Today the main sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill announced it is being shelved. The bill had triggered fierce nationwide protests, website blackouts, and the pullback of Congressional support. Here’s a video series just from the past couple days of some of the most entertaining and informative videos on SOPA that are worth watching.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), author of the Stop Online Privacy Act, said on Friday that he is postponing consideration of the bill in response to concerns from critics who said the bill could lead to censorship. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has also postponed next week's vote on PIPA, SOPA's sister bill in the Senate. You can read more at the Washington Post website about how this all came about.

The South Carolina Presidential Debate

Finally, something the Republican Presidential Candidates and President Obama can all agree on!

Comedy Central

Wednesday night’s Comedy Central’s lineup had segments from both the Daily Show and Colbert Report attacking SOPA; while noting the irony in that their parent company, Viacom supports SOPA legislation.

TED Series: SOPA is like a Bad Birthday Cake

Clay Shirky gives an excellent analogy using a birthday cake to how crazy SOPA legislation would make our daily lives if it ever passed.

I interviewed Senior Counsel for Vimeo, Michael Cheah, who shares his thoughts about why The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Vimeo is running messages on January 18^th (today) highlighting the issue and will invite users to tell Congress to reject SOPA. 

Politico.com reported today “SOPA blackout leads co-sponsors to defect”, and that Co-sponsors of the legislation in the House of Representatives have changed sides and other lawmakers have called for more debate before any vote.” Some members of Congress are joining the blackout protest, while others are using the protests to propose changes to the existing bill, as well as a halt to the vote on PIPA (the sister bill to SOPA in the Senate), currently scheduled for a procedural vote on January 24^th.

While this can be viewed positively by protesters of SOPA and PIPA, it’s way too early to say if either of these bills will take a new form that is more agreeable with fighting online piracy, and balancing protections of both intellectual property rights (IP) with freedom of expression and fair use.

Click here to watch the video.

If SOPA, or some legislation in the near future like SOPA was passed into federal law, how would it affect the web video ecosystem?

SOPA would have a chilling effect on free speech on the web. Basically, we could no longer rely what we currently have in place, and that is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Video sharing websites — and user-generated content (UGC) websites in general – would be forced to somehow review all of the content uploaded to their sites (before allowing any it to be posted online). In addition to being wildly impractical and expensive for companies behind these websites, this would result in a tremendous amount of content being wrongly removed (or never allowed up) because of the mere possibility that it could be infringing.

Would that specifically apply Vimeo as well?

It would make it significantly more expensive to operate. We’d end up spending all of our time either reviewing content or developing technology to try to prevent people from uploading unauthorized materials. And since no system would ever be foolproof, we’d undoubtedly face the prospect of never-ending litigation and threats to turn our website off, while at the same time facing unhappy customers whose content was wrongly removed.

It sounds like you would have to fall on the side of censoring or not allowing most videos of what Vimeo members can currently post online.

Since there’s cost-effective no way to have people personally review all of the materials that are uploaded to a video sharing site the size of Vimeo, we’d have to implement technologies to automatically reject content that might be infringing. It’s impossible to take concepts like “fair use” into consideration in any kind of automated technology, so users who post videos that lawfully criticize or parody copyrighted works would see their videos rejected.

Even people who have the lawful right to upload a video might see their content rejected, simply because it has a title or description that contains some particular keyword that might suggest copyright infringement.

To give you an example, if we had a system that looked for videos with the words “stolen” and “piracy” in their descriptions, you’d find a video on Vimeo that (ironically enough) was posted by a pro-SOPA group called Creative America:

Click here to watch the video.

How do you think this will affect new startups and innovation in the online video space?

I don’t see why anyone would want to get into a space where they would face virtually unlimited liability for hosting third party videos that they don’t have any control over. One of the reasons why services like Vimeo, YouTube, and Facebook have flourished over the past decade or so is that they could host UGC without fear of crippling lawsuits so long as they complied with the DMCA. If you take that away and give copyright holders the right to sue and shut down anyone who hosts even a single piece of copyright content, you introduce a tremendous amount of uncertainty, which will have a chilling effect on startups and innovation.

According to SOPA’s supporters, they say it is primarily intended to stop online piracy overseas. Do you agree with that?

No. SOPA’s provisions go so far beyond foreign piracy that I can only conclude that it’s real aim is to reverse the DMCA. If foreign piracy is the real target, there are ways of addressing that without radically changing the Internet as we know it.

Do you believe the DMCA is sufficient to handle IP legal issues, including with online video?

I think Congress got it right when it passed the DMCA. The DMCA’s notice and takedown rules strike the right balance between promoting online innovation and protecting copyright holders’ interests. Congress recognized that copyright holders are best positioned to determine where their content is and whether or not they want it there.

What would you propose, if anything, that would better deal with the problem of online piracy overseas, while protecting the ability of companies Vimeo and startups to operate, innovate, and have a sustainable revenue model?

Congress could easily draft legislation that specifically targets overseas piracy while retaining the DMCA. An alternative to SOPA, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN Act), does just that by focusing on the revenue sources supporting rogue foreign websites.

Click here to watch the video.

You can watch more videos of legislators supporting the OPEN act at the YouTube Channel, “KeepTheWebOpen.” And if you have the time, I recommend watching this C-SPAN video below:

Click here to watch the video.

• Read the OPEN Act at www.keepthewebOPEN. (Twitter hash tag, #OPEN)
• Fightforthefuture, who’s video we’ve featured in an earlier post, did a good job describing the problems with SOPA in its video.
• NetCoalition provides in-depth analyses of the legislation on their Website.
• The American Library Association’s website at districtdispatch.org put together a Quick Reference Guide showing the differences among SOPA, PIPA (essentially, the Senate version of SOPA), and the OPEN Act. You can also check out this bill comparison from the office of Congressman Darrel Issa.

View the full-size chart at http://www.keepthewebopen.com/sopa-vs-open

Users who want to learn more about these bills, and how they can lend their own voice and be heard, can go to these sites:

• Fight for the Future – non-profit organizing a “strike” against SOPA and PIPA at their site, sopastrike.com
• Stop American Censorship – also supporting the SOPA strike at americancensorship.org
• Protect Innovation – Send your (online) letter to your local Congressman on how you feel about SOPA and PIPA

I interviewed the founder of the Blip.TV, Charles Hope, who shares his thoughts about why The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is extremely bad for online video platforms and their users, and explains what's really needed is not new laws, but better business innovation.

Charles, Blip now features a lot of original and professionally produced web video series, which is just the type of content most likely to be pirated. Wouldn’t SOPA have some benefit to an OVP like Blip, as well as professional web video producers?

