As you know social media is about sharing. Marketers are dying to figure out ways to match the ability to share with honest feedback. I think we figured this out in this video. Watch carefully how the first person, despite their inital reaction to the product encourages the next person to try it. I personally took on this project to see if Listerine would appeal to kids. These are first and second graders who just so happen to be getting ready for their first day of school. In the spirit of giving, I trust it gives you a smile.

The hollering in the background is mom making pancakes. Happy Holidays from everyone at Provident Partners. Remember every comment on this blog results in Provident Partners giving a food item to a St. Paul, Minneosta food shelter.

An observation from the Society for New Communications Reserch conference in Boston, Dec. 5 and 6: Social media is like having babies.

Why? As a father of five, I speak from experience:

1) There never really is a good time. You can wait till you have enough money, till you think you are in the right job or house, but really, the right time never comes. So if you want ‘em, get busy.

2) The first child is always nerve-racking. From the first ultrasound to the child’s first steps, everything is a big deal, full of uncertainty and doubt.

3) As things progress, and if you are fortunate enough, you may have another. The entire process is a bit easier but still intimidating, which leads to a greater appreciation for parenting — and your children.

Segue to the Coca-Cola and Mentos videos that entertain millions on the Web. It’s a fascination with seeing common things behave uncommonly. It is the quirky progression that draws you into these video vignettes created by eepybird productions. These guys are actors, not marketers. Their approach to life is to engage people in what they are doing. Hmmm — that’s a good thing.

Big companies with iconic brands like Coke are extremely protective, and rightly so. After all, getting involved in any form of social media is not child’s play. It can seem more like playing in traffic, and every parent is nervous about their kids crossing the street.

Luckily, there are rules. Last night at the Society for New Communications Research dinner, I had a conversation with a senior executive from the Coca-Cola Company. I came to these conclusions about entering social media for corporate marketers:

1) Social media is a playground of ideas, with plenty of ways to stay safe.
2) Observe the way consumers interact with your brand. The more fun they have with it, the greater the reason you should be a conduit for them to share it with others.
3) Creativity is the art of discovering where the playground ends and the street begins.

Stay tuned to Coke. They will be coming out with another element of the social media in their virtual world playground real soon.

Time 12:56

The first stop for marketers who are attempting to determine how to approach social media is to listen to the conversations taking place on the web. Most executives are going to ask, what are people saying about our company or our industry? Who are they and does it matter to us?

While the numbers for social networking are mind boggling, an estimated 60 million users on Facebook alone, the perplexing issue for marketers that have must justify their spending is what is the impact to the company, will it grow sales, brand, influence? Or conversely, will not being there hurt us in some way?

In this podcast we highlight one company that can help answer those questions. Umbria, who can be found at www.umbrialistens.com. There tools search blogs, product review comments, and other social media sites looking for company mentions and more importantly context. For example, it is not good enough to learn that Starbucks was mentioned, but that a woman having a bad day found a moment of peace over an egg nog latte at Starbucks. Now that is listening. Umbria industry reports include healthcare, consumer electronics, and other industries

For those into the viral marketing concept, whether Umbria or a strategy that includes alerts and watches from Google, Technorati, Digg and others, the key is having a process that puts your ear to the ground – sorry had to use a cliché somewhere in this piece. Other tools include Sentiment Metrics and Cymfony, there are plenty of choices. Ths issue is with growing numbers of participants in social media, this tactic should be on your 2008 coporate marketing budget.

Do you have a strategy for listening to social media? What tactics do you find helpful?

Join the Conversation Giveaway

Joseph Jaffe’s book Join the Conversation is a good one. Well worth the read. We are giving away a copy with my comments included in the margins. It’s my way of joining the conversation - email me at marketingedge@providentpartners.net with Conversation in the subject line. We’ll have a drawing for the winner on December 19.

Giving Back

Every comment and email we get Provident Partners donates a food item to a St. Paul food shelter. Last month 24 items were donated. Thanks for sharing.

