Four Marketing Lessons from the TweetSum Video

TweetSum is a brand new tool for Twitter users that launched just a few weeks ago.

As Twitter tools go, TweetSum is interesting in that it allows those in the Twitter-universe (”Twitterverse”) to quickly review their Followers and people they are following, ranks each by a TweetSum ranking, and allows you to Ignore, Follow or Un-Follow people very easily. But that’s NOT why I’m writing about TweetSum here.

Actually, I recommend you check out TweetSum’s explanatory video on its home page. Here’s why.

1.   The video communicates the TweetSum brand perfectly.(At least I think it does.) According to the About section on the site, TweetSum was banged together over a weekend by a bunch of friends/colleagues in Seattle. And given

• the titles the TweetSum-ers have given themselves,
• the style of writing on the site,
• some of the terms/language they use (FYI - the rating system noted above is called the Douche Bag Index or DBI for short),

I’d say TweetSum is a tongue-in-cheek, we-don’t-really-care-if-you-like-us-or-not just-use-our-service kind of a company.

If I’m correct with my read on the TweetSum brand, the brand message comes across clearly in the video in the opening lines when a voice intones “TweetSum : So filled with awesome your head will explode.” Yeah, it made me smile too.

2.    The TweetSum video quickly explains the problem (and the answer) faced by most Twitter users — deciding who to Follow (or stop Following).

3.     The video simply shows how TweetSum works.

4.     And the TweetSum video is only two minutes & 19 seconds long.

So why am I writing about TweetSum and its online video? Two reasons.

A.   TweetSum shows how easy it is to both introduce and reinforce your brand from the very beginning by using an inexpensive, yet very informative, video on a company Website.

B.   Online video is becoming more and more important to the search engine algorithms as they spider across the Web. Those sites with video and other forms of multimedia content receive a stronger rating by the search companies. And the more relevant such content is to the site where the video is found, the better off the content is judged.

When you use video on your site(s), consider reinforcing such content with written content as well. This can either be a word-for-word copy of the video or supporting language.

As I understand it, the Web-spiders and the algorithms are not quite to the point yet where they can “read” the videos and what they contain — just that they’re on your site, what metatags and headlines they have, and what “closed captions” (if any) they contain.

Since most videos on the Web do NOT contain closed captioning, adding on the word-for-word and/or supporting copy is a good idea (at least for now).

Congrats to the TweetSum team for a good use of online video. You get a “Happy Betty Award” for your efforts.

P.S.  The “Twitter in Plain English” video is another great example of an online, how-to video. It’s found on the Twitter homepage as well as on YouTube.com. Here it is:

When you turn your back on your target…

The popular retail brand, Old Navy, admits it learned its lesson the hard way. According to recent articles in AdvertisingAge and the Associated Press, the newly launched “SuperModelquin” ads are a way for the brand to return to its target audience (25-35 yr. olds/moms) after a brief stint of fashion-focus and even overtly sexy advertising last year.This did not serve them well, continuing a cycle of flat to negative sa

les numbers.

So Old Navy went back to basics, identifying its core customers as “Jenny,” born in 1980, when the most popular girl’s name was Jennifer, and “Mike,” her partner, who bears the most popular boy’s name of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Designing clothes that Jenny and Mike would wear and making sure the store experience is something they would enjoy has become second nature for the Old Navy team — so much so that Mr. Wyatt, Old Navy’s president, initially referenced them in an interview without explanation.

“It’s helped us to land our target customer and cascade that target customer throughout every single functional group of this company, whether it was design, merchandising or inventory management,” Mr. Wyatt said. “We all know who the boss is: It’s Jenny and Mike.”

While I commend (and hope) this strategy works for the struggling brand, have you seen any of these ads? As a non-mom in this age group, I was totally confused. The commercial consisted of several mannequins talking to each other about their butts and how exciting it was that they could completely turn their heads around (warning: this was a little creepy) to stare at their butts. It may just be me, but this didn’t propel me off the couch into a ON store.

Regardless, I am interested to see if they see similar success to the quirky dog and Morgan Fairchild ads. Any thoughts?

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Update 03.17.09

Looks like Old Navy rolled out a YouTube video introducing each mannequin

The Story of the Supermodelquins

Becoming an Expert

PR practitioners can easily transition from advocates to experts if they’re knowledgeable and available. The media need experts who can speak about their industries to constituents simply yet explicitly. And they need them when they call.

Knowing how to simplify tech industry speak and being a readily available resource has helped my boss, David Politis, become an expert in his field. For nearly 20 years, he has been the president of a PR firm that specializes in demystifying technology (Politis Communications). David has also been a self-syndicated columnist for Utah Tech Watch since 1994, and he always, always stops what he is doing to take a reporter’s call. Reporters know who David is and in the past week have quoted him on three different occasions.

Utah-based radio station KSL recently called upon David’s ability to distill language about consumer technology in two separate segments. On Monday, February 16, KSL quoted David in a piece about “VOIP technology creating problem with 911 services.” In this segment, he used a personalized example to convey the implications of a problem dealing with a highly technical product. On Thursday, February 19, David offered his perspective to a KSL radio reporter on “Engineers work to reinvent the Internet” and made the prospect of a “new internet” relevant to the common user.

