Recently, a couple of product launches have caught my attention and I noticed them (100%) because of social media. I saw them on blogs, through my feeds, in Twitter messages and on Facebook. I did NOT see them on TV, in a newspaper/magazine/billboard or even on a traditional website. A year ago, that may not have been the case.

Product: Tiger Woods '09
Two videos have caught my eye. The first, Tiger walks on water, is a very cool example of a brand listening and responding using their assets. This could have passed Tiger by, but it turned out brilliantly. The second video is just odd enough to be passed along.

Interestingly, if you search "Tiger Woods 09" on Google, the walking on water video is the number 2 result.

Tiger walks on water

Tiger square peg, round hole

*Note EA Sports is a Fleishman-Hillard client

Product: Nikon D90
I am an avid Nikon user and I am a huge brand advocate (you're generally either a Canon or Nikon person in photography). I had not heard about their newest digital SLR, the D90, until I came across a video by commercial photographer Chase Jarvis. Chase caught my attention last year with a very cool presentation to NYC's Photoshelter. He creates awesome videos that apply at all levels of skill level.

For the D90, Nikon asked Chase's team to evaluate the camera in a professional environment and they documented their experience. This, to me, gives the product instant credibility (I trust he would not BS me) and makes me interested. (Though I am really looking at their D300.) Nonetheless, I saw it on a blog which drove me to the product site which prompted me to write this post. Here is the clip. I love the espionage aspect and the fact that they turned this into content. Nikon uses the video on their D90 microsite as well as a dedicated site at www.chasejarvisandfriends.com

Marketing Takeaways:
Are you listening to what your top customers are saying online? Are you agile enough to respond without weeks of legal review? Are you engaging your evangelists to create real, pure branded content?

If you are I think you're in the minority of companies out there who get it. If you are not, what can you do today to make steps toward this? Maybe its listening, maybe its having lunch with an advocate. Doing nothing is the worst thing anyone can do.

Technorati Tags:
branding, Matt Dickman, micromedia, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer

Location awareness has a lot of potential to tie the gap between digital and the physical world. The iPhone's integrated GPS clearly hints to the future of mobile social networking. Fire Eagle (a Yahoo product) aims to make updating your location easy.

The service is very simple and has only one true function. Tell the world where you are. Once you tell Fire Eagle where your location is, they allow third parties to tap in and use that same data. This way you don't have to update your location on 4-5 different sites, it is done automatically.

[Feed readers please click through to the post if you cannot see the video.]

Key Takeaways:

• Social utilities, like Fire Eagle, are going to make network convergence a reality
  
• The privacy settings that Fire Eagle uses are robust and should allay most fears of intrusion
  
• The open API they are providing developers has picked up the adoption rate and made some major players take notice
  
• Competition from Google/Apple/etc. will be quick to come about
  

As always, I want to know what is on your mind. If there is a video you would like to see me do just email me or leave a comment on the post.

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To help you stay on top of what is happening in social media, mobile and new marketing you can subscribe to the Techno//Marketer podcast on iTunes. Stay informed and get access to new videos first.

If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

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Technorati Tags:
location, Matt Dickman, mobile, social media, Techno//Marketer, widgets, Yahoo, geolocation

As I prep the final video installment in video week here on the blog I wanted to share some shining examples of video at its best. The following should serve as examples of what to consider when you look at the power of video and what it brings to the table from an informational, branding and education point of view. Enjoy.

Gary Vaynerchuk - Wine Library TV
If Gary doesn't make you want to get up and create video content then you may be hopeless. His enthusiasm is off the charts, his knowledge of wine is incredible and the content follows suit. He has created an empire in the wine industry, his posts average 200-300 comments and people love him. His honesty and authenticity should serve as role models for us all.

Ask a Ninja
Yes this is more comedic, but these guys have created a character, a loyal following and a merchandise business to back up the demand.