Piracy is not a major issue for Web video producers. From time to time, scammers stumble upon the brilliant business model of stealing various Web videos and re-hosting them, surrounded by a flurry of banner ads. Frankly, this is more of a nuisance than a threat, because they don't have access to rich distribution channels, and merely catch the occasional bored Web surfer. Given that this is the only problem of piracy web video creators face, the effect of this legislation will only be negative.

What do you think are the big problems with SOPA?

SOPA is incredibly far-reaching, and targets even software authors and Internet service providers. Undoubtedly its severely chilling effect would affect the entire industry. I think it’s already been well-stated by the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF):

Despite all the talk about this bill being directed only toward “rogue” foreign sites, there is no question that it targets US companies as well. The bill sets up a system to punish sites allegedly “dedicated to the theft of US property.” How do you get that label? Doesn’t take much: Some portion of your site (even a single page) must:

1. be directed toward the US, and either

2. allegedly “engage in, enable or facilitate” infringement or

3. allegedly be taking or have taken steps to “avoid confirming a high probability” of infringement.

How would SOPA affect Online Video Platforms (OVPs) like Blip, and their members?

SOPA puts any web site that accepts user submissions at fatal risk. Online Video Platforms (OVPs) would have to lock down and preview every submission uploaded. This would balloon labor requirements and still only filter the obvious violations: there's no way to positively verify ownership of a piece of content until it's too late.

According to proponents of the bill, they say SOPA is primarily intended to stop online piracy overseas. Isn’t that a reasonable and responsible thing to go after?

Laws don't always remain confined to the narrow intentions of their makers. All too often they are interpreted creatively, sometimes in ways that boggle the civilian imagination. The classic case is the Commerce Clause, which very reasonably gave Congress the power to settle interstate trade wars. This has since been aggressively interpreted to give Congress the power to regulate all economic activity, even including that of a farmer growing wheat for his own consumption!

With the precedent that SOPA will bring (if passed into law), it is certainly reasonable that established companies could use this legislation to crush emerging competitors who lack the deep pockets for a protracted court case.

If SOPA and PIPA aren’t the answer to online piracy, then do you believe what we currently have with the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) is sufficient to handle legal issues of today with its takedown notices and due process? Or do you think something more is needed, and what would that be?

While it's tempting to blame decreasing media margins on piracy, “Old Media” has dragged its feet in responding to the changing consumption habits of the public. To take an example from the music industry, pundit Bob Lefsetz had been advocating the Spotify style rental business model for year after year, while music profits plunged, CD sales dried up, and music industry leadership buried their heads in the sand.

Meanwhile, labels have stopped developing talent over the course of several albums, and instead now focus on hits, using teams of producers who tweak sounds for weeks and construct synthetically perfect tunes that are catchy and push product, but lack authenticity and will never be remembered in 20 years. Could this have anything to do with plunging profits, do you think, maybe?

So I believe what’s needed is not legal innovation, but business innovation. Old Media must accept the inevitable disruption, and find new business models that work for them in a high-bandwidth society.

What do you recommend for others in the online video space to get involved and participate in the political process?

We are hearing that the bill is dead, and that we can all go home now. This is not true. The House bill, SOPA, is simply on hold for a while. The Senate bill, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) , is very much still alive; and the White House has made clear their desire for new antipiracy legislation this year. You must contact your legislators – they really do pay attention. Washington must learn, unequivocally, that Internet users are more powerful than Old Media.

Go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)’s landing page, Stop The Internet Blacklist Legislation, or go to https://blacklist.eff.org/. (Screenshot provided below.) Enter your just your basic contact information and a petition to your elected representatives in Congress will be sent on your behalf.

Want more information on SOPA?

I recommend checking out the most recent Mashable article in their SOPA series, "Why SOPA is Dangerous." The article provides a good overview of the bill, and a slideshow timeline.

Photo provided by Wired.com

Charles Hope is the Founder of Blip.TV, the popular video platform and original web series site he joined in 2005, and served as its Director of Research and Development. You can follow Charles on his blog.

Photo provided courtesy of iStockphoto, ©Pashalgnatov #16559963

I interview entertainment and new media attorney Gordon Firemark for a guide on two controversial bills in Congress and the top online video crisis of 2012 – the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which are threating to censor our free expression and remove our ability to do business with online video.

You can just watch my video interview with attorney Gordon Firemark below, or go right to the article and accompanying videos further below.

Click here to watch the video.

Update: Since I first recorded this interview with Gordon, SOPA’s sponsors in Congress have removed the DNS-blocking feature for now. 

Click here to watch the video.

SOPA and PIPA are both bills pushed in the separate bodies of United States Congress as an attempt to combat online piracy and theft of intellectual property.

• SOPA, is the acronym for the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” and is also referred to as House Bill 3261, or H.R.3261. It is planned to resume discussion in the House in February.
• PIPA is the abbreviation for the “Protect IP Act,” and is the twin bill introduced in the U.S. Senate also referred to as Senate Bill 968, or S. 968. It is planned for discussion in the Senate later this same month.

Colbert-style humor aside, both of these are extremely controversial online piracy bills. Their sponsors and supporters say are meant to provide stricter means of prosecution of online piracy overseas and at home, including “online threats to economic creativity and theft of intellectual property…” Their detractors consider them both to be essentially censorship bills that would cripple our web ecosystem – including the freedom most people currently have to create and share content online, and especially with online video.

Click here to watch the video.

SOPA and PIPA were lobbied by Hollywood movie producers and major content companies. There are a long list of business interests who are SOPA supporters. According to CNet News, “Both bills are heavily supported by a wide group of copyright owners, including the big record companies and Hollywood film studios.”

Click here to watch the video.

AFP News reported last month that the founders of Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo! and other Internet giants expressed concern over the two drafts, saying in a open letter that they would "give the US government the power to censor the Web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran." On January 18, over 7,000 websites -- including Wikipedia and Google -- will protest anti-piracy legislation currently making its way through Congress. Sites in opposition to the measures will either "go dark" (like Wikipedia and Reddit), or post information to educate visitors about bills.

Click here to watch the video.

While not as strong a protest move as Wikipedia or Reddit, a Google spokesperson told Mashable that its homepage will include a link where users can learn more about SOPA, confirming a Bloomberg report. "You won’t see a blank page at Google.com on Wednesday, but the company will use its homepage to register its opposition to SOPA.

Imagine our existing DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) turning into a virtual Frankenstein. They would give the government and even individual copyright owners the opportunity to cut off content that they don’t like, presumably it’s because they’re infringing on someone else’s intellectual property (IP)

SOPA or PIPA would give the Attorney General and others the power get a court order which could cut off the flow of traffic and money to the alleged pirate; and essentially, cripple their online operation. It would require payment processors, like PayPal or any of the credit card processing companies – the banks themselves – to cut off services to these alleged infringers simply from the filing of a complaint (before any proof is made).

