You can’t just sit down and create a viral video as easily as you might a blog ad or a website.  You can create a video that could potentially go viral but there’s no magic formula that guarantees that it will.

Going viral can mean something entirely different for a small company than for a larger one.  A small brand could consider a video viral with 2,000 views a month, while a larger brand might consider 200,000 views in a month to be its high water mark.  Viral is all relative.

The chief goal of viral videos, however, is exposure.  This exposure works almost like earned media or PR.  The fact that the video is viral and that people are pushing it around themselves is what makes it so powerful.  The target audience is spreading the word.  That’s the true power behind a viral video for a brand. (more…)

There’s a movement afoot that claims that e-mail is old news.  That it’s too slow for the modern users who are always connected and want to communicate in a faster and more fun way than e-mail can provide.  Social media is continuing its rapid growth and has even more users now than e-mail does.  It’s just a matter of time, this line of thinking goes, until e-mail comes to be seen as the digital era’s equivalent of snail mail.

But before you throw dirt onto its coffin, consider that it might not be the end for e-mail regardless of social media’s rise to power.  While there are benefits to be had from the kind of mass and instant communication potential that social media puts at its users’ fingertips, there are signs that social media’s domination is not absolute.

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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) any day now is expected to adopt revised guidelines on endorsements and testimonials. What this means to the world of interactive marketing is that companies and bloggers alike can be held liable if a blogger to whom a brand has supplied free samples of its product in the hopes of receiving some online buzz makes any false statements about this product. The bottom line is that both sides will pay the price for word-of-mouth efforts that do not follow the tenets of truth in advertising.

The practice of brands recruiting bloggers to talk about their products is something I’ve talked about before. I went over some steps brands need to take maintain their credibility when engaging in this practice. These new guidelines add an entirely new wrinkle. Rather than risking the potential of damaged credibility from a pay-per-blog arrangement, brands now have to worry about actual legal responsibility for what their blogger mouthpieces say.

While some are viewing this change as being too stringent and potentially negatively impacting the development of social media marketing, there is actually a large upside to the new regulations that might lead to some bloggers earning more credibility than they ever had before. (more…)

Nielsen Online’s recent report that users in the US and around the world now use social networks more than e-mail has added new fuel to the fire in the debate about whether social media will replace e-mail as the communication tool of choice.

Have we reached the point where more people will be communicating with one another using Facebook and MySpace than e-mail? Does this mean we are witnessing the end of e-mail and online communication as we know it?

No. At least, not yet anyway.

While social media’s popularity is clearly on the upswing, that doesn’t mean e-mail’s relevance as a means of communication is suffering a subsequent dip in popularity.

E-mail still has several advantages over social networks that help it maintain its position at the head of the interpersonal communications class. The privacy it provides and its ability to record and track conversations as well as retain accountability help e-mail continue to be the best fit for doing business. Facebook and MySpace can serve as a less formal means to discuss business but e-mail’s aforementioned strengths translate into weaknesses with social networks that keep them from becoming a true means of performing business.

E-mail also remains popular with users and marketers alike as a means to deliver newsletters, coupons, and discounts. It’s still a very cost-effective means for brands to deliver these types of ad content to consumers. (more…)

There’s a tendency among brands, especially during tougher economic times like the ones we’re in now, to cut back on marketing efforts that they view as fluff.   Social media tends to fall into this category in the eyes of many advertisers.

The obstacle that needs to be cleared for many brands is that the way to set goals and measure success for a social media marketing campaign are a world apart from other forms of interactive marketing.  Because it works differently and it isn’t as quantifiable as other forms of interactive marketing, social media ends up being seen as fluffy and not as important by these brands.

Social media, however, is probably the most important thing any brand can do.  So to get these brands on the social media bandwagon, it’s important to provide them with some education about social media and the marketing power it has in order to get them just as enamored with it as their customer base is.
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