Internet Marketing and Digital Media Strategy Sydney Australia

Viewer, reader, fan - attention is scarce, a big bang then fill in the details.  It's the inverted pyramid approach - big blocks down to the detail - it's like a movie trailer.

I'm speaking at an online retailing conference on Monday about creative internet video.

• With all presentations (offline and on) you need to undertstand who your audience is?  
• What your key messages are? 
• What "action" you desire (and how you'll measure success?) 
• About being creative - does the content connect and share - what's the story?  What's the hook?
• How else are going to promote, engage and influence your audience?

Much of the talk today in the digital marketing space is about "earned media" (where influencers spread your brand message [think PR & Word of Mouth]).  It's about brand storytelling that resonates with your audience. 

When thinking "branding" and "storytelling" then advertising and movies comes to mind. 

In looking at digtial media and social media strategy then one of the leaders in the field is Brian Solis,  rated the world's #9 marketing blog by Advertising Age's "Power 150".

"In Time" is a new Crime/ Sci-Fi/ Thriller movie coming out on the 27th October featuring Justin Timberlake , Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy.  At this time of writing 5,458,687 views, 4,000 likes.

I love the top rated comment on Youtube "Why the FUCK didn't they call this movie Justin Time?" baaahhhaaaaaa :)

The central characters name is "Will Salas" - is that serendipity (I hope that's the right use of the word) or influential social marketing?

The pre film marketing includes a Facebook photography contest - put together by Talenthouse - JT tweeted the competition announcement out to his 6.5m followers.

Sub branding engagment

Another URL offered Comic-Con Fans posters to Like and Tweet to engage

http://www.therichcanliveforever.com/

Timberlake, Seyfried talk "In Time" at Comic-Con

"(Reuters) - By now, most anyone who knows anything about Comic-Con International knows it has become a grand platform from which Hollywood's studios launch promotional campaigns for upcoming films and television shows."

We'll track progress

http://viralvideochart.unrulymedia.com/youtube/Official_In_Time_Trailer_%5BHD%5D?id=fdadZ_KrZVw

Note: I'm typing this while waiting in a Doctors reception area - my appointment is 45 minutes late.  Time is Money! 

ACT I

You know the problem, you've been asked to speak at a conference or seminar.  These types of gigs are important for your business and personal growth so you want to make sure the presentation is not only great but highly effective.

Where do you start?

You need a story to tell, to understand your audience, set the opening scene, introduce your main character, create a goal, then an inciting incident (and the Antagonist), a plot point or two, conflicts and solutions and finally a climax/ resolution.  All within an easy to consume narrative. 

Introducing The Protaganist, the main character

As you may of heard Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO from Apple - this thing called the Internet that you are currently browsing, your PC, your ipod, your new smart phone or tablet is partly becuase of Job's influence.

Note: There's a great blog by BNET on Steve Jobs and Apple which I highly recommend 

Anyway, beyond the technology it is Job's refinement of presenting and communicating that I'm deeply interested in.  If you've ever seen a Job's presentation they are super slick.  His time with Pixar must have also helped refine his storytelling and presenting skills at not only engaging an audience but inspiring them - but that's too much detail for now so I'll edit it out.

There's a lot to learn from the Masters.

For the last few days I've been putting together some notes for a 30 minute presentation on Internet Video for Online Retailing - the event organiser just called - how's my presentation going? (The Inciting Incident)

I'm now thinking about "The Antagonist" - this helps flesh out ACT II - problems and solutions - to see things from their perspective.

 ACT II

It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the elements involved - you're looking for a road map with tips and traps.  How much detail do you need to provide?  Customer attention is highly valued - there's a difference between talking to kindergarten kids and adults (some would argue not a lot of difference).  You want to inform and engage.

Research - are you imitating or innovating?

Innovation is great - immitation is faster.

All innovation incorporates lessons and influences from others.  If you watched the BNET presentation above the Apple Mac mouse and GUI (Graphical User Interface) were inspired by Xero.

Presenting like Jobs

 Now comes our story telling stage (more to come) and the narrative.

ACT III

The clock has run out - it's too late to turn back.  

Your hand out is finished 

Now to work on the Storyboard.

How much do the businesses and brands you consume love you?

Popularity is such a fleeting thing - one minute you're interesting the next you're old news.

We're sitting in the new coffee shop overlooking the bay, the old favorite is so yesterday as getting a car spot is a nightmare now the place is so popular with the masses.  Last time you went the waitress didn't even know your name (shameful I know)

Word of Mouth

Don't you find that always seems to happen? What makes something initially cool and special creates the word of mouth buzz which in turn reduces risk and increases acceptance for the mainstream masses.  

At the moment the cafe owner is milking the proverbial cash cow BUT in a few months or a year competition will likely increase and the mass will fragment or move elsewhere - where's there's profits, low barrier to entry and no sustainable competitive advantage then market saturation will occur (at some point)!  

With three new local coffee shops I'm reminded on the tulpengekte - Danish Tulip mania bubble.

Social Media BS

I always find it interesting when online social media helps make a place popular quickly - yet it's also amazing how many businesses either don't engage in the space or equally think it IS the magic answer to their marketing problems.  Negative online word of mouth spreads faster than good.

Another one of my favorite cafes is slowly building their business to be a special destination - they aim big - no rapid fame - quality focus.

Anyway, as digital marketers we try and focus on connecting with people that will like, spread, influence and amplify the core messages yet we only have to look at our own personal preferences to understand the marketing challenge - it's like some sort of real-time constantly changing matrix of features, benefits, pro and cons.

Real-time Relevance

An advertising challenge is real time relevance.