Even within the PR industry David has established his expert voice. Ragan, a publisher of corporate communications newsletters, used an example from David’s early career to exemplify why employers should be sympathetic when communicating pay cuts. The February 19 article, “Dos and don’ts of communicating pay cuts,” amalgamates the advice of several PR professionals, and further positions David as an expert.

PR practitioners of all industries can position themselves (and their clients/employers) as experts if they will just take the time to make themselves and their lingo accessible to the media and consumers.

In other words, learn to speak to the Bettys everywhere and the media will speak to you.

On-the-Record? Yes, Always! And it Cuts Both Ways!

A few weeks ago I was at the monthly luncheon of the Utah County Chapter of the PRSA listening to Derek Garduno (a former Politis Communications employee), address the audience. (Derek’s currently the Communications Manager for the Utah Jazz.)

During his presentation, Derek shared a truism I had taught him years before when he was fresh out of college. Specifically,

“You’re always on-the-record.”

For those of you not trained in public relations or journalism, on-the-record is a term used by reporters and journalists that means that what you are saying (or doing) is fair game to be reported and can end up in the evening news, in tomorrow morning’s paper or in someone’s blog that’s getting posted in the next two minutes.

Sometimes it’s possible to go off-the-record to provide selected and trusted journalists with information - typically for contextual, background purposes - and not be quoted in a story.

However, not everyone can be trusted (journalists included).

So as a rule, we advise our clients and employees to simply adapt the attitude that you’re always on-the-record when speaking to a journalist, even if a reporter agrees that something is “off-the-record.” That way you play it safe and minimize the risk of getting burned by an unscrupulous and/or overzealous journalist.

So that’s the background. Now for the juicy parts of what happened earlier today and why I’m writing this specific post.

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In summary, after apparently not getting the help/information he wanted from a Toronto, Canada-based tech PR/marketing specialist, David George-Cosh (tech reporter with the National Post) went off on a phone call with said PR specialist.

At roughly 1 p.m. (EST) April Dunford, the PR specialist, posted the following on her Twitter account (@AprilDunford):

Reporter to me”When the media calls you, you jump, OK!?” Why, when you called me and I’m not selling? Newspapers will get what they deserve

[NOTE: Not counting the red text, this is exactly how the tweet appeared.]

Then began what can only be called a very public (and embarrassing) digital breakdown on the part of reporter George-Cosh, with the reporter dropping F-bombs onto Twitter directed at Dunford, and getting upset because of what she posted onto Twitter. (His Twitter handle is @sirdavid.)

Interestingly, Dunford did NOT disclose George-Cosh’s identity in her original tweet. It was apparently only after he repeatedly attacked her on Twitter that Dunford disclosed who the reporter was: George-Cosh.

For the record, if you look up George-Cosh’s Twitter account, it is (as of 9:30 p.m. EST) totally locked up with all of his updates “protected.” His blog also seems to be down: http://strangehold.com/blog/. His bio on the NP.com page is also missing.

However, you can read the blow-by-blow description here on Ian Capstick’s MediaStyle blog.

Learning a Lesson from a Twitter-based Têtê à Têtê Tornado

What’s the takeaway from all of this? It’s simple: You’re always on the record.

And in today’s Me Media world where literally anyone can become (and probably is) their own publisher, you have to be really careful about what you say and do when you’re around anyone.

And the higher profile you have (like being a tech reporter for one of the leading media outlets in Canada), the greater the likelihood your conduct will come under public scrutiny - and ridicule.

In other words, there is no such thing as off-the-record!

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UPDATE: At 6:18 p.m. (EST) today, the Editor of the National Post published the following apology on the NP’s Website:

“We hold — and will continue to hold — all our reporters to a higher standard in how they address anyone, in any forum.

“This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home.”

Latitude can change a pig’s saving attitude. NPR expressed this in its story of an American pig and Finnish pig hard at work fighting the global recession– using opposing ad campaigns.

The American pig, sponsored by the American Association of Certified Public Accountants, is a personified piggy bank that urges young people to “Feed the pig,” save, and gain a long-term perspective of their finances.  On FeedthePig.org, the American pig stands upright in crisp, light pink suit and encourages browsers to learn how to save. “You’re doing it!” he exclaims periodically as your deciding if you can cut out the “Latte a Day.”

The Finnish government, on the other hoof, is using a demonic-looking piggy bank to deter Finns from saving  and encourage their spending. His warns on-lookers: “Don’t feed the recession.” Finns also receive this message from the demon piggy’s entourage¬– a series of posters that include one of lounger using a remote to change a fish tank’s channel and another of a snowboarder sporting her watermelon helmet.

Though the Finnish and American spokespigs butt heads, historically neither of the publics they target have been savers. Still, the economist quoted in the NPR segment isn’t convinced that the Finnish ad campaign will encourage citizens as a whole to spend during hard times and go against their individual self interests. He isn’t sure whether a successful campaign could generate spending that would outweigh the long-term benefits of saving.

It still seems difficult to say whether the Finnish or American campaign will be more effective in fighting the recession. Each public has its own tendencies and interests. Each economy has its own mechanisms. Each sponsor has its own goals. Let’s hope for the world’s sake that both campaigns generate their desired end results.
You can read or listen to “Dueling Pig Ads Urge People to Save, Spend” and see photos of the ads on NPR.org.