From the Red Carpet to your Computer Screen: How Hollywood is Going Viral

It’s the first month of 2012, which means that award season in Hollywood has begun. On January 15th, the 69^th annual Golden Globes kicked off  several months of red carpet events that will include the SAG awards and, of course, the Oscars. And even if “there’s no business like show business”,  Tinsel Town has followed suit and gone high tech for the upcoming award shows, utilizing  social media and online video.

The biggest of these upcoming award shows is the Oscars, which will be held on February 26th. For the second year in a row, the nominations for the prestigious awards were announced live via Youtube. This year, the use of mobile devices to watch the announcement was at it’s peak; the availability and popularity of smart phones allowed more people to follow the broadcast regardless of where they were located. As a result, the internet played a much larger role in the announcement than the televised event.  After the nominees were announced, people flocked to social media sites to share their predictions and expectations for the show. To add to the online social interaction element of the event,  Facebook and NYTimes.com are teaming up to create an interactive online ballot for the Academy Awards. The ballot will allow participants to select their choices for winners in the various categories, and the on the night of the big event, track how their votes stack up against friends and even celebrities. This is an exciting way for fans to participate in the big event, but the plans for next year are even more high tech. In fact,  the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences has decided to move forward with a completely electronic voting system for the 2013 Academy Awards.

The Oscar’s aren’t the only way Youtube is getting involved with the film industry this year.  Starting February 2^nd, the video site is launching it’s largest film festival ever, called Your Film Festival. Anyone 18 years and older can submit a short film (no more than 15 minutes) to the social video site, and 50 semifinalists will be chosen by Scott Free Productions (Ridley and Tony Scott’s production company). Those 50 short films will be hosted on a youtube channel, where viewers will vote for their favorites. The 10 films with the highest amount of votes will be flown to the Venice Film Festival, where a winner will be chosen and awarded $500,000 to produce a movie with Scott Free Productions. This film festival is another example of how the internet can create a level playing field for businesses (or film makers) of all levels. Having worked for a film festival, I have some idea of how expensive the processing of a blu-ray or 35-mm film can be, even for a short. By allowing participants to post their work directly to the internet, allows small production companies to be considered for an award.

Even if your company doesn’t have a red carpet and golden statues, you can still take a page out of Hollywood’s book and improve your online business.

Facebook Gets Political: Social Media Marketing and the Race to the White House

Presidential elections and new media have always gone hand in hand in America. In 1948, the first radio debate was held in Oregon between Republican primary candidates, the first televised debate in 1960 between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon changed the face of politics (in fact it was Kennedy’s handsome, healthy face that led viewers of the program to feel he won the debate, while those that listened on the radio thought Nixon had the upper hand).

And of course, Al Gore invented the internet.

In the 2008 presidential election, the internet played a major role for voters seeking information and news about the candidates with an  11% jump in voter use of the internet from the campaign 4 years prior. And so, there was a push to capitalize on internet marketing, particularly social media and the “youth vote”, which candidates believed could be the turning point in the election. This focus on internet marketing was not in vain; over 22 million voters between the ages of 18-29 voted in 2008, the second largest youth turn out in American history.

With the Republican primaries starting and the election coming up in November, internet campaigning has never been more prominent. Social media in particular has taken the foreground in political presence on the web. Potential candidates have Twitter accounts, create premade Facebook profile pictures for their supporters, and advertise on  Youtube. Republicans even have a presence on tumblr, a social media site  Skillman Video Group discussed in blog post last week.

However, there has been a shift since the last presidential race in the demographics of users of social media sites. For example: the average age of a Facebook user rose from 33 in 2008 to 38 in 2010.  In 2008 sites like Facebook were still used primarily by teens and young adults for interacting with friends. Today there are companies, corporations and established entrepreneurs that use the site for networking and establishing new clients. As a result, using social media and using it effectively has never been more important for the candidates.

