hardest time with this.  

What every marketer should be crazy excited about is the fact we now have a medium with the proven ability to communicate messages in extremely powerful ways, the tools for creating, delivering and monetizing this content are getting better everyday and consumers in every category are embracing quality web video content.  Web video is a medium for all marketers, large and small, B2B and B2C in every industry. I challenge you to think about how you and your organization are using web video, and if you're not, consider why.  You have a story to tell, think about how to bring it to life with video.

     

Google and SpotMixer Mix It Up

One of the biggest obstacles, amongst many, for marketers thinking about tapping into the benefits of web video is how to create decent video content.  The natural follow on challenge is what to do with the content once you have it.  SpotMixer and Google are working together to offer a solution that addresses these issues pretty effectively.

SpotMixer provides a decent set of templates and a wizard that allows you to very easily create a "spot".  SpotMixer customizes the wizard process and options based on the selections you make on the front end.  The screenshot below shows the options if offers.  

Once you've got your spot created, you then have a multitude of options for how you would like to distribute the content.  Distribution options include a network offering as well as CPM and CPC based options.  The screenshot below shows how you can easily select your options. 

Like any template based solution, there are tradeoffs in terms of the ability to do exactly what you want.  Most of the examples on the SpotMixer site could be considered more slideshows than video, although there are a couple that do use actual video footage.  Despite some of the limitations, the distribution options and integration with Google adwords combined with what seem to be extremely reasonable prices, make SpotMixer very interesting.

   

Do I Know You?

"Hi, remember me?  I'm your client, (or maybe a potential client).  Wanted to check in, seems like its been a long time since we really connected.  A while ago you seemed to hang on my every word, wanted to know what my interests were, what kinds of things I was into, where I hung out, where I got my information and how I was feeling about "us".  I've changed a lot and not sure you really know me anymore.  Are you really still interested in me?"

The above is not an excerpt from a bad TV script (although it certainly could be), but a little snippit to remind us we are in relationships with clients and prospects.  "Know your customer", it's one of those fundamental marketing concepts all marketers seem to universally understand and agree on.  Chances are good that with the current belt-tightening most marketers are enduring any budget you might have had lined up for research has been cut.  If not, congratulations, you work for an enlightened, and probably well-funded, organization.  If you're like most marketers you now have limited funds to learn more about your clients or prospects. 

Why is research so important?  When every dollar counts, knowing those dollars are spent well is critical.  A deeper understanding of your target provides insights that can sharpen your messaging, targeting and overall strategy.  Simply put, better, richer information helps you make more informed decisions.

The good news is there are some fantastic options for learning more about your market without breaking the bank.  In no particular order:

Online surveys - Online surveys are cheap, easy to use and with a well designed set of questions can provide some great insights.  There's no shortage of providers in this space, companies like Keysurvey, Zoomerang, Survey Monkey and Survey Gizmo all provide good services. 

Community - Whether you define community as topic-centric community sites or as the larger "community" that includes all Social Media, there is an enormous opportunity to simply listen to your target clients.  Take the time to listen to what's happening in these environments.  

Focus groups - I'm a fan of the low-key, informal focus group and less a fan of the one-way mirror/laboratory-style focus group.  Gathering together a couple handfuls of clients/prospects for lunch and a lightly moderated discussion can produce some very interesting insights.  For the cost of a few pizzas you can learn a lot. 

Smile and dial - Similar to the focus group idea, just pick up the phone and call a few target contacts, offer them a little something to spend a few minutes on the phone and away you go.  Surprisingly even without any incentive, many people are willing to spend a few minutes to share their thoughts.  I've done this many times and have been amazed how well it works.  Certainly not quantitative information, but helpful and informative every time.

Talk to your salespeople - Your sales team is taking your message to the streets each and every day.  They are on the receiving end of a mountain of raw, unvarnished and often very direct "feedback" from prospects.  In addition to building your relationship with the sales team, talking to your salespeople provides a perspective that's hard to get any other way.   

With a little effort its not terribly tough to deepen your knowledge of your target.  Like any relationship, you get out of it what you put into it. 

Vendor Speed Date - Brightcove

Chances are good if you aren't already using video on the web in some shape or form, you're probably at least thinking about it.  Web video has gone way beyond integrating a talking head of an executive or attempting to be the next big viral thing on YouTube.  I'll be doing a lot more over the next few months on web video so stay tuned, but for now wanted to do a quick "speed date" post on one of the major vendors in the space, Brightcove.  

Brightcove provides a web video platform that allows you to create video players, manage your video assets, distribute and incorporate advertising (if you desire).  Their flagship product is Brightcove 3, basically the 3.0 version of their platform.  I won't even begin to walk through all the features (there are plenty), but there are a couple elements I found especially interesting. 

Brightcove player - The Brightcove player is widely used for much of the video content out there so you've probably seen or used the player.  It's well designed, fast and provides a solid experience.  The out-of-the-box version of the player is great in my opinion, but they also offer a number of options for customizing the player if you have specific branding elements to integrate.

Playlist - They don't make a lot of noise about this on their website or in my limited interactions with Brightcove, but the playlist/matrix that can accompany their player is simple and slick.  A non-tabbed version can be seen at this Fuse.TV site.  They offer options for customization if you'd like something more advanced like National Geographic or Discovery Channel.  It's a nice way to feature your entire library of video in an easy to navigate structure.

Advertising options - The advertising element of Brightcove isn't for everyone, but if integrating advertising into your video program is important they have a number of useful features.  First, they allow simple integration of pre, mid and post-roll spots with just a couple clicks on the admin side.  There are a variety of other controls for each specific ad, most publishers would be pleased with the number of control options.  The other advertising feature I found pretty compelling was turnkey integration with Tremor Media for those taking the ad network route with their advertising. 

I mentioned a couple of Brightcove's name clients above, they also work with clients like HBO, MTV Networks and a variety of others referenced on thier clients page.  If you don't happen to be a mega-media outlet with a massive video inventory and a big budget, Brightcove still works well for small publishers.  Their basic service, which has most of the features you get with the more expensive services, starts at about $6,000 per year.  As you go up the product stack you get more options for customization, more bandwidth and a few other goodies. 

Brightcove is probably not a fit for you if you only have a small number of videos or you're just looking to add a couple small video segments to a website.  If you have, or are planning to do more than just a few token video pieces, Brightcove would likely serve you well managing and delivering your video.  If you're doing any advertising integration, Brightcove then becomes an even greater value. 

That's it for this vendor speed date, more to come on the wild west of web video...