TangledMESH - Marketing Unwound

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Endavo Speaks at PDMA Brand Marketing Conference

With a little help from my friend KelvinG, I spoke at the Product Development & Management Association's(PDMA) Brand Marketing Conference. Hot off the set from filming "Zombie Truckers 3," KelvinG took time to share his insights with the group -- including a nod to pitchman Tony Little and his hit product the Gazelle. Check it out:

What KelvinG gets, that a lot of product managers and brand marketing types don't, is that social media marketing is all about content. That's right. Social media = participation. Participation = content. Content, specifically relevant and engaging content, has become the currency of social media. The more of it you produce, deliver and promote, the more influence you can create for your brand.

One of the points I made during my presentation was the disconnect many in business seem to have when it comes to video. I mean, almost everyone has a video camera at home; posts movies online for their familyy to share, and in some cases does some basic editing to clean up the finished product. But that same person never thinks to bring their camera on a client visit to get a video testimonial, or to the trade show booth or to the product manager's office to get product tips and tricks to share with clients.It's weird... like a mental block or something.

And before you ask: Yes, I did shoot video from the event. You can see it here:

The reality is, your business, products and colleagues are creating content opportunities everyday. This is content your clients and prospects want to see, as evidenced by an April 2009 Nielsen report. They don't care as much about how slick it is or its production value. They want to engage with your brand, so create a content plan with that in mind.

I believe the next big wave in online video is Business Generated Content (BGC). We've all heard about Consumer Generated Content (UGC); well BGC is poised to be even bigger. Companies that have invested in hiring content strategy experts, and basic in-house video production capabilities will be poised for success. They will be able to communicate faster and with more engagement than their competitors. Those waiting to "figure it out," or dismiss online video as a fad, will be sadly left behind. Video content will be a key component for any successful multichannel marketing campaign.

Some examples of companies doing it right include:

• MarketLeverage Video Channel:Using video to communicate with members of it's referral marketing network, promoting premium merchants to special promotions to affiliates.

• TurfNet: Creating original video content and delivering it regularly online to increase membership engagement and promote key association sponsors.

• Numara Software: Using video to educate clients and prospects on product features and benefits. Extensive collection of client testimonials that bring instant credibility to their brand.

The writing is on the wall. Don't be the brand manager or product marketing director that gets the importance of online video too late. Don't sit back, now is the time to build a video strategy that's inline with your overall branding goals. Think of new, creative and cost-effective ways to gather and distribute video content. Become a video "rock star." Your customers will love you for it, and your CEO and CFO will eventually come around, too.

Follow me on Twitter @ShaunPope, or connect with me on LinkedIn.

YouTube or MyTube? Video Content Strategy

Social media marketing expert, Bernie Borges, interviews Shaun Pope of Endavo Media for the Find and Convert Podcast. Shaun is a contributor to the video chapter of Bernie's forthcoming book, "Marketing 2.0: Bridging the Gap Between Buyer and Seller Through Social Media Marketing.

Sports Teams/Leagues: Huge Opportunity to Use Online Video

The great thing about sports is that people get so passionate about it. So, if you’re a sports marketer, team/league promoter or just a hardcore fan, building an online community around sports is a no-brainer.

The first step is to create a place where fans, players and supporters can meet online. You can always start with a blog. But sport is about action and nothing does this better than video. So, using online video is a great way to attract fans to your site. Not to mention the sponsors that want to reach them.

The good news is that you don’t even have to worry about production. Most fans, parents and coaches are already capturing video and pictures. What you need is a centralized place where community members can share their user-gen content and interact with one another. The most cost- and time-efficient way to get your video community up and running is to select a fully-hosted online video platform that lets you create a branded video community and gives you total control over your media, audience and monetization options. As your community expands, you may decide to stream live video from key athletic events or to invest into additional video production like interviews with players and weekly team reports.  Your Internet TV platform should have the capability to supports your community’s changing needs.

You can then monetize you online video community by attracting sponsors and advertisers who want to reach your audience.  Advertisers will be able to become active community members by supporting team segments, including their own videos, sponsoring live events or displaying ads on your website and within your online video player. Need an example? Take a look at what American Powerboat TV has done with its sponsors. You can also monetize your community through fee-based subscriptions or by selling access to live streaming events.

