viral

Think social media and conversational marketing might be the next train to heaven for your brand but don’t know where to board? Well, here’s three social media marketing models that will make sure you’ll find your station.

If you wanna get moving into the social country of love where conversation rules you’ve gotta get one thing straight. Valuable content is king. Buying a loudspeaker and start tweeting wont get you anywhere. Swedish brands like Comhem and Boxer have effectively proven that just twittering the 140 sign language doesn’t earn you any followers. Every social network will provide you with it’s own possibilities and traps. A well executed strategy is a must or you’ll end up in a minefield.

Here are 3 models by Johan Ronnestam that will guide your brand towards a successful social media strategy.

3 Models That Will Guide You Into The Social Media Landscape

  1. The Social Staircase

    The Social Staircase is a model that focus on the overall process. It’s the stuff that pays for your ticket to love.

  2. The Social Tool Matrix

    Now you know what kind of presence your business needs. Now it’s time to map the tools to make sure you know what to keep your mouth shut, when to speak and when to listen.

  3. The Social Viral Spiral

    This is about speed. Spread that love I’m talking about below. But make sure you do it with finesse and timing. Create a couple of Social Viral Spirals and you’re ready to make out!

How your brand makes good use these three [click to continue…]

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We’re fed up with boring old school advertising. We don’t want your information and rational explanations. We wanna dance, laugh, feel and love. We do not want be treated like idiots!

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James Dean knew how to seduce people while looking pretty darn boring. But face it. He’s dead and would be pretty out of date now!

Information is all over us. We’re accessing it everywhere faster than ever. The more shit we get our hands on the less we wanna mess with, so you’ve gotta stand out.

Future brands don’t buy media they create brand dramas that build value and generate SEO equity – only then will you reach your future friends (aka. target group). Future brands tell stories.Future brands rely on drama and constant innovation – totally integrated.

Here are eleven bullets of [click to continue…]

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The Japanese group Sour was about to create a new music video for their latest song ‘Hibi no Neiro’. What to do?

Get some fans together from around the world, put them in front of a web-cam and let them co-create the video for you. Once you’re done – put it on YouTube and another 7 days later you have quarter of a million people lovin’ your music.

I don’t think it will be the same hype as the Ok Go video but it will sure spread like wildfire.

Updated: Jonathan Sulo linked to this post and in his comments I found another great example of crowdsourcing. Erik Torsner suggested we should feast our eyes on the Eternalmoonwalk, a tribute to the late Michael Jackson. I of course went over there and submitted a video myself. Another great example, not as controlled as the Sour video but still a great idea.

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Everyone that works in communication shares a wet dream and it spells word of mouth.

Creating something that grows a life of its own without the support of mainstream media is what buzz and viral marketing is all about. But when we talk about creating buzz we seldom mention the dark side of the trade.

This visualization made by Mario Vellandi as part of a competition over at Logic+Emotion is a great eye opener. It really nails the fact that word of mouth got that dark side and that’s every brands worst nightmare, something Domino’s Pizza experienced recently.

(What I really love about the bloggosphere is the fact that a single image like this leads me to a new place that I have not yet discovered. Mario’s blog Melodies in Marketing goes straight into my RSS reader.)

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Linus Omark, the 6th most viewed video on YouTube this week.

The 6th most viewed video worldwide on YouTube this week is a video showing Swedish hockey player Linus Omark, drafted 4th by the Edmonton Oilers, scoring in a friendly exhibition game against Switzerland.

Linus does what every innovator would do – he dares to do different.
And differentiation is what earns him fame.

If you’re into advertising, marketing or any kind of business for that sake you have so much to learn from this. Hell, if you’re looking to achieve anything there’s everything to learn.

In the end of the 80s I was privileged to be taken on as a member of the Swedish national snowboarding team. That’s when I first realized what differentiated the people who made the it in life and people who didn’t – the people in the team didn’t care what people thought of us, we did our own thing no matter what. I especially remember a snowboarding camp in Valfjället, a small ski resort (hill) in Värmland, Sweden. About 70-80 teens had gathered for a half pipe camp arranged by Greger Hagelin who later founded WE.

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Me, years later piloting Greger Hagelin and WE co-founder David Hedman for a trip in a Piper PA-28 to Gotland.

It rained every day, yet early every morning before the lifts opened up a small group of us started to hike the pipe. Then once the lifts closed down that same group still hiked the pipe, the rain still poring down. Not much of a winter experience but for us it was all about passion. In that group we were all part of the national team or soon to be. The others practiced for an hour or two before getting pissed about the weather and leaving for the warm cabins. Once we got in later in the night we were told how stupid we were for staying out there all day soaking wet. We didn’t care.

If you wanna achieve something big. If you want your advertising or marketing activities to reach further. You’ve gotta do things differently and also be prepared to make a fool out of yourself. Don’t care what people will say if you fail. Get up and try again. Do your own thing.

So, when Linus, currently playing for Lulea HF, gets out on that ice and decides to try something he’s been practicing for hours, hours and more hours he feels sure of himself. He will win. However if he would have missed I’m sure he would have tried again.

Are you prepared to stick your nose out? Or do you play it safe?

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I have a Samsung TV at home. I’ve been thinking of selling it. After seeing this viral that I picked up over at AdAge that’s not possible.

While we’re at it.

Yesterday I spent the morning at an MSN Innovate seminar arranged by Microsoft Advertising in Sweden. There I had the pleasure of listening to Naoki Ito, awarded creative director from GT Tokyo. A great presentation where he talked more about cultural differences and what made creative people creative rather than showing to many cases. However, one of the things he did show us was this TVC, a part of a concept called Love Distance.

Beautiful and probably one of the better ideas I’ve seen in a long time!

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This video below got the ingredients you gotta have to cook that viral soup. It opens up with a quick association to one of the world most sold (and best) games – Guitar Hero. The sign also promotes that the video is about music – Prisoner of Society by The Living End. Shortly after the sport of BMX is introduced. We’re now wondering, where is all this going to go.

The effort of making this video is amazing and it taps straight into the young audience that loves gaming, music and sports. Last but not least – He f*#n nails that song!

Two days after posting the ‘Bike Hero’ video its been viewed 584,733, posted on 104 blogs and commented 2,533 . Phew.

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As I was reading my stats in my Mint account a site that I hadn’t seen before. Viralvideochart.com stood out. Its a sniffy little thing where you can keep track of the virality of online videos.

The cool thing is that these guys measure virality, not videos shown. So the faster something is being spread, the higher rating. Basically a dashboard for the viral video producer.

Right now, the most viral video is this one:

Bam boom pjoink and that RSS goes straight into my feedreader.

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How to kick start a viral

November 4, 2008

There’s a lot of talk about viral marketing and especially YouTube video virals. Brands and agencies seems to think that viral marketing is a viable marketing method. It COULD be. But it might just as well FAIL big time. Of course it depends on the actual video but many great virals have been doomed to [...]

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Jigsaw has risen from the dead and promotes SAW 5 on YouTube

October 2, 2008

The creators behind SAW – one of the scariest horror movies ever has created a creepy video where Jigsaw, risen from the dead, promotes a competition on YouTube. A simple but smart concept where the man in the mask tells people to visit YouTube.com/SAW5. The video above featuring Jigsaw has gained 3,139,460 views in 6 [...]

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