Ah! I really like Brightcove, but there model is changing which may cause users to look at other alternatives. Here’s the email they sent out this morning. Those using Brightcove need to review their videos and potentially move them before Dec 17.

Dear Brightcove.TV member,

Beginning December 18, 2007, we plan to end support of direct consumer uploads to Brightcove.TV. As a result, you will not be able to upload new videos to Brightcove.TV after December 17, 2007. But videos you have already uploaded to Brightcove.TV will remain available on the site and through your Brightcove.TV channel. Videos you have embedded in other sites and blogs will also continue to play.

If you have a Brightcove Platform or Network account, which means you use the Brightcove Console, then you will still have the option to promote videos on Brightcove.TV.

Brightcove.TV will continue to be a guide to great video from Brightcove media and business partners. The site will have new videos added to it daily from these partners and these videos can be saved as favorite videos in your channel.

If you work for a media company, marketer, non-profit, or business and are looking to purchase the Brightcove platform to publish and distribute video on your own site, please visit the Brightcove Products Overview section of our website.

We appreciate your interest in Brightcove and apologize for any disruption this change may cause you.

Sincerely,
The Brightcove Team

Added November 28, this is a great article by Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Brightcove about the current landscape for video players on the net and the 2008 for the category. http://www.brightcove.com/about_brightcove/perspectives.cfm

www.brightcove.com

Time 17:04

Many companies are trying to understand how forms of social media can be applied to achieve their business and branding objectives. This podcast features two examples of the successful use of social media and user generated videos.

On this episode of the Marketing Edge, we feature Vespa scooters’ Go Green Challenge and the UPS new product launch of Delivery Intercept. We also provide some of the elements of these very different campaigns that may help other companies determine whether they have the chance for a successful social campaign.

The technology platform used in these two cases is Vsocial www.vsocial.com . To me Vsocial is a video platform that is on the opposite end of the spectrum from YouTube. It is structured for businesses to host a video generated campaign as a complete web-based platform or with developer APIs so agencies can create the custom experience for those engaged in their campaign. Provident Partners has a vSocial site at http://www.vsocial.com/user/?d=144923

The agency work featured here is Matrixx Pictures for Vespa’s Go Green Challenge and Lbi Atlanta that created the UPS Delivery Intercept program. Side mention here, Archie Manning (old school) Peyton Manning’s dad, is the spokesperson for the Delivery Intercept program. Script and copy writers should listen to Archie’s segments, the writing is outstanding.

What Makes These Good Campaigns

Here is a general list of criteria for these two examples that I believe companies can use to evaluate their audiences as they consider similar types of campaigns. Let me underscore, these are general profiles of an audience. In some ways even trying to put people in categories goes against the grain of social media and 1-1 marketing, nonetheless, marketers like to have some semblance of structure as we describe the market we are seeking to attract. So here goes.

The Vespa campaign audience I categorize as Creative and Socially Conscience. This includes people who may be in areas including:

The creative type of audience is more likely to participate when the campaign involves producing something from scratch or interpreting a situation. Some may be in it for professional exposure so incorporating a set of judges known in that craft is also helpful. These types of campaigns involve lots of work and time on the part of those producing the content.

The UPS Delivery Intercept campaign is what I call Naturally Occurring

These are events that are part of everyday life and as such are likely to be recorded. This audience is participating for fun, hobby, 15 minutes of fame, and being part of a group.

In this category, there is less burden on the participant to be creative in building a storyline and requires less production skills. Their submission is a chronicle of an event that is potentially appealing to a similar audience. These are the characteristics of the Delivery Intercept program. In many cases, successful campaigns also have some recognition and reward, whether it is prize money for the winner or a charity of the winner’s choice.

Comments Bring Good Things

Remember any comments to this blog or emails to marketingedge@providentpartners.net will result in a food item contributed to a food shelf in St. Paul, MN. Also did you listen to the opening minutes of this podcast for the movie quote question? If you are the first two listeners to submit the correct answer you will win a $10 gift certificate to Subway, so quick hit the play button and send your email answer. What can I say, we like to see people satisfy their hunger.

