Changing Hollywood - One Internet Show at a Time
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During the Writer’s Strike last December there was a lot of talk of Hollywood professionals turning to alternative methods of telling their stories and plying their trade. Joss Whedon, creator of the cult TV series Buffy, Angel and Firefly, decided to do it. “It is time for us to change the face of Show Business as we know it,” Joss said in a recent blog post, “To show Show Business we mean business.”
Creating a three part webseries titled, “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog,” Whedon has crossed from traditional forms of media to new media in a single step. The series features Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day and tells the story of a low-rent villian, the hero that keeps beating him up and the girl he’s too shy to talk to. Despite lacking a big budget, the show’s production quality is outstanding and will amaze most internet series watchers.
Dr. Horrible will stream live from the official Dr. Horrible website on July 15th, 17th and 19th for free and the videos will stay up until July 20th, 2008. Then the team will make the series available for download/purchase and then in it’s final format - a DVD with extras.
The team behind Dr. Horrible have done a fantastic job promoting Dr. Horrible through social media. Currently there is official sites for Dr. Horrible on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter and the teaser video has made the rounds in the social video sharing sites (such as YouTube). And Dr. Horrible has a very grassroots fanbase who have been actively promoting through social networks. The official site has made it easy for the fans to promote the show, giving them resources and a call to action. Both Joss Whedon and one of the stars - Felicia Day, have made direct appeals to fans to promote the show.
There’s also a comic book tie in with Dark Horse’s Myspace webcomic series - “Dark Horse presents,” which only adds to the social media buzz campaign.
The plan is a bold one, and an interesting sales and marketing strategy. While many internet series have been successful, it remains to see if they can be profitable. If successful, Dr. Horrible might pave the way for others within Hollywood to step outside the confines of traditional media and embrace new media with gusto.
What do you think? Can Dr. Horrible become a wildly successful internet series and make studio execs take notice?
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Link: Indiana Jones Does Social Media Campaign Right on Facebook
There’s a great post on the Indiana Jones Facebook campaign. I was one of the people who sent out the free Indiana Jones hat, and I will agree - they did a great job with the Facebook stuff.
The Wednesday morning before the movie hit theaters two days later the company provided Facebook users the ability to sent friends a digital version of Indy’s brown hat as a “virtual gift.” Normally these cost $1 but Paramount offered 250,000 of them free-of-charge, and you guessed it, they sold out in one day.
If you were lucky to get a hat from a friend it provided you a link to the movie’s Facebook page where you could find local listings to see the movie, download widgets, review reviews and check out movie photos. The fun didn’t stop there, you could watch a video on “how to crack a whip like Indy,” check out behind the scenes photos and could upload your own videos.
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Link: What People Aren’t Saying About Social Media
While I disagree with Jennifer that these things aren’t being said about social media (most of them I’ve heard or believe myself), I did love this section of the post:
How does all of this really help me make money? Consumers are much more educated and demand much more than they used to. We are all hit with so many sales messages daily; we start to tune them out. What used to work doesn’t work (or at least not as well). In order for your business to succeed and grow, you need to adapt.
People are looking for more information and companies they can trust. Selling has become more about creating trust and building relationships.
Social media helps you connect and establish trust. Any one social media activity may not lead directly to a sale in any given moment, but it helps you establish a presence online; and in your prospects mind. If you get yourself out there and share information, you will increase your following and have a base of people that trust you that you can market to.
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Using Social Media for Your Company Starts with Planning
When companies enter the realm of advertising and marketing they do one thing that either makes or breaks their campaign. Research and planning.
They’ll spend a lot of time deciding who they are, what they want to say, what target audience they’re going after and how they’re going to position themselves in the marketplace.
But when some of those same companies enter the social media world, they fail to do the same thing.
Maybe it’s the culture of business, who still see social media as the hot new VCR you can’t get to stop flashing 12:00 AM, or it’s the false idea that social media is cheap and easy. Whatever is blocking this step, it must be removed.
Social Media campaigns should be approached to with very specific goals in mind. These goals aren’t the same as marketing or advertising, but they should be there.
Target your audience. Not every social media solution works with every company. If your target market is 40-50 year old men, you probably don’t want to jump on Myspace. If you’re looking for travel photographers, you might not want to do an audio podcast.
Don’t try to go after ‘everyone’. Just because it’s the internet doesn’t mean ‘everyone’ will work. Everyone sites are very few and you’ll get better results and more relevant results by going after your target niche. You may not get 1 million people visiting your site, but you may increase sales by 10% by doing a bit of targeting.
Know your message and be authentic. Nothing turns people off like false information. You will get lambasted by the social media world if you’re not truthful and honest. If you’re company is blogging, make sure it’s from the company and it’s apparent it’s from the company. If you’re doing a ficitonal story about people visiting Walmarts around the world, make sure it’s obvious it’s a fictional story. If you’re honest and responsive to users about your company and it’s products or services, you’ll find the community will be more likely to embrace you.
