22 October 2008 2 Comments
Some of the most successful viral marketing campaigns in our little Internet’s history were those that involved video in some fashion. So, it stands to reason that if you want to move forward with a social media strategy, a video is a good bet. But wait!
Before you get too excited like our young friend pictured here, you need to have a plan. I don’t know why, but I think of giddy kids when people come to me with the great ideas they have. Great idea or not, we too often jump the gun on those ideas.
To set the tone for this article, let me share with you a short conversation I recently had.
Me: So I hear you’re going to do a video.
Guy: Yeah, I want it to go viral.
Me: Well good on ya. You have goals I’m assuming?
Guy: Yeah, I want it to be everywhere, perhaps lead to some interviews.
Me: Umm, fair enough. That’s a meaty goal for your first campaign. But possible.
Guy: Yeah, I want it to be on CNN, YouTube, various other sites. I want it to be everywhere, and I want a ton of attention within a week.
Me: Wow! Ok, well, let’s talk about your plans to promote such a video.
Guy: I already told you, I’m going to put it on YouTube.
Me: Excuse me?
Guy: You know, YouTube.
Me: Sigh. I see.
Can you identify where this conversation took a turn for the unsuccessful in my mind? Let’s set aside the fact that this is going to be the first attempt at a viral campaign for a moment. It has been done, however accidental, so even the fantastic goals aren’t out of reach. Instead, let’s focus on the lack of strategy to achieve such a goal.
Does The Campaign Have Merit
This doesn’t apply in my example above, as the video idea was actually quite impressive. It was timely, it had a great idea behind it and the implementation of the video itself impressed even my very scrutinous mind. However, I think it wise to note how many times I’ve had the conversation with an executive that wants to move forward with a video marketing campaign, only to find out they wanted to make a video about their products. This isn’t a bad video idea, but the marketing of such a video is very different from that of a viral video.
A Sprint commercial on T.V. starring their new CEO (or owner, or whatever he is) in a diner that would normally be frequented by us regular folk, containing a soft-spoken sales pitch for Sprint as a company was nice in my opinion. I think Sprint’s ad campaign will do some good for them (as much as I really hate Sprint). However, this isn’t the type of video that goes viral. It doesn’t get Digg attention by itself, and it isn’t likely to gain a lot of traction on YouTube. But, do you remember the “Leave Brittany Alone” video? That went viral. It even ended up in one of those parody movies.
Now, I’m not saying that you have to get the owner of the company to start crying in order get a video to go viral, but I hope you get the idea. Sales pitches don’t work as well in social media.
Identify Goals vs. Strategy
Here is where the problem in my example above comes in. My friend that wants his video to go viral has a goal, but there is a very blurry line between his goal and his strategy. The closer you get to anything that could be considered a strategy, the fuzzier the picture.
Because you are likely to be educated on promoting a website, let’s change a few words in my example above to make this a bit clearer.
Me: So, I hear you want to promote your business online.
Guy: Yeah, I’m going to start a website.
Me: That’s great. I’m happy to hear you take this step.
Guy: Yeah. I saw the design, it looks incredible. It’s very clean and I feel it shines a favorable light on my company and the products we offer.
Me: Awesome. So, I’m sure you’ve also got a strategy to promote your website?
Guy: Yeah, the site will be up next Wednesday.
Me: Yeah…but…how to promote it.
Guy: I just told you, the site will be up Wednesday.
Does that seem a little more familiar? This was the problem SEOs had yesteryear, when putting a website up and promoting it were one in the same to most people. This isn’t such the case anymore, but its a very common issue when we talk about social media marketing.
Getting people to see your video in hopes of viral success, that’s a goal. Putting said video on YouTube is a small beginning piece of the strategy. But understand, you can’t leave it there. There’s a level of preparation.
Before You Go Viral
I think the problem most people have with social media marketing is very similar they had when they put their first website up. They thought it to be a silver bullet that would rocket their business to new heights. Now we understand that we need to optimize the site. We need to ensure our copy is relevant and enticing. We need to have a strategy for link-building. There are a ton of parts we need to put into motion before we will see hit number one. This is the same for social media.
Do you have an active Digg account that will be used to promote your YouTube channel that houses your new video? How about a ton of Twitter friends that you can call upon to help push the link to your video? Do you have an active account in a social community that is relevant to your video’s content? Have you built any relationships with bloggers in the same vertical as your video? Do you have an active Facebook account with friends that may be interested in your video in the first place? These are all pieces of the puzzle that will help to promote your new campaign, and increase the potential for its success.
If you need some help getting started on this part. Consider my old post on 7 Considerations For Social Media Marketing. If you keep the right mindset, you can prevent yourself from looking like a company that doesn’t actually care about the community, but just wants to sell.
Let Me Close
Because this article is more about theory than implementation or detailed strategy, I get a little long winded. I hope that this helps you to understand though, that simply making a video and uploading it to YouTube will not bring you fame or fortune. There is always that ‘X’ factor where its a possibility, but you don’t see that so much anymore. In the end, to increase your chances of exposure, you need to have a solid foundation. You need to plan things out as best you can. You won’t tell the future, and you aren’t likely to plan your way to the top but you should at least get an idea of how you are going to get things moving.
So, here it is, Monday morning. You have a LinkedIn account to look at and update as needed, and a matching Facebook, Myspace and Plaxo profile to go with it. You also started Digging, Sphinning, Mixxing and Buzzing all the latest stories, commenting and making friends the whole way. There are a ton of new stories since Friday, so you have to catch up. Great, that’s all done, but you look at the calendar, and its Friday. You’ve lost another week playing social butterfly, and have no work to show for it.
Neat news today. Loren Baker created a video sharing site (IMBroadcast), much like YouTube for Internet marketers. The cool thing about IMBroadcast is that it is meant specifically for the Internet marketing community (or those who would like to learn more) so the channels will be related to SEO/SEM topics. From their About page:
If anyone would like to know what the future SEO looks like, here she is. Well, they think she is a she, but too early to be certain.
