links for 2007-02-22

links for 2007-02-22
Wiki - AboutUs A wiki about every web site. (tags: Wikis) » Explode, a meta-social network | The Social Web | ZDNet.com "Explode, a new service from Curverider (the British startup behind Elgg), is described as "a simple way to...

Add Video To Web Content Strategy
Online video makes good PR sense

In the wake of  the FCC's issues with VNR's and the growth of YouTube, Internet video is catching on as a way to reachonline viewers.  Witness the launch of Nuance, which got 35,000 views on YouTube from a very targeted audience and MultiVu's work for NVIDIA that got 65,000 viewers off Metacafe, reports PR Week.

Broadcast is not going away anytime soon, but onine video is being seen as an add-on.  And some firms want content specifically for the Internet. 

Travel is perfectly suited for this medium, as research shows  video is driving travel and tourism sales online. Intercontinental hotels just did an innovative series of vidoes with Turn Here using the hotel concierges to talk about the city and the tourist attractions.

What makes a successful Internet video content strategy?

PR week offers these five tips:

• Know your target audience and the outlet that will reach them
• Keep production quality in mind
• Have a strong story
• Don't ignore traditional media
• Post the video on the client's website.

And don't forget to syndicate the video in a media RSS feed.  A media room that doesn't have the press releases, podcasts and videos RSS enabled is fighting with one hand tied behind its back.

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Social Media Marketing
How online behavior affects your bottom line.

WebProNews has a discussion on the go about Social Media, PR and marketing.  Jason Miller makes the point that in the real world we turn to colleagues and friends for information and advice, not sales  people.  And it should give you a clue as to what is occurring online and why social media is so effective.

It's the power of voice.  Now we are able to talk to others online and get their opinions.  For hundreds of years we lived in a world that was not connected and was out of communication.  We relied on mass media to tell us the news.

 "The way people bounce from home to work to lunch with friends to dinner with family and on to the mall is a behavior replicated online. Jointly, an entire system of relationships is a system of influence that directly impacts consumer behavior.

The power the online social network yields, then, is staggering. Expect the next generation of Internet users to embrace social networks the way the present one has embraced search."

Why does this matter?  Too many marketers seem to miss  the power of social content to drive traffic and sales.

There is a pattern developing that shows web users go from search and social networks to trusted blogs that direct them on to products, ideas or services.

According to the HitWise study, over six percent of UK surfers leaving blogs head off to shopping and classified sites. The cycle gets a 'rinse and repeat' as they circle back to search and social networks or go to other blogs, their email accounts, or news and media sites.

In the US, the percentage is much higher: online communities and chat drive nearly 60 percent of blog traffic, followed by search engines at 9.5 percent, and email with 8.4 percent. And where do they go after the blogs?

• Social networks (17%) 
• Entertainment sites (15%)
• Email (11%) 
• Lifestyle sites (9.8%)
• Search engines (6.2%)
• News sites (6.1%)
• Blogs (5.9%)
• Photography sites (5.2%)
• Portals (4.5%)
• Shopping sites (4%)

How does this affect your marketing and PR?

There are many touchpoints along this online path - learn to take advantage of them.  It's about the flow of traffic, where products are being considered and where the money is being spent., says Miller.

As the online world evolves and moves closer to real world social behavior it's changing the way people communicate and behave online. 

And it is affecting your bottom line...

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See Also

• Content Syndication and Social Media whitepaper
  Content syndication is the key enabling technology that stands at the forefront of the new world of marketing and PR.2.0

Gateway, Google Form Start Page Deal
Gateway, Inc. and Google have formed an alliance to put a customized version of the popular Google Personalized Homepage on Gateway and eMachines computers. You can find the respective Gateway and eMachines pages here and here. Google has a similar...

Why I haven't been blogging this week
I am in Cape Town visiting family

As I sit at a pavement cafe in Camps Bay drinking  red Africa tea and hanging out with my son and his family, blogging has been the last thing on my mind.

But tomorrow the nose goes back to the grindstone.  I am speaking at the WebPR conference here in Cape Town.  then I am off to Johannesburg to do another one March 2nd. I will be back in LA on March 8th..

Data Shows English Blogosphere Has Peaked
The data junkies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County have crunched some numbers that seem to show that the English blogosphere has peaked. Although their methodology isn't very scientific (they count up references of the word I), it's hard...

NBA Launches Social Network
The National Basketball Association has added a social network to NBA.com. The site, called Fan Voice, lets die-hards establish a profile and connect with people who like the same team, remix videos and even write game recaps....

Yahoo Answers Adds Sponsored Questions
One of Yahoo's greatest success stories over the last year or so has been the phenomenal rise of Yahoo Answers. While the site has always had contextual links, Yahoo has largely not let brand marketers buy into the site... until...

LA Times Announces Online Strategy
The paper admits it had fallen "woefully behind" in the shift to online journalism

Yesterday afternoon the LA Times announced a new model for the newspaper's reporting with the Internet at its center - go figure!  

And they came to this stunning conclusion after an expert review by previous editor Dean Baquet.

Under the new plan there will be total integration of the online and off line version of the paper. The online version will concentrate on breaking news in an effort to compete with news aggregators like Yahoo! News and Google News..