This trend in political campaigning and the effect it has on results is interesting to look at for your own online marketing strategies. Campaigning for president and marketing your company are similar; both aim to reach as many customers (or voters) as possible in the most effective way.  Presidential candidates spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on strategists, researchers, and political advisers to ensure they are marketing themselves well, and if they are focusing primarily on social media marketing, there is a good chance your company will benefit from these websites as well.  Another interesting point brought to light by this campaign is the shift in users of social media sites.  Four years ago, it didn’t make sense for every company to have a Facebook page; today it is an indispensable aspect of online marketing.

Democrat, Republican, or Independent, there’s one thing your business stand behind this election season; the importance of social media marketing.

This time it’s personal: Google changes its search results to reflect social media

Recently, the website Poynter posted an article about a new type of search that can be performed on Google. Search Plus Your World delivers specific, personalized search results based on what a user’s online community has posted, shared, or linked. This is different from the current search results on Google, which are based on SEO, or the frequency and use of keywords in a website or post. The search engine Bing already uses community activity from Facebook in it’s search results, and Google works primarily with Google+, but the search engine wants to incorporate both Facebook and Twitter into its personalized search results.

What does this mean for your business? As we’ve mentioned before, social media is important to any company’s online business. But now, how your company uses social media sites becomes crucial to the success of your appearance in search results. First, it is important that you develop a strong online network of clients, customers, and companies on social media sites; being connected will give you a chance to appear in their search results. Also, it is important to post frequent and engaging material on your website, such as blog posts or videos. By staying connected and engaging your audience, you can maximize the success of your social media sites and the prevalence of your company’s appearance in search results.

The new search form on Google does not eliminate the importance of SEO, but it does make social media more important than ever in online marketing.

Is it Time for a Tumblr?

In the past decade, there has been a boom in  Social Media. According to comscore’s 2011 wrap-up of internet use for 2011, 1 in 5 minutes spent online are on a social media site. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, and a myriad of other sites keep people up-to-date and informed with friends, family, celebrities, and even businesses. Social Media websites are key to viral marketing, but it can sometimes be difficult to know which ones you should join, and which ones will fall by the wayside.

One of these sites that is gaining popularity is the blog Tumblr. This social networking website allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their short-form blog. Although the site has been around for 5 years, it has seen an explosion in usage over the past 12 months.  Last year, Tumblr saw a 172% growth to the audience on their site, particularly in international markets.

It’s no surprise then that businesses are getting involved with the site. Coca Cola recently launched a tumblr called “happiness is…”, which consists primarily of photos showcasing young people with Coke products and vintage advertisements.  The site’s goal is to engage the brands teen consumers on a site where 11 million of them spend on average 37 minutes a day.

With the site’s popularity increasing and businesses getting involved, is it time for your company to hop on the Tumblr train? The biggest things to consider here are your key demographic and the visual interest of your company or product. Coca Cola succeeds on a site like Tumblr because it allows them to reach a high volume of teenagers. If your demographic leans towards an older audience (for example a law firm, home renovation, or tax preparation business), Tumblr may not be the best use of your time online. Another thing to consider is the visual qualities of your company or product. While Tumblr allows text posting, it is still primarily a photo and gif website. This means that a photography company could benefit from showcasing their work, but many other businesses lack that visual interest, and would not benefit from starting on the site.

Ultimately, you probably don’t need to sign up for a Tumblr account right away.  However, as we have seen with sites like Facebook and Twitter, there is a good chance that what starts as a social media site for teens and celebrities will turn into a valuable viral marketing platform. If the trends continue, Tumblr may become a great resource for internet and social media marketing.

New Years Resolution for Your Business

It’s a new year, and the time when everyone’s thoughts turn to the dreaded New Year’s resolutions. Now that the ball has dropped and we’ve sang a round of Auld Lang Syne, it’s time to focus on how to improve over the next 12 months.  SVG has some suggestions for internet marketing resolutions that will enhance your online appearance and increase traffic to your site, benefiting your business.