Behavioral guru BJ Fogg talks about the activation threshold and the three elements which must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur: Motivation, Ability, and Trigger (When a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three elements is missing). http://www.behaviormodel.org/

I get up and shut the window, the noise from the busy street outside makes it hard listen and concentrate. There's a nice warm sunlight streaming through but now I'm missing the soft ocean breeze that keeps the air alive and fresh - there always seems to be some kind of trade off.

Message Filtering

We constantly filter our messages and see what we want to see.

Anne Marie is the Marketing Manager of a small- mid sized business, she's sipping her soy decaff latte "Bloody hell, just when you think you've got a grasp on this social media thing the playing field changes" - she's referring to Google + and telling me she's already hearing how the cool kids are leaving the Facebook party, that they're bored with the everybody you know knowing everything you do scenario, that Facebook was like high school and just a phase they went through, that until now there was no other real option.  They've moved on - that their attention and time elsewhere.

"We've invested a lot of energy understanding Facebook and LinkedIn - does this mean it's yet another digital channel we now need to invest, engage in and understand?" she asks.

Yes, your brands, online and offline ("inline") need to be where your most new prospective and current customers are but it's your call on how much investment or resource is allocated and what level of social media engagement you deliver.

Also, social media marketing is not the answer to everyone - it's an element of your sales, customer service and marketing mix. I can't see fans of washing powder having as much passion as Sports teams but you can be creative and produce  content that resonates with you audience - that they'll share.

Social media understanding is also maturing - it's less now about the quantity of contacts and more about the quality of the relationships and conversations within the network (Google + Circles). Note: As these circles and conversations are indexed this will influence search engine results.  (This is more in tune with the way we already do things offline - ie trusted third party referral).

Technology will get smarter

You see every bit of data, tweet, blog post, comment, photo and video uploaded is already help building your online profile and reputation. (There's even a website and app that calculates what your next tweet will be http://yes.thatcan.be/my/next/tweet/) 

Technology will get smarter at delivering more relevant opportunities based upon our real time needs and as choice and competition increases, it's important for businesses to remember that it takes 80% more effort to find a new customer then to service a happy existing one.  

The answer, invest in happy customers - the only true sustainable competitve advantages are your brain, attitude and customer love.

At 14 country boy Ernie Cash was spotted by a talent scout, given $500 a year, a pair of footy boots and a scholarship - the kid was stoked.  By 16 he’d moved to the big city, boarded with a team Managers family and trained five days a week around the interruptions of school lessons - yes, it’s not the usual upbringing for most teenagers but it’s typical for young and upcoming sportspeople  - author Malcolm Gladwell claims that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours - that’s roughly three hours a day for 10 years. 

By 18 Ernie had made his top league debut, won Rookie of the Year and secured a very lucrative three year contract. He’d also moved into a beach front apartment with a couple of footy mates - he lived the dream. A good business manager had helped invest his earnings wisely and his share and property portfolio generated nice returns - he was set for life if he continued to play his cards right.

Yes, a sports stars life is different to most, you’re doing what you love and getting very well paid for it - the fans, the fame, where everybody knows your name, and now with over a half a million Twitter followers (and growing) you are your own media channel, and social media is all a part of todays marketing game.

“It’s about building your personal brand and engaging with your fans” says Ernie when asked about the power and perils of social media “I also know that what happens at The Coopers Cool Bar foreever remains on Facebook and that fans, the media and sponsors are watching our every move on and off the pitch - the better I connect and engage with fans the more valuable I am to sponsors”

In the old days sports journalists like Rudolph Rothschild knew most of the players personally and the newspapers broke the headlines (you can replace the sports people title with politicians, musicians, actors etc).  Today that flow of information often begins on Twitter and for fans in the digital age, immediacy generally matters more than production quality (though for mass media and longer content we expect superior content production).  

A well crafted catchy 140 tweet headline on a Tuesday at 10:03AM can instantly drive hundreds of new people to your website or channel.  Each tweet is like dropping a pebble in a pond or a snowball down a hiil - it either ripples and dies or becomes an avalanche.

Players and their use of social media is an interesting challenge for many sporting organisations - on one side of the dice you have fans and customers increasingly spending their value time in the digital space.  On the other sides you have players doing good things and bad; inspiring but also making mistakes; you have sponsors wanting to leverage player access but also wanting to reduce risk; you then have clubs endeavouring to protect but grow their assets and finally you have the media wanting unique timely competitive content.  

Players are one of a Clubs greatest assets and fans want to connect and know the real person.

With fame and money comes the concept of limited access.

Advertisers and sponsors follow customer eyeballs and all media is competing harder for viewer attention.

Sometimes the normal rules are broken or the truth lost in the way of a good story.  

Brands

What’s interesting is that brands that attempt to stand on their own in social media rarely achieve great success - it’s people associating with people that sells and we’re attracted to larger than life personalities.  

Ava Goer, captain of the TeamX women's snowboarding team has a far less conservative social media view “our stress head managers just advise us to try and avoid any full frontal nude tweets - it’s a big call for some of the guys!”.  

Our sports culture is youth, vibrant, fun and far less conservative, our fans and sponsors are way more supercool, tech savvy and mobile; our sponsors are looking to embed their brands and leverage our cool - we’re not on the mainstream news every night or on the back page of the paper every day, we engage and connect through more innovative channels.  For us it’s not about mass it’s about depth of customer engagement.  We’re way more accessible to the media and less cotton wool-ed or cocooned within a protective bubble.  Many of the journos that follow our sports are already part of our family.  

After sport, with some more presenter coaching, Ernie is positioned well for a TV media role but what TV will look like in five years time is any-ones guess!

And yes, the media landscape has changed but in most cases it’s not about the money, it’s the love of the game