One video ad can be re purposed on many different websites

I spent a greater portion of my business career in the photography industry. In my letters and marketing materials I repeated the time worn phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Now that we are living in a video world, the common person has nearly as many ways to capture the moments of their lives as Jim Carrey’s Truman Bank character in The Truman Show. Today, a video is worth 10,000 words.

Online video advertising is giving marketers another opportunity to reach targeted audiences with their messages. According to Borrell Associates, streaming audio and video ads now account for 19 percent of local online revenue and will rise to 59% by 2013.

Most marketers are having hard time thinking about adding video to their marketing tool chest for one reason: because in their mind, it’s still a very expensive and time-consuming marketing tool. They also have little to no experience with it, so they avoid it.

Video Advertising is as easy as 1,2,3

However, the Internet is changing all of that. Not only can anyone with a webcam, video cell phone, or simple video camera create a video and upload it to a Web site, it can be done within a matter of an hour without a budget! Sure, you can spend a great deal more time and energy at it, but I’m trying to break down some walls here and get you thinking about keeping it simple stupid! (…More…)

Life before MySpace, Facebook, YouTube

I was reading a report produced by the Pew Internet and American Life Project called, “A Portrait of Early Internet Adopters. Why People First Went Online and Whey they Stayed”.  The report by Amy Tracy Wells is  a quick read and a fun reminder of where online social networking got started.

Surveys conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project since 2000 have shown that the majority of people went online for personal reasons (50%), followed by work (31%) and school (19%).

Amy reminds us that the early roots of social networking started in BBSs (electronic bulletin board systems) and Usenet, chat rooms and threaded discussion software.  To access these systems one had to fire up a modem and wait!  A really fast modem in those days crawled.  When I lived in Telluride, Colorado in 1995, I remember waiting about 8 hours to download a new version of AOL’s software! (…More…)

Do your visitors leave your website talking?

Jimmy Hendrix emblazoned in the minds of nearly every Boomer who listened to FM radio in the late sixties the phrase,  “Are You Experienced”.   A generation of youth wandered the country trying to figure out what experience Jimmy, the new king of Rock and Roll was talking about.  Was he talking about drugs, love or dropping out!

Later, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore put a new definition to experience in their book,  “The Experience Economy”.  This is one of my favorite books, a must read for ANY business professional.  In their book, Joseph and James remind businesses that consumers are willing to pay MORE for an experience. They point out examples of businesses that are in commodity markets who charge a premium price simply by adding a unique “experience”.  The lessons learned from this book could position you ahead of your competitors and ahead in your bank account too!

Stay with me, I’m going to give you an experience that will make you RICH! (…More…)

6 ways your city is missing the boat by not adopting comprehensive Internet strategies

Tip O’Neill has been quoted as saying “All politics is local.”  He said that to remind politicians to pay attention to what is happening in their back yard if they want to stay in office.  Today government leaders are starting to pay attention to how they can use the Internet to improve services and better serve citizens.

Like most institutions their focus right now is how to use the Internet to give citizens access to information they normally have to stop in offices to get. Online registrations for dog tags, to accessing information about property is becoming the norm for many communities and counties.

But what about using social media and online community tools?

Government 2.0 recently published an article that looked at how local cities are using online community and social media to communicate and engage.  A variety of ideas are being explored by city government leaders but few are taking a comprehensive look at how they could use the Internet to increase:

• Transparency
• Communication
• Services

And reduce costs!

But let’s take a look at the early pioneers and what they are doing to put their toe in the water!   Denver’s CIO, Molly Rauzi created a YouTube channel and uploaded various commercials, public service announcements and other videos. (…More…)

Stock brokers, real estate agents, sales people, physicians, service and retail industries can use twitter to reach and engage customers!

Many consultants, authors and individuals are using Twitter as a personal branding tool.   By following others and commenting on what is happening in their lives they hope to build their own following  hoping it will increase their social media stature and brand.

So how are businesses like yours using it?

I was developing a marketing strategy recently and ran across the website namethis.com It’s a tool that includes online community and social networking tools to access the wisdom of the crowds to help you name products and services.  Their motto is quite simple, “three world-validated names for your thingamajib in 48 hours.

When someone like you or I need help in naming a product, we simply pay 99 bucks and wait 48 for the top three names as determined by the participants in the online community. The creative community sits back and waits for you or someone else to throw out a naming opportunity.   It’s really an amazing process to watch as people from all over the world come forward to give you their input and suggestions.   (…More…)

The Internet is changing everything!

Businesses are having to learn on the fly how to play and do business in a world where the behavior of consumers are changing literally overnight. While many organizations saw the changes coming, most are still unaware that the Internet will fundamentally change the way they do business.

The statistics are easy to find everywhere. In just 4 years, social networking sites have exploded. Sites like YouTube grew to over 100 million users, MySpace to 180 million users, Facebook to 90 million users and even Linkedin (a business networking site) is growing by 1 million users a month!

When you compare that to the fact that the New York Times which was founded in 1851 has only 1,000,000 subscribers you begin to realize that there has been a fundamental shift in consumers behaviors.

What we are suggesting is that social networking, Web 2.0 and online community tools, techniques and strategies are introducing new ways for businesses to acquire, retain and engage their customers. The only problem is, few businesses know how to effectively use them. Worse companies don’t have the right staff to efficiently move their companies into these new areas. (…More…)