Social Media Workshop Summary

Posted on August 9th, 2010 at 3:54 pm in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, social media, technology by brody

Thanks to everyone who made it out to our “Social Media 101 & 102: In-Bound Marketing Workshop” this past Friday. You all were a great group, and we loved working with M Design to show you the ins and outs of social media.

If you missed the seminar, you can still check out the responses:

Want to learn more? Come to our “Social Media 301: Advanced Social Media for Business,” coming Friday, September 10.

How To Make Great “Amateur” Videos

Posted on August 2nd, 2010 at 9:03 pm in Blog, Suggested, how to, technology by brody

If you have the budget for it, there is no more compelling medium than film. Use it. Pay for it. The combination of carefully crafted messages, with moving images, and enticing music is the most persuasive art form.

But even if you can’t hire a production crew and an editing team, you can still make great videos to communicate your message online. Be sure to read our first article on the role of “amateur” video production. Here’s how to shoot your video and get it online:

Step 1: Buy a great cheap video camera
A Flip video camera or an iPhone 4 is all you need. In each case, you really only need to hit one button for both “record” and “stop.”

Step 2: Plan what you are going to say
But don’t plan too hard. Remember, you’re shooting this, not an expensive film crew. Yes, you want to know where you’re going with it, but you also have the opportunity to screw up over and over. The point of planning things out is that you don’t want to spend much if any time editing your footage. Do it enough until you can get your message across all in one take!

Step 3: Frame you shot
A couple quick tips to make your video look better instantly:

• Don’t put your subject in the middle of the shot. Follow the rule of thirds.
• “Break the plane.” This means, don’t shoot from your eye level. Get your camera’s lens to an angle that might not be common.
• Add “interestingness” to your shots by shooting in a location where the background is more than just a blank wall. If there is a landmark that will be in the shot, don’t have your speaker right beside it. Instead, have the speaker near the camera, with the landmark, sign, or other item several yards behind you. This technique will also a) preserve your audio quality, and b) let you get more of the background item in the frame.

Step 4: Test your audio
If you can’t hear your speaker, your video will be nearly worthless. Shoot a 3-second test video and play it back. Make sure the speaker’s voice is clearly heard above the noise of your surroundings.

Step 5: Shoot it
Don’t move. Don’t zoom. Stand still. Anchor your shoulders to your body or lean against a steady object. Or use a tripod of some sort. If you do have to pan or turn, do so slowly. It should feel like your movements are awkwardly slow.

Step 6: Get the video onto your computer
On a Mac, open a program that is already on your computer called Image Capture. This will be able to take videos off of any device you have plugged into your machine. If you’re using a Flip Camera to shoot, don’t use the built-in Flip video software. Don’t even install it. Use the Image Capture program to download your video to anywhere you want to on your computer. If you have a PC, use a similar process (or just borrow someone’s Mac – it’s a LOT easier).

Step 7: “Trim” your video
Get rid of the awkward silence at the beginning and end of your best take. Use a program like iMovie to do this very simply.

Step 8: Add a title slide to the beginning and/or end of your video
This gives a very professional touch and can communicate essential information like the spellings of names, links of websites, and calls to action.

(Note: steps 7 & 8 are a little more advanced for this particular post. If you need help, most 15 year olds are better at those things than most adults. Ask them.)

Step 9: Upload your video to YouTube
Why YouTube? Because it can play anywhere, it keeps track of your play stats (views counts, where the video is being viewed, and other cool things), and has commenting features. When you upload your video, be sure to title it and tag is very well. Your title should be a clear description of what the video is. Your tags should be the items in your video, including speaker, topics discussed, location, and purpose of the video. Your description should be a summary of the message in the video.

Include all these details so your video can be easily found when someone is searching for it. Also, once your video is embedded on your website, your site’s SEO will improve based on the content in the Title, Tag, and Description fields in your video.

Step 10: Embed your video on your site
YouTube will provide you with the code needed to get the player to show on your site. Simply copy and paste that code to the proper place in your content management system and you’ll be ready to go!

If your website doesn’t have a content management system, or you’re not able to embed YouTube videos on your site, you’ll need to fix this. Contact us and we can help you sort out what that might mean for you and your organization.

Again, this process is NO substitute for real film production. However, if you want to get some video content on your website, this is the cheap and easy way to do it.

Here’s an example:

The Role of “Amateur” Video in the Corporate World

Posted on August 2nd, 2010 at 9:01 pm in Blog, how to, technology by brody

People are watching more video online than ever, and it’s a trend that will only continue to increase.

