Broadcast Your Business: YouTube

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We all know millions of people log on to YouTube to views videos from across the globe each day. YouTube is not just about  viewing/posting  movies trailers, music videos, silly videos of sleepwalking dogs/ children’s, holiday camps  and other funny/ embarrassing moments — it can also be used as a highly effective Business tool. The public relations or social media marketing is built on the foundation of 2 way communication. Whether it’s working with the media, writing a tweet, managing Facebook page or building a website, communications professionals are tasked with raising awareness of their employers’ or clients’ work and perspectives -– and learning from and responding to the conversation.

Video sharing sites like YouTube are an excellent way to break the ice because nothing online is as personal and human as video. And right now, few activities online are more popular. In February there were 139.2 million unique online video viewers in the U.S. who spent an average of nearly 4 and a half hours watching video on computers at work and at home. YouTube channel can not only help in creating rich vblogs around your product, service, company, technology or the CSR activity and it has the ability to increase a brand’s online presence dramatically for a fraction of traditional marketing costs.

YouTube ads are also a cheap source of traffic, and can drive viewers to other social media profiles (like Facebook) or Web sites with clickable call-to-action overlays.

Below are some examples of how brands are using YouTube:-

  • Marketing: A picture is worth a thousand words, and thousands of pictures streamed together at 29.97 frames per second is worth a lot more. Demonstrating your product with the help of a video with product data, statistics or any other information that is important for buying decision can help you win customers way before you ring his doorbell. Most of us working comes across regular presentations made my Executive boards, Product teams, marketing teams, financial performance, share information, recognize outstanding workers and so on. While bulk of such presentations are  for Internal/ restricted  audience with a little edition/ deletion we can build a non controversial presentation around it. Also we have the need to revisit the presentations for future reference. YouTube channel is a very simple solution to manage such presentations
    • The United States Navy Channel uses YouTube to attract potential recruits. The Navy’s recruitment-focused channel is organized into playlists that target specific groups of recruits with military precision.

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    • Intel and AT&T uses their popular television campaigns as the feature reel on their channel, but they also offer a wide variety of other content, including a look at what it’s like to work with them, and video from event and conference etc

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    • Delta Airlines is another good example of how to drive engagement with the help of some existing ad’s, fresh content in form of product/ service demo and testimonials form the customers

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There are multiple examples of companies doing it successfully like Nortel, Google, EMC Corp, Forrester, etc . Some of the other things company can do engage TA on YouTube are:

  • Training: Videos can be a great way to train employees on anything from using software, managing their equipment, to work related training, to making a great sales pitch presentation
  • Help: Does your help desk get repeat calls from users requesting assistance on the same problem? Create videos of the correct steps to solve the most common problems, and build up a bank of self-help videos for users to check first. Next time when you get a call just direct them to the video which solves their problem and you will see a large chunk of number calls will drop
  • Events: Events are something where companies spend a lot. You can extract more value out of your event marketing if you think about ways to co-produce video content. Remember, integrating marketing channels and initiatives is well known for producing a campaign “multiplier effect.” Whether it’s video shot at a trade show or a promo for an upcoming event, just make sure that the video is well produced and edited for length

These are just a few ideas out of endless possibilities. If you have some thing to add for the benefit of the community… please write a comment.

Once you’ve got an idea, plan your shoot, grab a camcorder flip cam, and you’re on.

Happy reading

M

Brands & Facebook Fan Page

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It’s no secret that an increasing number of companies are jumping on the social media bandwagon. Majority of brands are no doubt continuing to explore the opportunities available via social media in general and Facebook in particular. Much has been discussed in the blogosphere about Facebook fan pages, especially now that detailed fan page statistics are available on AllFacebook (The Unofficial Facebook Resource). We regularly come across brand marketing teams which wants to know how to make their social media presence a successful. And we keep telling them that social media is like building conversations and to do that you need to have some well thought content strategy in place. But the most important part is how do you keep focus on people instead of focus on your content.

There are two important thing that as a brand manager you need to keep into consideration:

  1. Most social platforms are including rich user profiles, to shift the focus towards people
  2. Content-centric platforms should build deep integration with people-centric platforms

If we look at the present popular social media networks:

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If we look at all major brands on Facebook they are doing certain things right –

  • They optimize their presence on social network by choosing the right social object (As humans we like to socialize but in order to socialize, we need a reason to get together. Social objects provide that reason. In certain cases brand itself serves as social object and in certain cases brands need something else to make two people connect. This Social object brings together “like minded”  people with similar lifestyle, cause or passion).
  • They run tactical campaigns to keep people engaged and provide them reason to come back or move from one specific level to next level on ladder of engagement
  • Uses Social ad’s to get more people on its network
  • Run large strategic campaigns with well defined objectives to move people from consume content, curate content, create content, connect with others, collaborate with others, try offering, purchase offering, evangelize offering.

