Just saw this and love it. I've always loved Sarah Silverman. Since way back before she was a Comedy Central icon. You may remember when I posted the Matt Damon video she did for her ex-beau Jimmy Kimmel's show. Well, now here she is doing a bit of politicking for Obama. But she does it in a way that only Sarah can do. I was just introduced to the site, TheGreatSchelp.com A humorous attempt to win the elderly Jewish vote for the Democrats. In their words:
The Great Schlep aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor. Don't have grandparents in Florida? Not Jewish? No problem! You can still become a schlepper and make change happen in 2008, simply by talking to your relatives about Obama.
I'm a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk. aka "The Wine Guy." I don't religiously follow his blog, his Twitter, his YouTube, because I just don't have the time. But I know all about him. He started a User-Generated-Content (UGC) weblog / vodcast about wine. And people follow him by the tens of thousands. He has become one of the leaders of the new media generation. While the music business gave up trying to find the next star on the web, Gary became a star. Like Perez Hilton, but Gary talks about wine while Perez talks about Britney.
I knew the guy was talented and good. But Michael in my office just sent me a link to his presentation at the Web 2.0 Expo. And I'm blown away. The guy can speak. I love great speakers. Don't get me started on my Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates speech. But after watching this, I'm putting Gary up on that pedestal. He is an inspiring speaker.
I read this post in The Social Media Insider last week. Fascinating correlation between the chaos in the U.S. financial sector and social media. I'm posting here in its entirety so that you don't have to subscribe to read the whole article...
SORRY NOT TO BE WRITING this week about all of the cool stuff that we'll talk about at OMMA Expo tomorrow and Friday, or the news of the new LinkedIn Advertising Network, or LiveWorld's new app that can turn any site into a social networking site instantaneously.
It's hard to focus on anything right now except for the crisis on Wall Street. I'm no financier, but it's easy to see that, even for those of us who don't know a credit-default swap from a swap meet, whatever the hell is going on down there is going to have a huge ripple effect, even among hot businesses like the social media sector.
As layoffs cut through the financial world and beyond, those of you in the social networking space will feel it, too, and this will happen in good ways and bad.
Because I'm an optimist, I'll go with the good news first: The financial and economic crises will cause grown-ups who aren't already there to flock to their nearest social networking site like moths to a flame. Networking, as in business networking, will be hotter than ever, as those who've lost jobs, and the bigger group of those who fear they will lose their jobs, make sure to "friend" anyone they ever passed on the street. In an economic situation where so much is out of our control, many of us will turn to the career insurance policy of making sure that we stay visible, and social nets offer a way to do that that didn't really exist last time the economy was in this kind of fix, earlier in this crazy millennium.
The second piece of good news is that we'll be spending more time at home, and that will definitely drive up traffic to social media sites. Even if most of the people who read this aren't already addicted to social networking, think of how much of it we'll be doing when we're giving a second thought to going to the multiplex to watch another lousy movie while munching on overpriced popcorn. A microwaved serving of Orville Redenbacher, a cheap Internet connection, and a greasy keyboard will do just fine as conduits for entertainment, much of which will include interacting and sharing content with our other un- or under-employed friends.
The bad news, as you might have suspected, is that advertisers probably won't vastly increase their interest in following this particular set of eyeballs and will probably even pull back on social ad spending, unless they can prove its efficacy -- which, for most social media sites, is a work in progress. To those of you who haven't seen this movie before, the plot goes something like this: marketers, jittery about their budgets, shut down the experimentation spigot and retreat to areas they are more accustomed to, even if those old channels have questionable appeal. To me, it's like the sequel to the movie that played in 2000. Let's call it "Dot-Com Bubble 1.0."
Back in 2000, Internet advertising was the experiment, and as we all know, the entire sector took a beating for several years until, fortunately for digital media mavens everywhere, it came roaring back. What got lost in the bursting of the dot-com bubble was that consumers never left the medium, just marketers.
In 2008, for most marketers, social media is the experiment; older forms of Internet advertising, the tried-and-true. In fact, I believe what most of the pundits are predicting: that many forms of digital marketing will continue to grow, because they are accountable. Even old hands at marketing -- including those who could still be accused of being overdependent on traditional media -- understand that in a down economy, ad budgets should go first to the media that have the best ROI, and Internet advertising is at the top of the list.
The problem with social media is that, as a marketing medium, it's about where Internet advertising was in 2000: really cool, part of a hot, new medium, but with metrics that make it hard to sell to the CFO. Even as social networking continues as a consumer phenomenon, advertisers will remain cautious. It's not fair, but it's just the way new ad markets work.