Time 13:33

Viral Envy: Many marketing people and CEOs suffer from this, usually after seeing a viral video or site that is forwarded to them from a friend. “Yikes! Thousands of hits with no media buy! Little production cost! Praise Web 2.0!”

Yes, it’s an envy of mine as well. But no longer. Here’s an interview with Andrew DiFiore of answerYES Interactive on the essentials of creating a viral campaign. Before you listen, check out the Japanese Supermodel interactive on the answeryes.com Web site. This will give you a better perspective of what a cool interactive, “viral” campaign is like.

For me, eavesdropping on other people’s conversations at a social gathering is helpful. Oh, sure, I pick up on the latest gossip, but I’m listening for what people use to start a conversation. So the conversation starts with something like, “Did you see the…” What is that thing that they want to share? Funny stuff is the easy one — it’s the old ice breaker, “Did you hear the one about…?”

Today, it could be a video of a great sports play…

…or a physical accomplishment, something out of the ordinary performed by someone who looks ordinary, like Paul Potts…

Viral isn’t just about being entertained — it can also be about being informed. Whether it’s about phone rates, mortgage rates, college choices or dope, the question is, will the viral share something that is unique or not common knowledge? Take a tour of the brain on weed.

Thomas Beakdel does a wonderful job on this page with examples and rules of thumb.

Have a good example of a viral campaign? Link away in the comments below.

As usual, every comment we get to the blog will result in a food item being donated to a local charity.

Time 18:15

Audio and video content on the Web has raised the bar for search engines — consumers demand superior search capability that provides context as well as accuracy. While Google redefined search a few years ago, the next wave of search now includes video and audio, which brings into play technologies like EveryZing.

Today’s podcast features an interview with Tom Wilde, CEO of EveryZing.com. We highlight how translating formats into searchable text and providing context around those keywords will further advance the way marketers can package information.

This is about marketers having the full spectrum of media at their disposal to communicate and add to that the ability to search all of those formats. Give it a try: see the EveryZing search box to the left (if you’re reading this on providentpartners.net). Type in “viral video” — use the quotes — and make sure you choose to search the Provident Partners channel, then click “Zing It.” I bet you’ll get a results page that shows you the time code where I mention “viral video” in this podcast.

So how do you think multimedia search can be used? Use the comments box on this blog post and we’ll give a $25 Amazon e-certificate to the application we like best. Deadline for comments is August 31. The winner will be announced on Labor Day.

Also a big thank you to Mihai Banulescu, a wonderful instructor of dance that can be found at Beyond Blues. Mihai e-mailed us a question about whether Beyond Blues would be a good candidate for a vidcast or podcast.

Beyond Blues features the style of dance called Blues Dancing. It is a complex mixture of blues music with pair dancing. It’s a sophisticated, sultry combination that has some of the essential elements of a good vidcast or viral video. They are:

–an element of user generation; hell, the very nature of dance as a form of self-expression flows right into the concept of user-generated content
–beauty; you have to see some of these dancers to appreciate the grace that goes into this dance style
–folly; self-deprecating humor, after all, is what made America’s Funniest Home Videos so popular
–instruction; just like the popular vidcast Tiki Bar TV uses a mini-plot to carry the knowledge of making drinks, Beyond Blues has that same potential
–characters; video lets people make a connection with the audience, and to the extent that Mihai and his colleagues or students have an interesting story or look, that will make the vidcast more compelling and give it a loyal following.

Some examples of this include Amanda Congdon, formerly of Rocketboom, Dusty Wright of Culture Catch, and Shel and Neville from For Immediate Release. Their personalities have built a following along with the valuable content they provide.

There is also a foundation of socialness, of being together and learning. Mihai holds dance sessions around the country. Some examples can be found on his site, www.beyondblues.com.

Remember: for each comment or e-mail we get, will give a food item to people in need.