Get a Google+ Account:  In 2011, Google+ joined the ranks of Facebook and Twitter as a leading social media site. As we’ve mentioned before, there are a lot of benefits to being involved with Google+.  This latest member of the social media family created by the search engine Google is quickly becoming an amazing platform for finding customers and keeping clients informed, and is now open to the public, so setting up an account is easy.

Become involved in Social Video Marketing: Social Video Marketing (SVM) is a great way to enhance your online appearance. By combining interesting and engaging content with the efforts of search optimization, social media, and strategic linking, you can drive more customers to your site and increase their interest in your company.  A marketing video delivers information in a way that is easy to follow and more captivating than text, and allows you to show off the best qualities of your company in a unique and professional way. If you haven’t considered SVM, 2012 is the time to start.

Update your website design: If your website design is a few years old, it may be time to update.  The internet is a fast-moving technology, and a site that hasn’t been updated or redesigned in a while can look antiquated very quickly. Even if you like the format of your site, consider adding a blog, or ensuring none of your information is outdated.  The goal of the website for your company is to bring in new business and to keep current customers up-to-date, and if the design of your website is stopping this, it’s time for an upgrade.

Make the most of SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important elements of online marketing. If customers can’t find you through search engines, then all social media, video marketing, and website design won’t help. Learn more about SEO and what Skillman Video can do to help you enhance your company’s appearance in search engines.

New Years resolutions can be daunting, but the benefits of these few tips will help your online business substantially, and SVG has the knowledge and experience to help you succeed in 2012.

Google+ outranks rivals in SEO

Recently, a blog posted  on the site seomoz.com outlined the effectiveness of Google+ in SEO. When a company or individuals name is searched, their Google+ page outranks Twitter, Facebook, and many of their competitor social media sites in the results. While this information may be bad news for Facebook, and Twitter, the blog outlines the tools used by Google+ that you can apply to help with your business’ online appearance.

For obvious reasons, a Google+ page is the top result in a search done on their parent company’s search engine, Google. Visiting someone’s Google+ page (as opposed to their Facebook or Twitter) ensures the company is more popular and retains more of it’s users, which leads to more advertising and prestige. And while this method may seem to only benefit Google, you can use it to your advantage to enhance your online presence and SEO. When most people use a search engine, they turn to Google. In fact, according to some statistics, more than  1 billion Google searches are performed per day. With all that site traffic, having a Google+ account that shows up early in the search results, before other social media sites, can really help your business. The faster a potential customer can find you, the better.

With Google having a hold on the search engine market, it’s no surprise that their social media site Google+ would rank higher in SEO than their competitors like Facebook and Twitter. But there are several other reasons why this site has better SEO standings, and it has little to do with their parent company. As the blog outlines, there are 6 main reasons Google+ ranks higher, including the amount of indexable content the site has and the use of internal linking to maximize the amount of people connected. Making the most of these built-in advantages to Google+ can be beneficial to your business, providing more information to your customers, partners, or clients.

Check out the original blog post on Google+, and learn more about the strategies the site uses to optimize SEO. Consider adding this newer social media site to your company’s online roster to garner more attention online.

Listen up! The new Pandora Radio, and what you can learn from their website design.

If you’re a music lover, then you are probably familiar with Pandora Radio. Pandora is a free website that allows users to customize radio stations based on their favorite artist, genre, or song. Users can further hone the music selection by giving tracks a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”, allowing them to listen to their favorite tracks and find new artist with a similar style. Pandora has a music selection for almost any taste, from electronica to easy listening, and has seen a lot of success over the past few years.
Several months ago, Pandora announced that they would be updating their website, making both aesthetic as well as program changes to enhance their listeners experience. The site went through some major changes, and overall the response to these changes has been very positive. Blogs and websites ranging from music enthusiasts to tech fans have been abuzz with the new site design.

While there are a lot of great advantages to the site’s new layout, the most of the bloggers agree that several factors make the new Pandora great. These include the streamline appearance and bigger buttons that make it easier to use, the use of  HTML5, and the new social media aspects of the website that make it more user-friendly for the 21st century twitter/facebook-crowd. People are also excited about the removal Pandora’s of the listening cap, which used to cut off the music at 40 hours unless users upgraded to a paid version of the site.  The new Pandora will stop your music with advertisements, but it now allows users an unlimited amount of time to listen to their favorite music.

