I woke up this morning… and, like most mornings, checked Facebook. It’s a habit that I wish I didn’t have, but it’s so universal that I don’t waste much time feeling bad about it.
Then I saw this, above my beloved Open Flights box (which I’ve used to track my own flights and allow people to know where I was if I was traveling):
Hmm, that’s interesting. I wondered why Facebook would stop its applications boxes from showing up… Then I looked a bit deeper…
(Click Box to Enlarge)
Ah, so that’s it. Facebook is continuing down a path of controlling user experience. That was well and good 5 years ago, and is all well and good when you make beautiful hardware like Apple. However, for a website that offers an easily duplicatable service to a remarkably fickle audience, it’s playing with fire.
One of the hallmarks of digital communication these days is the ability for people to control and customize their own user experience. To choose their own path. If Facebook continues to ignore this in favor of control and “consistency”, they will eventually set down the straw to break the camel’s back.
The 55 year old purchasing manager doesn’t watch videos on YouTube. The business owner in Pakistan is not online. It is mostly the younger male business people who watch internet video. Right?
Not true! Here is the data from the last two weeks on SCORE Chicago Video, which provides help for small business. This data summarizes around 2000 views.
Age Range (Male, Female):
Think about what the customer acquisition process is for your business. Who in that business is in charge of looking for a new supplier? What tools will that person use to sell your company to the decision maker? How can your company showcase your expertise and build trust?
Marketing to young people has become a hot topic lately, driven by the evolution of the internet into a more pervasive medium of communication, which many think offers a direct pipeline to young audiences.
If only it were that simple. The youth crowd is notoriously difficult to reach, and has been for some time. There are entire firms built around the elusive task of marketing to young people, so it’s no surprise that most companies that market internally find capturing the youth market one of the biggest challenges of their entire marketing programme.
In some ways, however, it is indeed that simple. The plain fact is that young people have been quick to adopt the internet, and digital media as a whole. There is little need for statistics to bear this out, but if you are in need of convincing, consider that a staggering 99 per cent of people between 18 and 24 years old in the United States are on digital media.
The first thing that companies need to remember is that young people don’t want to be sold. A July study from Tamar indicates that only four per cent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 give credence to paid search results when looking for information online. However, this is nothing new. In fact, a major premise of youth marketing has been basic psychology.
Being young is a struggle to craft ones’ own identity, and to differentiate ones’ own identity from that of your parents. As such, the best practices of youth marketing have long included defining products as an alternative to the stuffy old products that older people use. Youth-marketed products are positioned as fresh and fun alternatives, and, ultimately, as products that will aid young people in their search for finding identity.
In this commercial, Ford positions their new Sync technology as “the future” and the spot features hip young people, a direct counterpoint to their image as a boring old American carmaker.
However, the problem that is emerging is that companies are getting lazy on these practices, and simply recycling their old campaigns. As with many other social or digital media campaigns, firms have developed an irrational exuberance for the tools. Rather than focus on integrating best practices of youth marketing with the tools of digital media, it is easy for marketers to simply rely on their link to young people through digital media to make sales.
As anyone who has been in business knows, however, selling doesn’t work like that. Gaining 2,000 leads does not mean gaining 2,000 sales, and therefore companies must be extremely cautious on simply relying on the digital nature of their marketing strategies to reach younger people.
Young people also have a very specific and broad selection of digital media sites that they visit. The same study that found that 99 per cent of people aged 18-24 year olds are on social media, also found that only 22 per cent of them are on Twitter. So just going after the ‘big names’ won’t work. It’s important to craft a very detailed and specific plan – based in extensive research – to determine which sites your firm’s target audience is on. Car enthusiasts and writers frequently and entire different web of sites, blogs, and forums.
Once you develop your message and find your audience, you need to engage them. Engagement on digital media has become both a cliché and a truism of social media. Everyone hears that it is necessary ad nauseam, but very few companies actually do it. Classic examples of companies talking at their audiences through social media include Nestle’s Facebook arguments over their logo, and Belkin’s pay-for-review blog postings.
For youth marketing, however, the task is much more difficult. Young people are unusually attuned to their social media spaces being taken over by corporate advertisements. As the first adopters of many digital environments, young people are somewhat nostalgic for the days when they did not have to listen to companies selling to them in these spaces. So, it first pays to listen to what your audience is talking about, and then provide them with valuable content – from videos to contests, or anything in between.
Whatever you do in your efforts to reach out to young people, however, remember never to talk down, or even at, younger buyers.
Last week I spoke at WEVA, the meeting of the Wedding and Event Videographers Association.
Describing how to tell a story with a YouTube channel.
In addition to speaking, I attended a number of sessions. In fact, they had almost an entire 3 day track that was devoted to social media.
In both presenting and attending, there were two trends evident. First, when implementing a strategy, content should still be the major focus. Each company needs to understand who they are; and what solutions they provide. Even videographers, who are in the content business had to sit back and understand how they serve customers. Then, develop a content creation plan that is consistent with their business objectives. Just because you have content doesn’t mean it fits.
The second trend is convergence. Video creation and photography seemed to be coming together. Still cameras and film cameras are converging. Social media, film media, internet etc have similarities but have differences. Understanding the media and its unique proposition is essential. Creating content that can be used across various media is important.
