If you missed the seminar, you can still check out the responses:

Want to learn more? Come to our “Social Media 301: Advanced Social Media for Business,” coming Friday, September 10.

“The art of marketing is largely brand building. If not a brand, it will be viewed as a commodity.” – Philip Kotler, Kellogg Graduate School of Management

We counsel clients to not spend another dollar on advertising or marketing until that money becomes an investment that builds their brand. Everything you do matters when you are building your brand.

Brand development means telling the truth about who you are, faster. It’s about telling your story and making a promise, and then living it out.

Story. How are you saving the world (or your customer’s world, at least)? What do you do better than everyone else?

Promise. What do you deliver on over and over again? What is your customers’ unique experience?

Your brand is communicated in all sorts of ways: logos and identity packages, events, advertising, websites, email, etc. The most significant way your brand is communicated is through the direct interaction between your customer and your staff. Can your staff tell your story?

Do you have a story to tell?

Brody

P.S. The holy grail of advertising is word-of-mouth. When your story is told well, other people will start telling it too.

The principle of “shareableness” is the core of social media marketing. This Friday, we will show you the meaning behind Web 2.0, social media, mobile devices, in-bound marketing. Once you have the vocabulary down, you’ll be able to strategize about how social media is relevant to your brand. Join us for Social Media 101 & 102.

But even if you can’t hire a production crew and an editing team, you can still make great videos to communicate your message online. Be sure to read our first article on the role of “amateur” video production. Here’s how to shoot your video and get it online:

Step 1: Buy a great cheap video camera
A Flip video camera or an iPhone 4 is all you need. In each case, you really only need to hit one button for both “record” and “stop.”

Step 2: Plan what you are going to say
But don’t plan too hard. Remember, you’re shooting this, not an expensive film crew. Yes, you want to know where you’re going with it, but you also have the opportunity to screw up over and over. The point of planning things out is that you don’t want to spend much if any time editing your footage. Do it enough until you can get your message across all in one take!

Step 3: Frame you shot
A couple quick tips to make your video look better instantly:

• Don’t put your subject in the middle of the shot. Follow the rule of thirds.
• “Break the plane.” This means, don’t shoot from your eye level. Get your camera’s lens to an angle that might not be common.
• Add “interestingness” to your shots by shooting in a location where the background is more than just a blank wall. If there is a landmark that will be in the shot, don’t have your speaker right beside it. Instead, have the speaker near the camera, with the landmark, sign, or other item several yards behind you. This technique will also a) preserve your audio quality, and b) let you get more of the background item in the frame.

Step 4: Test your audio
If you can’t hear your speaker, your video will be nearly worthless. Shoot a 3-second test video and play it back. Make sure the speaker’s voice is clearly heard above the noise of your surroundings.

Step 5: Shoot it
Don’t move. Don’t zoom. Stand still. Anchor your shoulders to your body or lean against a steady object. Or use a tripod of some sort. If you do have to pan or turn, do so slowly. It should feel like your movements are awkwardly slow.

Step 6: Get the video onto your computer
On a Mac, open a program that is already on your computer called Image Capture. This will be able to take videos off of any device you have plugged into your machine. If you’re using a Flip Camera to shoot, don’t use the built-in Flip video software. Don’t even install it. Use the Image Capture program to download your video to anywhere you want to on your computer. If you have a PC, use a similar process (or just borrow someone’s Mac – it’s a LOT easier).

Step 7: “Trim” your video
Get rid of the awkward silence at the beginning and end of your best take. Use a program like iMovie to do this very simply.

Step 8: Add a title slide to the beginning and/or end of your video
This gives a very professional touch and can communicate essential information like the spellings of names, links of websites, and calls to action.

(Note: steps 7 & 8 are a little more advanced for this particular post. If you need help, most 15 year olds are better at those things than most adults. Ask them.)

Step 9: Upload your video to YouTube
Why YouTube? Because it can play anywhere, it keeps track of your play stats (views counts, where the video is being viewed, and other cool things), and has commenting features. When you upload your video, be sure to title it and tag is very well. Your title should be a clear description of what the video is. Your tags should be the items in your video, including speaker, topics discussed, location, and purpose of the video. Your description should be a summary of the message in the video.

Include all these details so your video can be easily found when someone is searching for it. Also, once your video is embedded on your website, your site’s SEO will improve based on the content in the Title, Tag, and Description fields in your video.

Step 10: Embed your video on your site
YouTube will provide you with the code needed to get the player to show on your site. Simply copy and paste that code to the proper place in your content management system and you’ll be ready to go!

If your website doesn’t have a content management system, or you’re not able to embed YouTube videos on your site, you’ll need to fix this. Contact us and we can help you sort out what that might mean for you and your organization.

Again, this process is NO substitute for real film production. However, if you want to get some video content on your website, this is the cheap and easy way to do it.

