When measuring the success of your blogging effort, should you be concerned if your blog posts receive no comments? We’re told by experts that engagement is key – we need to have a community of blog readers commenting and interacting with each other and the company. But what if blog traffic comes in via search? Are they part of your community? And if they read your post but don’t comment on it, have you failed? With a hat tip to our corporate clients, watch the video for our take on the importance of blog comments, and let us know what you think in the comments. (an ironic request, isn’t it?)
Chris's Recent Posts
The SEC, Regulation Fair Disclosure and Social Media – Some Common Ground
In December 2012, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings posted a 43-word missive on his personal Facebook feed, congratulating the Netflix team on one billion hours of video viewed in a single month. The Securities and Exchange Commission caught wind of this and warned the company that this status update could be a problem.
Also in 2012, Gene Morphis, CFO of Francesca Holdings, tweeted “Board meeting. Good numbers=happy board.” He was later relieved of duty for “improper communications of company information through social media.”
The SEC previously has held the position that such social media content output is in violation of Regulation Fair Disclosure, or “Reg FD.” They’re interested in investors receiving information at the same time, and have argued that tweeting or posting on one’s Facebook wall is not a disclosure of information that’s readily available to all at the same time.
They have changed their mind, releasing new disclosure rules that seem to allow for commentary on social media. Basically they’re saying “Use these tools if you must, but be sure to tell investors where (Facebook, Twitter?) to expect to hear from you.” This seems reasonable. With the proliferation of social media platforms, what’s to keep a CEO or CFO from disclosing information on one of the more obscure social sites? It is true that most people use the most popular platforms, but this rule makes it really easy to keep investors in the loop.
The impact on our publicly-traded clients should be a positive one – it seems that using Facebook and Twitter just got a bit less thorny.
Read more about it in this New York Times article.
UPDATE: On April 11, 2013, Reed Hastings of Netflix took to Facebook to inform investors (and his Facebook friends and followers) that Netflix users had watched 4 billion hours of programming over the last three months. So he is apparently comfortable with the SEC’s recent ruling.
Make It Go Viral – The Birth of a Meme
Social Media Today posted an article on the rise of the Harlem Shake meme – what made it take off? The article includes some images from a study conducted by Social Flow that are a mixture between a connection grid and a heat map, and they show us who was talking up the Harlem Shake online and where. Then, something connected the disparate groups of Harlem Shakers, and the meme exploded.
Read the article to learn more, and listen to my discussion with Mark Reardon on KMOX 1120 AM. The moral of the story for our clients – not everything is going to go viral, and you might not need it to go viral to achieve your goals. Make your content remarkable, and you give yourself the best chance to have people remark on it (and tweet it, email it, and spread it to the masses).
We Call It Home – Video Production for Mayor Francis Slay’s Reelection Campaign
Falk Harrison was contracted by the reelection campaign of Francis Slay, Mayor of St. Louis, to concept and shoot a one-minute television ad. Sometimes St. Louis gets an unfair rap, both locally and nationally. All cities have challenges before them, but the complaints St. Louis often hears don’t really register or resonate with St. Louisans who love their city. We’re a better city than we’re often given credit for, and the last 12 years have seen major progress come to Washington Avenue, Cherokee Street and elsewhere throughout the city.
The mayor’s team had two requests: set a tone for the campaign, and don’t create the same old political ad. This may seem atypical, but the mayor’s campaign hired Falk Harrison specifically because of our lack of experience in doing political TV ads. They said, “We’re talking to you because you’ve never done this before. Look at our challenge from a different angle.”
After considering their request, our chosen direction was “uplifting, with a tone and message similar to a PSA.” The goal was to have St. Louisans feel proud of their city, with the understanding that the mayor has done much to contribute to the city’s progress. After deciding on creative direction, we drafted four different ad concepts and presented them to the mayor’s team. The chosen concept, “We Call It Home,” featured four St. Louisans that are proud to call St. Louis home. After a week of shooting (including several bouts of inclement weather), we had the footage we needed. We identified and focused on four key concepts that deserved attention: the improving school system (especially the charter schools), our cultural attractions, small business, and cooperation between St. Louis City and St. Louis County.
