Watching paint dry or cleaning out a lint trap of a dryer or reading a book on how to cook beets might not be the the most exciting things you could ever do but these activities still may be more titillating than watching haul videos. The weekend edition of Marketplace pondered the why and how of haul videos as well as their ever growing and baffling popularity. The oddly mocking yet blatantly promotional piece on the more…

The Patient: MTV, the little cable network that changed television and music forever.

The Ailment: MTV suffers from Brand-nesia, a condition in which a well loved brand forgets what and who made them famous to begin with. MTV also suffers from a social media overdose, chronic pointless video abuse, and multiple marketing personalities.

Prognosis: Not so hot. Jersey Shore notwithstanding, MTV’s buzz making machine has nearly run out of steam. If a newer, fresher look and hipper demographic isn’t targeted soon, the network will continue to be a joke.

Recommended Treatment: Once upon a time, MTV set the bar for coolness and told us which artists to love and what music to buy. Even shows like Beavis and Butthead told us when to laugh. Today, however,  more…

This is the first in a  special series of  Thursday blogs that aims to give familiar but dated brands a digital face-lift by using social media, original videos, article marketing, mobile marketing and blogging.

The Patient: Hostess Snack Cakes purveyors of Twinkies, Cupcakes, and Ho Hos.

The Ailment: Hostess suffers from a chronically lame website, a lack of identity, a dwindling presence online, and a sagging social media strategy.

Prognosis: Grim. If the snack food brand refuses to step into 2010, Twinkies could be a thing of the past.

Recommended Treatment: When the going gets tough, the tough reach out for something fun. Sure, Twinkies are the exact thing films like Food Inc. are warning people against. Yet Hostess Snack Cakes like cheesy action films or reality TV serve their purpose: in moderation they provide a little fun and a little escape. So there’s no reason the classic junk food can’t get an update and survive well into the next decade.

First off, Hostess needs to lighten the heck up. Jeeze. It’s Ding Dongs, not prunes for crying out loud. Their website is a flat, bland affair with little reason to ever return other than the promise of coupons upon signing more…

When Katie Couric took over as anchor of The CBS Evening News in 2006, media watchers lined up with bats to take a whack at her like she was some sacrificial journalism pinata. The former Today show host was always thought to be too perky, too eager, and not evening news material.  Her arrival at CBS was highly hyped and endlessly promoted while Couric’s salary was rumored to be astronomical. The overwhelming consensus after two months, however, was that CBS had made a big mistake. Her ratings were awful and the reviews were unkind to say the least. So how does a television whipping post like Katie Couric wind up winning the Edward R Murrow Award for best newscast in both 2008 and 2009? Tracking the anchor’s phoenix-like rise from the ashes is valuable seminar in new media marketing, technological innovation, and good old fashioned “never give up” persistence.

Katie Couric’s morning show fan base always admired her happy-go-lucky and friendly demeanor yet this persona simply would not fly in a nightly news format where anchors are expected to be stoic like Walter Cronkite. Instead of abandoning the personality that put her on the map, the newswoman struck gold at the 2008 Democratic National Convention with original web content that featured a relaxed Couric who could be seen clowning with crew members, ribbing politicians, and offering personal insights into the event’s goings on. The popularity of the coverage lead to the creation of @katiecouric, an online news program that allowed her to let her hair down and be the Katie viewers fell in love with. The show features a looser format, frank talk and opinions, and most importantly, original content not to be found anywhere else. This week the show featured a blow by blow of the President’s first State of the Union address.

With @katiecouric, the anchor was reinventing CBS’ longstanding reputation as, ” the old people’s channel” and the makeover didn’t stop there. Couric tapped into the social media craze by supplying more original content on her Facebook and Twitter accounts. Daily updated, her social media sites promote The CBS Evening News as well as her original web content.  Moreover, she communicates directly with her viewers by asking them to send in questions for interviews, suggestions for stories, and photos from news making events.

The most important thing any struggling business can learn from Katie Couric is to never give up. Instead of quitting and opting out of her big bucks contract, Couric rolled up her sleeves and got creative.  When she famously grilled what’s-her-name from Alaska, Katie asked the questions that were on her viewers minds without apology or cynicism. The interview, in turn, has become one of the most famous political train wrecks of all time while the interviewer gained respectability for staying true to who she is.  Producing webcasts, diving into social media marketing, and tapping into your own marketable identity are tasks that virtually everyone can do. So the next time your scratching your head to come up with a new marketing plan ask yourself, “What would Katie Couric do?”

On Nov 19, 2009, YouTube announced the Auto-caption and Auto Timing solutions. Captioning a video opens up your audience to the hearing impaired and can be used to translate your videos to other languages–thus opening up your videos to much larger audiences. Simply find the “cc” button on the bottom right corner of your uploaded video and choose the “transcribe audio” button and let YouTube do the rest. The machine-generated translations aren’t perfect and work best when there’s a single speaker annunciating clearly. If you want total control of your captioning, YouTube offers Automatic Timing. This is where you supply a text version transcript and YouTube will use speech-to-text technology to place the captions in your video so that they sync up with your audio. My guess is that this technology will also be used to help index videos so that Google bots (and other search engine web crawlers) can read the videos in text format and index them like they do with other forms of content. All-in-all, a pretty powerful tool that opens up the possibility of videos to a whole new world. To get a more step-by-step guide on captioning and timing, visit google.com/accessibility or just click on the video below.

Sites like Hulu have been offering free streaming video of your favorite TV shows for a while now, so it’s no wonder that YouTube is getting into the act. But unlike Hulu, YouTube intends to charge for the service. According to Peter Kafka YouTube will be offering

something similar to what Apple and Amazon already offer: First-run shows, without commercials, for $1.99 an episode, available the day after they air on broadcast or cable.

The big difference with the YouTube model is that your favorite episodes will stream to your computer instead of downloading (Apple and Amazon let you download). Negotiating with the networks are still in the works. But what network wouldn’t love to charge for a streamed version of their shows instead of the Hulu model, where shows are readily available for free? One thing is certain, the Hulu free-for-all model is about to get a little fire under it’s digital ass.

I was recently cruising the YouTube community help forum and reading the “bugs” section when one entry caught my eye. A link to ” An update on Video View Counts” had over 1440 replies. If that many people are talking about something, you know it must be a big deal. Here’s the gist; you post your video and you start getting lots of vies…then suddenly the views stop (or at least it appears that they have stopped). It’s like the views get frozen and don’t update even if you know your aunt Lucy just viewed your video. Liz, a YouTube support person, did admit that there was an issue and posted this reply,

Occasionally, when a video becomes popular quickly, it takes our computers longer to make sure those views are accurate. This means a video’s viewcount may not update for several hours, sometimes allowing ratings and comments on the same video to climb temporarily higher than the views.  So if you see your video views aren’t moving, or that your video’s comments and ratings are moving faster than your views, don’t worry. If you’re still getting views, the count should update soon.

It looks like the problem persists and there really isn’t anything that can be done if this happens to you. You are SOL. I wonder if this would cause marketers to migrate to other platforms, like Vimeo, to distribute their videos. Have you found yourself in this situation? If so, what steps did you take to address the issue? Did you stay with YouTube? Did you move on?

Microsoft ups their video search offering by launching an all-new Bing video search engine which replaces the MSN video search. According to a recent release by cynopsis: digital via contributor Wayne Karrfalt,

“the new Bing Video site provides a straightforward interface that points users to videos that are gaining steam or are new to the web. Partnerships with Hulu, ABC and YouTube give Bing access to over 900 TV shows in all. The new Bing also now includes results from its recent licensing deal with next generation search system Wolfram Alpha

I checked out the new Bing Video section, and was impressed by the clean Hulu-like design. Here’s a link from CNET if you want to read more or just click on the video, which weirdly features the MSN video logo and not the Bing logo. What’s up with that?

Check out this interview during the OMMA Video Event in L.A. with digital strategist Rob Schwartz, who explains the concept of “Brand Piggybacking” to enhance your digital engagement strategy. Enjoy.

There’s no question that implementing a video on your e-commerce site can be good for business. Whether you use it to close in on a sale, to inform, to showcase products or to entertain, video can add real value to your site. Some companies shy away from video because of the costs associated with it. Getting a larger server to host videos, buying a camera, digitizing, shooting, editing and marketing your video can be an expensive proposition for a small business. But there’s another way. According to a recent post by The Video Commerce Consortium, there’s a quick and affordable solution that anyone can implement for their website. According to The VCC, by using an auto-generated video service, you can make video by uploading still photos and music with the click of a button.

As online video becomes more accessible, you will find more and more services that cater to the small to mid-sized business with affordable video solutions. Check out some of these sites courtesy of VCC for  affordable and effective ways to add some video snazz to your site.

http://www.sundaysky.com/
http://www.talkmarket.com/
http://animoto.com/