This is due to two main causes:

Cultural Condition #1: An improvement in technological infrastructure. Simply put, it is cheaper and easier than ever to have decently fast internet speeds and computers that can play videos.

Cultural Condition #2: The tools needed to create video content are cheaper and easier to use than ever. The barrier of entry is a $200 Flip camera, and sometimes a cell phone that you have already.

So what do these conditions mean to your organization?

If you’re not using video online, you’re missing a huge opportunity to communicate in a compelling way with your audience. One reason why you should take a serious look at this is because it can be very inexpensive or free to make a “legit” video.

What I’m describing is absolutely not a substitute for a carefully crafted filming process including pre-production (story boarding, scripting, shot selection), production (great talent and film crews), and post-production (artful editing, scoring, and finishing touches).

But there is a huge role for amateur video as you seek to communicate with your audience. Here are some tips on how to do cheap video production well.

If you would like training on some basic technological and artistic techniques that will help you get video content on your website, contact us. We also offer “real” cinematic short film production when you’re ready to step it up.

Social Media Revolution: Update

Posted on June 3rd, 2010 at 12:39 pm in Blog, culture, social media, technology by brody

In 2008, a compelling film about emerging culture and technology was released. It’s music and graphics (and 10 million + views) put many of us in a trance about the world that’s around the corner.

Then, in 2009 and inspired by the video mentioned above, the Socialnomics group released a video on the staggering rise and success of social media.

Just last month, Socialnomics released an update to the “Social Media Revolution” film. All of these are well-done and must-see videos. The most recent is below.

Welcoming Facebook & Twitter Visitors

Posted on June 2nd, 2010 at 8:35 am in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, how to, technology by admin

At Blue Ocean Ideas one of our mantras is “everything matters”. What do we mean by this? We mean that your website, print, email, twitter, facebook, foursquare, tv, radio, etc. all should be consistently created with the customer experience in mind. It all matters!

So one of the things we do is worry about details and small things that matter including how someone is welcomed to our site if  they come from Facebook and Twitter. So we created popup welcome screens for people that come from either of these sites using  jquery and php. Here’s how it works:

Let’s say someone comes across our Facebook page…

And decides to click on a link to one of our articles. Usually this would lead them to that article’s page on our Blog. However, in the process of going to that page, he/she will be greeted with a welcoming message that was specially designed for visitors from Facebook. Which looks like this:

After being greeted (and delightfully surprised) they can continue by clicking “Let’s Go!”, and proceed to read the article which they came to see.

We have a similar lightbox for users coming from Twitter.

Implementation:

1) First we need to create pages facebook-popup.html and twitter-popup.html and insert the following code:

Show/hide the code:

In this code we have an image, with hotspots that I drew using Dreamweaver. One of them triggers function close() which closes the lightbox it is in, and second is a link to our Social Media services.

2. Next step would be open our header.php of our WordPress website and add the following code right before <body>

Show/hide the code:

The first part of this code is responsible for finding out where the visitor came from.
$ref=$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];

The next part triggers lightbox with facebook or twitter popup with a welcome message.

To see how it works check out these demonstrations: For Twitter and For Facebook.

And by the way, you need to download one of the best lightbox scripts out there: http://colorpowered.com/colorbox/ to make it work

That’s it for now,
Enjoy!

A Compelling Case for Twitter & Your Business

Posted on May 22nd, 2010 at 2:24 pm in Blog, Suggested, social media, summary & comment, technology by brody

Edison Research just released a study on the usage of Twitter in America. Inc Magazine also had a nice summary of the Twitter report. Here are key things you need to know:

More than half of active Twitter users follow brands and companies on Twitter

Even if you don’t have some fancy Twitter strategy, you are missing an easy opportunity to engage with your clients if you don’t have a presence on Twitter. Remember, brands are personal… the same words that people use to describe people (nice, trusted, friendly, strong, everywhere) are the words people use to describe brands. Since brands are already personal, Twitter is probably the best technological platform for that personality to come alive. By merely being accessible on Twitter, you’ll be able to answer questions, converse, and otherwise engage personally with your clients.

The beauty there is that there is an expectation of brevity. You (nor your clients) need to worry about long-winded emails, or all the superfluous conversation involved in a phone call. Yet, the personal touch is still there.

People who follow brands on social media platforms are most likely to do so on Twitter

Yes, your company should ususally have and use a Facebook page to engage with your clients. But it may surprise you to know that more brand engagement is happening on Twitter.

