Video Clip of the Month: Google Goo Goo for Gaga

My June 2011 video clip of the month—a commercial for the Google Chrome web browser and Lady Gaga's new "Born This Way" album—was part of an unprecedented social media campaign that propelled the album to more than 1.1 million sales during its first week of release. I picked the viral video because it's an amazing example of how digital is changing marketing. Today's superstars don't buy attention. They earn it, and Lady Gaga is the queen of earned … [Read more...]

HOW TO: Top 10 Social Media Tips for Online Success

Today’s reality is that your organization needs to be on social media. You can no longer rely on issuing press releases and keeping your website up to date to get your message out. You must proactively lead conversations and participate in stories using Internet- and mobile-based social platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. To successfully start and maintain your social media presence, however, you need to know what works and what doesn’t. … [Read more...]

Panhandler’s Viral Hit Is ‘Dragonfly Effect,’ Not a Fluke

If you think the YouTube-catapulted rise of Ted Williams—the now-famous homeless man with the "golden voice"—is a fluke, you should read The Dragonfly Effect, by author-couple Andy Smith and Jennifer Aaker. The book is a must read for anybody interested in using social media to drive social change. It's full of big strategies, small tips, and real-life success stories proving you don’t need money or power to inspire seismic change in a Web 2.0 world. All you need … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Christmas Flash Mob

My December 2010 video clip of the month is a flash mob surprising dinners in a mall food court with a breathtaking rendition of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." Regardless of your religious preference, you've got to love the great performance and the reaction of the people around them. I picked the video because it's a wonderful holiday example of how two relatively small organizations in Welland—a town of about 50,000 in Canada near Niagara Falls—hit a home run … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: KFC Pinkwashing Parody

My November 2010 video clip of the month is an oldie but goodie. It's a parody of last spring's “Buckets for the Cure” fundraising partnership between KFC and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The low-tech, cheaply produced parody video, by Greg and Lou, a New York City comedy duo, received 10,795 hits on YouTube as of Nov. 1, 2010. This is more than both of KFC's high-tech and presumably expensive-to-produce "Buckets for the Cure" campaign videos: KFC Employees Do the … [Read more...]

Will Social Media Kill Traditional Public Relations?

Social media will replace traditional media as the main tool for public relations practioners within two years, according to a new survey by StevensGouldPincus, merger and management consultants to the communications industry. Today, communications consulting firms devote 30 percent of their total percentage of work to social media as opposed to traditional media. Next year, the percentage will increase to an average of 42 percent.  "If this trend persists, … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Conan’s YouTube Choice

My September 2010 video clip of the month features Conan O’Brien revealing the name of his new TBS series using a Sharpie and some white paper in a YouTube video. I picked the video because it shows how social media is changing the way major announcements are made. For most of the last century, major public statements were made through press releases and press conferences for the media. Today, press releases aren’t just for journalists anymore, and they are … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: ‘Guy Walks Across America’

My August 2010 video clip of the month is "Guy Walks Across America," a viral video on YouTube illustrating how social media is changing advertising. The video, funded by Levi's jeans (which is featured prominently at the end of the clip), has racked up more than a million viewers since its debut on YouTube July 20. It features actor/model Michael Johnson wearing Levi's jeans and a plain T-shirt on a 14-day cross country trip past American landmarks both major … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Social Media Revolution 2

My July 2010 video clip of the month is a recently updated video by Erik Qualman, author of the Socialnomics – Social Media Blog, demonstrating social media’s explosive growth in recent years. The video is a follow-up piece to his original social media revolution video from last summer. While some of the information is similar to last year’s version, Qualman has updated the data and included new figures for the first time.  A few of the highlights include: If … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: BP Commercial Spoofs

British Petroleum's (BP's) failure to adequately enlist social media in the communications battle over the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill made picking a single video clip of the month too difficult. So I've chosen two BP commercial spoofs, both highlighting BP's growing credibility gap as it desperately tries to control information and ignores the new (social media era) communication rules: collaboration, openness, transparency, and timeliness. While BP is … [Read more...]

YouTube Celebrates Fifth Birthday

YouTube turns five years old this year. The domain name YouTube.com was registered on Feb. 14, 2005, and the website launched in beta form that May. Here's one of the videos the company has made to celebrate the milestone and its influence on early users—in this case, Federic Alvarez, a 30-year-old filmmaker from Uruguay behind the YouTube smash sci-fi short, Panic Attack: … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Chris Brogan Interview

My May 2010 video clip of the month is an interview Chris Brogan gave for the LikeMinds conference in the United Kingdom. Brogan, arguably one of the top social media experts in the world, discusses his vision for social media's future.  Here's the YouTube video: … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Social Media for Good Causes

My April 2010 video clip of the month features Beth Kanter giving a 40-minute presentation on how non-profits can use social media to promote their causes and raise funds. Kanter is the author of Beth’s Blog, one of the longest running and most popular blogs for non-profits. Here's the YouTube video: … [Read more...]

A Peek at the Google Wave Extensions Gallery

Remember Google Wave?  Last November I was pretty excited to get an invite to join Google's experimental real-time communication platform (which is still in preview and not released to the public).  After I got the invite, I immediately logged on and played around a little bit—but largely by myself. With Google Wave, collaborators share e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking merged into topical waves. Since I didn't have any collaborators, or at … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: University ‘The Office’ Spoof

My March 2010 video clip of the month is a spoof of the NBC sitcom "The Office" that students at the University of Denver produced to show their frustrations with technology in the classroom. The video features “Michael,” a technology professor who hasn't kept up with the latest technology and is trying to wing his technology lectures. At one point, he hands out floppy disks so outdated his students’ laptops don’t even have drives to read them. Later, he tries to … [Read more...]