Wake Up! This Isn't Hard

My formal position is currently the "Media Relations Specialist" for a company. My job--among other things--is to be on top of the latest in social media and how it pertains to business.

My manager continues to push articles my way and ask my opinion on the latest ideas from marketing "gurus" who pretend to know how to use social media to make oodles of money. Most of the articles reaffirm that I'm on the right track. A couple actually contain a new twist on how to get involved in the "new media" that is rocking the marketing world. So, it's fun to read these articles, smile and nod, and then rant and rave when they get something horribly wrong.

But in all honestly, the concept isn't that hard.

Let me give you a very clear, easy to remember and apply example:

You are a major brand interested in getting your name out there. You spend millions of dollars on market research, hundreds of thousands of dollars on producing a carefully crafted commercial which is then meticulously placed in a time slot that matches your ideal customer's demographics.

Multiple millions of dollars later and you've got a great commercial that speaks directly to your target audience and makes them daydream about your product in the shower. In fact, the commercial is so successful, your target market is dying to share it with their friends.

You have heard about this wildly popular "new social media" thing that some companies are using very well called YouTube. So, you spend tens of thousands of dollars setting it up and making it branded with your fancy logo and other specialty components that some no-name Luke guy can't replicate. This sets your YouTube profile page light years apart from the rest of the crowd.

And then you only upload three commercials to your account... none of them the excellent ones.

Oh, but you do have a clip of Lindsay Lohan saying she's having fun at one of your social gatherings.

...you've got to be kidding me.

Of course, I shouldn't be too hard on you. I mean, it's not like your website works either:


Website Fail

So, for the rest of you out there interested in how to use social media, do this: Post every single halfway decent commercial you produce on YouTube, or Vimeo, or your own site even. Just make it possible to embed (or at the very, very least: link to) your commercial.

If you did that, I'd have four to six of your commercials in this blog post right now instead of a posting about how much you've completely failed.

<sigh>

Now I feel like I should offer my services to them as a consultant. They need me.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor