In that later meeting, I would provide the following quote from Sut Jhally, Professor of Communications at the University of Massachusetts and founder of the Media Education Foundation: “Advertisers have to go to where the audience is, if they want to sell products. They have no option but to go where the audience has gone. If the audience has gone online, gone to iPods, gone to Facebook – wherever the audience has gone – that is where advertisers must go.”

As I listened to the “old-school” radio pitchman trying to encourage my client to buy his packages of “spots,” I envisioned the sharp changes that are sweeping over the worlds of journalism and marketing, as we transit from broadcast to networked media. I saw those radio spots floating away in the breeze like the dry seeds of a dandelion blossom…

Maybe they would land somewhere on favorable ground and sprout forth as a new plant. Most of them would simply blow away like dust in the wind.

I realized that I had come to help my client plant and grow a garden. That’s the profound difference between traditional broadcast media (radio, TV and newspaper advertising) and networked social media… In the old school, we continually threw out spots, hoping someone would eventually see or hear one. In the new school we intentionally plant and cultivate a growing presence in new media resources that remains and grows larger in size the more time we invest.

I am talking about new social media tools like:

• a blog-based Web site with an ongoing stream of fresh content,
• a well-crafted business presence on Facebook (350M members),
• a YouTube channel (2nd most popular search engine) with homespun videos,
• micro-blogging your message and joining in the conversation taking place on Twitter and
• paying attention to the public review forums like Trip Advisor, Yelp and others,
• taking advantage of the free and ever-evolving set of Google’s gardener tools.

The difference is apparent… it’s no longer a question of “if“ you decide to employ new media. As newspapers shrink and disappear right before your eyes and radio audiences now listen to what they want on iPods and smart phones, it’s now a matter  of “when” you decide to plant that garden.

How does your garden grow?

Contact Social Media Consultant, Stephen Kastner to discuss planting and growing your social media garden.

Even more interesting, Pew says news is becoming social, “For instance, more than 8 in 10 online news consumers get or share links in emails.”

The report states, “To a great extent, people’s experience of news, especially on the internet, is becoming a shared social experience as people swap links in emails, post news stories on their social networking site feeds, highlight news stories in their Tweets, and haggle over the meaning of events in discussion threads.”

The report discusses two significant technological trends that have influenced news consumption behavior:

• First, the advent of social media like social networking sites and blogs has helped the news become a social experience in fresh ways for consumers. People use their social networks and social networking technology to filter, assess, and react to news.
• Second, the ascent of mobile connectivity via smart phones has turned news gathering and news awareness into an anytime, anywhere affair for a segment of avid news watchers.

“The process Americans use to get news is based on foraging and opportunism. They seem to access news when the spirit moves them or they have a chance to check up on headlines,” says the report. “At the same time, gathering the news is not entirely an open-ended exploration for consumers, even online where there are limitless possibilities for exploring news.”

Most people say they use between two and five news sources when online, and two thirds say they don’t have a single favorite. Only 21 percent say they routinely rely on just one site for their news and information. Moreover, many do not have strong loyalty to particular online sources. When asked whether they have a favorite online news source, the majority of online news users (65%) say they do not.

The most popular topics are the weather, national events and health. Nearly half said they’s like to see more coverage of scientific news and discoveries and 41 percent wanted more news on religion and spirituality.

The report explains that 80% of American adults have cell phones today, and 37% of them go online from their phones. The impact of this new mobile technology on news gathering is unmistakable.  One quarter (26%) of all Americans say they get some form of news via cell phone today–that amounts to 33% of cell phone owners.

Despite the fact that it’s easier to keep up with the news today, the Pew Report says Americans still feel overwhelmed. Fully 70% agreed with that statement: “The amount of news and information available from different sources today is overwhelming.” Some 25% “completely agreed” with that statement and 45% “mostly agreed.”

Politics aside, the campaign connects two new resources detailed below that employ Twitter to promote and maintain their cause. These resources are free and can be used by anyone with a campaign to call attention to:

Twibbon is the easiest and most powerful way to promote awareness of your cause on Twitter. The service overlays a small icon (candle and NO WAR banner in the footer of the example image above) that you create, onto supporters’ profile images to create what they call a ‘Twibbon,’ making an “impactful” online statement. The user’s Twitter account automatically tweets to let everyone know about their new affiliation.

Act.ly Petitions co-developer Jim Gilliam says, “I saw Clay Johnson’s post last week about Twitter being the future of email marketing. I’ve always found it’s easier to show than to explain, so I built a petition site (with Jesse Haff, the designer from Brave New Films) that takes full advantage of Twitter.”

Here’s how it works. You sign a petition by tweeting it, and other people can sign the petition just by re-tweeting it. There’s no need to go to the act.ly site, except to start a petition. If you are re-tweeted, you get credit for the referral, and will show up in the “Smokin’ Recruiters” link on act.ly.

The Act.ly site also has beta versions of…

Retweets
Have something you want a lot of people to tweet? A link, pledge, thank you, you name it.

Events
Start one event in your town, and watch it go viral as people host their own events all over the world.

Yes, of course you can use these tools to promote your products, your business and your public awareness campaigns. Advertising using social media is simply a new type of public awareness campaign. Right?

And, that’s not all. The Kodak Zi8 has…

• a swing out USB arm, that’s flexible
• a removable lithium-ion battery that can be charged in or out of the camera
• expandable SD/SDHC card slot for up to 32 GB, so you can swap and keep shooting
• a large 2.5″ color LCD screen
• built in electronic image stabilization
• 5MP still photo capture
• improved low-light performance
• smart face tracking technology

The biggest flaw with most pocket cams up ’til now has been poor sound quality. Users have been pleading for someone to add an external mic jack. Thanks to Kodak for listening!

First things first… every small and large business needs to set up a Gmail account. Why? <— stop now, go back and click that link and read why.

Your Gmail account will be used to manage all of your business interests. So, it could and should just as well be your.name@gmail.com because very soon you will probably want to tie into your Personal Profile appearing in Google Social Search results, just out of the Labs and into Beta – connecting much of your social footprint (Picasa Web Albums and Flickr, Blogger, Twitter, Facebook) – with all of your future YouTube video listings, your Google Adwords accounts, etc..

Google Social Search results

Once your Gmail is set up, you must confirm the ownership of your business in the Business Center – this will require you to be at the actual business phone listed in your Google Map listing in order to answer a validation phone call from Google. Here’s a step-by -step:

Open your Gmail account, look in the upper right corner for:
stephen.kastner@gmail.com | | Settings | Help | Sign out

Choose Settings and on the next page look at the main row of horizontal tabs:

Choose Accounts and Import and scroll to the bottom of the new page to select Google Account settings and look for Local Business Center then choose Add new listing

Fill in the listing and watch as Google finds you on their map…
Add in a domain-based e-mail address like info@yourdomain.com
Write the description carefully using specific key words (200 character cap).
Choose 5 categories… (the maximum allowed, but try to take them all) finding ones that come up in Google’s autofill.

When you are done, follow through to Claim this Listing – if Google found you.
The next part is the validation where you must be at the Business phone and online. You will get an instant call from Google to the Business Phone number listed. They will speak a pin number that you must add back into your new listing… the “by mail’ option takes weeks and will slow the process way down, so please do not even consider it.

Do this for any businesses you may have…

Then, you can continue building and maintaining a greater Google Business presence, listening to the talk and responding at once to what your customers are saying.

• Did you notice the free coupon option in your new enhanced Google Map Listing?
• Did you upload 10 photos? You can change them at will.
• How about adding 5 videos? Why video? Adding a video on YouTube is one of Evan Heanyl’s 3 Simple Steps to Get Your Website Indexed by Google Fast!I help clients produce effective in-bound advertising with video. Here’s an inexpensive way to start… Tired vs Wired, Yahoo vs YouTube and a Quick HD Pocket Camera Revue.

Old media is scrambling to become new media while new media keeps expanding and improving. I am watching Jay Leno’s last night show this morning on NBC Direct.  I don’t watch network TV anymore… as a rule. But, I got here via Yume. And, I am enjoying the show, in part for the clever use of video in both the Leno Show and in the embedded advertising.

The fact remains that this is still an attempt to put old media into some ill-fitting new shoes. While the pros in the Leno Show’s editing booth have concocted some funny video clips, the developers at NBC and their counterparts at Mitsubishi need to go back to the drawing boards, ‘cuz this is a miserable way to try to watch a TV show. By maintaining their control over the content, they have succeeded in destroying mine.

After reloading the locked-up automobile ad, I figured out how to step past the 30-second roadblock to get to the second segment… and the Leno Show streamed on. The second ad from Honda had a larger video footprint, looked better and worked without locking up my screen. The third ad was a major improvement built with Flash rollovers – like the fourth ad.

Meanwhile, on the open-source social media network, major businesses like Pepsi are abandoning the Super Bowl and investing in growing their own social media footprint. Small businesses can do the same and even faster… because this is marketing at the grassroots level where handmade and homemade are often more successful than major corporate productions as evidenced by NBC, Mitsubishi and Honda.

LINKS:
Social Media Spending to Hit $1.3 Billion This Year

Alonzo Bodden on Leno…

Brilliant!

The site explains, “Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books” …but, it is a lot more than a cataloging tool, in that it will also convert your e-books into whatever format you require, then connect and upload them to your specific e-reader.

Listed among the top e-book source formats are some familiar and perhaps some new file types that include: LIT, MOBI, EPUB, HTML, PRC, RTF, PDB, TXT and PDF. Calibre output formats include: EPUB, FB2, OEB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PML, RB, PDF, TCR, TXT and PRC. Are you overwhelmed yet?

Amazon provides the Digital Text Platform for authors wishing to publish e-books for their Kindle wireless reading device. Learn all about using it in the DTP Forum. Amazon DTP supports several document formats for uploading and conversion (HTML, Microsoft Word (.doc), plain text (.txt) and Adobe PDF). Amazon DTP also fully supports eBooks created in the .mobi format if they are unencrypted. You can use Calibre or the free MobiPocket Creator and upload the resulting mobi file.