What’s great about online video is that it’s a great equalizer. It’s now possible for USA Water Ski to have the same powerful marketing and promotion tools as the National Football League. And if you’re wondering, yes, Endavo Media can help.

Promoting Online Video: SEO Lift and Viral Buzz

In previous posts, I covered how production and publishing are central to a strong online video content strategy. But it's how you promote your content that impacts measurable results the most.

The key to success in social media marketing is participation. Posting regular tweets on Twitter, updating "what your doing now" in LinkedIn, commenting on your Wall in Facebook, and including links to ultra-relevant content in your blog posts are all opportunities to promote your online video.

While seasoned social media experts can accomplish more than a novice, it's not a secret art. The function is very much about ongoing activity online, being timely with your updates and authentic with your voice. In other words, it's hard to fake it. The name of the game is building online credibility, and in return, increasing your influence. Social media experts are not born, they're raised. The only way to get better is to engage and participate.

Okay, so social media marketing takes effort, it's not always easy to measure, and, while cheap, it's not free (as many marketing execs seem to think). However, there are ways to measure effectiveness and ROI:

1. Increasing video views by seeding viral sharing of your content and promoting your online video content as part of your everyday social media participation will drive inbound traffic. A good tool to use to measure click-throughs on specific links is URL Brief. This service lets you abbreviate the URL and provides tracking for those links. Another tip: make sure to alert everyone in your company when new videos goes live and encourage them to promote it, too.

2. Building inbound links is a great way to earn SEO "juice" for your content, as most search engines (especially Google) use inbound links heavily in their search algorithms. SEO takes time. Increasing your search engine results page (SERP) to 1, 2 or 3 is the result of continued link building over time, as well as the relevancy of your content (a whole separate topic). But it is measurable. 

In summary, alway be promoting!

• Link to your content EVERYWHERE (where relevant)
• Encourage employees, friend and followers to link to your content
• Provide video sharing features so viewers can promote your content
• Use Embed Players to let users put your content on their blogs, websites and social media profile pages.

So, get out there and Produce, Publish and Promote more video content. Want more like this? follow Shaun on Twitter, or connect with Shaun on LinkedIn.

Online Video Publishing: Nothing's for Free!

This post is second in a series on creating a strong video marketing strategy: PRODUCE, PUBLISH, PROMOTE - Repeat!

In the first post I discussed declining video production costs and how UGC and DIY techniques can result in more content on a regular basis. This serialized content is key to building audience in a Social Media world.

With a content production plan in place, the questions quickly turn to delivery. The explosion of video sharing sites like YouTube, Blip.TV, Vimeo and many others has given rise to the user generated content (UGC) phenomena by making it easy to publish videos online. A main driver is that these services are FREE. In large part, this has been a good thing for broadband video providers and helped generate real data behind the theory that web video is a more compelling and effective medium.

The reality, however, is that these sites are cutting a deal with you; free hosting and delivery in return for loss of control, limited understanding of your audience, one-size fits all implementations and shared-to-no ability to monetize. The cost of this approach to your business down the line can be significant.

You should ask yourself: is building audience on someone else's site in my best interest? In most cases the answer is no. So what your doing is failing to invest in something that is emerging and expected to explode over the coming years, in return for a free offer. Your video content is helping another site build-out its long-term value rather than your own. That's not FREE.

To be fair, I must acknowledge the strong points of free video sharing services. They can deliver audience... not sure if it's the right audience, but audience nonetheless. SEO benefits can also be realized, but the search results generally take users back to the site where your video is hosted, not yours. Not overly compelling when you break it down.

If you're serious about making video content part of your marketing mix, or even more so, a central part of your business model (ad supported, subscription and/or pay-per-view), a free service will never get you there. You need to invest in a content management system that puts you back in control of your content, your audience and your revenue. In many cases, the workflow efficiencies alone will justify the cost associated with having your own Internet TV platform.

But the real opportunity is the ability to drive product sales, engage with your audience (collect data), give partners/sponsors the ability to reach your audience, and/or charge access to your premium level content. To fully realize this revenue opportunity you need control over media and the user experience, as well as touch points with other business systems. This is how you should be investing in the tremendous opportunity that exists with online video.

Remember, you get what you pay for.

