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“Back-channel” conversation in online chat rooms and Twitter is becoming increasingly commonplace at many conferences. Does this detract from the conference experience, or does it enhance it?

Mentioned in this episode:

• Podcasters Across Borders
• From Mass to Grass: CMA Word of Mouth Marketing
• Mass to Grass singing hamster video
• Stevie Z
• Dave Delaney

 

 Episode #15 - Conference Back-Channel Chatter: Is it Good or Bad?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 65% [?]

Years ago when I was in university, it was my good fortune to do an internship with the company Tambre Productions. Tambre president and creative director Marvin Dolgay was and is one of Canada’s top commercial music composers. Marvin said something to me once that I’ve always remembered: he said he would tell his clients “don’t talk to me about music. Talk to me about what you want the music to DO.”

I’ve been thinking about this in context of a song called “Make the Logo Bigger” which I’ve been listening to quite a bit recently. It’s a common joke among designers, particularly at agencies, that clients always ask for the logo to be bigger on their creative. While this sounds like a reasonable request, many folks who do not come from a design background don’t seem to understand the need for balance and whitespace in design, and moreover they forget that making one element bigger invariability means making something smaller. Often, that “something” is the special offer or call-to-action that the creative is being designed to communicate in the first place. So, that seemingly simple request can cause more harm than good.

If you are working with an agency, what you need to help your agency partners understand is WHAT you want to accomplish, not HOW they should do it. The trained designers, copywriters, programmers, etc. will do what they do best to make sure the execution achieves your goals. That’s what you pay them for.

Popularity: 59% [?]

I’ve been using TubeMogul for a few weeks. Most recently, I’ve used it to upload and track views for “Mass To Grass,” the video I created to help promote the Canadian Marketing Association’s Word-of-Mouth Marketing conference on June 12.

One of the nifty features TubeMogul offers is the ability to embed their tracking reports in other sites — like this one:

TubeMogul also has a great uploader tool that allows you send you video to multiple sites at once. And perhaps most interesting of all, you can track ANY video on YouTube or other videos sites, regardless of who put it online. If you got clients or competitors with videos out there you want to track, you can start doing it today. Imagine — video statistics stalking!

Popularity: 51% [?]

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Bloggers like C.C. Chapman and Michael Arrington complain in Twitter about the service they get from Comcast, a big cable company. Comcast responds and fixes their problem.

This is great, right? Comcast is listening and responding to the new media conversation. But is there a flip side to this? Is there a danger of those consumers who are not in the conversation becoming more disenfranchised.

Will the best customer service be reserved for those on the soapboxes?
Mentioned in this episode:

• Comcast Wins With Twitter on C.C. Chapman’s Managing The Gray
• Comcast, Twitter and the Chicken on Techcrunch
• Comcast on Twitter
• Technorati
• Google Alerts

 

 Episode #14 - The (Noisy) Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Chris Anderson is a smart guy, but he has clearly been running a big magazine too long to understand the new social realities of media.

In their latest episode of For Immediate Release, Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz spoke about the article “The Micro Threat to Big Social Networks” on the PC Magazine site. In it, Anderson (Wired Magazine editor-in-chief and author of The Long Tail) claims “the problem with the social-networking destinations like Facebook and MySpace is that they’re not about anything—they’re about Facebook and MySpace.”

What a strange statement! I wasn’t aware there was a new rule that popular and successful websites were now required to be “about” something specific. Someone better tell Google…

I guess Mr. Anderson, as the editor of an old media publication (albeit a forward-looking one) hasn’t yet clued into the fact that the world is no longer defined exclusively by a small group of editors-in-chief. Increasing it is defined by our social connections with people and information.

Facebook and MySpace are about their members. Unlike a magazine, where content is the focus, social networks don’t need an editorial point-of-view. People define their experience based on who they connect to and how they use the service.

When I go to the “home page” of Facebook, my experience is different from anyone else’s. My Facebook News Feed presents updates from my friends on the site. Sometimes I see that one of my friends has joined a group that I wish to join. Sometimes I see that they have posted some photos I’d like to see, or have RSVPed to an event I’d like to attend. THAT’S what Facebook and other general social networks are about.

In the PC Magazine article, Anderson goes on to talk about niche social networks, like his own DIY Drones. I think niches are useful and important, but personally I don’t see niche sites replacing general social networks. Niche sites are, well, niche. If you want to create a dinner invitation exclusively for people who are into unmanned aerial vehicles, I guess Anderson’s DIY Drones is the place to go. If you want to create a dinner invitation for a group of friends and family who’s only common trait is their relationship with you, you’re probably still better to set it up in Facebook or MySpace.