Again according to CNet News, “The tech sector has claimed that if the bills became law, they would rob the Web of free speech and damage the health of the Internet. Copyright owners charge that online piracy has damaged their businesses and costs workers their jobs.”

For more on this, I recommend checking out the following links:

• Electronic Frontier Foundation: “How PIPA and SOPA Violate White House Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation.”
• ComputerWorld – “SOPA/PIPA: Down but not out (yet)”
• San Diego City Beat – “PIPA is the New SOPA”
• Hillicon Valley – “Controversial online piracy bill shelved until ‘consensus’ is found.”
• StopAmericanCensorship.org

One word: Crippling.

You could end up having your site shut off and access to your payments cut off, merely because somebody alleges that you link to videos that may or may not be infringing. “If you so much as link to a single video that has any IP challenges, or even link to just the site that has any IP challenges, you could have your entire website shut down,” says Gordon. “So we can argue around and around about whether or not just linking to a particular video or website say on YouTube engages in facilitates or enables that infringement? And that’s really one of the big problems."

“Let’s say you are a video blogger, and you review videos and films and things like that. You could end up having your site shut off and access to your payments cut off merely because somebody alleges that you link to videos that might or not be infringing.”

As Gordon explained to me, say there’s just one video on YouTube, on just a single account by someone that allegedly infringes somebody’s movie or other recording, or even just any copyright or other intellectual property. The gigantic problem here is, you don’t get your own domain name for a YouTube video, of course; you have to go to YouTube to see your channel.

Take this for example: if you go to the ReelSEO YouTube Channel, you’ll see it’s YouTube.com/ReelSEO. Now if someone doesn’t like what ReelSEO is doing and files a single claim, suddenly not only everybody’s access to the ReelSEO channel is gone, but every YouTube channel as well.

No site will be spared. It doesn’t matter what kind of video site it is – whether it’s for personal or professional use, entertainment or business, or anything else that you’re looking to make public. The same thing will happen to Vimeo and Blip, and all these other video hosting and sharing sites. That also includes all professional video platforms, like Brightcove, Ooyala, and Kaltura, just to name a few. They can all be shut down with a single complaint on a single video, and without any due process coming first.

That’s the real danger with this law.

Gordon says that is a possibility. “YouTube has the where-with-all to defend and file the counter notices and get put back up the next day and those kinds of things, although even one day without YouTube is a big deal.” Also, lots of the major commercial backers of SOPA and PIPA, especially the big content providers, have their own professional partnerships and advertising programs with YouTube.  However….

…It will be a gigantic problem for smaller operations and startups to survive

“Earlier last year we saw a company called Veoh that was basically put out of business by litigation over whether or not some of the stuff they had was Fair Use.” Said Gordon. “Well again, that Fair Use analysis came late in the game. Now If SOPA goes into effect, the website gets taken down, the payment process gets stopped and then you get to argue about whether it’s really infringement. And then if it isn’t, okay, well we’ll put it back up. Well, that might take 6 months to a year and that’s really troubling. So small businesses who depend on video are really at great risk of essentially being shut down without any real proof that they’ve been doing anything wrong.”

For businesses that are looking to get into online video or expand their video activities, there would be such a chilling effect and such a risk that investors wouldn’t want to get involved. SOPA and PIPA, if either passed, would be likely to put a lot of companies out of business.

Can you say “overkill?”

• The language of the act is very, very broad. It addresses websites that engage, enable or facility infringement of copyright. “It’s like performing microsurgery with a butcher knife or a table saw,” says Gordon.
• Every video sharing site and social media platform will also be prime suspects for a site-wide shutdown – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Vimeo – You name it. One complaint can shut down an entire site with everyone’s account.
• Takes aways due process. Currently, we have the Digital Millenium Copyright Act in place, which provides us with due process, should someone ever make an IP claim against us. “With no due process it’s very prone to abuse by someone who just has a malicious motive to shut down a particular site. Theoretically, you could shut down all of YouTube because there’s a dancing baby video that you don’t like, even if it’s not your content.” Or for another example, I sing a copyrighted song in a YouTube video.
• It hurts the big content providers as well. “I think that Hollywood and the rest of the content industry is being a little short sighted here, because they themselves are also sometimes the distribution on the Internet,” says Gordon. “For example, if I don’t like something that, say NBC did (with NBC.com), I can actually file my grievance and say NBC is infringing my stuff and they need to be taken down. Now just to be clear, it’s not going to shut off their television or cable access; it’s going to shut off the option to go to NBC.com to find out more about the show or to see a clip or to see who is going to be a on Leno tonight. So now NBC has lost one of its ways of connecting with it’s customer base, and so on.”

“It should be also pointed out that NBC is actually owned by one of these big ISPs, the technology company Comcast. So the interests even within the companies are really competing; and it’s really the argument is these companies need to be working together to find practical solutions that don’t destroy a whole infrastructure, just to trim ‘one dead leaf’.” Says Gordon.

“The technology industry isn’t entirely without fault for allowing this problem to become as big as it has and generate this kind of draconian legislation as a proposed solution.” says Gordon. I have to agree and add that most of us who are professionals in the online video space have to also share responsibility for not paying attention to IP laws, and having better standards on what we use online and get permissions for. There are a lot of businesses who have been hurt, and a lot of professionals and artists who have suffered because of online piracy. Keep in mind that these bills in Congress didn’t just pop up from onl special interests. According to a post on the Facebook site, Illinois Coalition for Internet Freedom (which opposes both bills), There are anywhere from 1 million – 3.5 million petition signatures supporting SOPA and PIPA.

“What we’re really dealing with is an overseas issue,” says Gordon. “I represent film makers, independent film companies that spend millions of dollars to make a movie. Say they then get a distribution deal where let’s say it’s goes on to DVD in Thailand; and the day after it’s on the shelves in distribution in Thailand, it’s on the Internet! This actually happened to a client of mine. They released the film in a foreign country, it was online the next day, a week or so later you could order a DVD copy of that bootlegged online video that would be manufactured and drops shipped overseas for about $12.50 and the issue was that none of that $12.50 made it to my client because it was a bootleg. It wasn’t going through the normal chain and it was cheaper than it could be sold by a legitimate distributor in the States, so guess what? Their online distribution deal evaporated.”

As you can see, piracy is definitely a huge problem with online video; and both SOPA and PIPA at their core, are dealing with an important legal matter that needs to be addressed better than simply our status quo. But SOPA and PIPA simply go way, way too far; and won’t be at all effective with dealing with the problem.

“We’ve gone well past the days of Napster,” says Gordon. The vast majority of people and businesses in America aren’t online pirates, and they know things like downloading normally-paid content off 3^rd party sites is stealing. But what they generally don’t know are things such as getting permissions from other IP owners, How do you relate this to people who are doing those kind of things here, who most likely may not be familiar with these things, or like you said, throw out the baby with the bathwater?

