I suppose you all remember Jill and Kevin’s wedding video, in which the couple and a few of their friends were dancing to „forever“ by Chris Brown?
For those living outside Germany, here it is (YouTube is blocking music videos in Germany):
I really liked that video and copied it into my German Blogs. I enjoyed the story of how this idea came about (here is some background info about the wedding). I liked the idea of the couple wanting to celebrat their most important day in a special way. And I am sure quite a few of the many million who have watched this video thought alike.
Hard to believe, I have to admit. Highly disappointing if it’s true.
So what was it marketing for? In that article it says that it was a campaign for the music of Chris Brown, who had popularity challenges and low record sales after having hit his girlfriend Rihanna.
Which is apparently the reason why you could not only purchase the song „Forever“ via Jill and Kevin’s website, but also donate for the Sheila-Wellstone-Institut, which is a foundation against domestic violence.
I am not sure whether this story is true, since I haven’t heard anywhere else about it. But if it is, then I am heavily disappointed:
People (including myself of course) believed this story to be true – only to find out the they have been tricked by a marketing campaign. Working in advertising myself, I know about the current challenges to get the attention of the target audience. But lying and cheating should never be an option for any marketer.
So I wonder: is it true, was it really just a marketing campaign? Does anyone know?
Something which I am currently thinking about is the relationship between Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. There surely is a direct relationship, and this short post about SEO and Social Media Marketing mentions it, too:
When it comes to social media, millions of links are shared every day on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and blogs. As more people share a link to a website, the ranking of the webpage will increase. So the more your links are shared via social media, the more search engines pick up on this and increase your website’s overall rank.
But it doesn’t only work in one direction – it also works the other way around:
It’s also important to note SEO’s impact on social media. Primarily, if a link is easier to find on a search engine, then people are more likely to share it.
So far, SMM and SEO experts don’t seem to be working together much. Social Media Marketers might think about a presence on Youtube, or conducting a „blogger outreach“ programm, some crowdsouring, etc.
But when selecting platforms or target audiences, Social Media Marketers tend to only think about „social value“ of the respective platform or person. This Social Value is determined by the potential influence of that platform or person on the opinion or actions of other users.
The SEO tends to only think in „Link Value“ of a platform. When doing offsite optimization, SEOs try to place links on other sites that have a high link value in the „eyes“ of Google, so that it helps to improve the ranking of the SEOs site.
So SEOs don’t necessarily care about the Social Value of a site, and SMMs don’t care about the Link Value of a site.
Quite often this might correlate, since the Google Algorithm is based on social dynamics (sofar, most links are still published by human beings), but not always. And as far as I know, SEOs and SMMs don’t yet plan their activities together, trying to increase the intersection between the two online marketing approaches. It could prove to be interesting to unite these two approaches the next time activities are planned!
Not sure, how new this site is, but poptent.net looks rather interesting. It’s a site for connecting brands with freelance videographers:
Poptent is the best place for independent and freelance videographers to build their portfolios, connect with companies and brands for commercial work. Here you will find the best and brightest up and coming creative minds in the business. Hire them. Collaborate with them. Join them. We’re building a crowdsourcing revolution and we want you to be a part of it. Become part of our community by clicking the JOIN NOW button.
It looks like some form of agency 2.0, and at the same time it raises the same debate that comes up when brands ask for creative submissions without guaranteeing a reward for every submission. Videocreators get the chance of having their video selected by a well known brand, yet they risk loosing their initial investment (time&money) if their video isn’t selected. And the brand gets a range of creations to choose from without having to pay for every single one.
Here is an example of a current project, asking for video content for snickers:
You know Snickers®, that unique, delicious, and substantial combination of peanuts, chocolate, caramel and nougat.
This assignment is to develop video content starring Snickers®. They are looking for either traditional ‘commercials’ or pass-along (viral) videos — original, authentic and entertaining Snickers® content which consumers will pass along, and use as inspiration for their own content creation.
Your challenge is to be creative, so don’t just follow the approach of previous Snickers® campaigns. You can either:
• Produce a fun, engaging traditional :30 second commercial
• Or produce a pass-along (viral) video of about :30 seconds in length …you choose
Your creative ‘bulls eye’ is males age 18-34. Snickers® has played a memorable role in ‘guy culture,’ with a long and celebrated history as the ‘go-to-bar’ for satisfying hunger.
You could earn $5,000 for each video they purchase or one of the $2000in guaranteed awards. Register below and read the Creative Brief for all the details and some more delicious inspiration.
$5.000 doesn’t sound like much to me, but I guess it depends on what they want to do with it.
You know it’s getting closer to a years end, when people start forecasting trends for the following year. This time it’s really early. It’s only the beginning of November and the first selection of six trends is already online.
David Armano writes about these 6 trends:
Social Media begins to look less social: as more people contribute ever more content on social networks, updates-fatigue sets in and people filter out other users for reduction of clutter. I agree, and I would like to add: social media will have less farmville and mafia wars…
Corporations look to scale: companies leveraging social technology to better serve customers, e.g. Best Buys Twelpforce
Social Business becomes social play: playful social (mobile) applications with a competitive component for users are used for (local) marketing.
Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced): the title says it all.
Mobile becomes a social media lifeline: Due to the IT departments locking down social sites, people will increasingly turn to their smartphones during (or instead of) coffee breaks.
Sharing no longer means e-mail: Well, that is kind of obvious in times of facebook and twitter…
A guy named gary has produced a widget which demonstrates in „real time“ the explosion of the social web. As you can see below, the rate of new content and interaction on the various social sites and applications is enormous! He writes about it:
I quickly built and coded the app based on data culled from a range of social media sources & sites at the end of Sept 2009.
Wo ich sonst so bin...