Politics and Web Video SEO: Evening the playing field
October 31, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 1 Comment
There’s a great article over at ReelSEO called, “Video SEO and Local Politics – How the Little Guy Stands Out”. The main point of the article is to show how putting out web video can increase exposure and trump the big guys. If you’re involved politically or not this article is worth reading and digesting.
Back to our world, remember that:
Not all video traffic comes from people searching for “Joe Political Candidate.” Much video traffic comes from showing up under related searches and hits from being contextually linked together. (Think search for “Iowa Democrats” producing results for Republican opponents)
Grant Crowell, the author of this article says it best near the end of the piece.
As a video SEO expert knows, you need to put out lots of content, not just one clip. However, one unique video clip can still perform a lot better than a competitor with no unique clips. Especially when you can have each single clips of all of the party candidates show up in a playlist, which builds link popularity for everybody in the list.
It’s probably a bit late in the 2008 election cycle to start thinking about this…but come November 5, I’d suggest a plan that involves lots of web video and Internet Findability mediums.
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More Businesses leveraging web marketing and video in down economy
October 30, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Image by niallkennedy via Flickr
Kelly Spors always puts out relevant articles over the Wall Street Journal’s “Independent Street”. In this piece, she opens the conversation about small businesses turning to affordable online marketing methods with more reach. She quotes Matt Booth of The Kelsey Group:
“Web sites will be viewed as a cost-effective alternative; a channel that didn’t make sense in a booming market will fast become a necessity,” said Kelsey Senior Vice President Matt Booth in a news release.”
The benefit from online marketing that many SMB’s don’t fully grasp is the analytics. There are free tools available from Google and others to actually track results and produce comparisons between “ad effectiveness.” What’s the ROI of having an entry in the phone book in your experience? Do you ask every customer where how they found you?
With online marketing, whether you look or not, much of the data is readily available for digestion. The same things apply for web video marketing as well.
Get your web/online marketing program rolling and reap the benefits. While you’re at it, this would be a great time to learn the ins and outs of web video and some other Internet Findability tools.
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Solomon Financial & I Short Sale Seminar Commercial Video
October 28, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 1 Comment
We’d like to welcome Solomon Financial Mortgage (SFM) to the createWOWmedia family. Fred and Lisa Solomon have built an amazing business in Southern California by providing service and value beyond belief. They also have a pretty nifty radio show called “The Free Money Hour” that hands out a boatload of free advice to the masses. Don’t miss Fred’s book too called, “Put Your Money Where Your House Is”
Fred has built quite a brand for himself as a financial and real estate educator as well. SFM has decided to come on board and launch an Interactive Learning Environment with us to leverage the power of Fred’s brand and bring education to a much larger segment of the market than he can reach by staying local.
We’re developing the video content behind the scenes right now…but here’s a look at a 30 second commercial we did for use in their online/social press releases.
Full case study on the way.
Interactive Learning Environment target audience
October 27, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Image via Wikipedia
The createWOWmedia team is all about honing in on a niche market. Personally, I’m a disciple of “Crossing the Chasm” by Moore who’s message is clear. He says that technology start ups must focus with precision on a niche in which they can OWN. Then, the start up can leverage that “segment dominance” into other segments…like knocking over bowling pins one at a time.
We are trying to build a base of different types of users/clients for our ILE platform to gather feedback from different sectors and sizes. We’re trying to define that “perfect client” which is SO elusive to most small businesses.
Do a little experiment. Ask 5 business owners you know “Who is your perfect client?” I think this answer should be on the tip of every business owner’s tongue and spoken with clarity and conviction. Are we there yet? Not exactly. We continue to define/refine/revise/elaborate to achieve this clarity of purpose. It’s tough to do. Tougher than you think. Are you willing to shun $X to achieve the real goal of $X. You’d better say YES.
Right now, we’re working with executive leadership coaches, financial educators, lawyers, relationship counselors, physicians, and associations to help them leverage the power of an ILE in their businesses. It’s fantastic having a product that can work for and be applied in virtually any industry. But this makes focus all the more important.
The most important lesson I’ve learned through my years of working in technology startups and asking tons of questions of those who’ve “been there and done that”…
If you try to be all things to all people…you’ll be nothing to everyone.
Take that one to the bank.
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Iowa Venture Capital and Entrepreneur Conference Notes
October 16, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 5 Comments
I attended the Iowa Venture Capital and Entrepreneur Conference yesterday in downtown Des Moines. The conference was well attended as always and the breakout sessions had some great information from Iowa based entrepreneurs/start up companies.
The overwhelming message was to “look around you” and breathe in all the innovation, growth, and positive outlook. So true. I’d say, “What recession?” “What banking crisis?” “What credit crunch?”
Rooms were full of current and future business owners networking and connecting.