“You’ve got to build in a due process mechanism with this; so that when the allegation of piracy is made, then the pirate has an opportunity to come – not just the pirate, but the company that’s hosting that stuff.” Says Gordon. They both have the opportunity to come in and say, well wait a minute, shutting us down isn’t the answer.” Otherwise if they don’t appear or can’t make their case, then “yes we’ll shut them off, but we’re not going to shut down the whole domain name.”

That perhaps is a way better solution that what SOPA could offer for taking out online pirates and protecting IP. “But What SOPA will do is essentially cripple the Internet, or it has the potential to cripple the Internet,” says Gordon.

“Now the Internet will survive, it always does; it was designed to handle these types of attacks. It would just these censorships as damage to the network, and it just routes around them. But I think the answer is more due process and more custom craft solutions to the particular acts of infringement, rather than this mentality of, “well the leaf out on the end of the branch is turning brown, so let’s cut off the whole branch,” you know? It’s sort of what they’re doing here (with SOPA and PIPA). So I think online piracy and IP infringement needs a solution, but it needs to be much more narrowly tailored and customized and crafted.”

Congress and the rest of our federal government aren’t the only ones who need to be handling this better, and it’s not just the big content companies and technology companies who need to as well. So do we, the regular joe who’s invovled with online video. Part of that comes from a lack of education about the law, and part of that comes from not treating in important enough as we should. SOPA and PIPA are the result of that.

Until our level of education about the law improves, which needs to be more accessible and in a language people can understand, and with better technology resources and communities that encourage us to be more responsible, these problems will only get worse for all of us.

#1 PSAs. Put out a public service announcement educating people on overseas piracy and how it hurts businesses, and what people can do. If there’s a way to say how this hurts business and how this hurts people, that’s a very good argument instead of not taking the time to educate people, instead of passing what would be called a draconian law. My recommendation is to feature real-life stories of people who pay the price for breaking the law as a reminder to all of us. (Evan Emory, are you listening?)

#2 – Get a legal video education. Video sharing sites, especially YouTube, can create and promote a special channel specifically for using YouTube responsibility – both with the law and ethics – for both professional and general creative use. They could regularly feature news updates with the law and legal issues, and bring in attorneys and other legal professionals with a background in online video and new media – along with important issues around online video including copyright infringement and fair use, trademark infringement, defamation, right of publicity, right of privacy, fraud, and harassment. The technology companies should help us with being responsible – such as, learning how to obtain proper permissions. In return, the content companies should readily make available an easy means for regular content users to find out and request permissions, and something that can be more affordable and reasonable based on the level of use.

#3 Share your technology. YouTube has it’s own Content ID program, but it’s only for protecting the IP of their content partners, not businesses or the public at large. YouTube should look at some way to share this technology with all account holders who want to be responsible, versus just being available for only some content owners and not others.

#4 – Technology and Content companies need to work together. “I think that what really ought to be happening is the big technology companies and the big content companies ought to all come together and work out some kind of practical mechanical solutions that resolve, this without the need for this kind of very broad brush sweeping legislation.” Says Gordon. “There is a problem, but as you said, we may be throwing out the baby with the bathwater; and I don’t think that making a new law (especially from SOPA or PIPA) is really going to solve the problem… Really all this does is hurt the average consumer (and content creator) of the Internet.

#5 – Provide better access to legal resources – technology companies can work with attorneys and legal services who can provide their expertise and resources free of charge. One such group is New Media Rights, who offers legal consulting on a pro-bono basis.

#6 Commit to sponsorships – Technology providers should be willing to donate their own funds and other resources – preferably to an independent group in their own organization, to keep an informational and educational resource around online video afloat. That would be a good demonstration of their commitment to civic responsibility (both law and ethics) with online video.

#7 Get permissions – Gordon offers this simple a simple rule of thumb whether you’re creating video for sharing or any kind of media style content, or even just writing a blog post." If you didn’t create it, you don’t own it, so you’ve gotta get permission for it before you share it. You need to first get permission from the people who did create it or who do own it. So say if there’s a piece of music you’re using in a video – whether it’s a tiny little clip or a the whole song – you need to at least make the inquiry about whether you need to clear the rights; and don’t just assume that Fair Use is an acceptable defense." That's the bottom line – don’t steal other people’s stuff.

#8 Learn the guidelines – Gordon has written a book that provides a lot of these kind of guidelines for media producers, including both online video creators and marketers. It’s called the Podcast Blog and New Media Producers Survival Guide and it can be found at PodcastLawbook.com and Amazon.com You can also attend a conference or webcast covering the latest issues with online video and new media. One I recommend and have personally covered is the Practicing Law Institute (PLI). Of course, you can always consult with an attorney who specializes with new media and IP law, or whatever the special legal issues there are related to your business.

#9 Watch helpful videos – I encourage everyone to check out my own YouTube channel, “LegalVideoGuys,” which includes a number of videos covering copyright and other intellectual property issues and tips with online video for everyone – professional or just the enthusiast.

#10 Pledge to “Tube Responsibly.” As corny as it sounds, I think it has to start a sense of personal responsibility. That’s why I did this draft piece for ReelSEO, “A Pledge for Online Video Responsibility – A Video Code of Ethics.” (I’m working on a short-format version and a version specifically for respecting others’ intellectual property.)

(Also, stay tuned because I’ll be including a video of seminar of Gordon Firemark from Blogworld Los Angeles offering a great basic education on IP laws.)

Did I say 10? Because these go to 11. ;-)

#11 Join a cause

Click here to watch the video.

Either against or for SOPA, or PIPA, just get involved!

• http://sopastrike.com/
• http://sopablackout.org/
• http://americancensorship.org/
• http://stopcensorship.org/

Greater online video freedom and power needs to include a heightened sense of online video responsibility. If we don’t start taking more personal responsibility, as well as more responsibility as an entire industry and community, don’t be surprise if the next bills in Congress go further than what we have with SOPA and PIPA, and with more of a chance of being passed, simply because we weren’t willing to do what we should already be demanding of ourselves.

If you've benefitted in anyway from online video, there's really no excuse not to.

Gordon Firemark is an Entertainment and New Media Law Attorney practicing out of Los Angeles, and can best be reached at his primary business domain, Firemark.com, TheaterLawyer.com is another one of Gordon’s key sites (with educational legal issues on Theater and Entertainment law), and on most of the social media platforms he can be found under “GFiremark.” He also has a podcast on these very kinds of issues called Entertainment Law Update, which you can listen and subscribe to at EntertainmentLawUpdate.com, and also on iTunes.

