If you’re wondering how to utilise online video as part of your marketing strategy, then you only need to look as far as the Old Spice The Man Your Man Could Smell Like commercials, featuring Isaiah Mustafa, for a textbook example of how to do it.

It’s more than just having entertaining content. It’s more than then audience asking ‘how the *bleep* did they do that?’ Those features just encouraged the audience to watch it more than 12 million times on YouTube. It’s the followup that’s the biggest coup here.

Not only did Old Spice produce more tv commercials with similar wit and ‘how did they do that’ content. They then proceeded to take the strategy online and have a conversation with their audience. All in the same ‘tongue-in-cheek’ style:

The ad agency, Wieden+Kennedy, produced these video replies for a range of social networking sites including Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. Of course, as a result, the coverage was exponential as people forwarded, retweeted and upvoted.

So, as always, if you wish to have success with online video then not only do you need to provide value-packed content with loads of rewatchability. You need to consider that video not as a one shot, quick-sell but as an introduction to a longer and more meaningful conversation.

Social Media still has a dubious reputation in parts of the business world. Many people believe that its claims are bogus and that its evangelists, people like me, are charlatans. They essentially believe that the whole thing is a scam. Especially those that advocate the use of social media for marketing.

Well, let me tell you not only is social media marketing a scam the very best social media marketing incorporates all the elements of SCAM. To do otherwise is just being unnecessarily risky with your money:

Of course by SCAM I mean: Specific, Complementary, Achievable, and Measurable. They are important factors to consider when you are preparing any social media marketing campaign.

Specific

Let me ask you this, when you embark upon a traditional advertising campaign do you just hop on the bandwagon because everyone else is doing it? ^† Do you say, ‘Let’s do a television commercial. Everyone is doing them!’?^† Or do you carefully research every facet and then prepare a targeted campaign so that you can get the best return on your investment? It’s no different when you’re using social media.

You need to be specific with your social media marketing, just as you would with your traditional media campaigns. Not only with regard to whom you are targeting but also specific in the goals you are trying to obtain. Just because every Fortune 500 company has a fan page on Facebook doesn’t mean that you should run out and create one too. You need to know why you need one and what you hope to use it for. Otherwise you’re more than likely missing valuable opportunities and possibly wasting your efforts altogether.

For instance, do you know the difference between Facebook’s fan pages and their groups? They’re similar but they do have defined differences. Do you need one or the other or both? Before you begin you must be specific about what you are trying to achieve and only then should you adopt the strategy and choose the tools to achieve those goals.

Complementary

Recently Singapore Post as part of a viralesque marketing campaign decided to dress up some of their post boxes with graffiti. Unfortunately, graffiti is a major issue in Singapore and the police got involved. The media soon latched onto the story as well. Singpost got a lot of media buzz as a result, but was it the right sort of attention? Why would a company whose main clientèle is the business community with a reputation for being reliable and dependable suddenly choose to go gangsta?

Unless you’re trying to actively undermine your corporate image – and thereby appeal to a different demographic – your social media marketing campaigns should complement your traditional efforts. Conflicting messages only risk damaging your brand. Doing something because it is trendy or cool isn’t always the best way to generate a return on your investment. Singpost eventually saw that discretion was the better part of valour and turned their graffiti campaign into works of public art (like the one shown here). It’s baffling trying to determine the logic behind the graffiti campaign and it’s hard to imagine what possible returns they were expecting. However It certainly caused a stir in the media and amongst the general populace but much of it was negative.

Achievable

One of the first questions you need to ask when you’re developing a strategy is what is the minimum result required from the campaign to be considered a success? Then you need to ask can you achieve that minimum and, if the answer is yes, how? If your Singapore-based startup chooses to use an online ‘viral’ video to promote themselves and they need 1 million click-thrus just from Singapore for it to be a success then the odds are they aren’t going to achieve that. They may be better off trying an alternative approach that better targets their selected demographic.

You need to work through your strategy and ensure that your aims are achievable. By all means shoot for the moon but make sure you can achieve some sort of successful result even if you miss.

Measurable

If you can’t measure it then you can’t determine its success. Even if you just use basic metrics like those I mentioned in The Importance of Metrics you need to find a way to measure how successful your social media marketing campaign has been.

Sure, you may have a lot of views on your online video, but how many click-thrus are you getting? Is it the right sort of demographic that your advertising is appealing to? You need to know these, because at the end of the day it’s not enough to know how many people saw your campaign, it’s how much the campaign benefited your company and in what way. Unless you can measure that in a logical and objective way there’s a good chance you’re wasting your money.