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I’ve talked in the past about the fact that I read the Toronto Star — yup, the actual paper version. In fact, my wife and I get the Star delivered to our house every morning, and although I usually don’t get a whole lot of time to check it out on weekdays, Saturday and Sunday I usually dive pretty deep into at least a few stories in the top news, world, sports, entertainment and other other sections while I sip my coffee.

An article that caught my eye this morning (actually my wife spotted it first and handed it to me immediately, realizing it was right up my alley) was about a new Toronto music store called Musideum which features instruments of various shapes and sizes from around the world. From the description it sounds a lot like the great Seattle store Lark in the Morning, and I was not only very excited to check out, but also excited to share the news with a particular group of friends — my musical colleagues in the all acoustic eighties band The McFlies. If you’ve never seen The McFlies play, I can tell you that we’re very much into, well, unusual instruments, at least for North America pop/folk music — ukuleles, melodicas, glockenspiels and cojones are just some of the things you’ll see onstage at a McFlies show. With this in mind, I definitely wanted to share the news of this new store with my fellow McFlies, so I looked up the article online to forward on.

I was EXTRAORDINARILY pleased to find, not just the article but a terrific accompanying video, complete with the store owner demonstrating many of the instruments! What a perfect extension to the text of this story, and what a great way to take advantage of what both the new and old media do best. I checked back to the original story in the paper edition and noticed that they had mentioned the video at the bottom of the story as well — missed that the first time, apparently I still need more coffee!

One thing I did think could have been added was the ability to embed the video directly here on the blog or other sites. YouTube has shown how allowing your content to be taken offsite extends your brand and ultimately your content. I would think the Star and other traditional media companies would benefit greatly from providing this kind of functionality. But at least they appear to be on the right track.

I realize a lot of newspapers and other traditional media outlets are doing similar things, but to me it just highlights the fact that different media continue to have different strengths, and should be thought of as complementary. I’ve said before that I believe newspapers will survive, but they will clearly have to change their business model to continue to thrive. I feel that new business model MUST recognize that different people will continue to consume their news in different ways, and that simply putting a text story on the web is not going to cut it.

Examples like what the Star has done here are just one small example of how old media companies can leverage new media channels. Any others you’ve seen lately that you found interesting or impressive? Leave a comment!

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A little video to promote “From Mass To Grass”, the Canadian Marketing Association’s Word of Mouth Marketing conference. Enjoy!

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There are only two ways you can monetize content.

Unless you can think of more…

If so, let me know!

 

 Episode #13 - Monetizing Content: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 48% [?]

A little while back on the podcast I talked about the Internet as a channel for branding. More specifically, I talked about how advertising veteran Allen Rosenshine comment that the Internet doesn’t have the ability to deliver the “emotional capacity of branding”.I was doing some research recently and stumbled on a paper from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter entitled “Does Internet Advertising Work?”
From the paper:

…banners exceed or are as good as magazines, newspapers and television in generating brand recall and brand interest, in our view. However, to date we believe the Internet is only about half as good as TV and magazines at generating brand awareness…

…when branding is considered in terms of cost effectiveness, banners look even better, based on our research. We estimate that banners are 40–80% better than TV, magazines, and newspapers in brand recall and generating interest in a brand. As for generating brand awareness, we believe banners are about 40% better than TV, but remain about 20% worse than magazines…

One of the most interesting aspects of this paper to me is that it was released in February 2001!

I wonder if the effectiveness of Internet advertising have gone up, gone down or stayed about the same in the intervening years. On on the one hand, the saturation of ads online is much greater now than ever, and people have the ability to ignore noise. On the other hand, creative and technical execution has gone up as well, and with the advent of higher broadband penetration leading to more rich media ads, one would have to believe that Internet advertising today is more engaging.

What do you think? Is the Internet a more or a less effective brand advertising vehicle than it was 7 years ago?

Popularity: 43% [?]

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Some thoughts on how the media you choose can bias communication. Do YOU think about permanence vs. portability in your communication?

Mentioned in this episode:

• Harold Innis
• Podcasters Across Borders
• Archive.org

 

 Episode #12 - Does the media you use bias YOUR communication?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Popularity: 47% [?]