BlendTec - Will It Blend
Will It Blend is one of the best examples of a company realizing the potential of the video space, choosing to fully engage in a valuable way and letting the conversation happen organically. BlendTec makes a line of high-end, powerful blenders. They're so powerful that you can blend everything from a leaf rake to a crowbar to an iPhone. They stay extremely relevant by looking at trends in social media and creating content around it. When Weezer's "Pork and Beans" video took off on YouTube, BlendTec created a video.

BMW - BMW Films
This is from a few years ago, but BMW's creation of webisodes to promote their cars in the format of short films took the Web by storm. This video featuring thier M5 sedan and Madonna was the most popular. It's engaging, showcases the product and is absolutely memorable.

BMW - GINA concept car
Not to harp on BMW, but they absolutely grasp the power of video. While most companies hide their innovations and forward thinking, BMW uses video to position themselves as thought leaders and true innovators. Check out this video featuring their new concept car, GINA. Do you hide your innovations or showcase them?

These are just a few examples, but I hope they bring you inspiration in your thinking about video as a viable, powerful medium.

What companies are doing video that you enjoy or get value from? Let me know!

If you missed the first videos in the series you can find them here:

• Distribution
  
• Editing
  
• How I create my video tutorials
  
• Hardware and software options
  

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To help you stay on top of what is happening in social media, mobile and new marketing you can subscribe to the Techno//Marketer podcast on iTunes. Stay informed and get access to new videos first.

If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

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Technorati Tags:
conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, video, tips

It's 2008, nearly 13 years since we formed DigiKnow, but I'm still amazed at one thing: how companies fail to plan sufficiently before they embark on digital initiatives. (I suppose architects say the same thing about people who build home additions without an architect.)

I know there are lots of reasons for this lapse in judgment, but I'm guessing a fear of consultants (and their fees) is the main reason. Or maybe it's just not knowing who to turn to for help.

I'm happy to say that I think we've got a solution to this. DigiKnow has formed a Consulting Group, headed by Scott Chapin, a long-time strategist here, along with John Katila, Ian Verschuren, Susan Lowry and myself. Our team has more than 10 years experience with a wide range of interactive marketing and technology situations, from CPG and B2B and government clients to professional sports teams and specialty applications. We believe this great experience should be shared with our clients and others we hope will join their ranks.

If your company is about to start a digital marketing campaign or technology implementation, we can probably help. We can help you ask the right questions and we can get the answers to inform your decision making. And we can do it without breaking the bank.  If you have needs for consulting, we hope you will consider contacting Scott.

DigiKnow Consulting Group Services:

Online Business Consulting

• Strategic Planning
• eBusiness planning and evaluation
• Requirements discovers/ RFP development
• Content/Knowledge Management audits

Web-based Application Consulting

• Business process evaluation
• Current systems evaluation and gap analysis
• Prospective system evaluation

Interactive Marketing Consulting

• Information architecture
• Competitive analysis
• User segmentation/CRM
• Performance Measurement/ Web analytics
• User Experience/ Usability audits

Program Management

• Requirements management
• Program performance measurement
• Stakeholder training 

The other day, I had the pleasure of hosting a luncheon featuring Larry Weber, CEO of W2 Group and author of Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business.

Mr. Weber made a presentation to a group of 220 advertising executives, espousing the power and relevance of social network marketing. Like most evangelists of social network marketing, he made his case for how we should get with the program and get active with communities, make communities and sustain communities. He's right.

Then he did three things that really drive me nuts: 1) he implied that every company should be doing social networking regardless of its cost; 2) he inferred that television is dead just because of TIVO; and 3) he named a number of community sites that he implied everyone is using (which brought empty looks from the audience).

Ok, I'm not questioning Mr. Weber's knowledge of social marketing. (He knows his shit.) And I'm sure the sites he mentioned are hot to avid bloggers and social networking folks, but they're not even close to being mainstream. And TV... people said radio was dead 60 years ago.  (Things evolve. People evolve. And they can't be looked at as a homogeous mass. You use TIVO. I don't. I use email. My mother doesn't.)