By applying the SCAM test to your social media marketing endeavours you’re placing a greater emphasis upon achieving a result for the company and not catering to the hype that currently surrounds social media. Utilising this method lessens the chance of making mistakes and increases the opportunity to correct them if they do happen. Don’t scam yourself. Use SCAM!

† If the answer is yes, then please send me all your money =).

Slider Image Attribution: chooyutshing

Recently I was asked to do some consulting for a company. They were developing a strategy for their online presence and wanted some assistance. The strategy involved a lot of social media and made some fairly bold claims about the returns on their investment. Upon seeing this, the first question I asked was where was the research to back these claims. There was none, and worse there was no budget to do any market research. Fortunately they had a year’s worth of web metrics that I was able to analyse and offer some practical solutions.

Metrics are often under-utilised as a market research tool, whether it be the number of hits on a website or which demographic is watching a video. Careful analysis of your metrics can yield a wealth of information that you can then use to help develop your digital strategies. Here are three:

Analytics

Google Analytics is probably the most used web metric in the known universe but there are still people that either don’t know about it or fail to analyse the data. Sometimes all people use it for is to see how many hits their site is generating. It’s so much more than that. It can tell you how they reached your site, where they are based, how long they spent on the site, where they clicked out, plus a whole lot more. In the situation above, analysing the company’s data showed that their web site was attracting a different demographic from the one that they had started with. It had actually changed six months before and the company was completely unaware of the change. Once they found out it allowed them to adapt their strategy to better suit their new user-base.

Server Logs

Before Analytics there was the server log. Some people still prefer to log their own traffic or use it in combination with Analytics. I prefer to use a range of metrics simply because they provide me with different aspects of the traffic and it provides me with a better overview of my readers. There may also be security reasons for preferring to do it yourself or you just might not like/trust Google.

Depending on how your web server is configured there is a range of data that is being captured about the users who visit your site: where they are based, which site referred them, how long they were on the site. Many of the same things that Analytics provides. And there are even programs that will analyse this information and package it into a human-readable format (just perfect for your Powerpoint presentation or the end-of-year report). Here are two of the more popular analysers (they are also free):

• AWStats
• Webalizer

Insight

Even YouTube provides a selection of metric data for the videos you upload to their site. It’s called Insight and while you do need 500 or so views for all the features to become available it provides, as the name suggests, an insight into the demographics of who is watching your videos. Gender, age, location, plus there’s even a hotspot graph that shows when your viewers got bored and clicked away. All very useful for your online video market research.

Market Research doesn’t necessarily have to cost the Earth. By analysing the data you are already collecting, and by utilising the free tools that are available, you may find that you have enough information to base your strategies upon. And even if you do need to employ an research agency you may only require a subset of the data. Meaning you save time and, more importantly, money.

The traditional view of how to advertise on television (and subsequently through online video ) is the mini-story. Usually these are short pieces dealing with one subject in a superficial but psychologically attractive way. Sure, the story may have a dominating, but catchy, jingle and the narrative may be non-existent – but essentially that is what a commercial is to most people. However, online video offers some interesting alternatives that not only move away from this traditional mini-story concept but also allow you to build a dynamic and engaging community.

Showing Not Telling

Everyone wants to see how a product works before they lay down their hard-earned cash. By providing a video demonstration of your products you can satisfy that need. There’s nothing really new in that idea, however by turning the demonstration into a form of entertainment you can make the demo far more appealing not only to your existing customer base, but also to people that have never heard of you – potential customers that don’t have a need now but may in the future. Here is a world class example of turning a demonstration into an appealing, form of entertainment advertising:

The Will It Blend series of online videos has been running since 2006 and has generated over 100 million views. As a result Blendtec has seen a dramatic increase in retail sales for their products. By demonstrating their product in such an unusual way they’re not only providing a wonderfully entertaining strange attractor – blending up items that aren’t supposed to be blended – but also demonstrate just how good their products are – if it blends an iPad it must be awesome at making a banana smoothie.

Also by allowing its audience to write-in and request items to blend, Blendtec are encouraging user participation and laying the foundation for other forms of two-way communication. They are forming a goodwill bond between themselves and the users. Forming the beginnings of a community.

Making It Personal

The old saying that your people are your best asset still rings true. You can use your staff to advertise your company and all they have to do is be themselves.

All business is based around the idea of trust. We’re at best hesitant about entering a deal with people that we don’t trust. By providing an online video of your people, showing them as personable humans rather than faceless drones you are setting the basis for a trust to be formed.

One idea for the format of these videos is a series of interviews in which your staff tell us a little about themselves – nothing overtly personal but enough so we can a feel of what this person is like. They can reveal what they do and maybe relate a story of an event that happened at the company. It is important to let them be themselves and to not try to force them to advertise the company. Let them be real.

