Archive for February, 2013
Sued in Six Seconds: Avoiding the Entanglements of Twitter’s Vine
Feb 13th
By Kerry Gorgone, Contributing {grow} Columnist
Six seconds (or six and a half, for the purists among us) hardly seems long enough to convey anything of substance, and yet Vine — Twitter’s new video sharing service — is catching on fast. Maybe it’s not surprising. Six seconds of Super Bowl advertising time would cost $800,000, so clearly time is valuable!
For those who haven’t tried it yet, Vine enables users to capture six seconds of live video (uploading from the camera roll is not allowed): no editing, no adding titles or a soundtrack, just sharing.
At first, I didn’t see the point of the service, but Ann Handley convinced me it was worth trying, and as soon as I did, it captured my attention. I had been focused on seconds, rather than moments, and each moment offers endless possibilities.
Vine offers marketers a chance to engage their prospects in a fun new way, but there’s also the risk of legal liability anytime you upload content to a social network. Here are some tips on how to Vine responsibly.
- Create your own content. Vine’s requirements make this rule relatively easy to obey, but some people “vine” clips of movies they’re watching or pieces of art they’re viewing at a museum. Showing other people’s copyrighted works (even for six seconds or less) could result in a lawsuit, although a takedown notice is more likely. Not worth it: you can come up with six seconds of video content.
- Pay attention to sound as well as video. It’s easy to focus on the visual element, but listen while you record. Are you picking up snippets of highly personal conversations, or copyrighted music? The best course of action is to create Vine videos in a controlled environment, so you can avoid unintentionally capturing sensitive information or copyrighted audio works.
- Vine strangers (especially children) with caution. For companies especially, this is important: model releases are required when using someone’s likeness for marketing, whether you’re using still images, full-length videos, or six-second Vines. Consumer users should try and frame their Vine videos so that only consenting adults are recognizable.Parents can show their own children, if they choose, but be sensitive to child protection laws: an innocent bath-time video could be construed as child pornography under federal law.
- Avoid showing private information about others. This tip goes more to good manners than legal obligation, but it is possible to create a video that would constitute invasion of privacy under many states’ laws.Be considerate: don’t shoot through people’s windows (obviously), but also take care not to capture people’s identifying information, or conversations in which people discuss medical treatment or other sensitive matters.
- Keep it positive. Don’t depict others in a misleading or negative light, or you might find yourself sued for defamation. Truth is a defense, and I fully support freedom of speech, but you only get to assert a defense once you’ve been sued. Being sued is costly and inconvenient: in most instances, the satisfaction of posting something nasty evaporates when the summons arrives.
- Think before showing trademarks. Generally speaking, it’s fine to show a trademark in a non-commercial video so long as the viewer won’t be confused into thinking that the trademark owner endorses your content (or that you are the trademark owner).Companies and brands using Vine need to be more scrupulous about showing others’ trademarks. If a company were to take issue with how their brand or product was depicted, you could find yourself involved in some legal wrangling involving demand letters or worse.Sometimes, a brand or label is the entire point of your video, but the safest course of action is to keep things generic.
- Don’t Drive and Vine!
Like Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube, Vine gives marketers access to a powerful visual medium that people love using, but any new medium poses some risk. Following these simple rules will help to keep you out of the legal jungle.
Are you on Vine?
Kerry O’Shea Gorgone, JD/MBA, teaches New Media Marketing in the Internet Marketing Master of Science Program at Full Sail University in Winter Park Florida. Follow her on Twitter: @KerryGorgone
Illustration: Climbing vines by webtreats, Flickr Creative Commons
One thousand posts. No navel gazing.
Feb 12th
This is my 1,000th post on {grow}.
So I wondered … what should I do to commemorate this? Should I give away presents like Oprah? Should I honor my community in some way? Should I just ignore it and carry on?
I asked some of my friends on Facebook and the general consensus was that they wanted me to write a reflective piece on what I have learned, my expectations when I wrote post number one, and the challenges of success.
I started answering these questions a dozen times but it just seemed like a bunch of self-centered navel gazing so I quit. Maybe I’ll get to these subjects another time but I think the focus today needs to be placed on the {grow} community. You see, it takes a lot of work to create that many blog posts, but it would not be successful without you.
In my brief period of {grow} nostalgia (about an hour!), I looked down the list of subscribers and wanted to find the people who have subscribed to my blog for the longest period of time. Who was here first? Who has stuck with me the longest?
This was a revealing exercise and a lesson in building a blog community. The people who were there at the beginning are still there today. In fact. we’re all good friends! We were “baby bloggers” together and went out of our way to support each other when the rest of the world did not seem to be listening.
