Labels: big media, New Media, Video

• Will make the site/tool easier to use
• Will work cooperatively with other vendors and blog-based professions (such as allowing your feed to work with ad networks of your blog)
• Will continually add services to premium users and will filter down to free users
• Will gear service toward larger businesses in addition to small businesses that FeedBlitz serves today
• FeedBlitz "2.0" ready toward the end of September 2006

Labels: blogs, tools

• Success bares no relation to investment - In traditional marketing there was generally a relationship between how much you spent and how many people saw your message, there is no such relationship in Viral Marketing
• Viral Marketing does not have a timeline - Traditional marketing calendars, and even the traditional marketing plan is irrelevant when executing and responding to viral marketing efforts. Viral marketing is just not that predictable, which calls for a different kind of planning
• Number of views bare little relation to reach or impact of Viral Marketing - As viral is something that is shared from person to person, you can be sure that many more people hear about it than view it (a little esoteric I know, but I talk about the Subservient Chicken constantly, and yet have only been to the site once)

Labels: Video

Labels: New Media, Podcasting, rss

Labels: Advertising, New Media

Labels: rss, tools

Audio files are podcasts because they're available in an RSS enclosure and therefore in a feed that is brought to you by your RSS utility. Otherwise it's a downloadable audio file that you have to go to the website to fetch.

Labels: Advertising, Friday Fun, Video

Labels: Video, Viral

Labels: Video, Viral

Labels: Podcasting, strategy

Labels: Advertising, New Media, PR

Labels: Advertising, New Media

Smart companies must reinvent their communications thinking, moving away from a sole reliance on top-down messages delivered through mass advertising. This is the Me2 Revolution.

In the US, for example, the "person like yourself or your peer" was only trusted by 22% of respondents as recently as 2003, while in this year's study, 68% of respondents said they trusted a peer.

How can companies embrace this future of empowered stakeholders? Speak from the inside out, telling your employees and customers what is happening so they can spread the word for you. Be transparent, revealing what you know when you know it while committing to updating as you learn more. Be willing to yield control of the message in favor of a rich dialogue, in which you learn by listening. Recognize the importance of repetition of the story in multiple venues, because nobody believes something he or she hears or sees for the first time. Embrace new technologies, from employee blogs to podcasts, because audiences are becoming ever more segmented.

Labels: Advertising, New Media, PR, Risk, strategy

Labels: Advertising, rss

Labels: blogs

Surprise #1: Total listenership
As of June, 22% of people had even heard of "podcasting" but only 11% had ever listened to one. It seems these early adopters weren't all terribly impressed either. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, just 6.6% of the online population in July recently downloaded an audio podcast. That's about 9.2 million US adults.

Surprise #2. Specific demographics
According to Arbitron, podcasting listenership is fairly even across the sexes with women at 48%. Plus, only 32% of listeners are aged 18-34. At 45%, the biggest demographic slice of listeners is 35 or older, with 17% in the 45-54 age group.

Surprise #3. Listening platforms
According to a May 2006 Podtrac survey, 56% of the audience listen via their computers instead of a portable device.

• Strong Voice - not just the sound but the style
• Steadiness of publication - not a one-off, but a continuing series
• Variety - different guests-stars, different "articles"

Mistake #1. Shovelware
Don't just read your Web site content or email articles into a microphone. If your fans wanted that, they could go online to see it. Create fresh content that's interesting to listen to - guests, two-way conversations, rants, etc.

Mistake #3. Testing just one to start
As with email newsletters or drive-time radio shows, the most successful podcasts build brand impact from listener relationships over time. It's not a one-off medium. If you create only one, you may not ever get the audience or impact your podcast deserves. Or, if your single podcast defies the odds to become insanely successful, you may not be ready with a follow-up series in time to catch the wave.

Rule #1: Keep it short
The ideal length of a podcast is 10 minutes to 20 minutes. “If you go more than 25 minutes, you’re outside the average commute,” says Walch. Or past the average treadmill workout.


Rule #2. Don't drone from a script
Although some corporate podcasts are scripted, just as with the blogworld, anything with too many corporate communications editors involved can turn the audience off.


Rule #3. Copywrite your podcast title carefully
If you're hoping for iTunes traffic to discover you, as well as users on other major podcasting directories, remember you're competing with tens of thousands of other podcasts. Pick a name for your podcast that matches your content topic. People are likely to search for a particular subject (rather than a brand name) when they visit iTunes. (Note: This is just like any other type of search marketing -- it’s all about keywords.)


