Clearcast Digital Media

Social Media and Online Video- 2009's Power Couple

Nielsen released a study last week during ad:tech in San Francisco that tracked the interests of the average online user from 2003 to today. Quite a difference!

Video and social networking sites are the two fastest growing categories in 2009. The stats are a little skewed since online video was not as prevalent in 2003 as it is today, so when you read things like "the number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339% since 2003," it's sort of like saying "airplane travel is up 100% since a similar period in 1809. Uh, yeah, I guess so, seeing as how the airplane had not yet been invented.

Nevertheless, the findings are still valid and paint a picture of what's to come for marketers, advertisers and PR people. Here's the line that stuck with me: "In the age of Twitter, feedback barriers have all but disappeared, creating a near friction-free environment for playing back brand experience, campaign reactions or brand events. Recent public cases involving Motrin, Amazon and Domino's show that marketers must be quick and savvy to react to these unprecedented channels of instant feedback."

Read more and download the report here.

Bit.ly- A very cool URL shortener

Every once in awhile on this blog, I try and throw out a helpful tip or link to something that I have found during my never ending mining expeditions across the Internet.

There are several URL shorteners out there, but I think bit.ly separates itself from the pack for a couple of reasons. (By the way, bit.ly is the URL. There is no .com or anything like that. Just type in bit.ly into your browser.)

The main reason bit.ly is ahead of the curve, in my opinion, is because of their stats feature. If you include a shortened link into a tweet, into Facebook, an IM, on your blog or in a blog comment, you get real time traffic for the links you send out , stats and trends, along with location data (e.g., 10 people in the UK clicked). For marketers, this is fantastic information. If you are trying to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry, this is also invaluable. Normally, if you send out a link  you have no way of knowing how it might be resonating with its recipients. Now you do.

Twitter integration is another excellent feature of bit.ly. You can post tweets directly from the bit.ly interface so you don't have to move in and out of whatever Twitter client you use, cut and paste, etc etc etc. Nice. And while you're logged into bit.ly, you are presented with a list of your most recent activity, all in one place.

You can drag a bookmarklet into your tool bar so that every time you are on a site that you want to shorten, you just select it, hit bit.ly in your tool bar and you're done.

GM Andrew Cohen sees an ad-supported destination site as the most interesting future iteration. "By aggregating data across millions of bit.ly users, the platform can be leveraged to track the most popular articles on the Internet, discover the most persistent memes, and measure the velocity of the hottest trends. Today, we've got a simple prototype at www.bitlynow.com."

Give it a test drive.

Online reputation management- a growth business?

I've been thinking a lot about where we're all going to be in several years after we have posted to all our blogs, tweeted our way to a fare-thee-well, left comments, posted pictures and done all of the things we think of as commonplace in today's world. I am around more and more students and I try to think about their futures, even if sometimes they don't! Job seekers, those coming out of school or those trying to reposition themselves in our slowly recovering world economy, are also in my thoughts.

The trouble with living your life on the internet is that sometimes you wish you could take things back, just like in real life. The mistakes you make, the pictures you take, the things you say- they can become permanent digital artifacts. It's easy to leave tracks, but tough to cover them. Five or ten years ago, if you did something dumb at a party, it wouldn't end up on the Internet for all to see. (I'm looking at you, Michael Phelps!)

This is why I think online reputation management will become such a growth industry in the coming years. Social media is so new, we're all figuring it out in real time. There is no history to guide us and, let's face it, we don't always exercise perfect discretion in life. The reputation management business is not new, but it mostly focuses on institutions, brands and larger entities. (Here's a good link to John Jantsch's blog.) I see more companies, widgets, programs and other solutions popping up to help individuals as we move forward.

What do you think? Is this a service you would pay for? (You don't have to get too specific about WHY you might use such a service...) What are your thoughts? Please post a comment.

A tool is not a strategy

I often get asked about how things work: Twitter, Facebook pages, blogs, podcasts, etc. Social media is so much in the news lately, and the results of an effective social media strategy are in evidence everywhere you look.

But it's important to remember that a hammer doesn't build a house. It is a necessary tool, but that's all it is. Same idea applies to Facebook Pages, Twitter, blogs, or whatever combination of tools you might assemble to help get your message out and connect with people. People will often say to me "We want a Facebook page." To which I normally respond, "That does what?" Very often, that is where the conversation ends.

Creativity, honesty, added value, humor- these are the things that will bring people to your brand. Technology is just an enabling device.

Where is the real danger online? It might be offline.

I recently finished reading a great book called "Born Digital- Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives" by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. It is a terrific, and necessary, analysis of those born after 1980 into the digital world, who they are and what the world that they are creating might look like. It is an exhaustively researched book that touches on so many topics that are becoming ever more important in our digital age. Topics such as privacy, identity, gaming, the impact of the internet on how we learn and how we create and, of course, safety.

Many of the long term effects of the issues the authors touch on are unknowable and will only be revealed with the passage of time, but the authors are to be commended for approaching these subjects head on and searching for answers. If you were born BEFORE 1980, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of the book.

Mr. Palfrey is a faculty director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and he chairs the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, which recently released the results of their year-long study about internet safety submitted to the 50 state attorneys general. The results might surprise you and the report is available for download.

Obviously, what resonated with me most was their recommendation that "Parents and caregivers should: educate themselves about the Internet and the ways in which their children use it, as well as about technology in general..."

Responses like this one from Illinois are not helpful, in my opinion. The Internet did not CREATE predators or scam artists or bullies or identity thieves, but it sometimes takes an unwarranted amount of the blame because it's an easy target.

This is not a blog dedicated to book reviews, but every now and then I come across one that I want to share.

More information about the Digital Natives project can be found here.