Most popular brands on Facebook are doing this right. To understand more one needs to look closely at some of these brands to understand what works for them.

Mountain Dew

Mountain dew’s over-the-top approach to advertising and marketing is effective, and they’ve brought that same feel to their Facebook fan page. The page is full of fun videos, photos, and links for interacting with the Dew brand. More than just serving as a hub for Dew media, the page’s mission explicitly calls on fans to get in on the action:

 

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Red Bull

Red Bull brand serves as the power supply of the “young and the restless.” Add incredibly entertaining and interactive Facebook fan page to the list of comparisons one could draw. The page doesn’t even waste precious space with lengthy and often boring details of the company’s mission and foundations, leaving a brief company description at the very bottom of the page. Fans can then focus on watching rad videos, playing ridiculously addicting games like Red Bull Soapbox Race, and listen to more drunkish ramblings. It’s fun, it’s engaging, it’s what a fan page should be – tailored to the target audience’s wants and needs.

 

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Pringles

The fan page for popular potato chip brand Pringles stands out mostly for its great use of video. While Pringles has created an inviting laid back tone, and managed to engage fan via reviews, discussions, and original interactive games, the most notable aspect of the page is definitely their use of video. Pringles has recognized that its audience on Facebook reacts well to comedy and have used their fan page to catalyze the spread of a set of videos that certainly have the potential for virality. The videos are low budget productions with little editing or props depicting people singing goofy songs. It’s not much, but Pringles clearly knows its demographic, and the way Facebook works. By distributing the videos on their fan page, they’ve given users the chance to spread the Pringles brand to their friends without resorting to paid ad placements, which is exactly what thousands of people have done by “liking” the videos, an action which is then repeated in the newsfeeds of their friends and can potentially attract new people to the Pringles fan page.

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Coca-Cola

The Coca-Cola fan page looks basic at first glance, but upon closer inspection it is really a testament to the brand’s commitment to user participation. First, Coca-Cola has taken the unorthodox step of displaying user created content in their main page Wall feed by default, something that most brands shy away from. That means that the page is really powered by user generated content, good and bad. That’s a bold move for Coca-Cola, but one that really demonstrates their interest in getting fans involved with the brand.

Another way that Coca-Cola stands out, is their approach to photo albums. Many companies simply incorporate an album of product pictures and call it a day, but Facebook offers companies a chance to get creative with photos, and Coca-Cola realized that. They have a number of albums showing off the product, workers at the company, photos of Coke fans, pictures of Coke products from all around the world, and pictures of old Coke nostalgia. Coke knows that their brand is an icon and people don’t just interact with their product by drinking it — they actually collect it. Their photo albums reflect that.

Then its toped up with the awesome story of how the page came to be. The page was originally created by two fans who just loved Coke. Coca-Cola found the page, and rather than trying to buy it or create another “official” page, they rewarded the two fans and worked with them to continue building the page and representing the brand. By empowering their existing fans, rather than trying to marginalize, shove aside, or steam roll them, Coca-Cola has been able to build on the connections that were already established with fans on Facebook before they even arrived in an official capacity.

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Starbucks

The page incorporates great videos, varied content, and has active engagement with the fans. But what makes it truly exceptional, is its use of status updates.

Status updates are an important aspect of any fan page because they provide two-way communication between company and fan, while keeping the page fresh with new content and information, which gives fans a reason to return. So many companies struggle to understand how best to utilize these updates and either don’t use them at all, update solely about product announcements, or update so often users become overwhelmed and the updates turn into so much noise. Starbucks, on the other hand, has established a good frequency of updates, sharing something new every couple of days. The tone of each update is informative and casual, and even their product updates are kept varied enough to remain interesting, for example, by offering up reviews of new music or books for sale in their cafes. As a result, the quality status update content has led to a very engaged fan base, with every update receiving thousands of comments.

The Starbucks Facebook fan page is a great example of how a company can still engage fans without the use of flashy apps, and instead simply focusing on quality content.

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Happy Reading

M