The AM keynote was given by Mark Thompson, co-author of Success Built to Last. His talk was inspirational. The key takeaway for me was listening to audience members define success. As you can imagine…all different. The point was that success and the path to success is different for all of us and often requires brazen disregard for what OTHERS define as reality. I’ll take that! How many entrepreneurs do you know that simply accept “the way things are.” No go.
I scanned as many company websites of presenters and keynote speakers, etc. as I could this morning to see how they leverage web video and rich media to enhance Internet findability. Not so much. I can think of no better time to leverage the powerful “explanatory nature” of video than early in a company’s lifespan. One firm I met said, “We have trouble explaining what we do to the masses.” I say, “Let video capture and display your best elevator pitch/explanation.”
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Don’t Listen to Chicken Little!
October 15, 2008 by paulgratton · Leave a Comment
ManageSmarter posted a great article today about social media and its ability to drive collective perception, potentially creating “self-fulfilling prophecies.” At CreateWOWmedia we try to keep it “real” but we know there are a lot of people who like to jump on a bandwagon once it’s rolling.
If Chicken Little had a blog today his sky-is-falling attitude would be broadcasting a perception of fear and gloom, potentially snowballing into a huge stock selloff. But would that mass perception be warranted? (we’ll just have to wait and find out)
Doug Mitchell’s article just published in Rental Management Magazine
October 10, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
I just wrote an article appearing in Rental Management Magazine called “See You On the Web: Uploading Video Can Build Your Rental Business”
I love the universality of web video and how applicable it is across industries. We are helping companies as diverse as you can possibly imagine. One of our favorite things to do is to take on a typically “old school” industry with “new school” technologies and watch the lights go on all over the house! The heavy equipment rental industry is paradoxical that way. The machines they rent are really on the cutting edge of technology and engineered to extremes. Very exciting. However some of the methodologies and systems used to manage and market the same business…not so much.
If you can find a few moments to read the article, I think you’ll take away some good information to support your plan to embrace web video when you pitch to your executives. If you ARE the executive, consider yourself pitched…now sign off on the plan!
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Word of Mouth Marketing Works Best Sometimes When You Provide Words
October 9, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Word of mouth marketing drives a huge amount of small business success. We’re a youthful firm and most of our business is derived this way so we know what it means to us. But sometimes we think its best to help clients deliver a better word of mouth experience to achieve maximum results.
We’re launching a WOM system here at createWOW. We’re leveraging:
- Send Out Cards to immediately follow up with clients and guide them to what we think will minimize their time investment and maximize new business for us.
- Referral cards to share our brand and message with the new potential client. This way the client doesn’t need to have our “porch pitch” on the tip of their tongue. They can hand off the card and just say, “Wow! It was unbelievable doing business with these guys!”
- A more formalized “Referral business follow up appointment.” Here we actually revisit the client at a scheduled time to go through their contacts and formally contact them via phone and/or email together and attempt to set appointments or at least make introductions and connect the dots.
- A “secret password” that clients can share with potential clients. I know it’s corny but nothing is cooler than saying, “I was told to give you a call…and the password is “CheesyPoof.” It’s an ice breaker and a fun way to start a relationship. Adam Steen at 25 Connections can take credit for this method. Anyone that calls and says, “Hello Doug, the password is Tube Sock” is in like Flynt and gets every bit of my attention instantly. Thanks Adam.
These methods are designed to assist and maximize value within the Word of Mouth Marketing process. We believe it helps systematize something that is often left to chance. Generating new business, especially in this economy, shouldn’t be left to chance. What do you think?
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Is an overloaded email inbox any worse than an overloaded social media stream?
October 9, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Sometimes I wonder if the concept of moving “away from the email inbox” as a organizational and informational repository is a good idea. What happens when we really shift gears towards a larger social media stream to execute our communications and community building?
In many cases, we build a very large and bloated social media infrastructure that resides in many different places. Each place requires updating and servicing. Like many of you out there, I have blogs on Typepad…and WordPress now. I am subscribed to about 235 RSS feeds and leverage CentralDesktop to manage projects, store documents, and keep track of tasks/milestones for specific projects. The list goes on.
I use ONE email program to manage the email stream. I use about 15 different social media applications/services to manage the social media torrent.
I’m not complaining and we are out there daily coaching clients and potential clients to take advantage of what social media has to offer. But we advise being careful and selective about what one takes on in the socialmediasphere because it can lead to overload well beyond “Maxed out inbox syndrome.”
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Preach It! Gary Vaynerchuk on social media and online ad spending
October 9, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
I was cruising through my feeds this early AM and came across the Technology Evangelist blog pointing out a new video by Gary Vaynerchuk.
As usual Gary nails it in this discussion of online and social media ad spending and ROI vs. print or “traditional media ad spending.” His point, you can achieve ROI when you can MEASURE. You can measure online. You can’t measure effectively what taking a large ad out in a magazine meant to your business. Sit back, watch, and see what YOU think!
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