Putting your media where they want it

A lot of people ask me why I post my videos in so many places. They want to know why I belong to so many social networks. Many people I speak with just don’t understand why putting your media in multiple places online is important. If you’re not utilizing multiple social networks and online media outlets, perhaps you should reconsider? The way I interpret the cartoon above by Hugh MacLeod of GapingVoid.com is that the world is changing and you have to constantly learn from those smarter than you and help those that are falling behind. It’s more important than ever for your customers to trust you. Starting conversations is a great way to do that and all the various social networks and media outlets allow you to start those conversations where your prospects are most comfortable. Here is a list of the media outlets and social networks that I actively use and why:

MySpace:
First and foremost is MySpace. When my brother and I started our company, Suited Productions, three years ago, we built it from the 800-square foot apartment we were living into the production warehouse that we now occupy solely through our network of friends in the MySpace community. MySpace was my first real experience with how an online community can exponentially increase the number of people who see your work and the opportunities that come your way.

How I Use It:

• Discover music that I’m interested in
• Start conversations with local and regional bands
• Upload portfolio of videos and share with community
• Use bulletins to share quick thoughts, alerts or call attention to something (I try to do this often, to keep in the forefront of people’s minds and keep an online conversation going)
• Use blogs to share more in depth thoughts and make community aware of bands and projects that we are working with
• Comment on profiles that I find interesting. Try to say something that will garner a response from that profile or one of that profile’s friends
• Share music that I find interesting in hope that others will do the same
• Promote events and shows that I am sponsoring or hosting
• Link back to my main production website and blog to raise Google rankings
• Make new friends and contacts that have similar interests to me in music, film, etc.

Facebook:
I first started using Facebook around three years ago, long before it was the “it” social network. I began using Facebook as a student, when it was still a closed network, only available to university students. I first started using it because it was an elite community that was, at times, slightly more educated than the MySpace population. It also automatically guaranteed that the rest of your Facebook friends were currently enrolled in college too and therefore all going through similar situations. From the get go, I always felt that Facebook was a little more intimate. Now that Facebook is open to the public and has since added many great applications, I still feel that it is more intimate than other social networks. I feel that my Facebook friends are all people that I know on some kind of deeper level, whatever that might be.

How I Use It:

• To locate friends that are still in college and bloggers that I subscribe to
• See a quick portrait of what my friends are up to in the ‘News Feed’
• To update friends of my current status. (I use the TwitterSync application so that I can update even when I am away from a computer via my phone)
• I have newly added a Facebook fan page for Suited Productions to better communicate with those of my friends that want to know about my company, in addition to the personal information on my profile
• To send messages between coworkers, colleagues and friends without the hassle of email or spam filters
• To send video messages. I send a lot of video messages via Facebook’s video application because I find people respond to it enthusiastically seeing as it is a relatively new form of communication that not many utilize.
• Blog Friends is a great application that allows me to discover blogs that are of interest to my friends and helps promote my blog to others. I pull my blog’s RSS feed into Facebook through Blog Friends and Notes.
• For general messages that I’m sending out to more than one person, I will post on a profile’s Wall, which gives not only that profile access to the message, but all of their friends can view it, as well.
• To pull media from other sites (Flickr, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Twitter, YouTube, etc) and guest host it within my Facebook profile.

This Blog:
I’ll be the first to admit that I am still trying to find my voice here at WhoIsJonRay.com, but I’ve learned a lot and met some great people. I use this blog to share with my readers what projects I’m working on and the things that are on my mind as they relate to my job as a marketing consultant and HD video producer. I run ads on my blog, but don’t make any money from them. I’d remove them, but I like the template layout. So, for now, they’ll stay. The most valuable thing this blog offers to me is the chance to show the things I am doing and how I’m having success with them. I think there are a lot of people that are independent artists, small businesses or just trying to figure out where they should go next. From what I can tell, I’m reaching, at least, some of those people and giving them some direction. This blog allows me to put myself out their as a “thought leader” and that in turn has resulted in quite a few marketing consulting projects and raised awareness as to who I am. My hope is that it also gives readers a way to learn from my mistakes and use techniques that I’ve used to further their own careers.

Other Blogs:
I use a Feed Reader and monitor around 200 blogs a day. Of those 200 or so, I actually read around 50-60 posts a day. In doing this, I am constantly learning about the changes in technology and psychology of the web and then able to apply them to how I run my company and advice I give to other companies.