Know your medium. Facebook was once great for reaching college age, but it’s been turning into 30 to 40 somethings. Myspace is still strong with the teen population. Blogs and podcasts are good for companies that can maintain them, and especially if you can provide value to your readers/listeners. Do you have a company that specializes in children’s toys? Write about kid topics and help parents pick age-appropriate toys. Do you want people to engage you in conversation? Consider opening up a brainstorming site where people can give you ideas.
If your company wants to enter the social media space, they should. No matter who you are or what your company sells, creates, or provides there’s a social space that’s right for you. Don’t enter in blindly though, and, when in doubt, ask for help. I look forward to hearing more companies successfully using social media campagins.
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Social Media Overload
“How do you do it?” A friend recently asked.
“Do what?” I ask.
“All the ’stuff’ you do,” waving her hand to indicate the amount (I supposed).
“Which stuff in particular?” I asked, since I do a lot of this nebulous ’stuff’.
“The Twittering, the blogging, etc.”
I had to laugh. Once again someone who ‘didn’t get it’ had asked the $50 question - how do you keep up?
How do I keep up? I employ the simple rule of - not everything has to be done right now.
I enjoy social media. I also enjoy ice cream. I don’t eat ice cream every minute of every day. I enjoy it at certain times and the rest of the time I’m eating something different.
What does that mean for social media? It means I don’t read every Twitter and there are days I’m not on at all. My blog posts aren’t daily at 8am.
In short, I don’t overwhelm myself. If it’s not fun for you, social media can be another chore.
I see too many people try to keep up with every Facebook, Linked In, Myspace, Twitter update - and it’s impossible. Giving yourself permission to not catch everything will save you from burn out later.
Of course, then my friend asked how I also produce 9 podcasts, but that’s for another time.
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Social Media - Get Off My Lawn Syndrome
Spend much time with technology and media and social media you learn something very quickly. You learn what I like to term the “get off my lawn syndrome”.
And what IS get off my lawn syndrome?
To boil it down in a nutshell? It’s lack of common courtesy.
It’s a disease that plagues people who feel they need to protect themselves from the massive influx of ideas, news, emails, social networks and content coming at them. They are the rabid dogs that come out when the mailman steps close to their door and they are not gracious, kind or considerate of who the messanger is and what they might be feeling.
For example, bloggers and media content creators are notorious for complaining about PR companies swelling their inbox. Yet, many PR companies send incentives and, once you’ve reached a certain level - exclusives. Having a good relationship with a PR firm can help you raise your blog or podcast to the next level. Of course there are slimy PR people, but there are also slimy readers/listeners, slimy commentors and slimy car salesmen. Last I checked, you just avoided the slimy car salesman, not buying cars all together.
Instead of complaining, why not shoot an email back saying, “this isn’t really how I like getting pitched, can you do this instead from now on?” If you want to be seen as relevant and as exciting as a newspaper reporter or a traditional source of media, you’re going to have to learn the value of PR pitches.
These are also the people who have pioneered or been early adopters and get cranky when newcomers enter their arena. Much like the 1950’s parents who complained about their kids ‘rock music’, these people whine about excited newbies who make stupid mistakes.
For example, I was in a group (which shall rename nameless) and one person posted a message saying how they were going to ‘revolutionize’ the medium they were working in. Other members of the group took serious offense to that and said some fairly nasty things. And these are people that I’ve liked and respected, but in that moment they become grumpy old men yelling at the kids to get off their lawn.
Now, of course, if you look at it through the grumpy old man’s eyes. He worked hard to get his lawn neat and organized. He painstakeningly watered, fed, mowed and such to get his lawn looking neat. But yelling at people was never in Dale Carnegie, “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
For individuals and companies to succeed in capturing an audience in the swelling cacophony of today’s noise we need to go back to the golden rule. And maybe even Thumper’s mom’s rule of, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.”
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In Search for a Blog Directory and hugs… I mean RSS Hugger
I do a lot of blog reading. And recently I read about RSS Hugger on CatchthePost.
Finding a good blog directory is kind of like the elusive holy grail. Many of them are jammed with spam blogs and worthless links, which makes it hard to find quality content. Not so wit rssHugger, or so said the founder, Collin LaHay.
What’s the difference?
Every single submission is checked by a moderator.
So a good service for readers and for blog owners who are looking to not get lost in the sea of spam.
Joining is easy, write a review (like this one) and get approved for free. Or if you want to skip the review you can pay $20 through paypal.
Will it increase traffic? I’m not sure, but having another source for people to find your blog is always a good idea.
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Just Remember Even Your Smart Users are Dumb
Plurk has been getting a lot of coverage lately due to Twitter’s increasing outages and disabled services. Plurk offers an interesting alternative to Twitter with a lot of different features.
