Thursday, December 23, 2010

Social Media Trends for 2011


As we approach 2011, we will see new trends for taking advantage of social media to connect, brand and influence. Enormous growth of third party applications have taken advantage of the new commerce infrastructure and community built by facebook.

Companies with simple ideas such as Zynga (games) and Groupon (coupons) have grown up so quickly they have become billion dollar enterprises almost overnight. They help to magnify the value of central place in which facebook has become in our lives. What does that mean for you personally and for your busines venture.

My belief it is a time to pause, think, reevaluate if you currently are in business. If you are in a startup mode, the word which we might "borrow" from wall street is "leverage". How can you leverage the multi-billion dollar facebook infrastructure and new emerging ones which Bill Gates alway s worried may be created in someone's garage.

Let's distill some of the value of Facebook, social networks and communications in 2011to some areas which will be valuable for you to consider.

1) Micro-targeting - Utilizing advertising on Facebook to target very select groups of audience based upon their interests, hometown, college, company, industry, and even who their friends are and what their interests are.

2) Event driven marketing - Events are a great way to continue to build your brand or you company by drivng people to a specific event at a specific time. By running events over time you drive new traffic to your store or business.

3) Mobile marketing - One of the emerging trends is that the mobile devices are now as powerful as laptops were just a few years ago. You will see this continue to the point where the primary device for intial contact is on the "phone/pda" versus the computer.

4) Video content - There is an incredible opportunity to be innovative in this area. Video content can be as simple as talking into your computer and recording your though and ideas to creating a film or television show to bring your ideas across. The trend of digital technology has allowed individuals to create and distribute full length feature films for under $10,000.

5) Personal Branding - The trend continues in which our personal and business lives are blending into a brand. What was once the domain of hollywood stars and trend setting ceo's such as Richard Branson and Donald Trump are the hottest area to distinguish yourself. My personal examples are creating personal/business brands such as MediaMensch and The Accidental Actor.

6) Gaming - On-line gaming is becoming one of the fastest growing areas of where people are spending their time. Games are not just a leisure activity, but a way to connect with the world. Whether it is playing online poker, building a virtual community or scrabble you can meet interesting people from around the world where fromthe start you share a common interest. Whether it is for personal interest or business interest, you can look at ways to reach the gaming community with advertising, product placement including on mobile technology..

7) Videoconferencing/Video Chat - A subtle evolution in video chat (Skype, Googletalk) has taken hold over the past few years and this continues to accelerate. Where the phone was just audio it is now becoming prevalent to have one to one or small group video chats where you can integrate not only audio, but text. One benefit of using these services is that you can do a few things you can not do on a regular call..record the conversation, text and share links while you talk, send a file and archive for future reference. In most cases this technology is free.

8) Privacy - If there is ever a collision course with the evolution of social media it is the concerns over privacy and trust. What was much the domain of your best friends and relatives is now on servers at companies such as Facebook and Google. In fact, it can be argued that the trail of information you have left on these services are so personal that even your closest friends or business associates may not know as much or remember as these services know about you. Such things that seem to be innocent or subtle such as linking your best friends or relatives can now be used by marketers and others to see who you associate with and influence.

9) Net Neutrality - This is a term again which is evolving. The internet which basically has evolved a "free" (and we mean that in many ways) platform is now under fire from corporations and media companies who want to be paid for the bandwidth and infrastructure they support. Driving this trend is that areas such as film and television are using exponentially more bandwidth than e-mails or clickthroughs to websites. This can be looked at again as a threat or opportunity depending on where you sit. As we move into 2011 and toward the 2012 election cycle in the US, areas such as government and corporate control of the internet will become a cenral debate with large lobbying fro all sides.

10) Geo-locating - New forms of products and services are evolving which allow us to be tracked or personally reportin on ehre we are in the world. With either sophisticated GPS based devices or services such as FourSquate where you can tell people what restaurant or hotel you have checked into. This is both a great way to meet up with friends or business associates on a spontaneous basis or to let people know of new places to check out. From a business perspective this is a new and subtle form of word of mouth marketing. Friends can see what venues their friends are frequeting whether it is a new cool restaurant or a resort hotel and places in between.

While all these trends emerge, one thing is a constant and that is "change". My thoughts for you my friends for 2011 are for you to find your passion and prosperity and "unplug" once in a while to see the world in simpler healthier terms. If you want to find ways to move forward, please feel free to contact "The Mensch" for coaching or advising your in your personal branding or business endeavors.


www.mediamensch.com
www.imdb.com/andrewkaplan
Skype: ewarrior
www.facebook.com\mediamensch
www.facebook.com\accidentalactor

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The Fullest Shortest Day of the Year

Yesterday was the winter solstice, lunar eclipse and the shortest day of the year. I was also one of the most rewarding days for my "accidental actor" journey. My journey continues to bring surprises and new areas which never entered my mind when I started down my journey in the acting world.

Yesterday, I had two new things I had never done before. I worked on an industrial/commerical video for a major financial company in a role of a college professor teaching a class. This time was different as I wan the only actor in the room while they were filming. The director asked me to ad-lib a lecture on a subject I knew well. So I decided to teach a class on entrepreneurship.

In the afternoon, they agency which filmed me in the morning, asked me to be part of a photoshoot for a national real estate company which is a well known brand. I was a real estate agent showing an upscale house to a married couple. This was my first commercial photoshoot and was told the photos may be used for stock photos for print.

Part of this also fits perfectly into my philosophy of life and growth and those which I coach my clients. In order to grow, challenge yourself to "Do two new things a week that you have never done before." Yesterday was one of those days.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

The Power of Facebook Pages for Film Marketing

Facebook Pages have allowed independent films to build audiences and fans throughout all stages of their evolution. This means that small films with no marketing budget can reach hundreds or thousands of fans around the world by simply developing a page on facebook.

Even in the earliest stages of filmmaking, creating awareness of the film though the friends of the production team and actors can create a ripple effect and a buzz about your film. Awareness of the film can easily reach hundreds, not thousands of people even as you are in the earliest stages. Techniques such as adding videos, photos and events can amplify this awareness.

Integrating video on platforms such as Vimeo or Youtube with facebook and twitter becomes a powerful combination. Loading video of trailers or teasers directly into Facebook and tagging those in the videos also creates a sense of intimacy between the creators of the movie and its audience. The videos which may have been shown on a DVD as behind the scenes can be edited and posted now in a facebook page and shared.

Facebook is the largest photo site in the world. Filmmakers can take advantage of this by having high quality still photography from the movie set to red carpet events. Also they can post headshots of cast and crew which can be easily shared. This can bring a new level of connection that can may not be done in a mulitmillion dollar national tv marketing campaign. The pictures posted at various points of the development of the film project provides a 360 view of the life of the film creating a new intimacy with the fans

Using the events area of facebook can then be used during the film development from everything from auditions to extras casting to the film premiere. Events can also be used as reminders for the release of the DVD or other important milestone.

The combination of all these elements create a new way reach broader audience and bring your message in an efficint and intimate way to the fans.

I have had the opportunity to work with producers on their film marketing strategies from the development of the trailers to their social media content including a documentary project with Meryl Streep. You can see some of the detail on the IMDB page www.imdb.me/andrewkaplan