In Part 2 of my interview (PART 1 HERE) with Jason Falls  co-author of “No BullShit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing, we passionately discuss what’s good about social media today, what’s BS, and what needs to change for doing truly “social” business.

The following is an excerpt from my 27-minute video interview with Jason Falls. I also encourage you to check out Part 1 of my interview with Jason Falls on "No Bullshit Social Video."

So Jason, how did you wind up in this crazy business of social media?

I am a PR guy by trade, I spent about twelve years in College Athletics Public Relations, apart of that I was a Sports Journalist and I – but I’ve always had a personal affinity toward Social networking, blogging, online communications.  I started my first blog in sort of an online version in a newspaper column in the late 1990s, around ’97-’98. I would ask people to send me questions and comments, and then I would respond to them in the online version. It was a blog before they where really called blog. I wrote that for quite some time as more of a personal and humor blog than anything else.

Then in 2005, my son was born. A year later I decided to get out of college athletics, because I was travelling too much and not spending enough time home. I started working for an advertising agency, and I kind of looked around and said to my CEO, “hey why aren’t we talking to our clients, using blogging and social media and what not?” My CEO said to me, “hey man if you can sell it, you can do it – go for it.” The snowballs started rolling from there and it just kind of evolved. I’ve been out on my own doing business analysis, and became a consultant and as a CEO with a company who does Education Information products for a couple of years now. Life is good.

So what inspired you to write your book titled, “No Bullshit Social Media?”

My co-author, Erik Deckers – we were talking about working on a book project and giving it a special angle. I do a lot of professional speaking events every year; and typically when I come off the stage, people would say to me, “hey I like your style, you’ve got that sort of no nonsense, no BS-kind of style, you tell it like it is and I really appreciate that.” So that was sort of the nugget of – the book needed to be sort of no-BS, no nonsense kind of message.

And as we were talking about the title, “No Bullshit Social Media” just came out. We proposed it to the publisher and they thought it was fine; and they checked with some of their retail partners, and they say it was fine. Surprisingly enough, it’s been generally accepted by most people and we haven’t got too much flack or push-back since.

What do you say is "bullshit" about social media?

It’s the promise that comes from it. For the last ten years or so – social media practitioners, social media evangelist, so on and so forth – have sort of left it at social media marketing being about joining the conversation and listening to your customers and engaging in providing value – and so on and so forth.

Now, my co-author Erik and I don’t disagree with those philosophical tenants. The bullshit that we call is when they stop there. They never take it to the next part of the equation, which is how you measure it? How does it drive business? How can you present calls to action? And actually, you know, provide that engagement and that value and also get something in return for what you’re doing.

So we wanted to call bullshit on the people responsible for this, who we refer to as, in a playful way, obviously, the “social media tree huggers and hippies.” You know, the ones who are out there saying social media is all about joining the conversation. But then when you ask them how it was measured and where’s the demonstrated financial benefit – you know, in terms of getting it back from doing this – they really don’t know what to say. Or they might fall back on saying something like, “oh, social media is not about sales, it’s about relationships.” Well, it’s irresponsible not to think about sales. Anyone who says you shouldn’t needs to have “bullshit” called on them, simply because you absolutely can use these social channels to drive revenue, to facilitate customer service, and many other things.

Can brands be successful today with social media if they’re using it more for traditional, broadcast-style activity? For example, content and advertising, non-engagement stuff?

I should mention that now we’re starting to look at social media from very, very “television” point of view. The social media purist would say you should never broadcast, and you should just do communications using social channels. But we do show in our book that there are many, many examples out there of companies that are doing just that – broadcasting with social media – and are being successful. One common example, they can ‘broadcast’ on their Twitter account and say, “hey you’ve engaged with us on these other channels but if you want gadgets and good deals on gadgets, follow this Twitter account and we’re going to tell you we’ve got discounts.

So that’s really more of a traditional, broadcast-style mechanism being applied to social media: Here’s the component, here’s the deal, here’s the discount; and it works because there’s an audience for it. If you have a brand, if you have company that has an audience that is thirsty for a discount, or what’s the latest opportunity to buy from you, then you can broadcast; you can do the traditional non-engagement stuff and be successful with it.

You can actually be successful using social media channels like Facebook and LinkedIn exclusively as advertising channels. Social ads allow you to deliver more relevant messages to a more relevant audience because they let me let me filter that relevancy a little bit. We have a case study in the book that is just for those brands and people who are saying: you know what, I don’t have time to join the conversation, buy I do have the time however to take out Facebook ad, and I can totally target it to the right audience and absolutely deliver, and get it on a conversion to link it back.

I agree with you that advertising isn’t the same as true engagement (with your audience). But if a brand is choosing to use any one social media channels specifically for that reason  and they’ve got an audience that will respond to it – then I think it’s totally acceptable.

If brands don’t have the resources to participate in the conversation via social media (including their own social media channels), should they at least promote a forum where stakeholders can communicate with each other?

I think it’s really good to have a channel for buyers only if you have that type of business , but also have that channel for the engagement, you know, for the questions, for the customers. As long as you have some mechanism to serve your audience in the social channel, I think you’re going to be in pretty good shape.

There’s this guy, Gary Vaynerchuk, who I hear likes to drink a lot of wine and rant about social media. Well, he recently did a YouTube video, “There’s No Such Thing As Social Media.” Thoughts?

Gary is very, very good at choosing a statement that’s going to get people fired up, and it’s a good talking point. I think he probably was he was just trying to say that we have communicated as human beings and as buoyant in businesses the same way for decades, for centuries even. It’s just that this new Internet technology provide us with new real-time channels to communicate in very different ways from the dynamic standpoint.

We have been communicating as people, as consumers, and as brands for decades or centuries, it’s just a different channel now. So I like to try to tell people that social media, especially social media marketing, has nothing to do with technology; it has everything to do with communications. It’s just a matter of understanding the environment in which you are communicating.

I would prospect on Gary to prolong the argument, but every medium of communications is “social” to a degree, even television. We watch a television program, and even the next day without any technology involved, we talk to other people about that program. It’s just that now we have a mechanism and a forum online, where we can watch and talk at the same time or in some sort of real time fashion, which a larger group of people if we wish. So it’s just that the channels have changed a little bit, every medium is social to a degree, it’s just that now that social nature is amplified because the technology overlaps whenever so much.

I think that social media will always sort of refer to online social platforms where consumers connect. I don’t really see that term going away anytime soon, simply because it’s just too ubiquitous throughout the conversations now. Everybody uses it. Even traditional media slaps social media link on their broadcast properties. So I don’t see that term really going away and not necessarily that it needs to; because if you look at it from its most broad perspective, we’re talking about medium of communication that allows you to be social, and to value and to communicate with more than one person at the time. It’s in our branding.