The problem? I can’t see the timeline. I have to use this picture from Kyle over at LostInTechnology to illustrate what I’m missing:
Now, I’m fairly tech and internet saavy. I taught my dad how to delete his text messages last week without ever consulting a cellphone handbook. But I can’t for the life of me figure out why there’s a blue empty space despite the fact that I have friends and I’m updating Plurk.
To further my frustration, there’s no “contact us” or “help” or “FAQ” easy to find. Given my ADD, multitasking and “oh shiny!” frame of mind when it comes to social media, I moved on fairly quickly.
I tried again with a client, but the only one available is for Firefox’s sidebar (and those always bug me).
So will I plurk again? Possibly, but the “dumbness” of a user who is new to your site wasn’t taken into account once the account was set up. Plurk had a very easy registration process that walked me through everything, but then it dumped me into this environment without a lot of support and I painted myself into a corner.
What can we learn from this? No matter how smart people are, or saavy, you need to make it clear how they can get help when they get stuck. If I got stuck, imagine someone who hasn’t used Twitter or any other service!
The same goes for blogs and podcasts. You may think it’s very easy for saavy people to find your contact info or to subscribe to your content, but you need to make it so simple a three year old can do it. Not because people are dumb, but because smart people can be dumb. If it’s not clear I’m more likely to say, “forget it,” and move on.
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Informal is the New Formal
Being online as long as I have (which makes me sound old, but really I’m not) I’ve learned something extremely important that I realized more companies would realize.
Informal is the New Formal.
What does that mean? It means that companies trying to connect with their consumers online need to be more transparent, open, [insert a bunch more buzz words here] and accessible. They need to do so in a way that makes them seem like normal people. They need to be more informal.
Now I’m not suggesting that your CEO start using l33t speak and saying, “Hey u guys!!!!11!!” on the company blog, but taking the idea of “business casual” into social networking.
Be real, don’t try to fake the informal. You, the company, are the number one cheerleaders for your company. Use your unique voice to express what you love about your services or projects. Let your clients and consumers become fans and let them know you care about them.
Study after study has shown that a dissatisfied customer will do more damage to your brand than a satisfied one, so enter social media with the idea of opening doors.
How can you do this?
Don’t sweat the wording. A lot of time and energy is spent on advertising and coming up with the precise wording.
Don’t try to be cool. As I said previously, if you try to fit in when you obviously don’t, you’ll be “one of those” people. Don’t be afraid to ask how to do things, (i.e. how do you upload photos to your Facebook? I can’t figure it out) and don’t be afraid to use illustrations that you know (rather than picking up stories from other bloggers or “the cool kids”).
Take risks. No one thinks your company, product or podcast is infallible. Document your risks (aka your ‘failures’) and explain what you’ve learned.
Embrace the culture of the internet. Internet users universally believe in one thing, “content should be free.” If you offer them free ideas, howtos and content they will flock like starving college students to pizza. The video podcast, Ask a Ninja, gives it’s shows away 100% free. In December 2007 it was reported they made $100,000 a month on ad revenue.
In short, be yourself. Spinning and flashy sites can only do so much into today’s marketplace. The voices are getting loud and just adding to the noise. Can you make yours unique and genuine and actually get people listening?
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What Do You Do When the Shine Fades from Social Media Celebrities?
This is a post I’ve been thinking about for awhile, but not entirely sure how to go about it, so I thought I’d ask for some help. Let me start with a story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent (me), but really the story has happened so many times you can fill in the blank with the names and it still be relevant.
I stumbled across (was recommended, found) Regan’s blog (podcast, vodcast, website) and fell in love. His stuff was creative, charming and enjoyable. I started becoming a cheerleader for Regan. He was great, he did great things and I wanted people to know.
Then, as time progresses, the honeymoon phase is over. I start seeing how Regan treats his fans (me, someone else I like) and I’m like, “ok, what’s going on?” Regan starts complaining about his fans emailing him. Regan starts acting like he’s too good for his readers, he knows more than them, he’s the best thing since sliced cheese (and really, cheese is pretty awesome).
And I feel betrayed.
How do you deal with that? When you’ve given your cheerleading efforts to someone you think is great, and they turn out to be a jerk?
Have you had a similar experience? How did you handle it?
(Oh, and you can buy that shirt from NoiseBot.com - I love them)
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About
Social Media World explores all areas of social media, new sites and apps, news and so much more! This blog is a publication of SocialRadi.us
SocialRadi.us.Recently Written
- Changing Hollywood - One Internet Show at a Time
- Link: Indiana Jones Does Social Media Campaign Right on Facebook
- Link: What People Aren’t Saying About Social Media
- Using Social Media for Your Company Starts with Planning
- Social Media Overload
- Social Media - Get Off My Lawn Syndrome
- In Search for a Blog Directory and hugs… I mean RSS Hugger
- Just Remember Even Your Smart Users are Dumb
- Informal is the New Formal
- What Do You Do When the Shine Fades from Social Media Celebrities?
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