We took the reelection team at their word and looked at the campaign and the city’s issues from a fresh perspective, resulting in an uplifting message that was unlike most political ads. Our challenge was to create an ad that would set the tone for the campaign, and the client reports that we hit the mark. Quoting them, “It was excellent work, and it both introduced and ended our primary campaign.” It was our first – and may be our last – political TV ad, but the work proves that strategic, thoughtful communication and design can be applied to almost any endeavor.
Thanks to Falk Harrison, the making of “We Call It Home”bit.ly/10nu8bf
— MayorSlay.com (@MayorSlay) March 8, 2013
Vine – A New Video Sharing App
Social media has afforded us a relatively painless, uncomplicated way to fulfill several of our most basic instincts: to be with each other, to share our thoughts with each other, and to show each other what we’re up to right now. We used to share our musical tastes on Myspace. We now share photos of our kids on Facebook, our take on what’s happening now on Twitter, our photography on Instagram, and our videos on YouTube. All of this sharing amounts to data, and companies are trying to figure out how to understand or mine this data for actionable intelligence. Are we leaving a trail of bread crumbs for companies to follow? Flip the question around – can companies use social media to leave a trail of bread crumbs for consumers to follow? Can that be done without alienating them via repeating the pitch ad nauseum?
Speaking of Instagram, what made it so popular? I think it made taking everyday photos easy. It made sharing them fun. Instagram is its own social media community, so it gave you yet another avenue to share, pitch, etc. And if you share on Instagram and push to Twitter and Facebook, which I believe is a generally accepted “kill two birds with one stone” strategy, all the better. The act of sharing slightly filtered square photos with others resulted in Instagram selling to Facebook for $1 billion (which then turned in to some dollar amount south of there due to Facebook’s flagging share price).
What about video? Yes, we have YouTube, but with a 10-hour limit on videos (I’m assuming it’s 10 hours because that’s how long this video is), a shared link to a YouTube video could have you watching a 1-minute video or a 1-hour video. You don’t know what you’re getting into. We love watching videos on YouTube, but the shareability of said videos, especially when it comes to Twitter, is more of a miss than a hit. And it’s not difficult to share a short video on Twitter or Facebook, but it’s not overly easy either. I have found both services to be wonky when trying to upload even short videos.
I think Twitter was a bit freaked out when Facebook bought Instagram. Almost immediately, Twitter added the ability to filter your photos. Now they’ve launched a new video sharing app called Vine, and the feeling I got after first using it was similar to when I first tweeted and thought “Only 140 characters? This is crazy.” Then I made my second vine, and my third, and I got a little addicted.
It’s great fun. The beauty is in its ease. You get six seconds. No more, but less if you want – it looks like you can stop at 2.5 to 3 seconds. I think this is the breakthrough: no editing. Sorry if you want that, but no. To record, you point your phone at the subject and press the screen. Hold the screen to record, and let go to stop recording. Point it at something else, hold to record, depress your finger to stop. Do this until you’re either done, or six seconds is over. There’s a green progress bar that tells you how far along you are in the video. Each individual shot (video and sound) is automatically edited together. No editing! I think this is the hurdle many (like me) don’t want to jump over. I’m intimidated even by iMovie, much less Final Cut. I need to take the time to learn them, but I haven’t. Video editing is not currently part of my skillset. Vine does not require you to know how to edit video. I think it’s brilliant.
Brands like General Electric are giving it a try:
Innovation starts at the drawing board. #animation #loop #magic #2013 vine.co/v/b5PUVEEE9tn
— General Electric (@generalelectric) January 25, 2013
And Steve Hartman and I have made a few feeble attempts to learn the app and have some fun too:
Good morning coffee! vine.co/v/bJpUPH9UzvM
— Steve Hartman (@creativille) January 29, 2013
At The Mack for a burger & beer vine.co/v/bJg5YVWAPLi
— Chris Reimer (@RizzoTees) January 29, 2013
Clara eats bagel #food vine.co/v/bJDeb7EXQxZ
— Chris Reimer (@RizzoTees) January 29, 2013
Pro wrestler wants tape so bad! vine.co/v/bJ6bQp2QqzJ
— Chris Reimer (@RizzoTees) January 28, 2013
Worst #Vine ever! #PorkBroccoli vine.co/v/bJDlZZBp73A
— Chris Reimer (@RizzoTees) January 29, 2013
A couple of thoughts:
1. As stated above, it’s easy to use. No editing required – in fact, no editing offered. If you mess up, you have to delete and start over.
