Publishing Viral Video & Youtube

This post is in response to the assignment that the class had to read that focused on viral video and Youtube. We have been working on a video in class for the past week and a half now. When starting this project I simply thought that it was just going to be for extra credit, but after seeing my groups completed project I thought that it was really fun. It was amazing to see that so many different things (pictures, clips, etc.) could be combined to make an interesting video, and something that people have never seen before.

The article talked about how there are a lot of different videos that can go viral. These videos can be made by someone like me and you or a company itself. We have looked at a lot of different videos that have gone viral in this class. Some of the videos have even been popular enough to be turned into commercials. The two that come to mind are the Mcdonald's commercial and the Apple Itouch commercial. Both of these were made by regular people and after being posted to Youtube, they were recognized. With so many people using the web, Youtube has been a great way for people to get something out there.

Look at the video's that we made in class. We had an array of topics that dealt with certain issues. Even if our videos may not go viral they are going to get viewed by some people. This is one of the reasons why the web is so great. Youtube can also be great for pr. Not only is it a way to do cheap and easy promotion, a lot of companies are going to be in need of some good pr and crisis management after some videos are posted. Take the Comcast viral video for example. The worker slept for over an hour. After people saw this they were probably outraged. I am sure that Comcast hired some good publicist to right there wrong. I really liked this article and in case some of you did not read it I put the six ways that the article mentioned about how to maximize viral videos potential.

1. Keep your video clips short, preferable under 5 minutes. Most people browse through a number of videos when visiting sites like YouTube and Google Video, and may be unwilling to give any one video too much of their time.

2. Ensure that your video has interesting, entertaining or provocative content. If it doesn't "wow" people, they will have little incentive to share it with other people they know, or across their social networks.

3. Be cautious about including commercial or promotional content. The most powerful short videos are those which are purely entertaining. It's when people click through to your site that the time is right to add your sales message.

4. Don't plan on creating just one video. It is hard, if not impossible, to accurately predict which videos will enjoy wide, viral distribution. Our own testing demonstrated that some videos were shared more than ten times as much as others. So plan on creating a series of clips, and learn from the one which performs the best.

5. Optimize your video clips to maximize distribution across social network sites, use tags and bookmarking links to help people find, save and share your videos.

6. Create videos that multiple people (possibly some of your customers) appear in. The best team of viral marketers you can hire are people who appear in your video and pass the video to their friends and family.

Stupid Filter!

How many of you out there are tired of getting ridiculous comments on your blogs, myspace, facebook, whatever? It seems that this problem may be able to be alleviated in the future. I was reading an article titled, "StupidFilter Blocks Comments Online" and it states that this stupid filter will be able to block dumb comments from appearing on people's pages.

What this new creation will basically do is keep those unwanted messages off of your page by separating the good messages from the bad. If it senses that a person's comment is no good it will not allow them to post a message, until they reword it to make sense and be relevant.

I don't know how many times I have gotten really dumb comments and have had to erase them. It is both annoying and time consuming. But, at the same time sometimes I like those comments that only make sense to me. What if me and my friends have something that only we get, is this stupid filter going to block those things just because it doesn't understand them? Also sometimes I don't make the most sense when I write. I think that I will get a lot of messages that say I have to reword the things that I am writing to make more sense.

In the long run I think that this will end up being more annoying than anything.I would rather take the time to go and clean out my unwanted comments. Not to mention that this filtering could cause a big uproar. This product is going to need some PR help after a large group of people are angered for being called stupid. What exactly defines a stupid comment anyway and why should a tool online get to decide that? Shouldn't the person who has the comment left on their page get to decide that? I don't think that this filtering will last for very long... What do y'all think?

Order A Drink By Texting

I just read an article titled, Text Message Your Drink Orders At British Pub. This article brought forth to my attention (even more) how far technology has come. How many of you have been at a bar before and have stood there forever waiting to get a drink? (that is if you are 21 of course) It seems that the British have made it very easy to eliminate this problem. If people at British pubs are tired of the lines all that they have to do is text message the order to the bartender and there beer will be right out.

I am not quite sure how this works but from my understanding it seems that one can get on the Internet from their phone, and connect to the pub's homepage to find the menu there. From that point all they have to do is find the drink they want, and then send it to the bar's computer. This seems easy enough, but I can't help but wonder if the process is really that simple?

I do not know about Britain but let's take the United States for example. I know for a fact that a lot of places are very strict on serving to underage people. It would be a big waste of time if underage people were playing jokes on these bars. (How exactly would they be able to check people's Id's if they are ordering through text message?) This could be a really big loss of profit for them, not to mention a big legal issue if they served to minors. Also, the article stated that if drinks are ordered through a text message 10% is added to the cost of the drink, not including the tip, or the Internet fees from the person's cell phone provider! At this rate one drink could end up being very expensive. (too expensive for this to even be worth it)

This new service will probably be in need of some serious PR over time. This type of issue is one that a lot of people could find to be unethical, or like I said earlier a lot of issues could rise from this (underage drinking, problems with the system, people feeling cheated in to paying so much). This could also use some PR to help promote the new service. Why I think that most new things happening in technology are very cool, I have to admit that this one is dumb. It really does seem like it is more work than it is worth.

