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Minneapolis/St. Paul Marketing and PR agency and video production company|StoryTeller
Archive for February, 2012
Social media followers: Is quality really more important than quantity?
Say you’re working on a social media campaign for a client. You do an awesome job. You recruit thousands of new fans and followers. You get tons of conversation and engagement going on your client’s social accounts. And then you report back to your client and they’re less than impressed.
So what if we have 1,000 new followers? They say. How do we know these fans are qualified? What if they never even buy from us? So what?
Touché, client. That’s a very valid point.
Working at a PR agency where many of our clients utilize social media, my colleagues and I have often had the discussion about quality vs. quantity when it comes to social media followers. Everyone wants to have a large following, yet everyone is quick to criticize the quality of that large following.
The inbound marketing and social media experts over at Hubspot believe that bigger is better when it comes to your social media following, and just because a fan may never buy from you doesn’t mean that they’re not valuable.
Here’s why:
- More followers mean access to more followers’ followers: This is the basis principle behind the importance of reach in social media. Each follower has a follower and when they like or share your content, their follower’s see it and so on and so on.
- Influencers have, well, influence: If you have a large social media following, chances are there will be one or two influencers in the group. If you can get them to share or comment on your content you’ve just earned major social media cred.
- › Continue reading
Go GoPro, Go!
One of the TV stations I used to work at, KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, recently ran a story on fighter jet training involving the University of Iowa and a local engineering company in Cedar Rapids, Rockwell Collins. It was a very interesting story, with real fighter jets engaged in virtual combat in the skies over Eastern Iowa.
The story is very interesting (video after the jump), but easily the coolest part of the whole thing is all of the fantastic video, especially the stuff from the air. Photographer Brian Ray from the Cedar Rapids Gazette and Matt Nelson from KCRG attached seven different cameras to the interior and exterior of the planes to get phenomenal video. They used the GoPro HD camera, which is only about the size of a garage door opener, and can fit into a wide assortment of mounts, so it can be placed virtually anywhere. Including the wing of a fighter jet, which is how they captured that great wide angle shot you see below.
Should your business be on Pinterest?
The Pinterest bug appears to be circulating faster than news of a celebrity breakup. In fact, with more than 5 million users (including myself), Pinterest has grown to become one of the 10 most popular social networking sites, since launching in 2010. With staggering numbers like this, it’s no wonder businesses have started pinning too.
According to a recent report from Shareaholic, Pinterest is driving more traffic to company websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined. And if women are your business’s target consumer, well then you’ve hit the jackpot, as 70% of Pinterest users are women.
So how does your brand make a presence on Pinterest? The approach is slightly different than business accounts on Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest is not a broadcast mechanism; it’s more about promoting a lifestyle or the idea behind your brand.
Size doesn’t matter…when it comes to your camera
I still chuckle when I think of them. “That sure is big.” “I bet you hate carrying that around all day.” And the one I heard the most, “Are you here to take pictures for the newspaper?” Being a videographer for 15 years, I’ve gotten all sorts of reactions to the size of the camera I carry.
When I first started out in television, in 1997, people couldn’t believe how big the camera was. They were used to the little, handheld camcorders you could buy at Target or Best Buy. But, as I explained, to get high-quality video for television, you needed a bigger, better lens than that. Not to mention all of the processors and chips that make up the ‘guts’ of the camera.
Interestingly, in 2012, the curiosity and puzzled looks remain, but the reactions have come 180 degrees. “Is that it?” “Where’s the rest of the camera?” “Are you here to take pictures for the newspaper?” (Ok, I still get that one.) As chips and processors have gotten smaller, the size of the camera has been reduced as well. And the quality of the picture has gotten amazingly better, with the advent of HD.
The coolest of these developments, in my opinion, has been the blending of still photography and videography. › Continue reading
How to Pitch the Media
Getting Placed in the Media
So you have some great news to share about your company – perhaps a new product or event – and you’re hoping to get on the news. Or maybe you’re an expert who can provide some perspective on a big story that’s breaking. But how can you get placed in the media? It’s all about how you pitch them.
Do a little digging
Finding out all you can about a reporter, editor or producer can be huge when it comes to pitching a story. Between their bios, LinkedIn profiles, Facebook and Twitter accounts, even a blog, you can get a pretty good idea these days about which kinds of stories a journalist covers and what he/she is passionate about.
Pitch the right person
It should go without saying that you shouldn’t send a business reporter a story about decorating or an entertainment reporter an idea about a new school lunch program. Pitching the right person goes back to doing your research. Understand roles in newsrooms as well. If you’re pitching a feature segment for television news – go after the producer. They’re likely the ones booking and setting up segments – especially for morning and weekend shows. › Continue reading
New social media tool: Are you on Pinterest?
Whatddya know, there’s a new social media kid on the block! Pinterest has moved in to what some would say is an already overcrowded neighborhood of social media networks. So why should you join Pinterest? What makes it different from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc…? From my experience with Pinterest, I find it to be a refreshing break from other social media platforms.
But let’s back up for a second, if you’re not familiar with Pinterest, here is a brief explanation of how it works. Pinterest is a “visual social discovery network.” You create online pinboards (think of a bulletin board) for various categories (“dream home” or “fashion” or “recipes” or “workouts”) and then you “pin” items to it by uploading images, using the Pinit Bookmarklet or repining other people’s pins.
Mason Jar Lamp
Just think of all those times you were out cruising the internet and saw a recipe you really wanted to try or a great instructional blog post on how to turn a mason jar into a lamp. You thought to yourself, “Oh, well now that’s pretty cool.” But you never printed the recipe or emailed yourself the link to the mason jar lamp. And when you go back later to try to find it you discover that the links have been lost in the black hole of internet search.
Video Production So Good You’ll Cry
When you’re in the video production business the challenge is keeping each video as fresh as the one before and making sure that you’re always pushing yourself as a producer to create remarkable content. I’ve always believed that any video should make you feel something. Make me happy, sad, inspired, ticked off, whatever it is – move me! Just don’t leave me feeling empty, staring at my watch wondering when the misery will end.
Fortunately, we haven’t had any clients begging us to “stop tape” especially when it comes to our work with non-profit organizations. One extremely informal way we measure the success of a piece is what I call the “cry test.” Pure and simple – did you or did you not cry after or while watching that piece? You won’t find this evaluation criteria in any video production classes or manuals. Most people who produce video for a living have similar ways to measure the success of a piece.
As a producer, when a video story moves your audience to tears, you know you’ve done something right. You’ll receive an incredible amount of satisfaction watching someone cry and then hear them say three magic words, “I love it.”
Ed Heil is the owner and president of StoryTeller Media & Communications an inbound marketing and public relations agency and video production company based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Ed blogs on topics related to inbound marketing, social media, media relations, news media, video production and crisis communications.