Tag Archives: Twitter

Own it. That’s what a leader does if they make a mistake, especially in social media land, and there’s a great example of why this week.

The American Red Cross was embarrassed when someone goofed and posted what should have been a personal Tweet to the organization’s official Twitter account. You can read the full story and see the Tweet at the American Red Cross Blog, but basically it gave the appearance someone was drinking beer on the job.

Instead of going into damage control mode and getting defensive, Red Cross leaders responded with an honest explanation of what happened, apologized, and even injected a little humor. The result… their supporters rewarded the honesty with sympathetic posts and even donations.

A great lesson in corporate accountability.

–Tony Gnau

Sort of a good news, bad news post from Gini Dietrich this week. She blogged about an Alertian survey of marketing professionals that revealed some surprising results.

The good news is that marketing pros are anticipating increases for both overall budgets and social media budgets. The bad news is there’s still a substantial number of businesses that haven’t developed a digital marketing strategy.

It’s amazing to think with all the information out there about how to leverage the internet and social media as marketing tools, that many companies still haven’t gotten onboard.

I’m a half-full type of guy though, so I prefer to look at it as an opportunity. Companies that have a blank slate, ready to be educated on the benefits of social media and the power of video.

Hope you’re ready for the challenge marketing pros. I know I am.

–Tony Gnau

Okay, you’ve bought in… social media is an important marketing platform. You’ve done research and learned about the millions of people sharing videos. Time to create a marketing video for your company and get it out there.

What’s next? Ask yourself a few questions. What’s my message? Who’s my audience? Why should they care?

Don’t go any further until you can answer them.

–Tony Gnau

I met with some potential clients yesterday who get it. They understand the power of video and want to make it a part of their marketing strategy.

Even better… they know their audience and where to find them. They’re targeting young people who use social media, so they want a whole series of short videos.

The key word here… short. Many businesses make the mistake of trying to cram too much information into their marketing videos and stretch them out so that they’re unnecessarily long.

Longer than a commercial, short enough for the web. 60-seconds can work wonders.

–Tony Gnau

60-SECOND VIDEO EXAMPLE: Sovereign Healthcare

Corporate America… we get it. You want carefully scripted corporate videos, most likely approved by your executives and possibly your legal team. Guess what? We’re not listening.

You can spend lots of time and money controlling your message, but if nobody’s paying attention what’s the point? People surfing the web can spot these canned corporate messages a mile away and won’t be influenced.

An authentic message on the other hand can win them over. Produce a video that features your employees, and let them talk about the company unscripted. Ask a loyal customer if you can feature them in a video, and  let them tell people what it’s like working with you.

Authentic messages like these will connect with an audience and help win new customers.

–Tony Gnau

This one’s specifically for those people posting boring videos. More to the point, businesses posting canned, carefully scripted corporate messages on social media. Stop it!

Video is a brilliant medium and social media is a great way to share it. Here’s the deal thought, if you’re a business leader who wants to post a video just to be able to say you posted a video. Don’t do it. You might be doing more harm than good.

Your video needs to be purposeful, and it better be authentic. If you’re sharing videos with canned messages, nobody’s going to pay attention. Worse, they’ll probably be irritated with you for wasting their time.

Instead, find a good storyteller, a video artist, and turn them loose on your company. You won’t be disappointed.