Google has a range of these staff videos and after watching a few you get a real feel of the vibe that Google must have. There’s an undertone that the people of Google feel they are doing massively important work. Their passion is unmistakable.

While Google is undoubtedly a great place to work, and chooses the best people to work there, your company must also have exciting, passionate people that you can use as well. By using your staff in this way you make your company more friendly to clients and begin to form a foundation of trust, thereby opening up the lines of communication.

Beginner’s Guide or Master Class

Many products and services could benefit from a video or series of video tutorials explaining in detail just how to use them. Text instructions – even with diagrams – can be ambiguous. By providing a video tutorial for your products you lessen the problems associated with learning how to use the product.

Alternatively, you can construct master classes that provide professional-level knowledge on how to use a product. It doesn’t even have to be a tutorial about using your own product. If you are selling something that is ancillary to another product then a video tutorial about how to use that product offers you an opportunity to tap into that their established market.

One of the best examples of this technique is Andrew Kramer’s Video Copilot (unfortunately the videos are unavailable to be embedded). The site caters to users of the motion artistry and video compositing software After Effects. Andrew is one of the leading video artists in Hollywood and provides a range of tutorials catering to both the beginner right up to seasoned professionals looking for new techniques and tricks. Not only do the tutorials show off his expertise – advertising to prospective clients – but he also offers a range of add-ons for sale that improve the After Effects experience. The site has generated a strong community attracting 2.5 million hits per month.

Using these techniques to create video sites (or sub-sites) allows you to foster a community. It offers your consumers a chance to talk directly to you and allows you an opportunity to test new ideas, offer incentives and to receive feedback. In many ways it becomes your own personalised market research group the only costs involving the upkeep of the site and the production of the videos themselves. That’s got to be a great return on your investment.

Oscar Wilde once observed, The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about.

And he was right. Good publicity is great, but bad publicity is a PR opportunity. When things go pear-shaped in social media, they splat so hard and so fast it doesn’t seem possible to wash the stink off. With the right approach and strategies in place, however, you can turn a PR crisis around.

Let’s look at a recent example.

The Nestle Facebook Fiasco

Nestle had an ongoing issue with its reliance on palm oil in its confectionery products, the supply of which was being linked to the wholesale destruction of rainforests and dependent wildlife. As customers began voicing their concerns, a Greenpeace documentary made its rounds highlighting the extant of the environmental damage going on.

Overnight, shocked and angry consumers began joining Nestle’s Facebook page en masse to complain. The Nestle Facebook site found itself hosting ninety thousand new “fans”, all hostile. Some used altered Nestle product logos as their profile pics. But this wasn’t the problem.

The real trouble began when the overwhelmed PR rep in charge of the Nestle page threatened to delete posts by people with the defaced logo profile pics, on the basis that they were infringing Nestle’s trademark. When questioned on the validity and appropriateness of this, the rep responded with sarcasm.

Then, as the joke goes, the chocolate really hit the fan.

What went wrong here? A number of simple, and avoidable, errors.

For starters, Nestle was using its Facebook site as just another broadcast medium. Consequently, it was outsourced to a third party agency to manage. The PR rep handling the page was likely a junior staff responsible for dozens of other corporate social media accounts. When the crowd got ugly, the PR rep had no direct access to anyone of authority at Nestle. All the rep could do was point the detractors back to Nestle’s website to read Nestle’s views on the issue. In effect, that’s like talking to a pre-recorded message; it’s pointless, frustrating, and patronising.

And because Nestle didn’t seem to realise that its Facebook audience was strictly opt-in, it failed to capitalise on Facebook’s strengths as a community-building tool. It offered nothing to its few followers, most of whom friended it out of novelty value. Nestle therefore had no base of supporters and fans to counter the critics. When the mob came, the PR rep was on his own.

What could Nestle have done?

A strategy for dealing with offensive behaviour on its Facebook would have helped. Rather than focussing on protecting the brand, the PR should have been seen to defend its own community of Facebook followers first. Threaten to delete posters because they are disruptive, using offensive language, and drowning out genuine debate; not because they are mis-using your company’s logos.

Nestle missed an opportunity here to engage directly with their consumers. Someone at Nestle, preferably the CEO, needed to be monitoring events so they could step in and address any issues promptly. Even if their message was essentially the same as in their online statement, what was needed was the personal touch. The sense that Nestle really was taking the issue seriously, and genuinely cared about how their customers felt.

So how can Nestle turn this PR disaster into an opportunity? Since the Nestle name is currently linked to palm oil and deforestation, Nestle should talk up the connection instead of playing it down. Show the public that Nestle is aware there are problems, and that they are actively trying to minimise harm to the environment. Fund orang-utan habitats and rehabilitation centres. Source from ethical suppliers, and use their considerable buying power to encourage suppliers to behave responsibly. Show how small palm oil plantations actually benefit villages and lift people out of poverty.

