Category: YouTube

Every day, up to one terabyte of information is uploaded via social networks including Facebook, Twitter and other social sites. Back in the day when we only knew one or two sites and people only posted status updates from home, the stream of information was merely a slow trickle. But with more and more people joining social sites, coupled with the widespread use of mobile Internet and the emergence of numerous apps, the social feed is bursting full of information from different people, each vying for their network’s attention, often with irrelevant posts.

As the social media ecosystem advances and develops and people go crazy with games, retweets, trends and links, logging on to a social site means an unavoidable barrage of irrelevant information – noise that distracts us from the information or connections we really want. However, the move from merely using social sites for maintaining contact with friends to using social media for a purpose to network, access new information or to engage in marketing brings its own pitfalls.

The fact that we can customize our Twitter network, subscribe to certain blog feeds and install alerts to see information we desire from niche topic, industry or company accounts, gives us instant access to knowledge in our own interests and goals, allowing us to filter out noise and gain focus. We subscribe to those similar to us, and those similar to us follow us.

There is an implicit pressure in social media to stick somewhat to an identity or niche, in order to gain a following within said niche and to avoid being classified as noise that others filter out.  For example, if a person you have been following because of their useful tweets about fashion begins tweeting significantly about something you are uninterested in, say knitting, it becomes more likely that you will begin ignoring their updates, and eventually you may click ‘Unfollow’.

The echo chamber

The drive to eliminate noise by others and to be a relevant (non-noise) source in our social media networks may create an online echo chamber where information, ideas and beliefs are amplified by enclosed networks. How many times have we seen the same link shared over and over again on our networks, retweeted from an already highly influential source that you follow as well? When we use social media for a particular purpose other than chatting, it’s easy to get so focused on this purpose that we forget that social media can be a source of ANY information. Within the echo chamber that we create and perpetuate, we may become so focused on receiving the specific news we want that we ignore other information that might potentially interest us or enrich our lives.

Think about watching TV, or reading a daily newspaper. Back in the day (before the Internet and social media spoiled us with the choice of what we were exposed to), we were given a much broader view of the world because of the diversity of articles in a newspaper, one of which might catch our eye despite it not being in our favourite section; or an interesting documentary that happened to be on TV on the first channel we flicked to. Being ‘accidentally’ exposed to information gave us a richer, broader perspective. With the filters we have in place to block out what we call ‘noise’, are we blocking out opportunities?

We avoid narrowing our views and experiences in real life by going to new places and trying new things. Why don’t we do this more in the online realm? Why not take a little risk and be less selective in our filters? Follow people who are interesting regardless of their influence or authority in a topic?  Set aside time to find some refreshing blogs or sites. Be a bit more of who we really are, instead of enclosing ourselves within a niche?

What do you think about the effects of using filters on our personal and online lives?

Social search continues to be important for your brand’s social media presence and here are a few tips to make it work:

1. Define your keywords: When it comes to searching for your brand, which keywords would you like to be associated with? Innovation? Bathroom appliances? Design? Plumbing Melbourne? It could be anything as long as you define it first.

2. Twitter Bio: It is REALLY hard to write search relevant content while keeping it enagaging and interesting for the readers but it is worth to try. To make things even more interesting, Twitter makes you do it in 160 characters. But think of your Twitter profile as the meta description of your page and you will understand how important this is.

3. Tweets: Use your keywords early in your tweet to make it more likely to rank in searches.

4. Regularity: Tweet often and regular and also remember that the more followers you have, the better the search results.

5. Twitter directories: These directories are great to find more followers and to build links to your Twitter profile.

6. Facebook status updates: Similar to your Twitter bio, it is VERY hard to write engaging and user centric content with search in mind but it is worth you try anyway. Find a way to link your updates back to your brand’ keywords without being too pushy and use links. Use links often. Also, use anchor text.

7. Facebook photo captions: Your keyword and linking strategy should be extended to Facebook photos. Write relevant descriptions and captions and again it is hard to find a good compromise between writing for search and for the user but be creative. It is worth putting in a lot of effort here as this can significantly boost your search rankings.

8. Facebook About tab: While you cannot place a link or anchor text in the “About” section, it is one of the most important places to list your website address.

9. YouTube keywords: Make sure you include your keywords in your video title, description and keyword section. Repeat the same words in all three for best search results. Next to the title, the description is the second most important thing when it comes to search rankings so put some extra effort into the description.

10. YouTube replies: All search engines like pages which have a lot of links built into them. One way to do this on YouTube is to leave a video reply to related videos.

The votes are in and according to the critics, academics and ad executives the winners of this year’s Super Bowl branding battle are Volkswagen, Bridgestone, Doritos and Bud Light.

However, who here is really the big loser? It may well be the actual polls and reviews run by USA Today, Kellogg School of Management, The Wall Street Journal and Advertising Age.

Marketers no longer need to wait for these polls to be released to reassure them that their millions of dollars spent on advertising have been well received. Twitter and Facebook can now tell them almost instantaneously.

Of course, rating highly in polls still doesn’t hurt. But social networks can tell us more than the simple thumbs up/thumbs down conclusions of voting, since the ads become the subject of conversations rather than one-word responses

With a creepy finger licker, a resurrected grandpa and a pug puppy getting the best of a bad man, Doritos were the most talked about commericals this year according to Brand Bowl 2011.

With a soft spot for dogs, my personal favourite was in fact Bud Light’s Dog Sitter.

You can veiws the rest of the Super Bowl XLV commericals here.

Australian fashion label Saba has turned to Scott Schuman (better known as fashion blogger The Sartorialist) to help promote their new denim collection.  The New York based fashion commentator holds massive sway in fashion circles, with up to 3 million site visitors per month.

Saba sought 17 trend-setters to feature in the upcoming campaign, who The Sartorialist would shoot in the laneways and natural street settings of Melbourne.  Following an invitiation via his blog, over 500 people turned up to a pre-launch party at Cutler & Co restaurant for their chance to appear in the shoot, alongside recognised identities like gallery owner Murray White, AFL footballer Brad Miller and the first editor of Vogue Australia Sheila Scotter.

The campaign really demonstrates the alignment of bought/owned/earned media elements, and an innovative approach to campaign planning.  The bought media campaign (fashion magazines, newspapers and websites) will work with Saba’s owned assets (instore displays, David Jones concessions, Saba’s own website, launch events), and a pop-up gallery in Melbourne’s Duckboard Place which will exhibit the campaign images between 27 July-August 10.

The earned media will include a special blog Saba has set up for the campaign (which goes live on 27 July),  and possibly other social media tools.  Behind the scenes footage from the photoshoot has already landed on Saba’s YouTube channel.

The Sartorialist’s overall popularity and Saba’s decision to execute this campaign demonstrates the rise of social media and the establishment of bloggers as sizeable, credible channels for businesses in their brand strategy.  Hopefully more brands get on board and add depth and interactivity to launch campaigns.

While watching Liverpool beat Inter Milan 1-0 highlights on YouTube, I thought I’d give a full screen version a shot and I noticed a little weird button next to the Play button (bottom left). I clicked on it and this popped up:

It basically brings up a network of relevant videos link to what you’re watching. Click on a surrounding video circle and it then brings up another bunch of videos (colour coded of course). Want to view it? Simply hit play in the circle to watch it without taking you outside of this box.

Highly rated! Cool experience! Give it a shot…