Last month, your New Media Evangelist had the pleasure of presenting at the Ragan Communications Social Media for Communicators Conference in Las Vegas. While there, CEO Mark Ragan asked if we could talk a little about online video.
Here’s what we talked about:
Click here to go to the original video.
Tags: Ragan Communications Mark Ragan Ron Ploof New Media Evangelist ronamok online video interview
A few months ago, my friend Rob at countdowntofifty.com leaned over his cup of coffee and described his latest fixation–Arrowhead’s addition of a convenient new handle to its 5-gallon water bottle. The handle itself wasn’t the problem, its the design that bothered him–specifically the fact that the handle encroached into the container, leading Rob to question the new bottle’s capacity.
He looked on the Arrowhead website. He searched Google. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he called Arrowhead directly. The confident customer service rep on the other end of the call assured him that the new bottles still held five gallons, pointing out that the handle was hollow so it held water too.
But Rob wasn’t convinced. As I munched on my breakfast bagel, he described an experiment that the customer service rep suggested: to pour five 1-gallon Arrowhead bottles of water into one of the new 5-gallon versions. Before our breakfast was over, Rob decided to record the experiment and I offered to play cameraman for him.
The experiment’s conclusion matched Rob’s intuition: Five 1-gallon Arrowhead bottles of water didn’t fit into the company’s new 5-gallon container. There were 10 ounces of water left over!
The reason that I’m telling this story has less to do with the experiment and more to do with the online results. Before Rob published his video, he could find nothing about the new design on Google. After publishing it, however, the video holds the #2 spot in a Google search for “Arrowhead 5 gallon.”
Inquisitive minds are starting to find it. Two days ago, Rob’s video got its first comment:
This is priceless! My husband & I just got our Arrowhead delivery last week and wondered the same exact thing. I being the more cynical one said, “if I find there’s not exactly 5 gallons in there, we’re switching to Sparklets”. I’ve been too busy to investigate & now you’ve saved me the time…glad I Googled my suspicions first
Great job & very entertaining to boot!
Google is your company’s reputation manager. What happens when someone Google’s their suspicions about your products or services?
Photo Credit: tom.arthur
I love Improv Everywhere. Their three word tagline: “We cause scenes” is elegant and brilliant. Can your company describe what it does using only three words?
Their most recent video, High Five Escalator shows what a little creativity, a few friends and a video camera can do. At the time of this posting, it has 370,417 views in five days.
Businesses in a down economy can learn a lot from this creative group. Money is tight. So, here’s a thought. Instead of spending money that you don’t have, how about spending some time to create compelling/fun/thought-provoking/useful information/edutainment for your clients?
Bob Maples, CEO of Maples Communications has this saying: “Outta sight, outta mind, outta business.” So, is your company outta sight? Are you layin’ low during this downturn? Good luck with that.
Rob Shore of Shorespeak always asks: “What’s your Memorability Quotient?” Are you being memorable? What is your company doing right now that makes it stand out from all of your competitors?
Social Media can help solve both of these problems. Your company can be “in sight” and memorable. Unfortunately, whenever I run this crazy idea by business folks, I’m greeted with “the stare” followed by, “We don’t have the time to do something like that!”
Our economy has been strong for so many years that businesses have picked up some bad habits. We’ve become lazy, creating corporate group-think that prefers throwing dollars at problems instead of spending the time to solve them. Perhaps our present economic conditions will help us reconsider our instincts.
Inbound Marketing firm, Hubspot does a great job with their online music videos that teach Social Media concepts such as Inbound Marketing (48,765 views in 67 days) and Link Love (3,359 views in 4 days.)
Don’t wait for Washington politicians; create your own Social Media Stimulus Package. Grab a few of your most innovative employees, a video camera and go make media that your customers will enjoy. If you do a good enough job, they just might send it to a friend who is looking for what you are offering.
Tags: improveverywhere high five escalator hubspot link love inbound marketing ronamok new media evangelist
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