2. Remember audio when creating your vine. Sound will be a part of your vine, unless it’s dead silent where you’re recording. I have a rubber case on my iPhone, and I noticed some tapping sounds in my videos. I think I’m tapping on my phone’s back when I’m pressing and depressing my finger on the screen, and the mic is picking it up.
3. Remember audio when watching a vine. Note that vines just start playing when you scroll one onto your screen (either phone or computer). If you’re watching on Twitter, the default volume is usually mute. Be sure to unmute to enjoy the full experience, such that it is. If you’re watching on the Vine app, it looks like the default is not mute – volume is up. You can touch the screen to pause the video. As the videos play on a loop, it can get rather annoying to listen to the same audio over and over and over. Pausing the video or turning down your phone’s volume will stop the pain.
4. As General Electric showed us above, this is a (very) quick and easy way to show some personality. Companies, take note.
5. I do not believe you can embed vine videos. I can’t find it anywhere in the app. If you’re going to want to embed them, you’ll have to be sure to push them to Twitter when uploading/publishing. Then, you can embed the tweet, as I did above.
6. If you have 15 tabs open in your browser, and one of them has a vine running with sound, whoa that is annoying. Just try finding it!
7. I think six seconds, versus 10 seconds or an unlimited amount of time, makes you more creative. But also, it makes the whole experience less intimidating. No storyboards here – just a quick mental visualization of what you want to do, and go.
8. When you’re starting out on Twitter, they restrict the number of people you can follow to 2,000. In order to follow more than 2,000, you have to get some followers for yourself – within 90% of 2,000, which is around 1,830 followers. Once you exceed 1,830 followers yourself, you can begin following more. Vine does not appear to have that restriction. I just had someone follow me on Vine with 2,174 followers, but he’s following over 46,000. So it appears you can follow as many users as you want.
9. If you want to search Vine’s hashtags, go to Explore. Click on tags to search for tags. Do NOT include the “#” pound sign in your search. Vine will not recognize the # sign. So if you want to search for “sports,” just type sports. Do not type #sports.
10. As I allude to above, when someone invites you to watch a YouTube video, you have no idea what kind of time commitment you’re making until you click. With Vine, you are assured of spending a maximum of six seconds. It reminds me of Holiday Inn and McDonald’s. Back in the day, when traveling across the country, you could count on being able to stop at a Holiday Inn and get a good night’s rest. When the kids are fussy, you know you can’t miss with McDonald’s. This uniformity of experience is a competitive advantage. Yes, there are features missing from Vine, and it’s deliberate.
I’ve been using the app for a mere 24 hours. My take is that it could get really old really quickly, but I do feel it has promise. We’ll see some amazing creativity over the next few months as more people start using it, and I’m hoping some brands find new ways to tell their story, six seconds at a time.
UPDATE: After 48 hours of using Vine, something really weird happened to me. I booted up Instagram, and I wanted the pictures to move. They’re not gonna move – it’s still photography. There was a picture of a coffee mug, and I wanted something to happen. I wanted to see and hear the coffee being made, poured into the cup, something … it was a very odd and telling feeling.
UPDATE 2: A few ideas for Vine: adding embed code for each vine (or video, if you don’t want to call them “vines”), allowing a Vine user to get a URL for a particular vine so they can share it on their own social media channels, adding the ability to do video responses in the comments (maybe limited to 3 seconds), adding filters to videos (which YouTube offers, kudos to Steve Hartman for that idea).
Some resources for you:
Chris Brogan’s list of 11 things a business could do with Vine.
Mashable did a story on brands using Vine.
Here is an unfiltered feed of the latest vines being created. Caution: this is unfiltered. Do not click on this unless you are prepared to see anything.
Speaking of unfiltered, the porn industry is not ignoring Vine, which is causing Vine and the Apple Store some sleepless nights.
The Washington Post discusses Vine.
Boston.com did a nice piece on Vine and included some local videos.
Read Ann Handley’s take on Vine – I like what she had to say. It’s simple, the constraints are brilliant, it’s foolproof and flexible.
And I was on Fox 2 TV to talk about Vine. We even shot one live on the air.
What do you guys think? Let us know what you like and dislike about the service by leaving a comment below. And leave a comment with your Vine username so we can find you!
