Chapter 6 of THE NEW RULES OF MARKETING AND PR

Chapter 6 of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, by David Meerman Scott, is about using audio and video to market products and services. The primary goal of making a video, he says, is to create goodwill with your customers.

What should your video include?

• Create a mini-documentary that tells an incredible story that is ultimately about your services/products.
• But make sure that it doesn't include product placement or interviews with employees, which gives the video authenticity.
• Allow your viewer to get lost in the story (of your making). 
• Use humor and/or drama in a video to give it the tone that makes it great for sharing. 
• Timing and originality is crucial. 
• Finally, treat buyers as human beings, whether they are customers or businesses.

Why is sharing important?

Sharing is important because when you have a video that is good for sharing--say it's funny or timely or in some way appealingly dramatic--that video can go viral, which means it can have millions of eyes on it. Which means millions of eyes on your company and its products. A resort in Queensland posted The Best Job in the World and encouraged applicants to send in video applications. This went viral and caused the whole world to stop and focus on Queensland for a moment. The resort didn't even post a video of their own. They had others do the work for them! All in all, there was a 34% increase in flight traffic to Cairn after the videos.

What can you do with podcasts?

Audio can be great, especially for obvious industries like the music business. However, it can also be used for average companies or people to market their products. Take the Grammar Girl for instance, she  has a podcast along with social media, which all help her market her book. She sells out of books at many of her talks/presentations by spreading the word online.

One important thing to take away from audio and video marketing is that it should be part of an integrated strategy, where you have outlets like Facebook, Twitter, a website, etc, for sharing.

Internet policy on identity

Aside from privacy policies, which are extremely important, internet policy on identity would be helpful. As it is, on many sites, people can post comments anonymously, which leads to trolling and people saying things online that they wouldn't in person. The problem with non-constructive negative comments online is that studies have shown the recipient of the negative comments can develop low self-esteem and in some cases can even become suicidal.

In The Circle, by Dave Eggers, a man develops TruYou, which standardizes all identity online. It puts an end to trolling and makes people accountable for all of the things they say or do online. In some ways this is scary, but it makes a lot of sense and solves a serious problem. Currently, some sites use things like Discus so that anyone who comments has to have an email attached to their comment. The downside of this is that anyone can set up a burner email account--even though it's a lot of trouble to go to for an anonymous comment.

Internet policy on identity could also lessen crimes that take place online. For example, uploading and downloading child pornography or selling sex on craigslist (these are things that happen!). What would you like to see included in an internet policy on identity? Do you think it would be a good thing to have?

Prompt for blog 6: Discuss one important policy issue for the Internet.

Ineffective Websites

Ineffective websites usually suffer from a couple of the 10 website design problems. The website design problems that I cannot abide by are busy color schemes (because they are distracting) and posts that look like advertising.

Hashtag Feminism

I'm a big reader of feminist blogs and websites. In my active pursuit of new things to read, I have found a couple of sites that are suffering from poor design. For example: www.hashtagfeminism.com. This is a blog devoted to feminism from "others" voices using hashtags to create topics, which is a great idea with so much potential! However, the creator of this blog has broken the ultimate design rule: Never have white text on a black background. It is difficult to read and distracting.

Hashtag Femism also has posts that look like advertisements. I think some of that is because the blog is on a black background, and a lot of the images are also on black backgrounds, so the spacing is erratic. Also, the section on the right of the page is all streaming content from social media, which is a good idea, but the interface makes it look busy. There is simply too much information on that side.

Africa Calling

I work in communications for a maternal health initiative, and I'm constantly exposed to poor designs for non-profit companies that don't have much to spend on a website. They don't know seem to know that simple is better! Www.africacalling.ca suffers from a similar problem as Hashtag Feminism in that the background is busy and distracting. There also is no search function, which is a huge mistake for all websites. People tend to want to search rather than browse when they are online. Any site without a search function is missing out on substantial traffic. 

Do you have any examples of bad websites? What would you do to make them better?

Prompt for blog (5): Find two examples of ineffective websites. What makes these sites ineffective?