My real problem here is that almost every person I've heard speak about social network marketing, in the interest of promoting the strategy, forgets one key truth: marketers have limited money and have to make informed choices.

Because of this fact, marketers need to evaluate tactics comparatively.

So, the question isn't, "Should I engage in social network marketing?" (You should if you can.) The question is, "Which tactic or blend of tactics will achieve my goals most efficiently within my budget?"

For those of you who aren't familiar with Twitter, it's a social networking and micro-blogging service that lets users send updates or "Tweets" about what they're doing (in 140 characters or less) via the Twitter website, cell phone, instant messaging, or third party applications like Facebook, Twitterific or Twhirl.

Launched in October 2006, Twitter rapidly gained popularity and won the South by Southwest Web Award for Blogging in March of 2007. As of January 2008, Twitter had about 750,000 users and at least 100 known copycat sites. Curious about the Twitter buzz, I first started using the service myself about 4 months ago.

Recently, Twitter has been the center of much debate in the online community. Some are addicted while others just don't see the point and view Twitter as a passing fancy, some comparing the service the CB radio craze of the 70's. (10-4, good buddy!) Love it or hate it, many folks who use the service have a Twitter story to tell. For what it's worth, here's mine:

My 10-year-old daughter is a big fan of Zappos.com.

Zappos is an online retailer that sells shoes, clothing, accessories and electronics. I might not even know they existed, but my daughter is really into their site right now. It's not fancy or flashy, but Zappos.com is straight-forward and well organized. Lots of pictures of shoes, and she loves that. And she likes to spend time at the site every day.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I happened to notice a Tweet on the public timeline from "Zappos.com CEO - Tony" (that would be Tony Hsieh), so I decided to "follow" him (which is what you do on Twitter to track an individual's posts). Shortly after that, I received notification that he was in turn, following me. I sent a message saying "Hey, thanks for the follow" (standard Twitter etiquette) and included a note saying "BTW, my 10-year-old daughter loves your site. She thinks it's the greatest!"

Within about 5 minutes, I received a message in response saying "That's great. Say hi to your 10-year-old for me!" When I told my daughter about the message later that day, she thought it was really cool. And I thought it was cool that she thought it was cool.

Now, I have no idea if the CEO sent the message, or if it was from an administrative assistant or college intern sitting in, but it doesn't even matter (not that they'd want to do that, since trying to fake people out is not a good idea). The point is that Zappos.com talks a lot about service (mentioned at least 10 times on their home page) and they jumped at the chance to just say "Hello". They raised the value of their brand in my mind with that seemingly insignificant little exchange – and I understand why they're doing it – but it's still effective. They're using services like Twitter to create a buzz – and that's how you build brands. Very viral.

So it was just one message. What's the big deal? Right?

Well, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh has grown the online retailer from $1.6M in sales when he took over in 2000 to a whopping $597M in 2006. If this is the first time you've heard about Zappos, it won't be the last. Hsieh has been very aggressive using technology to build the brand and many industry folks have been taking notice.

For the record, how did my daughter hear about Zappos.com in the first place? Bingo – a friend told her.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to the Cleveland Web Association on the topics of micromedia (Twitter, Pownce, FriendFeed, etc.). This was a follow up presentation to the one I gave back in February and is meant to dive a bit deeper into the subject.

I thought the audience was very receptive to the topic and the examples absolutely help out with that. David Meade of Optiem gave a bit of a more technical primer before me and is who I reference in the first few minutes.

The presentation is available below as a SlideCast (meaning I have added an voiceover audio track to it) which you can access by hitting the green middle button that looks like this .

Enjoy!

[Feed readers click through to the post of click the "View" link above.]

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If you are interested in having me speak to your company or organization, you can check out my other SlideShare presentations here and feel free to contact me for more information.

Technorati Tags:
conversations, customer service, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, marketing, Matt Dickman, micromedia, PR, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, Twitter