Ben Cecil, UPG Video www.UPGVideo.com

Aaron Strout, W2O Group www.W2OGroup.com

Kyle Flaherty, 21CT www.21CT.com

Lionel Menchaca, W2O Group www.W2OGroup.com

TIPS & BEST PRACTICES from

“Don’t Let Your Brand Be The Drunk Uncle Of The Social Web” A Panel Discussion at Innotech Austin 2013

FIVE FUNDAMENTALS

Listening – the market

Influencers – the people

Language – the words

Content – the story

Distribution – the network

Aaron Strout

There are ten areas of online influence –

HOW ARE WE DOING?

Key Areas of

Influence Brand X Competitor

#1

Competitor

#2

Competitor

#3 SOC #1 SOC #2

X images X images X images X images x images x images

x

presentations x presentations x presentations x presentations x presentations

x

presentations

x tweets

x tweets x tweets x tweets x tweets x tweets

x pages x pages x pages x pages x pages x pages

Answers

x questions x questions x questions x questions x questions x questions

Aaron Strout

Influence Areas Trend Relevance

Audio Favorite of sales force,

customers on the go

Podcasts of all types, plus audio tracks of video segments are an undefined area of online,

yet have growing utility

Blogs

>200MM; trend is to have

multiple blogs, multiple

languages

We should know the top influencers by topic who drive relevant share of voice. The

numbers of influencers are small, precision is key.

Data / Slides 90mm uniques at SlideShare A great location to share all public presentations.

Forums The engine of conversations

online; often patient driven

Knowing who is driving conversation in forums is key. We should treat high volume

moderators with the same respect as we do with journalists.

Images Is all content tagged to impact

natural search?

Companies often forget to tag all content in the 10 languages that reach 90% of the online

population.

Micro Blogging

An effective way to alert

influencers, help propel news

cycles

A great opportunity to build a network of influencers who want to share your news in real

time. Twitter is a prime example.

Search Yes, Google is #1, but

YouTube is #2

We need to know the influencers on the first screen for our brand and key topics. We also

need to understand where people are taken when they search.

Social Networks

The communities that are

often our “first place” to go

online

Our day often starts and ends with Facebook or other social site

Video Consumption habits are

starting to favor video vs. copy

There are over 50 video sites to analyze, which sometimes house ratings and reviews of our

products.

Wikis Free online peer edited online

encyclopedia

Nearly every topic has a Wikipedia entry, which means it could be the first information a

consumer finds about any topic they are seeking information about.

TEN AREAS OF ONLINE INFLUENCE

Aaron Strout

STORYTELLING EXERCISE

Great stories begin with a great storytelling process.

Below is an exercise that will help anyone tell better stories.

Purpose: What’s the main point of the story? Why should the viewer care? This should be one sentence.

People: Who are the characters? How will you make us care about them? BTW, it might not be a person. For example, your villain might be old technology.

Places: Where the story happens. Is the location relevant? Friendly? What will it add to the story? Don’t settle.

Plot: Yes, every story has a plot. Doesn’t have to be “saving the world.” What’s the journey or conflict? This is where stories go from good to great. This is where you can make viewers feel involved. Choose 3 potential plots. Pick the best one. Your story should have a beginning, middle, & end.

Key words: Brainstorm 4 or 5 key words or phrases that describe important aspects of your story. List 20. Cut it down to 4 or 5. Which elements in your story speak to each one? All key words must be represented in some way.

Ben Cecil

EXAMPLES OF GREAT BRAND STORYTELLING

Peer 1 Hosting. During Hurricane Sandy, this New Jersey cloud provider’s building began to flood. All of the server racks & equipment were about to be ruined, taking down hundreds of client websites and stored data. Luckily all was saved, but the brand wasn’t the hero. (video produced by UPG’s Stephen Mick)

(Take SlideShare Deck Fullscreen to Click Links) Click>>>>>

BreakingPoint (IXIA). A historic throughput test. It’s never been done. But you can’t just point a camera at a server rack and say, “Watch this.” You need a story. (video by UPG)

Click>>>>>

Expedia: These guys do a lot of video content but nothing like the “Find Yours” campaign. A series of stories about being human. This one, in particular was the most shared. Never mentions the brand(until endscreen graphics).

