Social Media

Social Media in various countries – What should you know?

Written by Robert

I attended SEMpdx’s SearchFest 07 on Wednesday, had a great time and I met some interesting people involved in search marketing. John Hartman (he’s in our group) was on a panel, and did a great job presenting and taking care of all the audio/visual demands. While listening to the Web 2.0/RSS panel I really liked the presentation by Dan Harbison, the Internet Marketing Manager at the Portland Trail Blazers.

I was surprised by Dan’s and the Blazer organization’s energy in adopting social media; did you know there’s a social networking site just for Blazers’ fans? The site is called I Am A Trail Blazers Fan. Even though there’s been some rough years for the Blazers and their fans, Portland still loves their only professional sport, and the success of the online community is a testament to that.

I asked Dan if he’d like to present at our next Portland Social Media meeting and he was happy to accept. So, that’s the first item to add to the agenda; I think you’ll really benefit from hearing what a large organization has done with social media. Now, I’m in the process of securing a place and time; so here’s the big question you need to answer: Is the evening of March 27th accommodating to a majority of members?

So Your Clips Are on YouTube For hobbyists and entrepreneurs, getting your videos on YouTube is a great way to build an audience, connect with a community and a way to build your brand. But, large content owning companies see things differently, and they aren’t happy. On Tuesday of this week, those behind the Oscars, the Academy, contacted YouTube and demanded they take down videos uploaded by YouTube’s users of selected scenes from Oscar night.

I haven’t watched any of the clips but Jason Chervokas blogging at the Social Media Club blog says the Will Farrell and Jack Black musical had been viewed over 250,000 times; it was very funny. YouTube complied on Wednesday and all the clips have now been removed. What is at issue here is copyright, the web site Oscars.com and the Academy’s insistence that everyone must view Oscar-related clips on their web site (distribution). The Academy’s demand caught the attention of much-paid-attention-to Maverick’s owner and blogger Mark Cuban, who suggested the Academy should have just created a short preview of the full sketch and then transition to an advertisement encouraging people to go to Oscars.com to watch the current video and to view exclusives or behind

the-scenes videos. This isn’t a bad idea, you might as well communicate on the massive network YouTube has and it won’t cost you anything; YouTube handles all the maintenance and staffing costs for hosting your video. In addition, somewhere in the Academy’s messaging on YouTube there could have been an encouragement for others to email the YouTube links to friends, post it in their blogs, etc. I’m on the Oscars.com site right now and I can’t find the Will Farrell video anywhere – all they link to are Thank You Cam videos (boring), Press Room videos (what?), Road to the Oscars video, Ellen’s Video Diary and Behind the Scenes videos, and there is no way to embed these videos in your blog. Talk about bringing back the 90’s philosophy of “capturing eyeballs”. So if you, as a professional or as an agent of a company, find yourself looking in horror as your commercials, produced videos, or short clips of your films flood onto YouTube, take some time to think about how you can engage the audience of people eagerly watching those videos. You never know, instead of scathing blog posts condemning an Oscars-like move, bloggers and the news might commend you for “getting it”, and you might make more money from your brand…

There we go, now I got your attention! For increasing the attention, the length of the videos is prescribed to be short. In the videos, there are some tiktok length ads are placed which will turn the duration long. It should be considered through the people while making the  social media video with different contents. 

Doc Searls writes challenging a charge made by Brian Solis in What is Wrong with Social Media? that Doc is an influential driver and definer of Social Media. Solis answers his headline’s question 3/4 the way down the article with: It’s an emergent term that as Stowe put it, defines the socialization of information (Social Media) as well as the tools to faciliate conversation (social media).

With those descriptions, and the collective support from some of the most visionary edglings, I’m not sure why there has to be anything wrong with the name. Seriously. Something different is happening here, the tools for expression and communiation have never been cheaper and more available to the population.

I think anxiety advances on people that ruminate on the negatives of having to adopt the role of Producer. I precieve there’s a group of people that don’t want to play the role of the Producer; they just want to write, or send pictures to their parents, or express their humanity without having to interact in a many-to-many manner.

Perhaps there’s also another way to express this: equally unattractive to some might be the hundreds or thousands of people that are to consume their creative energies; perhaps this word is unattractive by it’s definition: con·sume -verb to destroy or expend by use; use up. Still further, others might be put off by the fervor of activities by marketing and PR folks in the area of Social Media. Chris Heuer, of Social Media Club, has a quote in the WebProNews article addressing this situation:

 “Let’s stand up for what is right about “social media” rather than tearing it down just because a few misguided folks are misappropriating the meme. We need not throw out the term Social Media for the mere fact that some people will sour its intention and purpose during the course of socializing the deeper understanding of what is happening and what it means.” Keeping up with this conversation and the excellent opinions contained within is dizzying and a bit tiring. So I end saying Doc Searls comforts my confusion and ignorance with his abilty to clarify, define and propose something for us to think about.

About the author

Robert

Robert loves the sea and dreams of getting a home with a beachfront. He used to be a Data Scientist in a multinational company but left his job to follow his passion for writing.