Does social media marketing always need to be about measuring Return on Investment, (ROI)?

Return on Investment will forever, be a mathematical equation: How much you make, minus how much you spend, and divide that by how much you spend, and that’s your percentage of ROI. That will never change. If you think about it in ROI in that context then the only goal you ever have is to make money. So I think asking, “what’s the ROI in social media,” is an incomplete question and will always get an incomplete answer because the better question is to pull back and say, what do I get in return? Because, you can get so much more than money in return from social media.

It might be a debate of semantics but at the same time, I can use social media to improve my customer service; and therefore my return is that I get higher customer satisfaction. I can use it to facilitate research and development, which means new product features. I can get intelligence about the audience that I’m serving. I can use social media to enhance my branding awareness just what it looks like a television or an outdoor board campaign in a traditional advertising. All of that is certainly not measured in dollars, yet all of that essential to doing business. You don’t measure how much money you get back from your billboard campaign; you use it to establish brand presence and build awareness about what you’re doing and who you are, and take every opportunity to measure sentiment from it.

So your return is exposure; and maybe messaging pick up and survey responses from people. In marketing for decades and even centuries, we have been measuring various things that we get return for our efforts that were not about receiving money. Social media is no different. If you want ROI on social media, then at least one of your goals needs to be driving leads, driving sales, or consumer research. You could combine them all, too. For example, I want to drive new product ideas; and therefore I can launch those products and measure how many of those new products are sold based on the feedback I’ve got from social media.

There’s so much more out there to measure and to be proud of getting back out of your social media efforts than just money. And so when it comes to setting those, we identified in our book the seven business drivers of social media marketing. We’ve talked about those in depth. Those seven business drivers are basically the big bucket goals. And those are

1. Enhancing or branding awareness
2. Protecting your reputation
3. Extending your public relations
4. Extending your customer service
5. Building community
6. Facilitating research and development, and;
7. Driving sales.

You can pick one, you can three, you can pick all seven; and then you can focus on what will be your strategy for driving more sales using social media.

Give us a couple scenarios of how social media can have measurable business objectives

Sure, let’s go down to some specific objectives:

• MONEY: Say for example, I want to draw out fifty thousand dollars in new revenue from Facebook by the end of the year. Now, you’ve got a really specific objective statement that you can start to build strategies around that will allow you to accomplish that in your certain strategic planning process.
• REPUTATION: If your goal is protecting your reputation, that has two sides to it. One, you want to find all the negative mentions about your brand online, and have a strategy for how to respond and mitigate as many of those as you can. Then, you’re also going to want to look at your search engine rankings and where you’ve ranked, and ask yourself, do you deserve to be rank number one (or more prominently than you are now) for certain terms? And if we do, let’s fight to accomplish that engine, both SEO and search, and social searches are becoming a big part of search engines’ results.

How about with technology? What do you use, or recommend others check out?

The enterprise software is starting to get there because they’re consolidating a lot of the needs into singular platforms around social media management systems, things like that. The problem though is that no one solution does everything and no one solution fits every need. So you really have to look at your business and what you’re trying to do, what your goals are and so forth before you can really figure out what’s the best fit.

If you’re looking for engagements, listening in a social media monitoring, workflow managements and sort of that real time, read and react, respond type of software. You’re going to look at the software and programs like Radian6.

If you broaden that scope out there and say, okay we also want to have a publishing and a management system that allows us to publish some multiple accounts over several different networks? Maybe you want to start looking at the social media management space – publishing and distributing it fast and maybe even Internet marketing tools – which started out as an SEO tools and has now expanded out into the social media management space. HubSpot has a large suite of software that is good for medium and small business as well as large companies.

If you’re really focused on lead generation and goal convergent tracking on your website and through your social channels, then you’re going to want to look at a HubSpot or an Argyle Social.

But my point is that there’s lots of software out there that does lots of different things. It’s really about identifying what your goals are and what your needs are in finding the software that fits. Unfortunately, the landscape that we’re in right now in the social technologies landscape is that there really is no one software platform or set of software platforms that’s going to be good for everybody, it’s based on budget, it’s based on what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s based on your technology, your integration needs, so on and so forth.

Transcription services for this article provided by Transcribe and More.

Are you at all confused by the term "Social Video?"  It's become a bit of a buzz word recently and I thought it would be worthwhile to ask the question, "is "social video" just another internet marketing buzz term or does it represent a Reel trend? For some debate on that, I interviewed social media expert Jason Falls, and co-author of the book, “No BullShit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing".  Suffice to say, he has strong opinions about video and social.

My No-Bullshit Social Video Interview with Jason Falls

Click here to watch the video.

You can also watch the full 27-minute interview, and check out the excerpt below of us discussing online video marketing and social video in business.

Is “social video” a bullshit term?

"I think that social video is a little bit of a bullshit term, and here’s why: Video is something you can put it on social media channels like Facebook, you can use it for conversation’s sake as oppose to one way broadcast sake, but it’s still video. It only becomes social if it causes any action from people, and that’s the only label or the only requirement for it to be social.

If people will share it, it’s social. If people will comment on it, it’s social. If they will respond to it with other videos, then it becomes social. So to me, social video is anything that illicit a response. Quite frankly if you’re doing any type of video that doesn’t illicit a response, stop because you’re wasting your time. Every video to me needs to be some sort of social video.

Now in a more specific description, how do we use video within social channels – whether it be on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, links and so forth? I think video has to be done at a tactical level at that point. It is an execution strategy that’s helping you accomplish something greater – whether it be to enhance brand awareness and positive sentiment, to drive on sales, to build community, and so on and so forth. You’re using videos to supplement, or to activate around, your strategy; and to both approach and appeal to an audience. That’s simply because there are going to be people out there that will respond to, and will be more responsive to, video – than they would to written copy or other kinds of media.

So to me the term “social video” is kind of almost assumed and implied; because if the content is good enough in video, it’s going to “go social” to a degree. It’s just a matter of what type of social you’re trying to produce? Do you want people to share it? Do you want them to comment on it? Do you want them to create their own content around it? Then it becomes business-driven, which can be a little more harder to figure; but it’s really only harder to figure if you don’t really have that goal in mind of what you want to use it for.

That begs the question: what types of responses should we really care about? It seems too easy for people involved with social media campaigns to get fixated on the low-hanging metrics that don’t necessarily have implicit value to their business.

Well, that’s true. I would only add that if your goal is branding awareness and reach, then getting more eyeballs is going to be one of your metrics; and so the number of shares, the number of views, etc. matters in that sort of equation.