Spread of Mobile Internet Usage

As internet usage spreads across the globe, more and more people are looking for cheaper ways to get online. Mobile phones have begun to fill that gap. In a recent survey, "45% claimed that mobile phone is the gadget most people could not live without."

Phones are becoming a necessity in every country, even in developing countries. For example, there is a new movement called mHealth, or mobile health, which aims to spread "use wireless technology to improve health outcomes, reduce costs and create a new paradigm in health care delivery." Putting mobile phones with internet access in the hands of disenfranchised people (particularly women in developing countries) can help improve access to health care and thus improve quality of life.

The price of desktops and laptops deter certain people from purchasing them when similar services are available on phones (and tablets). And as more and more people access the internet via their mobile devices, sites are changing their designs to be more usable on the smaller screen.

Responsive design--or websites that readjust their design to fit the screen, whether it's a phone, computer, or tablet--is becoming more the rule than the exception. The fact that responsive design is so widespread is evidence that people are using their phones more than ever to get online.

Prompt for blog (4): Give an example of diffusion of Internet technology

Privacy Policies

According to Wiki How, "most businesses are not required by law to have a Privacy Policy." They are only required to have a privacy policy if the website collects personal information and or data from users.

Anytime a person signs up for something online, they usually check a box next to "I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions." Since we live in a world of instant gratification, especially online, many of us click that box without even reading the document, which typically contains a privacy policy.

Many sites, like Google, are taking our personal information and using it to give us targeted ads, assess our GPS location, etc. About 50% of Americans worry about what kind of information is available about them online.

Though there are ways to limit the information that advertisers, sites, or the government, can find about you, you must invest time and energy resetting privacy settings, clearing internet histories and cookies. Not everyone knows that if they do not do this, they are giving others the right to use their personal information in a variety of ways.

Privacy Policies are typically convoluted. They often take the form of a short paragraph written in legalese buried in a long document. Not only do we need clearer policies, but we need mandatory privacy policies across the internet. For example, it should not be acceptable for cookies to exist in your browser unless you have activated them.

 What are your thoughts on privacy policies? Have you ever deactivated your cookies? Have you changed your privacy settings on social media?

If you answered no to the last two questions, you should take a moment to Google yourself. Are you surprised by what you find? Do you like what you see? Do you not like it?

Just like we all take steps to protect our belongings whether by a lock on the door or by keeping a hand on your wallet in the subway, we should take steps to protect our privacy in an environment that continually threatens it.

Prompt for blog (3): Give an example of a online problem. Are there any policies that can reduce this problem?

Top Three Social Media Sites

Social media was created to share information on a personal level. This is unique because people learn about products, services, news, issues, etc. from a hand picked group of people (that is people that they choose to follow). Over the last few years, many different forms of social media have been born to cover anything from professional networking to home decorating.

What are the top three social media sites?

1. Facebook has about 800,000,000 users. Despite the fact that their population is aging, they have more than three times the number of users of any other social media site.
2. Twitter has about 250,000,000 users.
3. Linkedin falls slightly behind Twitter with about 200,000,000 users. 

What does social media mean for the Internet?

If it weren't for the desire to share information, the internet would not have been created. Social media is a natural progression from that initial desire; it hones the Internet's intent by targeting people on a personal and social level.

Social media is widely used in business because it is an easy and direct way for consumers to engage companies in discussions. Various social media accounts are platforms for marketing, but they are also platforms for social change, advocacy, political agendas, etc. The uses are endless. Social media is the most important contribution the internet has made since 2000.

Prompt for blog (2): Discuss one important event in Internet history since 2000.

Ten Website Design Problems

Ten website design problems:

1. PDF files that aren't labeled
2. Non-scanable text
3. Violating design conventions
4. No responsive design
5. Posts that look like advertising
6. Google searches (when you search a site and it takes you to Google)
7. Low or limited SEO
8. Busy color scheme/strange fonts
9. When the site plays music or a video when opened
10. No search function

Example: Good Website

Harvard Health Books - I helped design this site in my old position at Harvard Health Publications. The white background and minimal color scheme allows the attention to be drawn to the books, which was what we were trying to sell. This site has a search function and uses SEO.

Example: Bad Website

Africa Calling - This site has no search function. The background has a busy color scheme, which is distracting.