RonAmok!

Earlier this week, I spoke before an Ad Agency. After my talk, a member of the audience approached and asked if Social Media is appropriate for all demographic audiences.

Usually, such a question comes spring-loaded with a belief that Social Media is for the “youngins,” but I wanted to clarify this assumption before answering.

The man described his client, an upscale restaurant with an older demographic audience with income of over $150,000 per year, etc…

I explained that traditional demographic data doesn’t account for passion. Upscale diners are typically foodies who want to know every detail about their food, from the presentation, to the ingredients, to the preparation techniques. They like to exchange stories, recipes and share new dining experiences with other foodies. They watch “Top Chef,” “Iron Chef,” and scoff at Chef Boyardee. Therefore, if online content exists for them to satisfy these passionate cravings, then yes, they are an appropriate audience for Social Media.

Think about categorizing Social Media users more by their passions than by their age. For example, the average age of a Harley Davidson owner is 47 years old — not typically considered the “Social Media demographic.” Yet, the Harley Davidson’s Facebook fan page has over 178,000 fans!

Think passion, not age, income, etc… Find where your passionate customers live online. Then create content that helps them satisfy their informational cravings.

Good online content is to passionate customers like honey is to bears are to honey.

Photo Credit: jameschip

Tags: passionographics demographics Social Networking New Media Evangelist

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend recently. My clients who are new to “online video” frequently call it by another name: “viral video,” as in “We want to create a viral video.”

Your New Media Evangelist has nothing against the word by itself, but when placed before the word “video,” both my systolic and diastolic blood pressure measurements increase significantly.

The phrase creates a distortion field that inhibits a communicator’s ability to focus, frequently putting them into a delusional state of believing that they’re the next Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, or Tim Street.

I’m begging you. For the love of all that’s holy, please eliminate the phrase “viral video” from your pre-production vocabulary. Trust me, the phrase will drain all of your budget and leave you with moving pictures that your kids will call “lame.”

Instead of trying to manufacture million of downloads, try creating useful videos that tell good stories. If millions of people just happen to forward that video to all of their friends, then I’ll consider lifting my embargo. But not before.

A video’s virality can only be determined AFTER it is released.

Tags: viral video viral embargo eliminate ronamok ronploof New Media Evangelist

On October 22, 2008, I was sitting in a popular session at the MarketingProfs Digital Mixer, hosted by the legendary CC Chapman. CC’s topic focused on the corporate use of online video — something I recapped in a cleverly-named post: CC Chapman on Online Video

At the end of the session, a woman asked how a pharmaceutical company like the one she worked for could use online video. She understood how it could be used for business-to-consumer applications. She understood how companies who sold business-to-business could use it. Her question was how to use video in an industry that was regulated by the Food and Drug administration (FDA).

As a New Media Evangelist who helps companies tell their stories online, I run into this question constantly. If it’s not the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry, it’s FINRA for the financial industry, or the FTC for publicly traded companies.

So I went on a quest. My goal was to find a company who works in a regulated industry yet was using New/Social Media successfully. What I found was more than I could have expected.

I found Johnson & Johnson, a 123 year old, $64 billion holding company that had not only been using YouTube successfully, but that it had two blogs, Kilmer House and JNJ BTW, a Twitter account, and was experimenting with a Facebook Group. And as I studied the series of events that transpired to enable this success, I stumbled upon a road map that any company can use to develop its Social Media strategy.

Here I present the results of my research in my latest e-book:

Johnson & Johnson Does New Media

The e-book is licensed under Creative Commons, so please feel free to pass it around!