I have a good friend, who for some reason about 10 years ago decided to leave lovely California and move to, Nashville. Yes, he did it for a woman. No, they are no longer together. Today, he is happily married with kids, and owns a Smoothie King.
He has been updating his Facebook status with info on the flooding in his area. I had heard in passing about the flooding but did not really pay attention. That was until he started updating his Facebook status with links to videos and websites.
I thought, I should go check what was happening and get more info. I went to CNN.com and saw this:
Where were the amazing links that my friend had? Where was info on the flooding? I could find info on:
-Porn Director Seeks Office
-3-D Gaming
-Photographer Captures Arctic
..and then yes I saw it small references to the flooding in Nashville. With boring articles.
Here is my point, wouldn’t the page have more impact, more information and be more informative if they used things like YouTube and Twitter? Things my friend had been posting?
Here let me list some of them for you, people like lists:
Amazing right? Wouldn’t these videos grab you more and heck, be more informative? More “WOW” factor! More “POP”
Then you have Twitter, where there are real time updates and comments by people. Why is there no feed up? Here is a sample..
Again, comments from real people being shared by real people. I know you have that Ireport thing and your trying, but well.. try a little harder. Okay?
Seems to me your missing the mark here.
Gee, I cant imagine why traditional media is having problems…
First, I wanted to make sure everything is good with you. I know its been a while since we have chatted. Actually, we have really never chatted. Though you did have Technorati reach out to me in early March 2009. It was just before SXSW 2009. You probably don’t remember, I know your a really busy company. Well with E3, your Samsung LCD venture, and of course that exciting announcement that Sade has an album coming out for the first time in like 9 years No offense but waiting 30 years for that album would of been better.(I’m just saying.)
So what I wanted to share with you is an update on the partnership you did with Technorati just before the SXSW 2009. I know with everything going on you don’t remember it. Let me try to jog your memory.
You were kind enough to send myself and 9 other bloggers these really kick ass Webbie HD video cameras. All you asked is when we use it at the conference was to tag photos and pics with the hashtag #webbiesxsw. How could any of us say no? (Look we both know Julia Roy sure wouldn’t! I think she tried to steal mine, so she could have two.) So with my trusty Webbie HD I mad amazing, educational, social media videos like this:
Pretty great huh? Fine, I suck at video taping. I get it. Okay, so Sony you may wonder, “why is this guy writing this letter to us almost 4 months after the fact? We aren’t sending you another free camera and you cant have a free PS3 either, so move along.” Do not worry. I do not want any free stuff, though if I were to hit you up for something it would be the PS3 Slim.
So back to my point of this letter. It must of taking some good faith in Social Media for a big company like you to the Webbie SXSW/blogger promotion. Not being able to directly measure the ROI for this campaign. Not knowing if it helped sell these devices. No doubt you could see the chatter on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and the other thousands of social networking sites. Yet, it is hard to measure if that chatter turned into sales.
Well, I have some good news for you. Social Media works. What you did worked. Let me give you some examples. I will do it in list form. People like lists!
-In the past 30 days 5. Yes, 5 families have bought the Webbie because they have seen me using at my kids school. Scary part is they all got the same color as me. So, now I have to put my initials on the bottom of it.
-At least 8 people have emailed me directly in the last 90 days to ask me about what video camera I use. Of that I know of 4 people who have bought the camera.
-Facebook..where do I start. When I upload a video it has that HD logo in the corner. The number of people who have commented on the quality of the video and sound is crazy. I can not say I know exactly how many people have bought the Webbie. I do know that there have been a lot of comments and questions about it on my profile page and fanpage.(yes, I have a facebook fanpage stop laughing at me.) Done laughing? Here is a Facebook video example that got the parents fired up about the Webbie:
So, there you go. I can confirm at least 14 sales of the webbie as well as several more potential sales coming your way!! That is not a bad ROI for sending a blogger a $200.00 video camera. We do not even know how many sales the other 9 bloggers generated. This is what I would call a success story, as well as a great case study showing that Social Media and Word of Mouth marketing do work.
Oh in case anyone at Sony sees this or who knows, maybe even reads my blog. No, I was not paid to do this. Yes, I got a free Webbie from Sony. There is your full disclosure at work!
Dear KTVU,
First I need you to know, I have been watching Channel 2 since I was like 5. Heck I remember the old theme song you know “There is only one..two!”, hear I don’t sing well, listen to it yourself:
Boy that was catchy back in the day. You ought to think about bring… sorry I am off on a tagent.
Look I am sending you this letter, not because I hate you, dislike you..though it would be nice if you played more MASH reruns, I do like MASH… sorry back to the point. In this day of people watching less tv, reading less newspapers, companies like you need to do whatever you can to stay current and go where the people are. I get that. So I was thrilled when I found out KTVU was on Twitter!
I thought how cool! I can send messages to the newsroom, get interesting info about stories your working on, what Ross is up to. I did love him on People Are Talking back on KPIX.
Whatever happened to Ann anyway?
So imagine my dismay when I went to your Twitter page and saw this:
It is just links to videos. I can see this on your site or heck the 10:00 news. It is well..boring. There is nothing interesting here. No, there is no rule that you have to be intresting or exciting, you can do what you want on Twitter, as Eric Rice kindly points out. Let me give you a few pointers though. I will do in in list form as people like lists:
-Give us some behind the scenes information, stories your working on. Funny things going on. Tell us something we can not see on the broadcast
-This is important, interact with other twitter followers. I said “Hi” to you yesterday and you never replied. Heck DarthVader says Hi, and he is a Sith Lord.
-Learn from NBC’s Today Show mistakes on Twitter. They did exactly what you did with nothing but links, now check it out. They answer peoples questions on Twitter and interact, heck they make funny comments and everything!
-Act like your part of the community. See NBC’s Today Show above.
-Try getting Twitter involved with your news team. Ask for leads, read users responses online. Take polls. The Twitterverse is yours for the taking.
So please dont take this the wrong way, I am on your side. I just want to help you with the learning curve! I know you can do it.. cause well there is only one two..