Digital Media - Content, Advertisers and Technology Trends

Businesses: Don't Miss the Chance to Tell Your Story

Maybe it’s the way user generated content (UGC) has been presented by the media as crazy and wild, scary even. Maybe it’s hard to shake the “old school” mindset that video is supposed to cost a lot and take weeks to produce to be “useful” or of the right “quality” for distribution. Whatever the reason, business owners take heed: social marketing content is happening right in front of your eyes every day, and many of you are missing it.

Savvy business owners and marketing execs are discovering serialized Business Generated Video (BGC) is attainable (see Endavo's Internet TV channel). What used to cost $5k for a 3-4min. finished video is now being produced in-house with a $600 HandyCam and iMovie (Mac) or MovieMaker (PC) editing software. The average person will be amazed at what they can produce. So, assign a marketing resource as your BGC Producer, or outsource the function, and start capturing content immediately.

Producing BGC videos is about telling your company's story. This story gives meaning and substance to your brand. Everything from the CEO’s vision statement to the customer service rep’s one-on-one experience with a customer. It’s all great content and central to what your brand really is. How about the tradeshow you spent $10k attending, did you capture any video at the event? Why not? How about the clients and partners at that show, get any video testimonials with them? Why not? How about your product manager’s last demo? The list goes on.

Okay, so you’re sold… BGC needs to be part of your marketing plan.  Now what? Well, I like to break it down like this: Produce, Deliver, Promote and repeat. In this post I focused on “producing” content. Next week I’ll cover Delivery (hint: Endavo can help) and the follow week Promotion.

Extend the Reach of Video with Endavo Personal Player

One of the most powerful features of the Endavo Internet TV platform is the Personal Player. This tool allows members of an Endavo powered video community to get "embed code" they can easily add to their own blogs, websites or social networking profile pages -- extending the reach of your content (and only your content) without losing control; something that proves challenging to those relying on YouTube and other social media sites to deliver their content.

Community members can select the content they want to display in their personal player and pick from multiple colors. It's a great way to build audience for your site from the viewers of your members' web sites, as each personal player is branded with your site's logo and a link back to the main community site. Here's an example of the Endavo Personal Player.

The New Gig - Endavo Media

I've been tweeting about my new gig, but figured I was overdue to write a more detailed post about Endavo Media and why I'm so excited to be part of the great things we're doing here.

Endavo Media provides an end-to-end Internet TV platform. If you're in the business of producing, distributing and monetizing online video content, our services can help you manage those digital asset in a scalable and cost-effective way. One of the ways we're positioning the service is as the next logical step from viral video (YouTube, et al). This presentation gives the full pitch: "Online Video: From Viral Campaigns to Branding Strategy."

My role is business development, with an early focus on the Florida New Media and video production community. My background is in sales and marketing. I have worked in interactive marketing and telecom services for more than a decade, and more recently shifted my focus to social media and what I call "customer engagement strategy." In my view, online video will play an ever-increasing role in interactive marketing strategy. It's still in its formative years, but the push is on. So, Endavo is the perfect fit for someone with both my history and forward vision.

But the odds of me finding such a gig where lower than you might think. Tampa, FL is not exactly Boston or NYC or San Francisco. Headquartered in Atlanta with an office in Tampa, Endavo was the only player in town focused on the things that I'm passionate about. Others in the area work around the edges either from the production side or the social/viral marketing side, but not as the enabling technology that allows content producers to build an Internet TV destinations in days, complete with ad insertion management, live streaming, and all within your own branded look and feel. What can I say, I'm a platform guy.

To top it off, I'm back working with one of my former clients. While at Mediacentric Group I directed the Perot Systems account. Pete Contardo, Endavo's EVP/CMO, worked for Perot at the time and we built some cool stuff together. It's fun to be back working with him. Paul Hamm, Endavo's CEO, is as sharp as they come -- aggressive, responsive, positive and always eager to support his team. The rest of the group is great too. There is a start-up mentality here that I thrive on. All the questions have not been answered nor all the potential realized, and that's what makes it special: being part of the growth.

The punchline is "never say never." If you want something bad enough and you can demonstrate real passion to other people, everything has a way of working out. Being passionate about what you do is critical to your health and prosperity.

I know times are hard right now for a lot of people. Many people have been laid off, forced to move or do more with less. So, I am truely grateful that God brought this opportunity to me. It is a tremendous opportunity for me and I plan to take full advantage of it.