The Legend of Taylor Johnson

If you haven't heard about the viral video getting all the attention these days here's your chance! The Legend of Taylor Johnson is now up on Youtube and everyone has the opportunity to participate in the phenomenon that's sweeping the world. A lot of work went into the production of this epic-ness including two days of shooting and many hours of editing. Each of us put a lot of effort into making this video great so sending it on to all your friends sure does mean a lot to us! Enjoy!

Questioning Success

In the last Chapter of "A Survival Guide to Social Media" Deltina Hay outlines some different systems such as Google Analytics and Google Trends to determine the success of one's website or blog. While these ways are interesting quantitative avenues that allow you to see how statistically well your platform is being represented, I think the more exciting part of the chapter was the section where Deltina outlined the ways in which you could qualitatively examine how effectively your website is being viewed.

To me it is one thing to have your platform seen by many viewers and it is another for your platform to have a significant impact on those who take the time to visit or listen to what you have to say. However, instead of the naturally intuitive way of measuring your qualitative success, by trying to create answers out of your questions, Deltina suggests that you try to create questions out of your knowledge. This allows you to not only help you analyze what you've created by extracting solid information, but also allows you to move forward by thinking about what you can do to help improve your platform.

This is where a quantitative analysis just doesn't stack up in comparison. It can't tell you how you should go about improving your voice and your platform, only whether you need to. As a blogger it is everyone's responsibility to their audience to concern themselves with quality over quantity.

The Past Makes the Future

After reading chapter four in Citizen Marketers it occurred to me that it is only natural for there to be a transitional people for people and ideas under the consumption of world changing technology. In chapter four the authors discussed how the ramifications of the printing press, television, and internet have evolved over time. The printing press changed the world order with the switch from the spoken word of religions to the written word of governments. The television changed everyone when the vote of public opinion switched from the newspaper to the voice and image found on advertisements. Now we see the disbursement of news and announcements from traditional press releases to digital compositions.

As we discussed in class the future of press releases lies in the author's ability to take the old version of a simple static release and transform it into an informative, link filled conglomeration. In this way we find the press release to not only be more useful and fact-filled it also achieves the objective of being more social.

Here we find an example video of the new version of the press release.

Why have people taken so long to adopt this new version of press releases?

I think that the answer lies in that we are still in the transitional period that we have seen before in television and the printing press. However, in today's fast paced, instant update world we forget that it takes time for people's processes and habits to change. So to me the effects of the new press releases will be seen eventually but we shouldn't be entirely surprised that this transitional period is occurring.

Listening

In Chapter 5, Hobbies and Altruism, of Citizen Marketers the authors recount the story of how Eric Karkovack was able to revive a dead soda, Surge, via raising awareness and recounting personal stories with the soda on his website SaveSurge.org. Consequently, CocaCola re-released the soda as Vault, in part due to his large online following and community.

Furthermore, the story explains how his new website dedicated to Vault, significantly outranks CocaCola's own site for the beverage because he created and expanded his site with more passion and most importantly was willing to listen to his audience.

To me this is a theme that we see time and time again across internet advertising. Companies ignoring their audience and only presenting the message that they think is appropriate. Whether it be in failed twitter marketing plans or boring websites, the theme is consistent that people want to feel like they are apart of something and involved, and in order for that to occur someone needs to be listening.

When companies refuse to listen to their consumers and don't give them the opportunity to express themselves the companies, in the end, are very much hurting themselves. That is what separates the internet from so many other mediums of communication: it allows millions of people to easily be heard and to ignore these opportunities is social suicide.

Thinking Outside the Box

After reading Greenpeace's tips on how to make a viral video, the thing that stuck with me the most, was the idea that the reason that most of the viral videos on the internet are user created is because the users are the ones thinking outside of the box. That the public are the ones with the freshest ideas and know how to avoid recycling past viral successes.

The example given in the article is the now famous dramatic chipmunk:


I too, think this is an excellent example of how anyone with a little imagination can create something so simple yet so perfectly executed. Innovation has always been the key to successful buisness marketing and we find that more and more obvious during this age of social media interaction.