Each medium has its own relationship with the viewer. Moreover, understanding how search interfaces with the medium can be the difference between being noticed and being hidden.
I have seen the future—I actually used electronic check in.
On my way down to Orlando to do a presentation to WEVA, the Wedding and Event Videographers Association. I got to O’Hare three hours early, so I figured I would have plenty of time.
Downloaded the electronic check in graphic on my iPhone last night. When I got to the airport, almost used paper, but thought I would try electronic. It actually worked. Put my phone on the security scanner perfect. Got to the gate, scanned — very slick. No Paper.
Other folks watched in amazement. Only concern, when you don’t have paper, you have no record of your seat or gate. So, download your flight into your calendar and check the electronic board, which you need to do anyhow.
The “E” evolution marches on. Who knows what’s next?
A bit shaky, but check out this video to show how mobile boarding passes work:
American Airlines recently rolled out its “Milestones” Travel Guide site, which is a unique attempt to aggregate user-generated travel content into a sort of “social travel guide”. Centered around professional videos, American Airlines customers are able to submit travel stories about the featured places.
What works here is that American is offering an entertaining video that provides valuable content to viewers. They walk away feeling as if American Airlines has provided them with helpful tips, and gain a positive brand experience.
Who is searching for video answers on the internet?
When we talk about Search Optimized Video, we often hear comments like, “I sell to 55-year old purchasing managers who don’t watch videos on YouTube” or “Company owners abroad won’t be looking for my firm on the internet!” So why is Search Optimized Video valuable?
I did an interview on Thursday for a young woman from Pakistan who is in a journalism program in Chicago. Her husband is a graduate student in economics. Her father owns an industrial distribution company. Will her father be searching the internet and watching YouTube videos? Maybe not. But if her father wants to find suppliers, or purchase from the U.S., who is he going to turn to?
His daughter. Who was raised in an internet age. And who uses YouTube.
These young people are the future. They are the decision influencers of today, and the decision makers of tomorrow. Your company needs to reach them, and become their trusted source. If you don’t, and your competition does who will be the supplier that they choose?
Twitter is the posterchild for social media, and rightly so. It’s radically different from any standalone method of communication before it, and has created its own ‘language’. It can be useful for business in two ways. First, if firms can identify their prospects via keyword searches and engage them in dialogue without trying to make a direct sale. To do this, a company just clicks on the search box on twitter…
…and searches for anything relevant to their firm. It could be their company name, industry trends, or customer names. All relevant tweets will be displayed, and companies can see what is being said about them, and can reply directly to all those tweets if they choose. Be careful not just to sell to every prospect you find on Twitter. The best practice in this case is to engage prospects, and offer them useful information, or answer their questions. By helping them, they will see you as an expert, and are more likely to buy from you.
Second, a company can provide a helpful service, such as answering client questions, directly via Twitter. Comcast, for example, offers an excellent customer service Twitter account, where customers can get near-instant answers to their questions. If your company has heavy customer-service needs, Twitter can be an excellent tool to take care of your customers.
So, how can you use your video content on Twitter? It’s as easy as pressing a button. YouTube has a “share” button for Twitter. Just click the button…
… and your YouTube video is instantly posted to your Twitter account, saying “Check this video out — [Your Video Title]
And speaking of video, check out this short primer on using Twitter:
I’ll be the first to admit that the phrase “social media” is quickly wearing out its welcome, but unfortunately social media is here to stay. And while many businesses have profiles on social networks, and many people have written about the broader concepts of social media, the fact is that most businesses aren’t using these sources efficiently or effectively.
In a new series, I'll outline the main uses for 6 different faces of social media: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube, and industry-specific media, and how they can best be integrated into a marketing plan.
LinkedIn is perhaps the most powerful and least effectively used tool in digital business networking. The first step, of course, is to put up an individual profile, which is essentially an online resume. However, the capabilities of LinkedIn extend far beyond individual profiles.
Companies should set up profiles themselves, and encourage all employees to reach out to their different Groups – such as university alumni or professional associations – to actively join discussions and establish themselves as community members. Because people’s comments are linked to their profile, and thus to their company, LinkedIn allows companies to extend their reach into myriad communities.
So approach LinkedIn with a critical eye – don’t just think of it as an online resume posting, but think of it as a way to participate in networking events all around the world with a simple click of a button.
Check out this good answer-based video on LinkedIn, to learn more about how to effectively use LinkedIn:
Any website can use SOV. Given that the content is tied to a company initiative, featuring the video on your website can supply new content. Tying the content to an event will also update the site. Check out this use of e-Conversation produced Search Optimized Video by Warady & Davis LLP:
And, if you are thinking about updating your site, here is a short video that answers the question “How do I know if my website having search engine issues?”
Most companies will show up in the first set of searches on the company name… so, how will SOV help? The SOV process determines a set of key questions that customers and prospects are asking about a company initiative. While that content is key to creating video, it can also be integrated into the website. Put the questions and answers on Page One. Create a Frequently Asked Questions page. Integrate the questions into a new page crafted around the initiative.
And, for companies that are not quite ready for video, the creation of questions and answers is a great first step. It gets you thinking about the next generation website and how it will be integrated into your conversation with customers and prospects.