Here’s an example:

This is due to two main causes:

Cultural Condition #1: An improvement in technological infrastructure. Simply put, it is cheaper and easier than ever to have decently fast internet speeds and computers that can play videos.

Cultural Condition #2: The tools needed to create video content are cheaper and easier to use than ever. The barrier of entry is a $200 Flip camera, and sometimes a cell phone that you have already.

So what do these conditions mean to your organization?

If you’re not using video online, you’re missing a huge opportunity to communicate in a compelling way with your audience. One reason why you should take a serious look at this is because it can be very inexpensive or free to make a “legit” video.

What I’m describing is absolutely not a substitute for a carefully crafted filming process including pre-production (story boarding, scripting, shot selection), production (great talent and film crews), and post-production (artful editing, scoring, and finishing touches).

But there is a huge role for amateur video as you seek to communicate with your audience. Here are some tips on how to do cheap video production well.

If you would like training on some basic technological and artistic techniques that will help you get video content on your website, contact us. We also offer “real” cinematic short film production when you’re ready to step it up.

“How far out of the box are you willing to go?”

The answers I get are amusing at times: “Three steps.” “One step.” “Half a step.” “What box?”

But one thing has never happened:

Not one client has ever said they aren’t willing to step out of the box. Some people really aren’t willing though. They think they are. But they aren’t.

Courage is the fuel of innovation.

How far out are you willing to step?

Keep moving forward,

Greg

P.S. Next Friday we’ll be leading our training event on Web 2.0, Social Media, Mobile Devices, In-Bound Marketing (& Why You Should Care). The course has received terrific feedback each time we have taught it. You owe it to your organization to see where the world is going. Be there.

Afterwards, we’ll be having our August happy hour at The Still from 4-6 pm. All are welcome. First round is on us.

After working with Steve on his campaign’s message and delivery strategy, the goals for this film were simple. First, create a script that was both short and meaningful. The message gets to the core of who Steve is, why he is running, and what he will do if elected. Second, and maybe most importantly, create an aesthetic that positions Steve as an average guy who is trustworthy and has the skill set for the job.

Really, we wanted people to watch this video and feel comfortable voting for Steve for whatever position he would be running for.

Now, the fun part is going to be getting as many people to see it as possible.

Great art concept, I’ll say.

Just so you don’t have to scroll to the top of the page:

Another undervalued strategic virtue is humility.

Humility is a matter of common sense. There are more things that we don’t know than we do know. There are more things that we can’t do than we can do.

Humility generates ability. The person who knows everything cannot generate new ideas. There can never be something new to the person who knows it all already.

So how is humility strategic? It’s a necessary condition for creativity. The best creators have a foundation of humility.

The act of creating something is an intentional process. When each piece is added to a new creation, you’re always forced to answer the question “Why?”.

Why create this? Why use it? Why put it there? Why do it in that way?

This is true in art, organizations, products, teams, marketing, shuttle launches, film production, education, government, and all other human endeavors.

Humility allows us to ask questions that we wouldn’t otherwise ask. Humility lets us question our assumptions. Humility enables us to be wrong.

When we’re allowed to be wrong we are no longer paralyzed by fear. We can attempt to create.

And when we strike gold, humility will let us share it with the world.

What do you think? You can leave a comment below.

Brody

P.S. We’re working on our first political campaign.

The Parsons New School for Design just wrapped up an exhibit this week called “The Art of Craftsmanship Revisited.” Sorry for the late notice, but you can still catch some great films on the exhibit’s website.

There’s virtue in dedicating yourself toward doing only one thing – and doing that one thing extremely well. I think a lot of our work envoirnments demand that we take on new tasks each day, but does that mean that the quality of the things we create suffers?

Let’s take a look at some of the lucky few who have avoided our increasingly attention deficit society and dedicated themselves to doing one thing great.

Calligrapher – Bernard Maisner

Letterpress Printer – Swayspace

20 more films from the “Art of Craftsmanship” series.

Hoping to make the team. Hoping to go to that college. Hoping to get that job.

Our hopes are for plausible things. If our hopes were impossible, they wouldn’t be worth hoping for. Hope is an exercise in reality.

Hope also demands that we take steps to bring our hopes to reality. It’s foolish to say we hope to make the team but then not practice.

In other words, hope inspires and requires discipline.

And hope is a strategic precursor to success.

If a salesperson doesn’t hope to make the sale, he won’t make the call. If a student doesn’t hope to pass, he won’t study. If a couple doesn’t hope to stay together, they won’t even try.

Hope brings purpose.

So what about your brand? What about taking your message to the world? Do you want your brand’s promise to take hold in the minds of your customers?

The first step is hope. Miss that step and you will miss the reality, focus, and motivation to succeed.

Hope isn’t a wish. It’s part of the strategic process of building a brand.

It’s possible,

Brody