I thought it would be appropriate to celebrate 1,000 blog posts by honoring the people who encouraged me and supported me from the very beginning. Here are the original 10 {grow} readers, and here are their stories. And at the end … yes … I will give away some prizes : )
John Bottom — John is a director at the Base One Marketing Agency in London. When I was just starting out, he was already a big deal with a huge, lively following and wonderfully insightful blog posts. I clung to John as an example of how I needed to operate on the social web — in a caring, classy, and responsive way. He was the first social media celebrity to begin tweeting my blog posts and I am forever grateful for that. I had the chance to meet John in London in 2012, which was quite a thrill.
Jayme Soulati — Jayme is a PR and communications dynamo from Ohio and one of my first Twitter friends. I will take credit for being the one to beg Jayme to begin her blog and once she started she found her great love. I remember her telling me that blogging was now the favorite part of her job. She stood by me in the early days and I had tears in my eyes when I met her for the first time at Social Slam in 2010. In fact, the day before the event a speaker cancelled and she graciously filled in!
Jenn Whinnem — Jenn is a passionate young woman and her firey posts caught my attention back in 2009. We collaborated on a couple of projects and she taught me a lesson that resulted in one of the the most humbling and emotional blog posts I’ve ever written: “Social Media and the Big Conversation Fail.” She has been a wonderful supporter and has contributed many amazing comments to the community!
Jon Buscall — An intellect with the heart of an artist, Jon and I are social media soul mates. We have similar backgrounds and hold many of the same values when it comes to teaching and working on the web. I think he holds the record for the most guest posts on {grow} (aside from the paid regular bloggers). When I visited Stockholm, I spent a cafe day with Jon. And that, my friends is the best part of social media.
Kristen Daukas – One of the most fun and big-hearted professionals I know. Mom, entrepreneur, ass-kicker. We have collaborated in a number of ways but the most fun was speaking at her awesome Converge South conference in North Carolina. It was one of my very first keynote speeches. If you look really closely, Kristen’s picture is in the Tao of Twitter.
Steve Dodd – Nobody has commented more often that Steve. He has been the rock of this community since day one. I really think he was the first one to see the potential of what was happening on {grow} and I am so indebted to him for his continuous encouragement. He is the only person among “the originals” I have not met, but not for lack of trying!
Amy Howell – When I started exploring Twitter, it was hard to miss Amy since most tweets ended with !!!!!!! This became known as the Exclamy style of tweeting. She has been a tireless and and passionate supporter of the blog … and really everything I do. Amy has been a trusted adviser and friend from the beginning. She is a super-connector who has been featured in two of my books, and introduced me to so many wonderful colleagues like Anne Gallaher, Glen Gilmore, and Kent Huffman. And she is going to be the emcee for Social Slam this year!
Billy Mitchell – A few years ago, Billy had a strange strategy for getting attention. His avatar featured him posing with this huge fish. He kept popping up everywhere and you couldn’t help but notice this guy with the fish. We started connecting over Twitter and the blog and soon became close friends. We have collaborated on many projects and his ability to spin a tale and the fact that he understands my jokes makes him my favorite business partner. His B2B Agency MLT Creative is simply an inspiration.
Kimmo Linkama – How cool is it that, through Twitter, I have a great friend in Estonia? Kimmo Linkama is the first person I ever interviewed on {grow} and the only person I have interviewed twice, primarily because he has a such a musical name. Estonia is an awesome place with a progressive economy and Kimmo is leading the B2B marketing charge in the region. In this photo, I am visiting with Kimmo in Estonia’s capital of Talinn.
Michelle Chmielewski – Of all the people I have met, the story of how I connected with Michelle is probably my favorite, and a highlight of the The Tao of Twitter and many of my classes. I recognized Michelle’s simply brilliant talent when she was a grad student and she has gone on to be a bright star on the European marketing scene. Some of her videos have had more than a million YouTube views. I know talent when I see it! I met Michelle in real life in Paris in 2011 and we continue to support each other whenever we can.
Here’s the lesson threaded through all these little stories. Many beginning bloggers think they will hit it big by getting noticed by an A-Lister. They long for that one tweet of a blog post that will propel them to the big time. It does not work like that, and in fact there are no shortcuts to social media success.
Don’t wait for lightning to strike. Build your own tribe. Find your own little group of people who love you for who you are, support each other, and build from there. It’s hard to say how big my tribe is today but it all started with these 10 people. And no matter what happens to me or the blog, I know those folks — and now dozens of others I have met along the way — will still be my friends. Perhaps this is the year you and I will meet, too!
Thank you, thank you, thank you one and all for reading my blog.
Now, on to the prizes!
I would like to give everyone a chance to celebrate and participate in this 1,000 post milestone, so I’m giving away:
- Five copies of Return On Influence (one copy x five winners)
- Five copies of The Tao of Twitter (one copy x five winners)
- Five copies of Born to Blog (a new book I have not even announced yet!)