But in the same time, if you’re trying to draw out the bottom line – a straight solid line from what you’re doing in social, especially in video, to how much money you’re making – then you have got to have clear engagement opportunities beyond that. You’ve got to have a cause-to-action with the video, you’ve got to have links around it to drive people to purchase or to provide you with contact information so that they become a lead, a new track that lead to your system, so on and so forth. You’ve got to have measurement techniques in place if you are trying to literally measuring return of investment of that video project through that video effort.

While views and shares and “likes” may demonstrate some kind of audience interest, that alone isn’t enough to demonstrate tangible value for most business goals; or at least, not without a clear call-to-action to take advantage of that sentiment or buzz (and be able to measure the results).

Yes, and here’s my own example which directly relates to that: I’m doing an event in Dallas this February called, “Explore Dallas Fort Worth” and I’m using video marketing, or social video. Partially that’s done to drive awareness of the event, but I’m also measuring performance from these videos, which are split-screen recordings on Skype (just like we’re doing here), of me talking to my fellow speakers; sort of not talking about the event really, but picking their brain and getting some expertise from each of them as a little preview of what attendees can learn from at Explore Dallas Fort Worth.

I’ll post these videos on my blog, and then in the video I’ll say something like, “by the way these questions going to be at the Explore Dallas Fort Worth conference, where we’re both speaking at;" and viewers can click on a link on the video or below the video on the landing page on my own site, socialmediaexplorer.com/exploredallas, where they can register for the event, or watch my other videos. That way, I’m tracking how many people register from those video pages versus other mechanisms of where we’re advertising that particular event. So that at the end of the event I can say something like, "I drove hundred and fifty tickets sales from those video blog posts." Now that’s how I can do a social video campaign to setup measurable sales goals, and adjust it based on how people respond.

About Jason Falls, Social Media Author and No-Bullshitter

Jason Falls is the co-author of “No BullShit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing. He is also of the most in-demand speakers in the social media, public relations and marketing fields today. Perhaps at best in the role of social media educator and presenter. Jason coordinates workshops on social media marketing for groups like American Marketing Association, Public Relations Society of America and International Association of Business Communicators chapters. You can purchase a copy of his book at nobullshitsocialmedia.com, and on Amazon and other major retailer sites; and his company and blog website is socialmediaexplorer.com.

 "You have to be consumer-centric, not product centric. You have to have a genuine interest in the people who are consuming your product or service.” – Jason Falls

Transcription services for this article provided by Transcribe and More. 

I video-interviewed Erik Qualman at the Chicago House of Blues for the launch of his new book, "Digital Leader: 5 Simple Steps to Success and Influence".  I asked him about his take on "social" and "viral" video and asked him to give us some tips for how businesses should think about and do--better social video marketing.

Below is my video interview with Erik before he was about to give his speech to the crowd. (I hope you will pardon the shaky camera footage and poor audio, as it was all spur of the moment and we didn’t have a tripod. I also hope you won’t mind my zombie-like eyeballs. ;-)

Click here to watch the video.

You can watch the entire 15min video here.

Erik Qualman’s 5 “Musts” for Social Video Marketing Success

The following is an excerpt taken from Erik’s Digital Leader book, which I wholeheartedly encourage other online video marketers and professionals to purchase their own copy of. (Kindle versions are available as well as hardcover.) I’ve combinded Erik’s own quotes from one section titled, “DIGITAL DEEDS Viral Videos: 5 Musts,” with my own comments on each of his tips.

Why digital leaders should do video (+understanding what “viral” means)

“Video footage is a main component of your digital footprint, so use it to your personal or professional advantage in creating change. Keep in mind that any video can potentially go viral, so you always want to act in a way that you can be proud of—once a video is online, it has a life of its own. If a video of yours goes viral, the size of your digital footprint is exponentially enlarged and, if it portrays you or your company in a positive light, you are fortunate to have achieved this notoriety. But “viral” isn’t a video strategy: we cannot control what goes viral, the viewer does. We can, however, take five steps to give our video greater viral potential.

Guided by these five maxims I produced several videos the power of social media. Viewers pushed these viral, and they became the world’s most viewed social media videos.”

1. Good Music
2. Short and sweet
3. Viewer is king
4. Other purpose
5. Share

#1 Social Video Tip: Good music

“Find successful viral videos that are similar to the one you want to produce, and determine what music they are using. You may seriously consider using the same music as it has proven to be successful, and the music owner isn’t blocking it.”

My response: This is a good reason to check first for instances of that song being used on YouTube with other videos, and see if the YouTube Content ID is already allowing for it to be featured. (This way you can avoid an unfortunate takedown of your video for copyright infringement.) However, realize that just because it’s being allowed on YouTube, that doesn’t give you the right to feature your video with that audio track outside of YouTube. For that reason alone, you should always try to first find out who is handling the copyrights for both the music and the artist, and see whatever permissions or licensing they require.

#2 Social Video Tip: Short and Sweet

“Keep your video under five minutes; preferably to a minute or less. In Enchantment, author Guy Kawasaki displayed data from research firm Visible Measures that showed 19.4 percent of viewers abandoned a video within the first 10 seconds, and by 60 seconds 44 percent had stopped watching. Lead with your most eye-popping content to gain and hold viewer attention. Don’t build to a crescendo that may never be viewed.”

My response: Now while there’s a lot debate with online video marketers over just how long you should keep your video piece (since it can depend on the audience, your industry, and the type of video piece itself), keep in mind that what Erik is saying here speaks more to what you first need to accomplish with just getting your viewer’s attention. I agree that for attention getting pieces for bringing in new audiences, focus on doing shorter pieces, and really try for getting one within 60 seconds.

Erik himself does both a short version and an extended version of some of his “Socialnomics” videos. The shorter one typically get a larger audience (including more newbies), but the longer one typically will get a more engaged audience. (However, interestingly enough, Erik's latest video Socialnomics 3, actually has 3x the audience on the longer version than the shorter one.)

#3 Social Video Tip: Viewer is king

“Only viewers make videos go viral. Yet, often we produce videos from the vantage point of what we want to get out of them. This approach is wrong. We need to constantly ask, am I providing something of value for the viewers? What do they want to get out of it?”

My response: It is essential to always be thinking of providing value to your audience, each second of your video. However as my earlier interview with the folks from Orabrush showed, companies are especially successful with social video when they can find the marriage of what they themselves what to see, along with what their audiences want to see (and what they want to engage with further). This ideally works when you are actually like your audience, with similar video tastes. (If you aren’t like your audience, find someone in your office or social circles who is, and as them what they would like to see.)

#4 Social Video Tip: Other purpose

“Don’t produce a video simply hoping that it goes viral. Produce a video with a clear purpose in mind. If it goes viral because you adhered to the three suggestions above, it’s a bonus!”

