A good video that isunder 5 minutes long, and explains a load about social media and how to make a mark on it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash_in_social_media.html

The video features Alexis, one of the founders of reddit, and he talks about the Greenpeace whale naming vote. That they backed.

There are 2 messages that Alexis mentions:

• Let go, don’t be afraid to let the audience have some control.
• Have fun, if you want to do well in viral or social media, then you need something that is fund.

Have a watch and share your thoughts.

Youtube today celebrated ‘1 billion views per day’. Thats a lot of bandwidth! There is probably over that amount but this shows just how many people use the video sharing website.

If you are not on youtube yet, then you really need to get on it! I have been doing work for Keymas recently updating their youtube with mini videos showcasing the services that they offer.

Techcrunch posted an interview with Steve Ballmer of Microsoft talking about the future of Microsoft and where they are going and other things like the cloud and Twitter.

He also talks about the future of search and that he thinks the next five years will see more inovation in search. With bing starting to gain search share it should be interesting where search can go.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/24/microsoft-ballmer-interview-exclusive-techcrunch-bing-mobile-azur/

Today I found an a really good example of an artist using all the different social media’s like twitter, facebook and youtube. The artist is called Imogen Heap and she has been blogging, twittering and using video blogging to engage with fans over the production of her new album.

Her youtube channel has had a small updates regualry asking fans for feedback through the new album production. And she regulary uses 12seconds to showcase thoughts and work.

Also she talks indepth about the struggles and successes of making the album and uses the video platform to really give fans an insight the production and thinking that go into the album. There is more in this article http://threeminds.organic.com/2009/09/unleashing_the_artist_within_t.html which goes into more depth about what Imogen is doing.

For anyone that is making music or even any businesses this seems like a good method to follow to really connect with your fans and make them fell part of everything. Which leads to more sales hopefully.

Application

The video updates are a good example of not just using video for viral video marketing, but using video marketing in a way that engages people and gives them more insight into what makes your product and how much work you put into them.

If you have a product that people can engage with you even participate in, then maybe the use of social media will create a load of evangelists for your product.

Below is a video of Galcos Soda Pop Stop in LA, it is a great example specialising in a product and believing in your product can be a great business.

Also this guy is so into his cola’s, its fasinating to watch and to watch tell you about all the products. They have over 500 kinds of soda product. Sometimes having a limit product range but knowing all about it can be better than trying to know a little about a lot.

Everyone by now has probably heard about the Kanye West / Taylor Swift VMA Award thing, where Kanye West supposedly ‘disrupted’ Taylor Swift’s speech and said that Beyonce’s Video was better. The funny thing is how many people have voiced there own opionion about it. If you search for this on you tube there are litterly thousands of people with a webcam shot video either sharing there side of the story or saying that everyone should stop talking about it, thus making even more chatter about it. It has blown up on Twitter too.

I thought this ‘stunt’ was pretty rubish from MTV but now I changed my mind. If you look at the views some of these webcam videos have got I counted over 1 million views just on one. The amount of web chatter, and buzz this generated surly is beyond was even the event marketing people could have thought.

I guess its a lesson in viral marketing, but with an interesting twist, rather a video that gets shown everywhere, the content keeps getting created by the crowd, by people who have listeners and everyone jumping in on the debate. It is an interesting thought that could this be applied to other types of products. That is the challenge I am trying to take up now, can I think of things like this that grows for my clients.

And now this post has just added another comment on the stunt, so it continues to grow.

I watched this video called the “100 Famous Rock Guitar Riffs”, the video was made by a guitar teacher and session musician. Not only is it a good watch and as a guitarist I know that trying to remember all that in one take is well hard, but it has had over 340,000 views of the video. Wow! that is a load more than just having a website or even placing an ad somewhere. The youtube page links to his website so people can see about him.

If you have a service or product that you do, it may be something to think about, doing something that is fun but will attract alot of attention. Start thinking about how to promote your service using social video.