The silver lining (here's my optimism again) is that hard times will make social networks work even harder at proving the efficacy of their medium. Ask any Internet executive who was around during the downturn that began in 2000; I think every one of them would say that such self-reflection turned out to be a good thing.
In the article Chris explains how businesses like Google are based on offering free services.
I just got sent a New York Times article about something that the agency Porter Novelli is doing. In a nutshell, they created an agency within their agency (a "pop-up") called, "Jack & Bill." Staffed by 8 young account reps averaging 26 years of age, they offered their agency services to 5 clients for free.
I am in love and in awe of this idea. When I read the article I thought to myself, "I hope no one sees this." I mean, how can I compete with free? Why would anyone pay me for my services if a top agency is giving away a similar offering? But then I remembered the Wired article and realized how genius this idea is. Secondly, how great is it that they are giving young staff members the chance to own something. They may fail, but what is the downside? The client didn't pay anything, right? Sure, there is a danger of clients walking away saying, "Well, you get what you pay for." But once again, it is free!
Get this...
Jack & Bill and its clients found one another in a way that turned upside-down — or perhaps pop-up-side-down — the traditional pitching process for selecting a public relations agency. Typically a client calls in several agencies to compete for an account; in this case, the partners of Jack & Bill asked potential clients to audition to win the pop-up’s free services.
Wow. Imagine clients auditioning for your services. What a spin that is. That is what FREE does. It reverses the order of business.
I see the flaws in this business approach and I could site numerous ways I would do it differently, but kudos to Porter Novelli for trying something different. You just don't see that every day.
I am working at a pace I haven't experienced in years. If you saw me, you'd swear I was under the influence of some form of amphetamine. I promise, I'm drug free. But if you stumbled by my office, you would be holding your hands over your ears because I am blasting the new Metallica album, Death Magnetic.
I've been doing it for nearly 2 weeks now.
It is heavy. It is melodic. But most of all, it is fast. When I'm typing or researching, I do it faster to this new album. And I do it better. It's like a great ball of energy has entered my body and is fueling my ability to get stuff done.
Sometimes when it is gloomy out, I'll pop on some James Taylor and work at a leisurely pace. Not now! It is 90 degrees outside and, as I wrote in a note to the band's manager last night:
This album is my Crack, Blow, and Speed in one. I'm cranking out work like there is no tomorrow. Best musical mood enhancer since... Master of Puppets.
A few days back I posted a recap of my panel at the Bandwidth Conference. Because so many people contributed questions for me to ask at the panel, I wanted to share how it actually transpired. Thanks to Ashli at Bandwidth for sending me the cassette of the panel. I'll admit, finding a cassette player proved tougher than I thought, but I did and Ann in my office sat down and painstakingly typed up the below transcription. What follows is a verbatim recount of the panel titled: "Bellwethers - Fanscape's Larry Weintraub sits down with representatives of the leaders of the industry - music loving youth. A look at the way they discover, purchase (?), interact with, and are exposed to music."
Bandwidth Conference Transcript
Bandwidth Conference San Francisco, CA – Thursday, August 14, 2008, 2pm Panel: Bellweathers Complete Transcription of panel
LW: Hi everybody. My name is Larry and this is our panel of Bellwethers, or young people as I like to say. So, what is happening here in this panel is that you are going to kind of eavesdrop on a conversation we’re going to have about what makes them do what they do – how they consume entertainment. To give you a little background on the way that I prepared this… How many of you use LinkedIn? Ok. So I actually asked all of them if they knew LinkedIn and 3 out of 4 didn’t really know or use LinkedIn, so I explained it. LinkedIn is the stuffy suit version of Facebook and MySpace. What I did is I send (some of you in the room may even have gotten this) a note out to 500 of my LinkedIn friends and said, “Ok. If you could ask a young person anything about how they consume entertainment, what would it be?” In about 3 day’s time, I got almost 200 questions.
I’ve condensed those questions into … a lot about what makes them tick. I’ve gotten a lot of insight into each one of them in the last hour – just about where they live and how they consume things. So, I’m gonna ask them a lot of questions, feel free to jump in and ask questions as well, we can do it at various times or if I get thru my 177 questions then you guys can come up and ask questions when I’m done.
I will introduce the panel: Ratesh is from Reno, Nevada. He is 20 yrs old. What do you like to eat?
