If your business in any way involves advertising, marketing or social media, this is worth a look.

Whether or not you agree or disagree with the plight of media portrayed in this clip, I was very impressed with the time, effort and talent put forth.

Just to save you a bit of time, after you hear the chorus once, you can zip past it cause its the same lyrics and graphics each time.

I’d tell you to enjoy it but some folks who are living this right now may not completely enjoy this as it may cut a bit close to home.

Tags: advertising, branding, commentary, commercials, facebook, google, marketing, media, newspapers, radio, social media, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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When I read this blog post from Dave Fleet up in Toronto I thought to myself, I wish we could corral all the top 5 social media tools lists that are out there so we could see if there was some consensus on which ones were best (this week…ha!). Or even better, if there were some hidden tools that I hadn’t yet heard about. My guess is that list is out there somewhere but I am not feeling that motivated to go on the hunt for it. You do it and report back 🙂

If you use the tools of Social Media in your daily routine as I do, I think you’ll like this list. Some of the tools I have used and some I am toying with (some quite frankly I don’t immediately understand which is why I will always fall under the category of Social Media “active user” as opposed to “expert”).

I have met Dave and find him to be a very straight up guy whose professional opinions I trust. If you don’t subscribe to his blog, well that’s your problem 😉

Tags: blogs, commentary, social media by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Today my friend and client Leesa Barnes came to Buffalo to speak at a lunch seminar hosted by the Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives. She didn’t come in from her hometown Toronto either, she flew in via Las Vegas having attended and presented at the National Association of Broadcasters convention there.

Having gone through airplane connection hell in her travels back, Leesa tweeted me this AM asking if I would be able to pick her up at Buffalo Niagara International Airport. After we agreed to the fare… (just kidding!)

Glad to see her in action, presenting “Be Marketing Fit: 3 Ways to Get Active Using Social Media”. The 30+ in attendance really enjoyed her content as did I.

Leesa and I first met up in Toronto when Social Media and Social Networking were first starting via an international on-line networking group called Ryze. The Toronto Ryze chapter actually had in-person meetings and I would go up to TO and make contacts. That group eventually faded away.

Then she told me about the first Podcamp Toronto, which was great. Subsequently I’ve done voice over work for her podcasting clients and her podcasts as well.

But there you have another use for Twitter and Social Media…hailing a cab, or a ride anyway, from the airport. Monetize that, pal! 🙂

Tags: commentary, podcamptoronto, podcasting, social media, social networking, twitter by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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People with a vested interest in any marketing tool tend to take it waaay to seriously sometimes. I understand why, to a point – it is how they make their living and they are also passionate about what they do. In that passion, sometimes we all go a bit overboard.

Which brings us today to the froth that continues – even after the weekend – over Ashton, Oprah and Twitter; I never really thought I’d write about two of those three on this blog but never say never.

Is Oprah (who had Ashton on her show last week after he broke the one million followers mark) going to ruin Twitter? Lots of back and forth on the net over this but I’ll summarize it in a word: no.

But as with all this “deep dive” nonsense comes someone with a bright idea and a good sense of humor which makes great fun of all of the discussion: herebeforeoprah.com. You type in your Twitter handle and it figures out if you were B.O. or A.O. in the Twitterverse.

Silly? Yes. A time-suck? Under a minute, but it’s a great way to make fun of the whole discussion and ourselves in the process.

Tags: commentary, silliness, social media, twitter by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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As a courtesy, I’ll say upfront that if you’ve no idea what Twitter is or is all about then this contest I’m about to reference regarding CNN and the actor Ashton Kutcher probably won’t interest you. If you like topical stories or information about social media, it might.

Oprah’s name and that of Britney Spears will come up too. Oh, so NOW you ARE interested!

The deal is that Kutcher challenged CNN and Ted Turner to a race of sorts: be the first person or organization (as CNN is a thing not a person within the noun family) to reach 1,000,000 followers on Twitter. Late Thursday night, early Friday morning, Kutcher beat CNN to the 1 million followers mark. Britney Spears tried to ride this race’s coat tails and evidently came in third without so much as breaking a sweat.

As new people are obviously joining Twitter at a staggering rate with no followers, with my 280 followers currently, I did not come in in last place in the Twitter follower race. Phew! You can find me @audioconnell.

Kutcher has promised to donate 10,000 mosquito nets if he won. And when he won he showed up a donation check for $100,000 to be donated to the “Malaria No More”‘ fund. That’s nice.

Hitching her wagon to the Twitter train, Oprah announced she opened up a Twitter account and got 30,000+ followers before her first post which is supposed to come during a taping of her show Friday. Bet she sets the record for fastest to reach 1,000,000 followers. I also expect to see the Twitter Fail Whale a whole lot in the coming days.

What does this all mean?