Rule #4. Schedule a calendar (ongoing or limited-series)
Many podcasting experts say the best frequency is weekly. However, if you're not sure if you're up to the work, nor if the audience demand will be there, you probably should start with a slower calendar. Podcasting as with blogging and email newsletters can be exhausting for the long haul.

Not sure if you're up to starting a podcast series that will go on until the end of time? It's a scary commitment. Our suggestion, try the waters first with a limited run podcast series. Just as with an emailed "e-course", a single-season TV series, or a novel with chapters, you'd have a story arc, and announce up front how long the entire podcast will be.

Each episode would be developed to play in context of the rest, and the entire series would be as evergreen as possible so newbies can start with podcast #1 at any time and work their way through the series at their own pace.


Rule #5. Best time of day may be nighttime
Many podcasting enthusiasts dock their iPods overnight and then listen to whatever's new the next morning.

Labels: Podcasting, rules, strategy

YouTube Inc. is expanding the type of advertisements it sells to include videos on its home page and on special advertiser-created pages, shedding further light on how the hugely popular video-sharing site plans to make money.

Warner Music Group Corp.'s Warner Bros. Records will be the first to roll out the special advertiser pages with a video promotion for hotel heiress Paris Hilton's music album to be released today. In a twist, Fox Broadcasting Co. -- a unit of Time Warner competitor News Corp. -- will pay to advertise its "Prison Break" TV series on the Paris Hilton advertising page, and YouTube will share that ad revenue with Warner Bros.

YouTube, a closely held company in San Mateo, Calif., says its users watch videos more than 100 million times each day, making the site a leader in the fast-growing online-video arena. The year-and-a-half-old company has to date carried display and text advertisements it sold itself or brokered by third parties.

But YouTube executives have said they aim to create a system that pioneers new ad formats and which could be extended to broker ads for other Web publishers, much as Google Inc. brokers ads that appear on other sites today.

YouTube's strategy "revolves around the idea of having brand advertisers participate and become part of our community," says Chief Executive Chad Hurley.

The site will now allow advertisers to pay to have their videos displayed prominently on YouTube's home page, charging based on the number of users regardless of whether the consumers actually watch the videos. A user needs to click on the advertising video before it plays.

Labels: Advertising, Video

1. Success in social media = engagement + authenticity x audience reach.
2. Look for the riches in the niches. Social media takes many forms.
3. Lean, but don’t be intimidated, into following early adopters.
4. Cede only as much control of your brand as you feel comfortable with.

Labels: rules, social media

Labels: big media

Here are a few indicators of the life that SMO is alive and well:

1. 53 tags on del.icio.us (to the original post)
   
2. 8 diggs on Digg.com (plus more for other posts on the subject)
3. 37 linked blog posts according to Technorati (to the original post)
4. 139 promotions on New PR (to the original post)
5. 18 votes on Netscape (to 16 Rules post on toprank)
6. 6 marks on Marktd (to 16 Rules post on toprank)
7. New page added to The New PR Wiki
8. New Wikipedia article on "Social Media Optimization"
9. Corresponding update to Wikipedia page on "SMO"

Labels: smo

Labels: ROI, Viral

• 7% of American adults write blogs and 22% read them (Jupiter)
• About 8% listen to podcasts and 5% use RSS feeds (Jupiter)
• 88% of the at-work audience doesn't know what RSS is (WorkPlace Print Media)
• 92% of brand conversations were taking place offline (Keller Fay)

Labels: blogs, New Media, Podcasting, rss

• Is social networking something advertisers can ignore?

• Is social networking a fad or an enduring behavior?

• Are the social networks safe places for advertisers?
• The "secret sauce" in MySpace is the respect for users
• The key to polite behavior is the balance between intimacy and intrusiveness.
• Intrusiveness in the wrong context creates negative effect towards brand.
  

• How do advertisers deal with the social networking environment?

Labels: Advertising, New Media

Labels: Risk, strategy

• It involves driving traffic to a website through new channels because search engines aren't the only sites that drive big traffic anymore. While it's not taking over SEO yet, it has the potential to someday soon.
• Social media can be considered anything that can help build a community to rally around.
• Buyer beware though, you can't force SMO.

1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage the mashup
   
6. Be a user resource, even if it doesn't help you
7. Reward helpful and valuable users
8. Participate
9. Know how to target your audience
10. Create content
11. Be real
12. Don't forget your roots, be humble
13. Don't be afraid to try new things, stay fresh
14. Develop an SMO strategy - define objectives and set goals
15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely
16. Make SMO part of your process and best practices

Labels: rules, smo