While some people think the Kindle spells the beginning of the end for publishers, and some authors are happy about being able to sidestep the middlemen by publishing directly on Kindle, readers are generally delighted at all of the convenient features the Kindle provides.

One of my most recent goals has been to develop a mixed-media publication that combines text and video. Adobe’s Acrobat 9 Pro now supports embedding videos into PDFs. I am creating my first experimental documents merging animated cartoons made in Xtranormal with Debra Hadraba’s Lessons from the Heart… to be included in her forthcoming enhanced CD. The videos will be set to autorun when you open the page that they reside on. The mpeg4 videos, scaled down to hand-held device size (480 x 360), are the smallest file size and universally compatible with mac, unix, beos and windows.

LINKS:
Consumer Electronic Show 2010: Top 10 new e-book readers

Stephen J. Kastner, DesignWise

Last week I decided to add a specific category called Google Watch to my writing and reporting here in the DesignWise Web Marketing blog. With Google controlling approximately 65% of the search market, coupled with the fact that it is an ever-changing entity, I feel it’s important to pay close attention to the continuous changes taking place at Google.

While searches at Google now include content from Twitter, Friendfeed, Identi.ca, Jaiku and Yahoo Answers, the latest announcement that they plan to include status updates from Facebook and MySpace will be seen by some as an invasion of privacy. I see it as a marketing opportunity. A Daoist would say, “It’s all in how you perceive the cup… half-full or half-empty.”

According to Google product manager Dylan Casey, their intention is to have Google’s organic search reflect what people are talking about right now, the current thought-stream…  “real-time search.”

“See what’s being published right this second,” says Casey. “You can select Updates and Latest and actually see that content stream in as its being published.”

Adam Ostrow says, “Now, with one sweeping stroke, Google has grabbed the lead in the real-time search space, and it appears that Facebook and Twitter have both conceded that they aren’t going to outbuild Google when it comes to search.”

Developing a broad social footprint and entering into the dialogue – that means listening as well as talking – is now a given if you expect to have a successful role in contemporary marketing.

Can’t choose a default search engine? Want to compare Bing and Google search results? Google-vs-Bing.com presents the results from both engines side-by-side.

• Adds audio to your site with one line of HTML
• Uses simple, easy-to-hack HTML instead of complicated proprietary markup, ushering in the REAL Media Web
• Magical floating design never gets lost, is available when you need it, gets out of your way when you don’t need it
• Automatically finds all audio links on your page, turning your page into a playlist
• Plays all your blog entries with a single button click
• Allows you to put the play buttons where they belong: IN CONTEXT
• Keeps the user in the page rather than sending them away to a media player
• Picks up your images and adds them as cover art
• Requires no download, install or maintenance

You can hack it to pieces, change the look and make it do lots of interesting things. On December 12, 2009 software developers, PonticStar published a complete set of guidelines and tips on Hacking Yahoo! Media Player.

I added a player to Debra Hadraba’s HonorYourTruth.com site using the standalone  version of the WordPress Audio Player plugin before I discovered the Yahoo Player. Now, I will have to reevaluate that solution.

For more than a year, YouTube has dominated Yahoo for runner-up status behind Google in the search engine popularity rankings as reported by research firms like Comcast. Partly due to the fact that YouTube videos are now included among the standard Google search results, with Google claiming 65% of search market, nonetheless there is another shift taking place which deserves reflection.

Since learning of the shift, I have started using YouTube as a primary research tool. When I want to see how something is done, I search YouTube. Taking this cue to the next level means incorporating this realization into your own Web design strategies and marketing practices. People now expect to see video included as one of the components in an effective Web site.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you must add the cost of professional video production to your budget. Windows and Mac both include video editing software in their basic installation packages and there are lots of additional, free tools online. With more than 15 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, homegrown video has become a populist media form.

Chad Hurley, the co-founder and chief executive of YouTube explains, “That’s the equivalent of Hollywood releasing more than 57,000 full-length movies every week.”

The hardware isn’t expensive either. The Creative Labs Vado HD 8 GB Pocket Video Camcorder is a bargain at $114.99 on Amazon ($199 list). The HD signifies High Definition, that it shoots in widescreen format (16 x 9 as opposed to the earlier 4 x 3 TV standard) at 720p (image size 1280 x 720) at 30 frames per second progressive scan; recorded as MP4 files.

How would you like to get the camera for less than $15? This particular deal gets even better the deeper you dig. The Amazon fine print says:

Special Offer: Save $100 on the cost of this product when you agree to join Audible.com’s AudibleListener® Gold program for 12 months starting at $14.95 per month.

The base price is currently $20 cheaper than the Flip UltraHD Camcorder – plus the Creative Labs Vado unit has a larger 2″ display screen and a much better wide angle lens. Chris Pirillo rates Creative Vado at the top in this great set of three comparable videos:

The Kodak Zi6 HD Pocket Video Camera would be another good choice based on price at $99, but it comes with such little memory and has poor low light capabilities.

If it’s time for you to begin experimenting and learning to create and upload videos, be sure to watermark them with your Website’s URL and post them everywhere at once using Tubemogul. Check out DesignWise Films and Video Production for more specific articles on video production and marketing.