Do these millions of new followers some of whom have to be joining Twitter for the first time have any idea why they are following these folks let alone what the service is and how it can be used? Using Twitter is not rocket science but I sure feel strongly that some of these people now joining Twitter are doing it because Ashton, Oprah or Britney said to and that’s where it will end for many of them.

It feels like one of those cross roads moments or possibly the perfect storm for Twitter. Tons of free publicity from a famous movie star, an international cable news organization and the most popular broadcaster and trendsetter in U.S. daytime television; to get just one of those parties to support them, most companies would be thrilled.

But Twitter is supposed to be about community. One follows other Twitter users because they think there will be interesting discussion based on content, the “name” or the “brand” matters little if nothing interesting is tweeted.

Some of my 280 followers don’t get that. They want to sell me something and think I’ll immediately follow them if they follow me. I don’t. I check their profile and only if it interests me do I follow them. I feel they are not in it for the “community” attitude of Twitter and therefore seem disingenuous to me. If I want a commercial, I’ll watch TV.

What will all these new users mean to social media as these new users get their first taste of it through Twitter and the links that often accompany tweets? Probably broader acceptance if these new users go on to follow more than just Britney, Oprah and Ashton (after all, if Britney, Oprah and Ashton lose interest and tweet less frequently, their followers will have less and less to follow).

Through the links in tweets I’ve been exposed to some interesting resources in social media, marketing, advertising, voice over and my local community that I would not have otherwise found. I’ve also followed some of the people on Twitter because of their content and they offer even more content. That is useful to me. I’ve no real idea if I’m saying anything of use to others…I guess I hope I am but I’m also not losing sleep over it.

I’ve also un-followed people whose content didn’t interest me after a while or those folks who offer nothing more than 140 characters of self-aggrandizing commercials. It’s a bit of a balancing act to gain the content that you want and don’t want on Twitter while not allowing it to be a complete time suck.

I guess as a crossroads moment, it’s an evolution for the service itself and for social media. Sometimes it takes famous peoples’ involvement to help the general public be aware or take the time to learn about new products or services like Twitter and Social Media. As there are no rules per se with Social Media, how these many millions of new users will drive the service is an unknown.

Twitter probably won’t be the same after all this and I guess that’s as it should be.

Tags: audio'connell voice over talent, branding, commentary, commercials, community, internet, social media, social networking, twitter by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I do enjoy the dust up of opinions caused by the discussion of Social Media and Social Networking and how to use it from a marketing perspective and from a user’s perspective.

There’s….

“The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread” Tribe

“The Social Media/Networking is a Total Time Suck” Tribe

“The Occasionally Dip My Toe in The Water” Tribe

…and the always popular

“Prove It To Me” Tribe

There is always a few with such strong opinions (usually negative) that I get a kick out of it. Make no mistake, I myself do not shy away from strong opinions while also knowing that when I issue absolutes, I risk a little egg on my face.

As usually, I’m always the odd man out as I belong to the…

“Social Media/Networking is a Part of My Overall Marketing Mix” Tribe

Ours is a small tribe made up of folks who actually write and live by a marketing plan that has objectives, goals, targeted audiences and measures against it.

Some in our tribe do not use Social Media at all…but they can still be in our Tribe and not the “Time Suck” tribe because they have reviewed – not unilaterally dismissed – Social Media tools and decided it doesn’t work for their marketing objectives.

Smart marketers, whatever their business, adapt and study a changing landscape. Today’s change includes understanding and usually adapting to having Social Media and Social Networking as a part of the marketing mix.

The Social Media marketing mix is like an old family recipe – you make up the ingredients and portions based on some basic assumptions. A cake will need things like flour, eggs, water etc., but you may decide to add a little bit more of this or that or bake for a shorter or longer time than is standard.

With Social Media and Social Networking – it’s like an internet cake. Basic ingredients include having a free account on the most popular Social Media outlets: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, FriendFeed. Again, it’s free – the worst that could happen is that you get some SEO love from your account if all you ever do is set up a basic informational profile.

Then, if you want to dig deeper, you can figure out how these services and others (like blogs, podcasts, video sharing) might or can benefit your marketing objectives. Because your time is valuable, part of how you assess the marketing value of these tools is to decide how much time you can and are willing to commit to their execution. Time is as much a marketing expense to a business as the actual layout of cash.

If the answer is yes – we/me should do this and I can do this – great, carry on. If the answer is no, it doesn’t fit with our objectives and budget (primarily time but also possibly money) – great, carry on. In both cases, you really studied what you need to know about the tools and compared them to your marketing objectives and made a smart business decision.

You were not simply dismissive!

It seems simple but that process is a fail for many small business people because their busy-ness (not their business) helps them to avoid learning new things and ultimately they seem resistant to change…they enjoy the comfort zone of the familiar.

To them I wish nothing but a comfortable and obviously unplanned snooze.

Tags: branding, commentary, facebook, internet, linkedin, marketing, social media, social networking, twitter by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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