- A chance to write your own guest post on {grow}.
- A free one-hour phone consulting session on any marketing topic of your choice (or we can just hang out!)
- Five free subscriptions to my social media tutorial video series “Social Media from Scratch.”
- Five free tickets to Social Slam (America’s finest social media conference April 5 in Knoxville – one ticket x five winners)
Here’s how the drawing works. Send me ONE email at info at businessesGROW.com. Include the ONE prize you want to try to win in the subject line and your physical mailing address in the body of the email. At the end of February, I will have an independent CPA randomly select from the submissions and award the prizes to the winners. There will be a lot of submissions so I can’t let everybody know if you lose, but I will let you know March 01, 2012 if you win.
The train is leaving the station again. Next stop … 2,000 posts!
The one core secret to social media marketing success
Feb 10th
I know this blog post title might sound a bit simplistic — perhaps sensational — coming from me, but I do think there is one core idea to consider when starting a social media strategy that is often misunderstood … or missed all together. So I hope this explanation will help a lot of people struggling to figure things out!
You could go blind reading tricks, tips and strategies for social media marketing success. But after being immersed in this space for many years now and having counseled thousands of business owners, executives and students, I think there is really one core idea everyone needs to consider when embarking on this journey.
Most companies and individuals start with an examination of platforms. Do I need a Facebook page? A blog? A Twitter account? Where do I start and how do I get going?
Instead, I think there is another fundamental question to ask: “What is the source of my rich content?”
Let me explain what I mean by this strange little question with a story.
A small case study
Two years ago I wrote a blog post about a new company on the scene named Klout, which had the audacity to suggest that it could measure your online influence. Nobody had really heard about it at the time so it was a very interesting subject. Here’s what happened:
The comment section blew up. People from all over the world chimed in with ideas, questions and concerns. So people engaged with the content and also provided lots of thought-provoking ideas for me to consider. In fact, these discussions ultimately led to the idea of writing a book about this entirely new trend of social influence.
The post went viral. It was tweeted about 1,000 times and was shared across multiple platforms. My ideas spread.
Many people were so interested in this topic that they blogged about my blog, providing additional discussion and other means to spread my ideas and my post.
A few weeks after I wrote the post, I received a call from a New York Times reporter. She was doing an article on this new trend, Googled it, and found my post. The social validation of the shares, comments, and back links undoubtedly helped guide her search to me.
She wrote an article which appeared in the Sunday New York Times. The article was subsequently syndicated by hundreds of newspapers across the U.S. and the world. A London Daily Mail reporter saw the article and generated an entirely new piece using my quotes.
The results are in
Let’s summarize the business benefits of this one blog post:
- Writing the post helped clarify my thinking on a subject and create useful content for my readers.
- The content spread virally, attracting thousands of new people to my site and my business.
- Comments on the blog provided me with lots of new ideas and helped create an idea for something bigger — a book.
- Since the original content was shared so much, it helped influence Google’s search results.
- The blog post attracted the attention of a reporter from a very important newspaper, resulting in millions of impressions for my personal brand in newspapers around the world.
Now here is the key question to consider. Would any of this happened if I had only posted my thoughts on the subject through a Facebook post, a tweet, or a LinkedIn update? Of course not. I needed to provide rich content to have a chance at benefits like this.
There is no guarantee something like this will happen to you if you create original, rich content. But I do guarantee it will never happen if you don’t.
Defining rich content
One common mantra we all hear over and over again is “content is king.”
And this is true, but not just any content will do. A link, a funny photo, a famous quote, or even a recipe or coupon are legitimate types of content, but these are not the types of content that will optimize your social media presence and bring you powerful, lasting results. To really go for it, you must have at least one source of original rich content and you probably have just three viable options:
A blog.
A podcast.
A video series.
Only in-depth, conversational content from at least one of these sources will provide the content fuel to give you a chance to reap the immense benefits from a social media strategy.
There are other possible secondary sources — photographic content, Slideshare presentations, perhaps a Pinterest page — but I think the three tried and true sources accessible to most businesses are blogs, podcasts, and video.
Once you make that decision and begin to execute, you’ll have the content behind you that powers whatever social media platforms you choose. A source of rich content provides something that is then shareable, conversational, and engaging for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social platforms.
So after you have a solid business and marketing strategy in place and you are ready to embark on this wonderful social media journey, I suggest your first question should be, “What is the source of my rich content?”
The floor is yours. What do you think? Make sense?
Illustration: “Our Secret” by Angela Treat Lyon
This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Soup Or Bowl. A {growtoon}.
Feb 8th
Join the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events.
Joey Strawn is a social media strategist who loves enjoying a good book and then drawing in it. Check him out on Twitter: @joey_strawn
Welcome to {grow}
You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
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