Ratesh: Uhh. Not Indian food. LW: Not Indian food. Ok. There you go. We also have Aubrey over here who’s 19 yrs old, also from Reno, Nevada. She wanted me to tell you that she’s 20, so I just blew that. The cats out of the bag. You picked a Canada Dry soda over there, was that your first choice of soda or did you get stuck with it cause you opened it? Aubrey: Yeah, I got stuck with it. Well, we had Coke this morning so... LW: OK. Gotcha. Camilla over here is 18 yrs old. She’s from Berkley and she’s the most worried about everybody looking at her and judging her. So, everybody tell her she’s gorgeous and everything she says is fantastic. Edward here is 23 yrs old from Stockton, and I don’t know enough about him other than he’s probably the least music obsessed (however still loves music). Some of them are more music than others, so we’ll steer this towards music entertainment and all kinds of things over the course of the hour.
Within seconds I got a response from Shane in my office to show me the video of John McCain getting BarackRoll'd. Oh the Embarrassment. The Humanity. The Hilarity...
Have you set up a Google Alert for yourself yet? If you haven't, you really should. It really is fun to see your name pop up every few days. Sure, half the time it is a different "Larry Weintraub" or it shows me an article that has Larry Smith and Fred Weintraub in it. But you weed through those and find a few nuggets that make you smile.
Today that happened. I found myself quoted on a blog called "Sebinomics: The Bass Player Next Door." It's written by Sebastiano Mereu. Underneath the title, he states: "What I Know About Music And The New Marketing. This posting he titled, "Creative Integration" a term he took from the DMNews.com article I was interviewed for and blogged about recently.
In my opinion, the key term here is Creative Integration. As I wrote in my 2 July 2008 post Involve Your Fans, it is essential for artists to involve their fans into any creative process—especially into the marketing process.
Bands can involve their fans on a social networking platform with photo or video contests. For instance, a band could hand out stickers of the band and let them take pictures of themselves with the stickers and share those pictures online. Skullcandy, a manufacturer of fashionable headphones, does exactly that.
Or, give incentives for fans to make their own video of a song the band chooses. There are thousands of creative fans out there already creating their own videos of their favorite artists. You’d be surprised how many amateurs are being more creative than marketing agencies simply because they are creating something with love and not for profit. The easiest way to involve fans is to allow taking pictures and videotaping at gigs and have those files spread on Myspace, Facebook, Youtube or wherever you can spread them.
He quotes me and then goes on to say...
“At the end of the day the record company is our client, and results aren’t as tangible as they used to be,” says Weintraub. “I could show you how popular a band is compared to another through video streams, downloads and engagements, but this may not correlate directly to record sales.” And, it doesn’t have to correlate at all, because many fans are downloading music anyway. Many companies still think they can measure how much a band is worth by counting how many CDs they sell. Those days are over. A band doesn’t need to be selling any CDs to be ‘big’. What a band needs to do is to offer an all-inclusive experience to its fans. Fans want to feel connected to their favorite bands. They want to belong to the family. And bands will provide a home for every single fan, where they feel at ease and want to come back every day after work or school.
I see much in life as a possible business. It is exciting, but also torturous. I just don’t have enough time. A new idea often sends me into hours of thought, research, and ultimately deviation from what I really need to do in a day. I believe that the Internet has made it easy for anyone to create a business. I believe that the Internet has made nearly everything in life easier. I believe that trying to impact the masses is a tough notion, but finding a group of people similar to you, is at your fingertips. I believe that music is free, and that is not a good thing. I believe that life is a collection of experiences and that every day I learn something new and forget something slightly new.
I have learned that the toughest part of running a business is inspiring your own employees. I have grown to understand that you have to show your family at least as much respect as your customers.
I went to college at the University of California, San Diego and majored in Economics and minored in Literature/Writing. I wish I had majored in Literature and only taken the one Economics class that taught me about Supply and Demand.
Larry Weintraub is the CEO at Digital Word of Mouth marketing agency Fanscape. All blogs posts are Larry’s personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Fanscape clients.
I see much in life as a possible business. It is exciting, but also torturous. I just don’t have enough time. A new idea often sends me into hours of thought, research, and ultimately deviation from what I really need to do in a day. I believe that the Internet has made it easy for anyone to create a business. I believe that the Internet has made nearly everything in life easier. I believe that trying to impact the masses is a tough notion, but finding a group of people similar to you, is at your fingertips. I believe that music is free, and that is not a good thing. I believe that life is a collection of experiences and that every day I learn something new and forget something slightly new.