I have been a Pandora user for a few years now, and I must say that their new website design is a welcome change. It’s streamlined, sophisticated, and simplified, making it a thoroughly enjoyable site to use. This got me thinking about how your business can use the same methods that Pandora did to update your website. As we’ve said before, people make judgements on your site a mere 50 milliseconds upon viewing it, and so the design elements must be able to draw potential customers in, and keep current clients engaged. If your website is out of date, hard to use, or just unappealing visually, it can seriously hurt your potential business and online appearance.

So what can your company learn from the new updates that Pandora has made? Here are the biggest changes the site made that can be applied to your website:

Streamline: Your homepage should give potential customers a strong idea of who you are and what you do. But this is just an overview; wordy specifics and details of what you do should be saved for landing pages on your site.  Keep your homepage simple, elegant, and easy to follow, so that clients have an impression of company as a whole, rather than individual elements.

Be Social: The new Pandora allows you to connect to your friends and your social networks. Having an online presence that crosses from your website to facebook, twitter, youtube and other social media sites is beneficial. People may not check your website regularly, but they may be on twitter or facebook more often, and so reaching out on a variety of sites increases your company’s visibility.

HTML5: Even if you’re not tech-savy and HTML is lost on you, all you need to take away from this is that keeping your website up-to-date, both with the information from your company and with the latest technology, is very important. Making sure you have the latest technology will keep your website running smoothly and efficiently. The faster the site loads, the better it looks, and the better you look.

Make it Easy: People want to explore a website that is easy to use. Keeping things streamlined will help, but remember that organization and placement of important links or videos can also ease a customer’s use of your site.

Updating your website design can be a great way to increase traffic to your site, and to make sure that customers and clients get the information they need. While website design may not be your forte, Skillman Video Group has the tools and experience necessary to take your website from hard to hear to easy listening.

SVG shoots viral instructional video for Brewster Home Fashions

A couple weeks ago, Skillman Video Group shot an instructional video on wallpaper installation for Brewster Home Fashions, a Boston-based manufacturer and distributor of fine wall coverings and home décor. This video will be posted to Brewster’s website to enhance their online visibility and web-based marketing. As mentioned previously, on Wednesday we built the set for this video, using drywall flats, paint, and a little elbow grease to give it the appearance of a real room in a home. It was the first time SVG had built a set for a shoot, working with the client to ensure that the space was optimal. By Wednesday night, the set was ready to go, with white walls just begging for a fun, new wall treatment.

The stylistic choice for this instructional video was  shots of our talent, Lauren,  putting up the wallpaper in her

“room”, and a narration recorded separately to be added in later. The video covered the most common issues a homeowner might have when installing wallpaper, such as insuring the first sheet is straight, successfully navigating around a corner, and working around outlets, light switches, and doorways.  A scripted narration is a great option for a how-to video; it ensures that the instructions are succinct and easy to follow, and takes the pressure off the on-camera talent to get the information out and allows him or her to focus on doing the job right.

Once again, a video like this can be a great way to introduce potential customers to your company. The use of a real customer like Lauren with the straightforward instructional narration gives the client a look at the beautiful wallpapers Brewster Home Fashions has, and the simple, stress-free application of the product.

This two-day shoot was a success, and the “room” looked fabulous after it got a makeover with a fantastic Brewster Home Fashions wallpaper. We were able to shoot some more footage for our “behind the scenes” video, which will give people a glimpse at the process from start to finish. Check in soon to see the final product!

For the first time: SVG builds set for Brewster Home Fashions!

On Wednesday, Skillman Video Group built the set for our  shoot with Brewster Home Fashions, a prominent manufacturer of fine wall coverings, wallpapers, and home decor products. The shoot, coming up this Friday, will be a how-to video on proper wallpaper installation.

