The fifth and final episode in our podcast series about how to best employ the myriad new media tools that are at your disposal is fresh out of the oven.
We try and give you some actionable tips, a couple of good book recommendations and some guidance on how to make your marketing voice heard.
Subscribe in iTunes, or listen right here on the blog
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In the US, we worry about our civil liberties under siege from our increasingly secretive government. FISA laws being violated, phones being tapped, e-mail surveillance and the like. What we don't have (yet) is a national network of video cameras. If we did, I wonder if we would have come up with a clever idea like the band the Get Out Clause. (Not a great website, guys. They should have been more ready for the onslaught this might produce.)
Unable to afford a video crew, they set up their gear in 80 different locations (drum kit and all) around Manchester, taking advantage of Britain's 13 million closed circuit cameras. And they just played and played and played. My personal favorite is the footage from the back of the taxi. Under a Freedom of Information request, they asked for the footage from all of those cameras. Some companies complied, others didn't. But they got enough to make a pretty cool video. Snide aside: apparently FOIA requests work slightly differently on the other side of the pond than here. But perhaps that helps explain why it took nearly 9 months for the video to be released. Note that the time stamps (when legible) read March or April 2007 and the video was first posted to YouTube in December 2007. The article in the Guardian, however, did not appear until May 8, 2008. Whoever coined the phrase "news travels fast today" had no idea what they were talking about. Of course, FOIA requests in this country can take years so any bands in the US considering this tack, you'll most likely be on your 30th anniversary reunion tour before your first video sees the light of day.
ANYway...the point is, this is a pretty clever use of someone else's bandwidth, don't you think?
The issue of trust has been on my mind lately. For all the changes that the internet has wrought on our society, the basic question, "Who do you trust?" has not changed at all. We trust our friends, peers and family members. And research would suggest that those with a lot of "social clout," that is, people with hundreds of "friends," contacts, or followers from the (new) usual places like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn or Twitter rank pretty low on the old trust-o-meter.
I am talking about trust strictly as it relates to comments and reviews you might seek out when you're heading out to the marketplace to buy a product or service.
It's refreshing to see an old world remnant like good ol' word of mouth still going strong in this digital age. Authenticity rules the day and consumers own brands today as never before.
Well, actually 13 months. Our first post went up on April 11, 2007 and this one you are reading now is post number 100. By themselves, those numbers reveal nothing. They merely chart progress which, in itself, is important.
I am grateful to those of you who are loyal readers, linkers, commenters and forwarders. For me, writing this blog has become a way to sort out my thoughts, analyze trends and offer up what I hope is some useful and actionable knowledge to my readers. For you, my hope is that you take away some solid information about how trends in new media affect you on a day-to-day basis, not in some ethereal or theoretical way.
As we move into year two, I wanted to restate what this blog and podcast are supposed to be about. (I really hate the term "mission statement." I write a blog. I don't attempt to put people on the moon.)
As I stated above, the overarching goal of keeping this blog is to help people of all digital faiths, skill and engagement levels understand how trends in new media directly relate back to their daily lives and how these trends are shaping the future of communications, advertising and television. The blog has pretty much stuck to that mantra for these past twelve months and pace of digital change does not look like it will slow down anytime soon. My goal is to post twice a week (usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays) but I never post for the sake of posting. If I don't have anything valuable to offer up, it may just be once a week. People seem pretty happy with that rhythm and as a piece of side advice to would-be bloggers: setting yourself up with a posting schedule that is not overly ambitious is a way to keep your own interest up as well as not fall behind and then feel as though you have somehow "failed" because you didn't post 24 times in a week. Set yourself up to succeed from the get go.
We also try and keep the posts short and pithy (which this one most certainly is NOT but, hey, I'm allowed. It's our anniversary for goodness' sake!), and that seems to be appreciated by the readership as well. We're all busy and I try and respect that.
So, I say thank you again for your faithful support. I really love seeking out and synthesizing the information contained here on the blog. I love your comments and, once again, I am grateful to those of you who think enough about it to forward it to your friends, family and co-workers. Keep it up, and I will, too.
Universal McCann has published the third part of its global study of usage and attitudes about social media platforms. This wave surveyed 17,000 internet users in 29 countries and the results, while not surprising to me, were certainly eye opening.
