“Ball of confusion, that’s what the world is today. Hey. Hey.”   - The Temptations.

The new health care package, the lady from eBay who wants to be governor, the gravity defying awesomeness that is Justin Bieber’s hair are all things I really do not understand. In fact, at the risk of sounding like Ed Anger or Andy Rooney, there’s a bunch of things I don’t understand.  So thank God for the more…

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It is a fun little note for the history books that Facebook eclipsed Google as the most used site on the Internet.  For years, Google has pretty much gone unchallenged. Google is still the advertising god as they have a multitude of avenues to deliver adverts to the people. From Google Buzz and Gmail to Google Reader and more…

The panning for gold prospect that is Search Engine Optimization is a befuddling concept that admittedly this writer is still trying to wrap his non-technical brain around.  For those of us shoved in the creative type column, it can be totally intimidating. Initially, it appeared that popping up at the top of search engines was some sort of luck of the draw or more…

In a move that could be only described as a dis, T-Mobile told Yahoo, the previous default server for the wireless network, “thanks but no thanks”. T-Mobile has instead signed with Google to serve as the network’s primary search engine as well as the default server as reported on Monday. Yahoo will continue to server in messenger and mail capacity for the phone company while Google will be doing the majority more…

A recent article on Search Engine Land by Danny Sullivan offers advice on search engine optimization for the world’s richest man, Bill Gates. Um , what could Microsoft’s head honcho possibly learn about SEO that he doesn’t already know? According to Sullivan, a lot. This SEO 101 uses Bill Gates’ new blog as a guinea pig. On Google, Gates turns up fourth which isn’t too bad, but the disheartening thing about the placement is that the fake Bill Gates blogs are ranked higher than the real thing. Even worse on Gate’s own Bing, his blog doesn’t even show up at all. Eek! Sullivan goes on to prescribe a remedy to the online ailment and teaches us a thing or two along the way.
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A Brandsplat editorial cartoon just in time for the holidays.

Enjoy.

Why get your SEO advice from a dweeby droner when you can get it from an opinionated, well-informed woman wearing a viking helmet? For a delicious mix of entertainment and SEO advice for the small/mid-sized business, check out SEO chicks, an all female blog dedicated to the art/science of SEO. I especially liked a recent post by Judith Lewis titled, “Thou Shalt Not Suffer An SEO To Live“.    Here’s an excerpt:

“As small and medium businesses struggle to rank well for things they hold stock of and should be authoritative for, they all cry out the same thing “˜just tell us what we are doing wrong’ and Google, in its benevolence created the bible Webmaster Guidelines.  Transgressions of these guidelines are punishable by being smote by the one true Google but not all transgressions are recorded in the book.”

It’s good stuff. If you like what you see, become a real fan by purchasing a snazzy Tee.

I recently attended the OMMA Video (#ommavideo) event at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles. A lot of our customers ask us about viral video, so I hope this post sheds some light on the subject. The panel “The Art of Being Discovered: Is Viral Video a Strategy” was moderated by Bob Heyman, (Managing Director, The Digital Engagement Group) and included the following panelists: Andrew Budkofsky (SVP Sales and Partnerships, Break Media), Benjamin Carlson (Chief Strategy Officer, Bradley and Montgomery), Gregory Markel (Founder/President of Infuse Creative), Matt Martelli (CEO/Creative Director, Mad Media) and Bret Wilson (Co-Founder/CEO of TubeMogul). Here are some of the talking points I walked away with that I found interesting:

“¢Â The best techniques for driving “virality” starts with content. But it doesn’t end there. Then you have to promote your video via SEO, social media (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc.), social bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon etc) and  getting bloggers to review and talk about your video.  Oh, and it can’t hurt to launch a full PR campaign to get a reaction from appropriate media outlets that are relevant to your audience.

“¢ Getting a video to go viral is getting harder and harder because there is currently a glut of video out there and it’s harder to stand out. Video is following the same trajectory as banner ads; at first everyone clicked on them and thought they were novel. But today, people pay less and less attention to them. The idea of going into a teen chat room and asking them to check out your video and expecting a response is kind of creepy and pretty much over.

“¢Â Want to spread your video effectively? Consider hiring a Weblebrity (a web celebrity that has a following of a million plus fans). Pay them to review your video. Or, even better yet, have them make a video in response to your video. This practice is becoming popular among viral video marketers and weblebrities seem more than willing to participate.

But at the end of the day, it still comes down to the quality of your content and being relevant to your audience. As one of the panelist said, “sites want good content. They’re going to start banning people who flood them with crap.” Woudn’t that be nice.  If you couldn’tt make the OMMA video event, you can see highlights at the MediaPost Raw >> OMMA Video .

Video can enrich a users experience and serve as an important trigger during the purchasing process. They can be informative, entertaining and as professional or goofy as you see fit. It’s important to choose the right content for the audience that you are focusing on.  However, content isn’t the only factor to consider. Where you put your videos is almost as important as the content inside your video. Do you put them on your home page? How about product pages? Is Youtube a good place to start? The answer to the question of where to put your videos relies on what your strategy is for having them in the first place. For example, in recent Internet Retailer post Peter Leech, chief marketing officer of onlineshoes.com, said

“The biggest design issue we look at now is where to place the videos on the site in a way that’s going to create better optimization.”

Onlineshoes.com once displayed all of their videos on a separate site, OnlineShoesTV.com. Today they are placing their videos more strategically on their blog entries like this one,  and also on YouTube.  As video strategies change for companies, so will their methods of deploying their videos. One thing is for certain, SEO for video is a strategy that every company should look at before deciding how to launch a company video.