A how-to video like the one for Brewster Home Fashions will be a great viral marketing tool for the company.  Many people turn to the internet for tips on everything from making the perfect souffle to installing a car radio. Putting a video demonstrating  proper wallpaper installation on Brewster Home Fashions site will draw frustrated homeowners to their website, and when they see the professional demeanor of  the company, as well as the beautiful wallpaper they create,  the viewers will be more likely to use the company for their business in the future.

SVG worked closely with Brewster Home Fashions and Hollywood  set designer (and former Skillman Video intern) Chris Plummer to conceptualize the perfect set for their shoot. We put together a mock room made up of 6 drywall flats, including a door, light switch, and outlet to replicate all the challenges a homeowner comes across while their putting up their wallpaper. We painted the “walls”, and put together some furniture pieces so the video feels like a real room.

Skillman Video Group also shot some footage for a behind the scenes video of the set construction. Check in soon to see the process, and what the final set looks like when Brewster Home Fashions has installed the wallpaper!

Breaking the Fifth Wall: What Dunder Mifflin Teaches Us About Marketing and the Human Psyche

If you haven’t seen an episode of NBC’s long-running comedic hit, The Office, you’ve probably at least heard of it. While telling the tale of a paper company locked in a constant battle against, one: the shrinking demand for paper, and two, the bottom barrel prices of its bigger competitors, The Office is actually quite funny. Originally conceived by British comedian Ricky Gervais, it became a hit in the UK before the US adaptation made Michael Scott (Steve Carrel) and Dunder Mifflin household names. While the show is funny, what made it unique was it’s constant “breaking of the fourth wall,” a technique thought too taboo for primetime TV, or at least prime-time fiction. Reality shows had done a version of this, but that’s how they’re formatted. Fiction is different, it is supposed to be observed, and not interacted with.

On The Office, characters send quick glances directly to the camera and subsequently to the viewer. They also speak directly to the camera, “confessional” style. Something that all people share is a need to be “on the inside.” They want to be included, sit at the cool kids’ table, get VIP access; they want the inside track. Having characters speak directly to viewers gave them that sense, and now tons of shows do the exact same thing. Another great TV comedy is Community, which in a recent episode discussed how Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Francis Ford Copolla’s epic Apocalypse Now, was actually a better movie than Apocalypse Now. What Community was trying to say is that while people like the end product, be it a movie or a pencil, they like to know who made the pencil and what they went through to make it.

So where does a fictional company like Dunder Mifflin go once its show has broken the fourth wall? Well, it breaks the fifth wall and becomes a real paper company. Ironically, the fictional company’s biggest competitor, Staples, has now, in real life, bought the rights to the Dunder Mifflin name to help sell paper on their Quill.com website. In a race to the bottom of paper prices, they intend on selling paper of the same quality as their competitors for higher prices, simply because it has the name of a fictional paper company on it. However, Dunder Mifflin is no longer a fictional company. No it does not have Michael Scott and his antics, but it does have real employees with a real product. Folks can take care of their paper needs with boxes labeled with all the best catch phrases from the show.

What does this reverse product placement tell us about ourselves? That’s another topic for another blog post, but in short, it tells us that people will spend more on a product that means something to them. This type of sentiment is hard to put a number value on, but is nothing to be scoffed at. If you let your customers in, and provide them with something that they feel they have ownership over, great things can happen. Something else to take away is to not let fear stop you. Doing what is taboo and doing what could “never work” is exactly what needs to be done to innovate and stand out. Breaking the 4^th wall was a risky move but it paid off in spades, and most importantly, The Office was first to do it.

Reverse product placement is nothing new; many brands have tried this before with mixed success. What the real life paper company should have learned from the fictional one is not to wait. The Office has been on a decline for the past few seasons and no longer has its centerpiece, Steve Carrel. This move probably would have been timelier years ago when the show was at its peak of popularity. Whether you’re creating paper or a corporate video, don’t be afraid to do it with style and to stand outside of the norm. Skillman Video Group provides innovation for all of its clients. We will happily help you tackle taboos, break down walls, or at the very least, make a great video.

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