Why? My guess is that when you “Like” (formerly, “Become a Fan”) of a brand’s page on Facebook, you are giving them permission to market to you. You are using your affiliation with that brand to tell the world something about yourself on your own profile.

But the way Twitter is used and the interfaces by which it is used creates different systems of communication. Namely, every tweet has to be meaningful. There is no meaningful content except for your most recent tweets. There are no photos, discussion boards, interactive applications.

So, if you want real-time information, real-time conversation, and real-time engagement, Twitter is where your customers will go to find it. As stated above, the expectations are different. The commitment is less. Paradoxically, the level of personal communication is higher.

Two-thirds of Twitter users access the service through a mobile device

This has HUGE implications for how you are providing data in your tweets. For instance, if you are linking to something – an article, a photo, a video – are those things optimized for mobile devices? For a while, I would never link to a video on Vimeo because I knew it wouldn’t play on an iPhone. Now, because Vimeo has changed their technology, their videos can play on an iPhone. Thus, their content is now acceptable for Twitter.

Is your business’ Twitter account linking to content that’s read easily read on a mobile device?  Are you thinking about how your Twitter engagement affects the user experience of your followers that are using a mobile device to find you on Twitter?

Twitter users are more well-educated than the general population

While we’re not ones that think formal education (and its resulting demographic metrics) are super-valuable, it is worth noting that Twitter users are smart. So, you have your audiences and your market segments and your group of clients. What would you try to do if you could communicate with some of your brighter following? You have that opportunity on Twitter… start doing something about it.

The History of the Internet

Posted on March 19th, 2010 at 4:12 pm in Blog, creativity/imagination, technology, thought provoking by brody

In case you missed it, this is a pretty clear telling of how the Internet as we know it came about.

It’s interesting to think of the ramifications of the work we do. None of the people that worked on the beginning pieces had any idea what their work would become.

That should inspire all of us to work with:

• humility to know when we are wrong, hear the critique, and make change
• imagination so we can even begin to conceive of vision and unintended (or intended) consequences
• love so that we can seek the betterment of society through what we do

Social Media ROI

Posted on March 3rd, 2010 at 4:38 pm in Blog, culture, social media, technology by brody

The Idea: White Space (Part 2)

Posted on February 9th, 2010 at 10:50 am in Blog, ideas, technology, thought provoking by brody

Information overload is crushing to the soul.

It’s why we should all be excited about emerging web technologies. Here’s why:

We will no longer have to wade through the mire of content packed into tight, unsearchable places.

The old way

Jam lots of content into a printed newsletter. Force people to have to read though everything to find the pieces of content they actually want. Make sure none of this content is ever accessible again. Do not leverage this content outside the scope of your current audience. Oh, and spend lots of money to print and mail it.

The newer way

Put all of your content online – text, pictures, audio, and video. Allow users to see titles, summaries, categories, and tags to find what is useful to them. Make all this content searchable, both so that it can be found in the future and so outsiders might find something valuable to read. Store all this content for free (regardless of how many people see it). Allow folks to comment, share, link to, and otherwise engage your content.

The web lets us spread out information. It allows us to find information on demand. It’s like a proxemic white space.

It allows us to find those needles in the haystacks.

It allows us to breath.

It also levels the playing field of influence… but more on that in Part 3 next week.

Create white space. Revive your soul,

brody

The Idea: White Space (Part 2)

Posted on February 9th, 2010 at 10:50 am in Blog, ideas, technology, thought provoking by brody

Information overload is crushing to the soul.

It’s why we should all be excited about emerging web technologies. Here’s why:

We will no longer have to wade through the mire of content packed into tight, unsearchable places.

The old way

Jam lots of content into a printed newsletter. Force people to have to read though everything to find the pieces of content they actually want. Make sure none of this content is ever accessible again. Do not leverage this content outside the scope of your current audience. Oh, and spend lots of money to print and mail it.

The newer way

Put all of your content online – text, pictures, audio, and video. Allow users to see titles, summaries, categories, and tags to find what is useful to them. Make all this content searchable, both so that it can be found in the future and so outsiders might find something valuable to read. Store all this content for free (regardless of how many people see it). Allow folks to comment, share, link to, and otherwise engage your content.

The web lets us spread out information. It allows us to find information on demand. It’s like a proxemic white space.

It allows us to find those needles in the haystacks.

It allows us to breath.

It also levels the playing field of influence… but more on that in Part 3 next week.

Create white space. Revive your soul,

brody