Throughout time, we have seen that the companies who thrive the most in competitive markets are the ones who go outside of the established guidelines and use their wits, ingenuity, and heart to circumnavigate their competitors. Today social media gives companies marketing sectors a bigger ability to display this phenomenon more than ever. However, it is my belief that ultimatly the public determines the market and that is why they can create the most powerful messages.

On Podcasting

Audio books are a creation that goes back to the 1980's. They take a traditional way of telling a story, reading, back to its roots, listening. They are a nice, simple way of easily digesting a piece of entertainment.

While listening to the SXSW Podcast on Podcasts I was reminded of audio books in the commentators various suggestions on how to spice up a podcast. I also think that many of these tips could have been applied to my group's podcast to make it a more cohesive, polished product.  Outside of the obvious technical issues that help to create a good podcast, I think that the SXSW commentator's suggestion of creating a story arc and summary via bullet points is an excellent idea.

This idea of spontaneous chatter between specified key points allows the podcast to combine the simplicity of a audio book and the chaos of a conversation into a developed, complex form of Web 2.0 story-telling. With the commentator's able to explore the creative elements of an interview while still being able to steer the conversation through its various pit stops.

To me, thats what separates the great modern story-tellers from the good ones. This ability to balance spontaneity and focus can be the deciding factor in how one average low budget podcaster can create a unique platform for themselves to attract an audience.

The FTC Guidelines

After reviewing the new FTC guidelines and reading the supplementary article, "Understanding the New FTC Guidelines" I was surprised that the issue of how businesses can use testimonials in advertising for online marketing had not been addressed before Dec. 1 of 2009.  To think of all the years of online marketing and millions of scandals associated with fraudulent advertising can be overwhelming. For a level of enforcement to just now be reaching web 2.0 components such as blogs is quite disturbing.

Even now the FTC will only monitor the activity of dishonest opinions of products uses on a complaint by complaint basis. I understand that the quantity of advertising online is through the roof and incredibly difficult to monitor, but I have to think that there is a more efficient and protective way to look into false advertising programs before their effects have been felt by the general public.

At the same time I have to distribute some of the responsibility to the consumers to do their best to protect themselves from false advertising. As a part of the online community the burden to do your homework and be secure in your purchases and personal information is squarely on each of our shoulders. Too often are we tricked into the notion that something is too good to be true, and false or manufactured testimonials are just another branch of this identity theft tree. Thus, I think that the Socrates philosophy of questioning everything is the safest measure one can take with themselves onto the internet.

Twitterstorms effect on politics

After reflecting for about a week over our discussions on the various twitter storms (Dominos, Amazon, Time Warner), it has become increasingly apparent to me just how empowering and democratic the internet can be. Thinking back fifteen or twenty years ago there is no way that so many citizens could have such an overwhelming and instant impact on the way that massive corporations do business. In the case of the Time Warner twitterstorm people were able to override a juggernaut business's choice to charge people for how much internet they would be using. Of course this did not sit well with heavy internet consumers, such as Time Warner's clients on Twitter. In this way, these Twitter users who were also Time Warner clients were able to lambaste the corporation for its profiteering choice and in effect given the power to veto Time Warner's choice. Concurrently, this make me wonder if this is the reason that the Chinese government is perhaps afraid of the power that the internet gives to the individual. This idea that the internet and social networking websites inherently make people more democratic, and gives power to the individual's voice whereby dismantling the most core value of Chinese society which is unity and giving up oneself towards the whole. It is my opinion that while these values are important they often leave out the sounds of the minority and thus the internet's ability to give the power to the people is fundamentally productive towards creating a world harmony.

After reading the Pew Study on Blackboard I am reminded of just how important our personal information is, and how once we put sensitive items such as our names, addresses, and phone numbers they tend to stay out there in web space for quite a while. Reading through the statistics identity theft, viruses, and mass advertising programs streamed into my thoughts. Not only as we publicize our thoughts and feelings on the internet are we paving a future for ourselves to realize, but also we are creating a social footprint for our viewers to track. It is this double edged sword that makes the internet and social websites dually powerful and dangerous. I think that despite these inherit risks that social networking is a very necessary task if you wish to create a good name for yourself and let your voice be heard.