Interview part 3 with Marketing and PR from Marketing Specialist David Meerman Scott

David Meerman Scott: The EMSI Interview

Part 3(a)

MF: David, I would like to ask you about video. What do you think the value of an online video is to creating a World Wide Rave?

DMS: I think they can be huge. Remember though, there are two main uses of video. One use of video is sort of something that might become a World Wide Rave. In other words, you post it on YouTube and then maybe people will talk about it. A great recent example that has all of the classic elements of a World Wide Rave is “United Breaks Guitars.” It’s absolutely fantastic.

Basically, “United Breaks Guitars” is a country music singer who is in a band called Sons of Maxwell. They’re out of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

And so this guy, Dave Carroll, looked at the window of the airplane on the tarmac and they’re throwing his guitar case and his guitar broke, a $3,000 Taylor guitar. And he tried for six months to get United to do something about it and they didn’t. So he decided he was going to write a song about it. And he wrote a song called “United Breaks Guitars” and in a week, it’s had 2.8 million views on YouTube.

MF: Wow — almost 3 million in one week!

DMS: It’s huge. So that’s one use of online video and it’s a fantastic way to get people talking about you. However, a lot of people underestimate the other great use of video. Video is a terrific element to help with the sales process. Imagine the effect of a compelling video on your website that people can watch while they’re investigating as to whether they want to do business with you. So let’s say you’re a professional services firm of some sort: doctor, lawyer, whatever it is. You can have a short video talking about you or your philosophy or some other element.

I went to a chiropractor last week, and he has a series of videos which he sends to his patients. He goes, “Okay, so for that back, I want you to do these exercises at home. I’m going to send you a link to a video on YouTube and that will tell you how to do it.”

So I think there are those two uses of video.

MF: Do you feel like a professional video company is appropriate, or not?

DMS: It can be but it doesn’t have to be. There are a couple of different ways to create a video. Of course, you can bring in the pros, but I don’t think it’s required.

I’ve personally done some great videos just using a $120 Flip video camera. I’m a huge, huge believer in the marketing use of a very, very simple video camera like the Flip.

But you can go all the way up to spending $100,000 with a professional firm to shoot a really slick video for you. It’s not really that big a decision point until you get a sense of what story you want to tell using video, who you’re trying to reach, and what that means in terms of how you need to create it.

MF: In your book there is a chapter entitled “Think Like a Venture Capitalist.” You wrote that the best way to begin a marketing initiative that has the potential to become a World Wide Rave is to think like a venture capitalist or film producer. Can you explain what you mean by that?

DMS: It’s a really quirky thing to try to come up with something that will potentially spread like wildfire on the web. So I recommend people to not think like a traditional marketing person.

A traditional marketing person says “I’ve gotta launch a book” or “I’ve gotta launch a product” or “I’ve gotta increase sales for the last six months of the year” and then do one big marketing campaign. This is not the correct approach when you’re talking about creating a World Wide Rave.

The right approach is to create 10 different things and hope that one or two of them become extremely popular…and you don’t necessarily have to put a huge amount of effort into each one!

Basically, that’s the way a venture capitalist invests in companies. As you can never know if a company is going to become extremely successful, venture capitalists invest in a bunch of different companies. This way they increase the odds of making money because hopefully one or two of them will either go public on the stock market or be sold.

MF: I couldn’t agree with you more. In the process of a world wide rave, is there a formula for how many posts or articles or updates somebody should be doing daily or weekly?

DMS: No, not really. Although I think what’s important is consistency. I think it’s fine if you only want to update your blog twice a month. It’s fine if you want to update your blog twice a day. But what’s not as appropriate is building up an audience based on blogging twice a day and then suddenly going to twice a month. People will think you’re dead.

So generally speaking, the more often you post, the more followers you will get.

MF: That brings me to another question, as CEO’s are so busy in today’s economy trying to keep their company alive, how do they keep up with the wave of the social media?

~~continued in part 3(b)~~