YouTube video basics from its brightest stars

 Marketing, Meme  422 Responses »
Aug 202012
 

You don’t need a spending forecast to tell you that online video is gobbling up an increasingly larger share of today’s advertising dollars. More advertisers are spending more money on video — whether we’re talking about pre-roll, branded YouTube channels, or integrations with existing content producers. But more money doesn’t necessarily mean smart spending.

Right now, YouTube has two strong opportunities for brand advertisers. They can either partner with established YouTube stars, or they can go their own way and launch a brand channel. (Obviously, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.)

But while most of us are familiar with the opportunities and challenges of those two options, we’re less conversant with the nuances of YouTube’s culture. In the face of that knowledge gap, only a handful of brands have truly prospered with video. Many brands, perhaps even the majority of brands, haven’t had much success with video, and frankly, a lot of brands simply misunderstand platforms like YouTube, their audience, and the acts that have used YouTube to launch their careers.

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Recently, I had the opportunity to attend VidCon in Anaheim, California. While there were some good breakout sessions that were clearly aimed at marketing types, the real action was down on the floor, where fans lined up seeking autographs from their favorite YouTube stars.

Of course, “star” is a funny word in this context. Being big on YouTube doesn’t make you a household name. For every pack of teenagers I saw gushing over their favorite YouTube star, there was a somewhat bewildered adult chaperon who would say things like, “Whose autograph do you want, and why are they famous?”

As a category, it’s easy to dismiss YouTube stars as flukes — amateurs who got lucky early with a weird gimmick or a cheap stunt. But YouTube stars have something all brands crave — an audience. And they also have something else — a solid understanding of what will and won’t work on YouTube.

Watching the frenzy on the VidCon floor, as diehard fans rushed from one booth to the next, I couldn’t help but think that the marketers in their breakout sessions upstairs were missing the real lesson. Yes, in some cases, these YouTube stars present a huge — and relatively untapped — opportunity for branded integrations. That’s important for some advertisers. But let’s put sponsorship opportunities aside for the moment, because there’s something more fundamental that all marketers can learn from these YouTube stars. Each of them, in their own way, has broken some important ground in the Wild West that is YouTube. And if you’re looking to take your brand’s YouTube channel to the next level, it’s worth studying the people who’ve already blazed that trail.

MORE: YouTube video basics from its brightest stars (single page view) – iMediaConnection.com.

 

Why social media agencies are a farce

 Marketing, Your Brand  73 Responses »
Aug 202012
 

Social media, although still quite a hot topic, is only one piece of the brand building and customer acquisition puzzle. An effective marketing strategy is inclusive of various mediums; each communicating the same message in their own unique way. Social media definitely has its place within a marketing strategy, but just like faxing, rarely is it the sole medium.

The reality is this isn’t a warning just for social media agencies; it’s a warning for any agency that tries to encapsulate their diverse marketing services within a single industry buzzword.

In a recent Adweek article about social media agencies becoming less social, Jim Tobin, president of Ignite Social Media, stated the following: “Social is a totally different discipline, it’s part SEO, it’s part [audience] development, it’s part advertising, and it is part PR. There’s a lot of interest in specialists out there.”

His view of social media is quite holistic, almost to the point where you could call these specialists “online marketing specialists.”

MORE:  Why social media agencies are a farce – iMediaConnection.com.

 

Why online video remains in TV’s shadow

 Internet News, Marketing  243 Responses »
Aug 202012
 

Brands and their marketers would like to shift more budget to online video — really. They know perfectly well that consumers are there waiting. But online will never have the gravitas of TV advertising until one very important change takes place.

It’s not technology or inventory (or lack of it) that’s the problem. It’s not the sites or the screen size or the devices. And it’s certainly not measurability.

It’s how video is sold online. And until it changes, TV will rule.

Digital video, specifically in-stream, is marketed as a TV-like experience. Indeed, like TV, viewers must watch the entire ad to get to the desired content (although they rarely do in either medium). What’s fundamentally different, however, is the connection between the programming and the ad — the emotional or thematic link that captures a viewer in the right frame of mind for a specific product or idea. And it’s totally missing online.

MORE:  Why online video remains in TV’s shadow – iMediaConnection.com.

 

Ten Things You Can Do to Curb Your Facebook Addiction

 Internet News  188 Responses »
Aug 202012
 

Many of use Facebook as a way of comparing our careers and relationships with those of everyone else. According to Dr. Jay, the problem with this is that “our nights spent sitting on the couch surfing Facebook feel low compared to the high life everyone else seems to be leading”—at least in the smiling, happy, perfect pictures. These upward comparisons make people feel bad yet somehow we can’t stop looking.

If you once found Facebook to be helpful and fun but now feel that it is harmful and negative, you may have lost control of your use. Cultivating a more intentional relationship with Facebook and other online platforms makes us more in tune to our true interests and freer to engage in real world matters with real world consequences. Here are “Ten Things” you can do to curb your Facebook addiction—and use your resulting free time and energy to work towards social and political change.
MORE: Ten Things You Can Do to Curb Your Facebook Addiction | The Nation.