Facebook Watchers!

Since I just wrote my last blog about Facebook making its way on to Blackberry cellphones I thought that it was only appropriate to talk about a new article that I found titled, Facebook Employees Know Whose Profiles You Look At. After reading this article I was shocked to find out that employees can sit around the computer at times keeping track of whose profiles people are looking at on Facebook.

I know that it is appropriate to be able to find out what people are doing, (for security purposes), but to allow just basic employees this same privilege? The article states, "if your friend works at Facebook and you're crushing on him/her, then maybe you should consider NOT camping out on his or profile as a way of satisfying your creepy longing, e-stalker," (Terrence O' Brien).

Although I was shocked when I read this article I am really not upset that employees can view everyone's profile. I never really took the time to think about it until reading about this and after really thinking about it, I said to myself why shouldn't employees be allowed to look at people's profiles. The only thing that concerns me is I hope that people are actually doing their job, not just looking at people's profiles (and the profiles that those people have been looking at) for entertainment. It is Facebook employees jobs to keep the website in order. I would assume that they would need to be able to track member's courses in order to do so. As long as they are just looking and not sending random messages to the most visited profiles by Facebook members it seems ok to me. What do y'all think?

Facebook on Blackberry's

I guess in an attempt to diversify and reach an older crowd, Facebook will now be a presetting on new Blackberry cellphones. According to the article Facebook Comes to the Blackberry this feature is still going to allow people to do all the same things that can be done on a regular computer, but it is not going to look as cluttered.

I think that this is going to really help Facebook grow. While some younger people have Blackberry's they are mostly used by an older and more business crowd. If I had a Blackberry with this feature I would definitely use it. Technology is coming right to the palm of people's hands. It does not surprise me that Facebook decided to take this step.

One thing that I wonder about though is that Facebook has really gotten away from their original audience as of late. The site started as a college social networking site and has branched out allowing everyone to use it. Is this just because it is growing? Is this because they are trying to compete with myspace? And will this branching out hurt or help the site?

I think that this is a really good idea. What do you think?

Going Viral

It seems that going viral can be a really good way to promote something. Going viral was the main focus of chapter 10 in The New Influencers text. I really never understood what going viral meant before reading this chapter but it is awesome. It is basically a way (if done right) to have web users do promotion for something. "Viral marketing taps an existing vein of Web users and relies on them to spread the word about a site, contest or video by e-mail and blog," (pg 180).

The book does mention some driving forces behind going viral. They are declining response rates, technology developments, demographic shifts, customer preference, and low cost. (pgs 183 & 184) With these things happening it makes sense to go viral. The web has become such a great part of our everyday lives, why not use the power of it.

But not just anyone can accomplish a successful viral campaign. The book also mentions some facts that one must complete in order to possibly have a successful viral campaign. The product had better be good, the campaign must be innovative and fun, don't push it, reward people for coming, let go, and use the medium. Like almost everything in this world it takes work to be successful. Going viral can be very successful but people using it have to be willing to put effort in.

Going viral to me is really interesting for the simple fact that it is a great way for advertising and promotion. And like the chapter also mentions it can be really cheap which is always a good thing. Going viral has been around for a while and it has had some great successes. The book mentions that the documentary The Blair Witch Project actually went viral for promotion of its movie. It grossed about $140 million at the box office because of its viral campaigning. Going viral seems that it can really change the world that we live in. It kind of in a way gives us the voice. We no longer have to hear what other people want us to hear, we can be the ones in charge of spreading the word. I think that going viral is going to continue to be very popular in the future.

Public Relations

After reading chapter 7 of The New Influencers titled, Putting "Public" Back Into Public Relations I was fascinated with how much social media affects PR. "PR professionals see social media as both an opportunity and as a threat. The opportunity is to raise the professions visibility, and the threat is that no one really knows how to deal with these new influencers," (pg 125).

More and more each day my mind inches closer into wanting to go into the field of PR. This chapter really helped me to understand what is going on in that profession right now. It seems that PR has hit a spot in time were it must find a way to reinvent itself. Since the web has taken off so fast and has reached so many people, old ways will simply not work anymore. "The press release is not dead, but it is slowly being replaced. What is replacing it is useful information delivered to influencers in any form that suits their needs," (pg 128). This quote sums up exactly what is happening right now.

People want information fast and they want it to be reliable. What is hard about this is that because of the web, there are now so many different ways to give that information, and everybody seems to want something different. It is also getting harder to know what is important. PR professionals do realize the change that is ahead and are starting to find new innovative ways to do things. They are evolving along with the web, and are increasing their popularity in the world. They are doing so through blogs, podcasts, making shifts in their firms, and by simply changing the approach they use to reach their clients. Whatever the case may be PR seems that it is here to stay.