How I Use Them:

• To learn about new things in my industry
• To provide an ongoing education on whatever industry I am a consultant for
• To find people smarter than I am and learn from them
• To inspire me to think outside the box on a daily basis
• By commenting on other blogs, I hope to add to the conversation, build my network of contacts and drive traffic to my own blog

Twitter:
At first I could not see why Twitter was valuable. After my first week of trying to find anything useful about Twitter, I decided that it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t until I read Caroline Middlebrook’s Big Juicy Twitter Guide that I fully understood the applications and use of Twitter. So, I gave it another try and now Twitter.com is one of the top referring domains to my blog.

How I Use It:

• To get the behind-the-scenes, play-by-play of what my favorite bloggers are up to when they aren’t writing posts
• To ask questions to the Twitter community and find relevant answers. There are many experts hanging out on Twitter and when you ask a question you get answers from some or all of them. Chris Brogan has a thought provoking post on the future of routing information in this way.
• To drive traffic to new blog posts I’ve written, by asking questions and inviting people on Twitter to add to the conversation that I hope my post will start
• To find other interesting posts that people are talking about and to get a feel for the pulse of the internet on any given day
• To discover breaking news before traditional media forms get wind of it. I, especially, enjoy following people who live tweet various tech conferences
• To find people with similar interests and pick their brain
• To answer general questions that are asked and add to the conversation in near real-time

YouTube and other video-sharing sites:
YouTube, for obvious reasons, has provided a huge audience for our music videos and short films. While I’ll only be covering YouTube because that is the outlet that we first started using, these same techniques are applied by us to multiple video sharing websites. We’ve not only had success with personal projects, but with promoting videos for corporate projects, as well.

How I Use It:

• To showcase our portfolio of video products
• To drive traffic to our website and clients’ websites
• A familiar way to provide embed codes for others to post videos into their blogs, profiles, etc.
• A way to build a subscriber base for all of our videos and receive feedback on them
• To give our videos an accurate rating system and see what works and doesn’t work
• To interact with other filmmakers and video enthusiasts
• To open up our video product reach to the multiple demographics of each video sharing site

Flickr:
I’ve already posted extensively, here, on how I use Flickr to drive traffic to my blog. So, all I will say is that Flickr opens up our services to, yet another, new group of people.

The End Goal
What is important to remember is that not everyone is going to be members of every social network or media sharing website. UserA might love MySpace, while UserB is most familiar and comfortable with Facebook. Each website has a demographic that they cater to and while those demographics might show up in multiple spots, many will be in one or the other. By getting your information, media and conversation out to ALL of these venues, you are able to reach people where they are most comfortable receiving information.

The end goal for using any of these sites is to get your information in front of people where they already are. It is much easier for me to convert a Facebook subscriber into a “Facebook Fan,” than it is for me to convert a MySpace user without a Facebook account. It’s much easier to tell a Flickr user to check out my photos on Flickr, than try and get them to view them on MySpace. And on and on and on. Your media content is much better received if you bring it to the people, rather than making the people come to you.

I think a metaphor (not sure if it’s a good one) to compare all of the social networks out there is to think of the internet as a group of religions. Every religion has its own beliefs and a congregation, no matter how big or small, that all have similar beliefs. But, religious communities don’t just wait for people to start thinking like them. They go out to where the people are and give them their information. They find people in need of what they can offer and make it easy for them to convert. Religious communities bring religion to you wherever you are (think: missionaries) and whenever you need it. They continue to do this until you are comfortable enough to attend Sunday morning church. Eventually, you are comfortable going to Sunday morning church, so you begin attending Wednesday night discipleship. You make friends there and start leading a prayer group. Before you know it, you are an evangelist for your church/religion All because they came and brought you their message when and where you needed it. They didn’t wait for you to come to them. There’s an important lesson to learn there, I think.

A summary of my long-winded thought:

• Bring your message to people when and where they are now (aka Social Networks)
• Build trust and invite them to visit your blog (Start Conversations)
• After time, have them visit your website and demonstrate your product (Prospect Conversion)
• Now that you are both comfortable with one another, ask them to purchase that product (Sales Conversion)
• Once they love your product, teach them to be an evangelist for your company (Repeat Business, Referrals)

I realize this is a long post. But, I’ve gotten nearly 15 emails in the last week asking me about some or all of the things that I’ve covered here. Of course, there is no right or wrong when it comes to utilizing social networks and online tools. This is simply the way that I’ve found success with these various networks. Do you agree or disagree with what I’ve talked about here? How are you utilizing social networks and online media sharing sites to promote your company and products? Was this post helpful or too convoluted? What am I missing?

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