A couple of key takeaways:
It is a fascinating survey that I urge all marketers to take a look at as it illustrates that opinions about your brand are more than ever being formed in the social media space. As we have discussed here and in our podcast, buying decisions are seldom made in a vacuum. 32% trust bloggers' opinions on products and services. "All companies and brands should consider employing them to create open and honest dialogue. Any blog that spins the truth will be found out. In a world of social media, honesty is the only policy." (Bold mine)
Much like gas prices, these numbers will not be trending downward anytime soon. Control is shifting to the user and people get more and more of their information their way from the internet. Are you going to be there to help them make up their minds?
Some concepts are more easily explained with pictures. Podcasting might be one of them. If you have never downloaded or sampled a podcast, it can be difficult to wrap your head around the concept of how the whole thing works.
Enter Common Craft. Spend 3 minutes watching this brilliant and clever video and you'll realize that there is a whole world out there beyond what TV and radio can give you. We've said it before, but it bears repeating: podcasts and other forms of online video ain't gonna REPLACE TV, but isn't it nice to know you have a range of options?
Today comScore reported that in February 2008, US internet users watched 10 billion videos, up 3% from January and up 66% from one year ago. Google/YouTube led the way by a mile with 35% of all viewer traffic, with FOX Interactive a distant second at about 6%. The average online video viewer took in 75 videos in a month.
What is happening on the podcast front, you ask? The news is even more upbeat. 23 million people downloaded a podcast in the past month and the audio podcast audience raced up a staggering 38% with the video podcast audience up an even more impressive 45% since 2007. Sales growth of new iPod models and the iPhone has resulted in nearly 4 in 10 Americans now owning an iPod or other portable MP3 player, although this is somewhat misleading since fully 75% of podcasts are watched or listened to on people's computers and never get transferred to another device.
Edison Media Research concluded, "Continued growth and ubiquity means media companies need to have a podcast and iPod/MP3 player strategy." They also point out that broadband adoption has fueled remarkable growth of online video in addition to online audio so it is "important to provide compelling video options in addition to audio to hold your audience longer."
Now if we could only figure out a workable advertising model...
On this blog, we talk a lot about the experience. In other words, making the consumption of online content an easy and pleasant one for the consumer, as well as one that adds value. The thinking up until now was that "video snacking," or the consumption of sub 3-minute clips, was the holy grail. Turns out, maybe not so much...
When NBCs "The Office" premiered back in September, it attracted a broadcast audience of about 10 million, but it also attracted an online audience of nearly 3 million more in one week, according to exec producer Greg Daniels. Nielsen revealed that one in four internet users had watched a full length TV episode in the past 3 months, with a surprising 23% of them in the 35-54 age group.
Watching full length episodes on your computer was the sort of behavior that was thought to be years away. The networks are not thrilled, as crystallized by the now infamous words of NBC prez Jeff Zucker and his unwillingness to trade "analog dollars for digital pennies." The good news for advertisers is that their ads are more likely to be remembered since there are fewer of them and they can potentially be better targeted.
The toothpaste is out of the tube and the networks are holding on for dear life. What have they learned from the music business?
Facebook. LinkedIn. Blackberrys and iPhones. Laptops. Tivo. Online everything.
E-mail never fulfilled its promise of the "paperless office," so it is unlikely that the unstoppable march of technology will make things easier for us. But what is the psychological effect of all these new conveniences? Anxiety, frustration and confusion is one answer. The feeling of constantly playing catch up is one that dogs all of us. But that feeling is not new. People with jobs and kids have felt this way since time immemorial: not enough time to do what I need to do.
Today there are an overwhelming set of choices available to us. We not only have to keep up with the changes in our industries, but now we might have to keep up with the constant technology changes that seem to trumpet themselves from the newspaper everyday. (Did I say "newspaper?" I meant internet- no one reads newspapers, or magazines or watches TV anymore, right?) And if your industry IS technology, you have the recipe for a nervous breakdown.
Research suggests that should you choose to live in the "always on" world, you may feel that your sense of orderliness and safety has been compromised. And that feeling might be more than temporary. Anxiety, stress, depression, aggravation, distrust and procrastination have all increased at a societal level. Some blame, but not all, can be laid at the feet of technology. Think of the technological changes from 1990-2000 as compared to from 2001 to today.
So is all of this making you feel better or worse? This is not an advice blog, but for what it's worth, the most successful people who can balance their lives are those who know how to set limits and boundaries. Just because you CAN be reachable at any moment, doesn't mean you NEED to be.
The feelings that some of us have about all this stuff are real, so it's always nice to know you're not alone. (That is the power of any group from AA to the Small Business Administration- strength and support in like-minded numbers.) But the remedies are much more individualized and might require (gasp!) personal responsibilty.
I don't want to bum everyone out, so watch this video and have a good laugh. It truly IS amazing how far we've come.