"We can't hide from the fact that smart competitors such as Google and Craigslist are stealing readers and advertisers from us," said Los Angeles Times editor James O'Shea  "As an organization and a business, we are in a fight to recoup threatened revenue that finances our news-gathering," 

Indeed so.  Automotive print advertising at the LA Times totalled $102 million in 2004 and it is only expected to be $55 million this year.  It's hard to keep your news room going when the dollars are disappearing.  I just wonder what took them so long to see the writing on the wall.

And this should act as a clarion wake up call for any PR practitioner who does not yet know that online media relations is a core component of the job description today.

Hat tip to Media Post.

links for 2007-02-24
Macworld: News: Create your own NBA highlight reels "The National Basketball Association unveiled a new video “mashup” tool on its Web site that for the first time allows fans to build their own Web 2.0 applications." (tags: Video basketball NBA...

Turn Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center
I was lucky enough to get in on the Gmail beta when it launched and I haven't looked back since. Even though I've had an account for almost three years and I get over 100 emails a day, I have...

200 Reasons to Love YouTube
Even with all of their recent difficulties, you still gotta love YouTube. Check out the talent you can discover. Somebody sign this dude to a TV contract! In this video he does 200 celebrity impressions! (Thanks to my brother for...

NHL Bans YouTube Video Embeds
Please see important update at the end of this post. If you don't like people sticking their fingers in your food then don't let them in your kitchen. Unfortunately, the National Hockey League didn't get the message. The NHL has...

links for 2007-02-23
25 startups to watch | 1 | Business 2.0 "It's getting crowded on the Web 2.0 frontier, but there are still some startups that truly stand out. Business 2.0 Magazine identifies the ones most likely to strike gold in 2007.:...

links for 2007-02-21
juberjabber: Google Talk URLs Google Talk has its own URL scheme for chats and phone calls. (tags: Google googletalk IM VOIP) juberjabber: Usage Stats From the Major IM Networks "Reasonable estimates for most of the major services" (tags: IM Stats)...

Market Truths Wins Second Life Business Plan Contest
As I mentioned a few months ago, Edelman and Electric Sheep conducted a Second Life business plan contest. The idea here is to find and fund the most promising initiative. Today Electric Sheep and Edelman revealed the winning plan. It's...

links for 2007-02-26
Life of an Internet Entrepreneur (tags: Blogs newvoices) It's a Wrap. You're Hired! -- Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007 -- Page 1 -- TIME "So who will be the YouTube of video résumés?" (tags: Video youtube Careers) Top Websites - Most...

Cymfony Sold
As usual, Rafat Ali got the scoop. Cymfony is being bought by Taylor Nelson Sofres. Cymfony does deep mining of blogs and other new media channels. The company, founded in 1996, serves the marketing, research and PR communities....

NHL on YouTube Embeds: Game On
An update to my post from last night. Keith Ritter, who runs the NHL's digital business, writes in that despite earlier reports, the National Hockey League has not asked YouTube to change the way it serves video. In other words,...

Web 2.0's Impact: The Tourism Industry
Over the next several weeks I am going to start posting about the global medium to long-term impact Web 2.0 will have on different industry sectors. First up: travel and tourism. According to the the Travel Industry Association, tourism generates...

Smart Social Media Thinking
How to corral that free-wheeling user-generated content

Prevailing wisdom says you can't control the message anymore.  User-generated content has a life of it's own and any attempt to make it into a marketing or PR vehicle will backfire.

And have we not seen some spectaular examples of doing it wrong?

Pontiac's social media site created in tandem with Yahoo is a much smarter approach. Their new community hub on Yahoo is designed to tap into the "street-level" energy of fans from all its active and retired brands by uniting and introducing the hundreds of offline and online groups already in existence. No overt marketing will be present - the idea is for it to be found and spread organically. .

Now there's a thought - gather up all the consumer generated buzz already going on and offer it a home. Make it possible for all your evangelists to interact and find each other. Give them more social media tools so it's easier for them to  create and share content .

Underground allows users to share photos and videos of cars using Flickr and Yahoo Video. A Yahoo Answers zone enables knowledge sharing. An aggregated list of Pontiac clubs in the physical world and on Yahoo Groups allows users to connect offline and online. An opinion poll, Pontiac-hosted blog "Inside Track" and the "Pontiac Informer," an aggregation tool for blogs and news, round out the offering.

Now that's smart marketing and PR in the Web 2.0 world.

PR Gets the 'Heads Up' on New Media
Daily 'Dog's survey tips blogs and new media as the top PR trend for 2007

Last year I made the comment that  many PR professionals had their heads in the sand about new media and online PR. 

According to the Daily 'Dog Pulse of PR survey, that's changing..Seems the heads are not only up, they regard this as the number one PR trend for 2007.

What will be the most impacting PR trend to take hold in 2007, asks the current Daily 'Dog survey.

So far the results are:

• 54% - Blogs and other new media will supplant mainstream media as consumers' primary information source                       
• 27% - Online media will continue to splinter into micro-focused granular niche outlets                                       
• 10% - Environmental reputation will become a key PR initiative in the U.S., as it is in Europe                                       
• 9 % - Companies will begin to hire PR for individual projects (rather than as AORs), like in the UK

Is SEO and Online PR training on your agenda this year?

Luftansa in Big Blog Advertising Buy
Marketing Vox says that Lufthansa is buying ads on 100 travel blogs, all of them in the WashingtonPost.com's Sponsored Blogroll program. I continue to think this program is a winner for everyone involved - the bloggers, media and advertisers....