It may take time, but by emphasising that the palm oil situation as it currently stands is a necessary evil, and plans are afoot to change this, Nestle can yet regain public confidence in their products. As long as they continue to engage with their consumers on a meaningful level by being respectful to them, and by being open and transparent with their actions.

Negative publicity is bad, but lack of action is far worse. Right when your brand is a hot trending topic is exactly when you need to jump in and change the direction of the conversation, and make turn bad PR into good PR.

Attribution: Slider Image by Jayel Aheram

Here are the slides for my 21secs to Impact presentation that I recently gave at BarcampSG5. There will be a webinar version of this available soon.

Technorati is a search engine for blogs, and while I’ve never found it very useful I still ensure that my blog is listed and the relevant data is mostly up to date. During our extended stay in Singapore I admit I’ve been a little lax in this, but during the redesign I noticed that the thumbnail picture for the blog came up as missing. Technorati acquire their thumbnails from a site called shrinktheweb.com and to update them you need to go there. However when I visited the site I saw this:

Click to see

Click to see

Is this the result of the Singapore’s government’s censorship program? Maybe Shrink The Web has indexed sites that the government finds offensive. In any case it seems heavy handed if it is. Why not just eliminate the individual listings? Or why not just ignore it – considering how useful the site is. Especially given how easy it is to circumvent the filter.

Barcamp is always an awesome experience simply because there is such a range of experience on hand – both in the form of presenters and participants. There is also a wide variety of topics covered from the extremely technical, like how to develop for a software language, to lifestyle skills, like how to draw. Barcamps happen fairly often in Singapore – the last one was in November – but that doesn’t prevent a huge turnout. Here is a liveblog of what is happening right now at Barcamp Singapore 5

[10:00am]
The official start, although the presenters have been advised to show up by 9.45am to secure a slot. As the slots are allocated everyone checks out whats on and where. We are then ushered into the largest room for the official opening. Those who are new to Barcamp are provided with a quick primer on just what an unconference is.

[11:30am]
After spending an hour or so meeting and greeting new and old friends I attend Guyi’s session on Freakonomics: Why Singaporeans suck at basketball. His theory is simple and compelling: too many basketball courts. They are everywhere here. In Punggol there is one every 300m and most of them are empty. By having so many courts it disseminates that players meaning that the good players are less likely to play against one another – thereby improving their skillbase.

[12:00pm]
Checked out Benjamin Scherrey’s session on setting up a successful tech startup. He had some important points such as using open source software and utilising open standards because they are less likely to become redundant. He also said to hire the best people you can afford – which sounds obvious but rarely seems to happen here in Singapore. A great developer is worth ten good developers. It. His most important message was to avoid taking government money because of the strings attached. He also recommended not letting VCs run your business because most of them have never run a successful business. All in all a great session. If you’re in Singapore he also recommended checking out HackspaceSG to network with other developers.

[1:00pm]
Discovered that my presentation will be on at 3pm in Room A. Come join in the fun.

[2:00pm]
After a delicious lunch, provided by Singapore Polytechnic, I checked out the Startups vs First-person Shooter presentation. The premise is that some of the lessons that you learn in first-person shooters (think Quake, Doom, Call of Duty, etc) can be applied to running a startup. I have to say I’m not entire sure I agree with the premise but it was an interesting concept. Just remember when running your startup to keep the pin and throw the grenade =).

[3:00pm]
My presentation on Effective Video Advertising on the Web. Slides will be available soon. Went off well. Lots of laughs plus everyone loved the doggies.

[4:00pm]
Let’s Fuck #GFW. Quite a crass title but a powerful message on how to evade China’s Great Firewall. As an Australian I’ve been taking notes. #nocleanfeed

[4.30pm]
Checked out the online travel presentation. Some interesting tips and some even more interesting experiences: certain accommodation places won’t allow Indians to stay. Racism is alive and well unfortunately.

Unfortunately that was all I could attend, so I missed HackerSpace SG after party as well as the very popular The Future of Porn panel. Thanks to Preetam, Ping and Chris for organising a stellar Barcamp.

I’ll be discussing using video advertising on the web at Barcamp Singapore, which happens on March 27th. The venue is Singapore Polytechnic (next to Dover MRT – 20 minutes train ride from City Hall).

I’ll be talking about how to use web video in your business and some of the pitfalls you need avoid. It’s not as straight-forward as most people – even the professionals – think.

I hope to be able to meet some of you there so we can have a chat and maybe a coffee or three. I love meeting new people.