Click>>>>>

Ben Cecil

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS: WHAT TO LOOK FOR

What They Are What They Are Not Knowledgeable about the topic Paid spokesperson

Personable and warm Slick marketing or sales rep

Genuinely excited Forced to get in front of the camera

Someone you hadn’t thought of

initially (e.g. engineering,

development, customer support,

solutions architect)

The CEO

Actual employee, partner, customer Trained actor

Professional Nude (unless that is your business

model)

Kyle Flaherty

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS: HOW TO HELP

What To Do What Not To Do Prepare SMEs with briefing document

that includes goals and questions

Grab them at the last minute and start

taping

Manage the process the entire way

through

Leave them alone to their own

devices with no guidance

Start out small Film “Gone With the Wind” your first

time out

Measure impact and results to the

bottom line

Assume your video program is

benefitting the company

Share results with your SMEs to instill

value and future commitment

Pat them on the back and ignore then

the next time you run into each other

at the Kurig machine

Make them comfortable throughout Mock them from the back of the

room, including revealing horribly

personal secrets on camera

Kyle Flaherty

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS: MYTH BUSTERS

Myth Truth Big budget is the only way to make

this work

Handheld’s are magic if you find the

right SME and prepare fully

Results? Results? We can’t measure

results!

You can measure everything if you

set up the proper workflow and

analytic platform beforehand

We are too proprietary to share

anything on video

Sales enablement videos help close

deals, support videos help enhance

customer retention…don’t just think

external facing

Post-production value is critical Post-production value is the least of

your worries if you have great content

and SMEs

We need a really polished

spokesperson

You haven’t been listening, go back

to Fax Marketing

Kyle Flaherty

Discussions

from Groups

Comment

Threads

Comment

Threads

Influencer

Blog Posts

Forum

Threads

Twitter

Conversations

Connected Content

Lionel Menchaca

As you scale across your

employee base, individual

comments turn into hundreds

of external links back to your

corporate blog

Forum

Threads

• External discussions build + strengthen influencer relationships

• Bringing external conversations into your corporate blog make

each blog post more relevant, more compelling.

• Every external conversation is a direct (or indirect) link back to

your company site or blog, which strengthens SEO.

Connected Content

Lionel Menchaca

About the Authors:

Ben Cecil began his career as a television news writer & producer and then quickly transitioned from content to marketing and brand management. He served in this capacity for two local Austin media affiliates totaling nearly ten years. For the last four years, as the Director of Marketing Strategies at UPGVideo, Ben has helped brands large and small tell their stories with creative, results-driven video campaigns. As a public speaker and blogger, Ben discusses his views on video strategy and storytelling. @YoBenCecil

Kyle Flaherty has spent much of his career innovating and implementing analytics-driven communications and lead generation programs. This includes proven social media and content marketing programs that have helped establish high value industry communities. Previous to 21CT, Kyle was the Senior Director of Marketing & Global Corporate Communications at IXIA (NASDAQ: XXIA). He joined IXIA through the successful acquisition of BreakingPoint, a network security startup headquartered in Austin, Texas. Kyle is a frequent public speaker on the issues of analytics-driven content engagement and B2B social marketing. @KyleFlaherty

Aaron Strout has nearly 20 years of social media, mobile, online marketing and advertising experience, with a strong background in integrated marketing. Prior to joining W2O Group, Aaron spent time as the CMO of social media agency, Powered Inc (now part of Dachis Group), VP of social media at Mzinga and director of interactive financial services leader, Fidelity Investments. Aaron is also the co-author of, Location Based Marketing for Dummies (Wiley). In addition to blogging regularly for W2O Group, Aaron writes a monthly mobile/location-based marketing column on MarketingLand.com. @AaronStrout

Lionel Menchaca serves as director of content engagement for W2O Group. In this role, he helps clients of all sizes to develop content and engagement strategies so they can connect directly with customers. He also works with teams of developers to build tools companies need to manage an increasingly complex flow of content. Before W2O, Lionel worked at Dell for 18 years and was the founder and chief blogger of Direct2Dell, Dell’s main corporate blog. Over the last 7 years, Lionel authored hundreds of postson behalf of Dell. He helped expand it into several continues to extend Dell’s global presence. Before the blog, Lionel was one of the main architects behind Dell’s blog monitoring process begun in April 2006. @LionelGeek