 

10 Essential Tablet Apps for Business

 interface, Tech News  442 Responses »
Aug 152012
 

It’s not just customers who are drifting away from their laptops and desktops to do everything on mobile devices. More and more, entrepreneurs are cutting the bulky power cord and conducting business on the go. Thanks to tablets and the ever-growing selection of mobile apps that’s easy to do.

We asked 10 successful entrepreneurs to share the apps that boost their business productivity. Here are their top picks.

MORE:  10 Essential Tablet Apps for Business.

 

Google+ Adds Custom URLs for Brands

 Internet News  170 Responses »
Aug 152012
 

Google has added the ability for users to select their own URL addresses on the Google+ social networking service.

The company said that it would initially be rolling out the personalized URL option for verified accounts, limiting the service to large brands and celebrities in its initial phase. The company said that it plans to add the option to more users in time.

The new scheme will allow users to not only personalize their URLs, but also dramatically shorten the address for accounts. The new scheme will display the user’s name and a ‘+’ sign directly behind the Google.com domain.

For example, David Beckham has registered the +DavidBeckham address, changing the football star’s URL to google.com/+DavidBeckham.

MORE: Google+ Adds Custom URLs for Brands | ClickZ.

 

7 political ad tactics every marketer should know

 Marketing  222 Responses »
Aug 152012
 

When it comes to exercising the advertising muscle of political campaigns, candidates have a new set of tactics at their disposal. This political season, campaigns are expected to spend a whopping $9.8 billion in political advertising. Beyond the increased campaign budgets, the advertising technologies fueling the campaigns have also evolved in the last four years for both TV and online advertising. Heres how:

MORE:  7 political ad tactics every marketer should know

 

App stops creepy stalkers from stealing your Facebook pictures

 interface, Internet News  140 Responses »
Aug 132012
 

McAfee Social Protection doesn’t force you to make a blanket restriction the way Facebook’s privacy settings do, so you can block your office manager from seeing those pictures of you dancing drunk at a bar in Cabo, while letting them see all of the nice pictures of your family and pets. If they try to see a picture that’s blocked, all they’ll get is a blurry pixelated version that reveals nothing.

Even if you are one of the chosen few who gets to see a picture, McAfee claims that the app will make it impossible to download, even using print screen or other common workarounds. Still, if you’re really desperate, I guess they can’t stop you from taking a picture of the screen with a camera.

MORE:  App stops creepy stalkers from stealing your Facebook pictures | DVICE.

 

Don’t like Facebook ads? Facebook wants to know what you do like

 Internet News, Marketing  98 Responses »
Aug 132012
 

Facebook has recently begun asking users to “tell us what you like” after they hide an ad. The module then links to the page discovery browser, which presents a number of pages that users can Like and add to their interests.

When users see a Facebook ad they don’t care for, they can click the X that appears in the top right corner. The ad will be hidden and users can indicate why they didn’t like the ad. This week we noticed that after this step, Facebook now prompts users to visit the pages browser. The site, which Facebook introduced in 2010, shows icons of pages that are popular in a user’s country, but also factors in pages which are popular among their friends.

MORE:  Don’t like Facebook ads? Facebook wants to know what you do like.

 

The coming wireless spectrum apocalypse and how it hits you

 Tech News  293 Responses »
Aug 132012
 

C Spire Wireless, a small, southern wireless provider formerly known as Cellular South, has an ambitious plan to build a fast, 4G LTE network to reach its 900,000 customers. To do it, C Spire bought $192 million worth of 700 MHz wireless spectrum, which is considered some of the most valuable wireless spectrum that’s still available because it can travel long distances and penetrate obstacles.

But there’s a problem. C Spire claims it hasn’t been able to use this spectrum and hasn’t been able to deploy its 4G network. It says the bigger carriers, especially AT&T, have used their market power to ensure chip designers and device makers make equipment compatible with their flavor of the technology, leaving smaller carriers in the cold. And without devices and network gear, C Spire says it’s been sitting on a costly resource it can’t use — and thus can’t deliver to you, the consumer.

“We will deploy our 4G LTE network,” said Eric Graham, C Spire Wireless’ senior vice president for strategic relations. “But the fact that AT&T is using a different band plan [that is, a set of technical standards for equipment] in the 700 MHz spectrum has slowed things down. At least initially we’ll be using other spectrum other than the 700 MHz spectrum we bought for 4G. But eventually, we are going to need that spectrum to add more capacity to our network.”

In the wireless industry, it seems, you can never have too much spectrum. Even AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which together control about 70 percent of the wireless market, say they need more of it. But even if you have enough spectrum, as C Spire argues, the big guys can use their leverage with suppliers to make it darn difficult for you to use it.

Can you imagine what would happen if the industry giants further solidified their hold on the market by hoarding even more spectrum? Bad things, those underdogs would assure you, starting with higher costs for consumers and fewer innovations. And that, they say, is why regulators and judges need to intercede.

“We are at a critical time in the evolution of the wireless industry,” said Kathleen Ham, vice president of federal regulatory affairs for T-Mobile, in an interview with CNET. “And as we transition to 4G LTE, spectrum is a key part of the strategy and survival of every carrier. And it’s the duty of the regulators to ensure that we don’t end up with a market of spectrum haves and have-nots.”

MORE:  The coming wireless spectrum apocalypse and how it hits you | Mobile – CNET News.

 

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