My response: This is a common fault of people who treat “going viral” as the main goal and the end goal. What they often forget is establishing measurable goals beyond just brand awareness from the beginning. Even if you are in the brand awareness business, you also need to think of how you’re going to keep your audience’s attention beyond that initial video. My argument is a lot of this can be achieved with blending customer service values (such as a forum for multi-way engagement, real access to people responsible for the video and the brand’s customer service staff or “chief listeners”) and viewer incentives  with the interesting content people want to share and talk about.

#5 Social Video tip: Share

“People ask for your original file so they can use it in their presentations or for other purposes—share it. Sure, there will be a few that do so with malicious intent, but they will be in the minority. The majority will be adding distribution points and beacons for your great work. They may make the video into something cooler that you never dreamed of as well.”

My response: This is a nice concept I agree with. To help make things easier for yourself, look into adding a Creative Commons license – perhaps right at the end of your video playback, and on the same landing page where your video is featured. This way people who are sharing the video with others and having it embedded will understand where it came from, and have the opportunity to acknowledge it. (If you want the extra insurance, you can always include your brand name as a watermark inside the video for the complete playback, such as on the lower right of the video.)

Why Online Video Pros Should Get Erik Qualman’s Latest Book

Click here to watch the video.

Like I said before, there are a many other video-related tips in the book – for business, professional, and even personal fulfillment and growth. I encourage all online video marketers and video enthusiasts to pick up a copy of Erik’s book (I myself have both the Kindle edition and the hardcover), and to share a customer review on Amazon.com.

The Story Behind “Socialnomics” Book Success – Online Video

If you’re an online video marketer, chances are you’ve already watched and shared several of Erik’s videos. His Socialnomics YouTube channel (the same title as his international best selling marketing book, Socialnomics), features some of the most popular videos about social media on YouTube.

Erik “gets” social video, but not just because his videos go viral. Just do a search on Erik’s name along on YouTube or Google Video Search, and you’ll see how active he is with personally engaging with his audience and genuinely helping people out. In fact, Erik also has an entire section on his Socialnomics blogsite dedicated to video, and is surprisingly accessible to do video interviews for such a busy guy.

I found this particular passage in Erik’s latest book particularly revealing about how he achieved huge marketing success with doing online video for his previous book:

“While I performed multiple efforts to help promote my last book Socialnomics, by far the biggest contributor to awareness around this new word were a few videos that I produced on YouTube. In one year’s time search results on Google for the term “Socialnomics” went from zero to over 1 million and this was primarily driven by people looking for and reposting these videos. I then made certain to focus on doing several revisions to these videos. In developing this specific concept and utilizing social media tools, I was able to create a great deal of attention for the book in a shorter time than may have been possible in the pre-digital world.”

Thanks To All These People:

• First I have to thank to sponsor Brickfish for making this event possible, and providing a fun setting (with appetizers and drink tickets. ;)
• Thanks also with Social Media Club Chicago for handling the ticket arrangements, and bring in my fellow social media colleagues.
• And finally, a special thanks my colleague and friend Margaret Hicks  for holding the iPhone camera for me on a moment’s notice, all without a tripod. Margaret is also known in Chicago as “The Pedway Gal” with ChicagoElevated.com (meaning, she gives tours of the Chicago underground pedestrian walkway, which is huge and surprisingly entertaining), and author of “Chicago Comedy: A Fairly Serious History.”) I met Margaret while my spouse and I were doing the Pedway tour she hosted, and kept us all in good spirits throughout.

Erik Qualman is the author of Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. Socialnomics made Amazon's #1 Best Selling List for the US, Japan, UK, Canada, Portugal, Italy, China, Korea and Germany. Socialnomics was a finalist for the "2010 Book of the Year" awarded by the American Marketing Association. Fast Company Magazine listed him as a Top 100 Digital Influencer. He also has a viral video on YouTube that you may have seen - "Social Media Revolution."

I interviewed usability and user experience veteran Susan Weinshenk, on the psychological proof behind why online video is so persuasive to human beings, and some marketing tips and special technology platforms for taking better advantage of the persuasive powers of online video for your own business.

Video is arguably the most powerful of all online media choices we have today for persuasion. Last year I had the opportunity to cover the affect of persuasion in online video with Dr. BJ Fogg, experimental psychologist and Director of Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab. That’s why I was especially glad to find a fellow user experience colleague of mine and long-time leader in the professional user experience (UX community) Susan Weinshenk, cover this issue in her recent column on theBrainLady blog titled, “5 Reasons Why Online Video is So Persuasive, which all video marketers should read and learn from.

#1 — Movement in peripheral vision grabs attention – video online is movement, and so will automatically grab attention more than anything else on the screen. (More on this in Susan’s blog article, “…Peripheral Vision – Keeping You Alive or Channel Surfing?”)

#2 — Speakers and listener’s brains sync up – published research shows that the brain patterns of listeners synch up with the brain patterns of the speaker they are listening to. This means that a video of someone talking is going to be more powerful than just reading words on a page. (More on this in Susan’s blog article, “…Speaker and Listener Brains Sync.”)

#3 — Video compensates (somewhat) for the asynchronous problem – other published research explains how synchronous behavior bonds people together. “A lot of online communication is asynchronous — the communication is not occurring simultaneously in real time,” said Susan. “Emails, Facebook posts, twitter posts, are asynchronous. Chat is synchronous. Synchronous communication is, in general, more persuasive. Video can be synchronous (think Skype) or asynchronous (think TED talk or YouTube). But video does have the advantage of allowing you to hear and see an actual person, rather than the more removed reading of text. In this regard it is the most powerful of the asynchronous media. (More on this in her blog article, “Synchronous activity bonds the group.”)

#4 — Video can convey emotional information, not just factual – In Susan’s book, Neuro Web Design: What makes them click?, she talks about how important it is to speak to the emotional “mid-brain” if you want to get your message across and have your message be remembered. Video has the advantage (over just reading text) of communicating social and emotional information, not just facts.

#5 — Video combine all the powerful elements together – “The technology for video is finally getting easier and easier to create and integrate online,” says Susan. She mentioned that she’s a big fan of Video Genie , who’s new technology platform allows customers to easily make a video testimonial and post it to your site (you get to moderate it, i.e. watch it before it gets posted). “I’ve talked a lot (in books and other posts) about why testimonials and reviews are so powerful (it’s the principle of social validation),” she says. “Video testimonials are social validation on steroids. Social validation, brain syncing, emotional content… you just can’t beat this for persuasion.” Another interesting example to Susan is Vokle.com: “It allows anyone to host their own video talk show, live, with people calling in.”

I also recommend checking out my companion article over at the Video Commerce Consortium blog, “How to Improve User Experience with Web Video In E-Commerce.” I interview Susan about the need for better understanding and application of online video by the professional UX community, and some valuable tips for improving customer and target audience experience with web video for your own business.

Susan Weinshenk is the Founder and President of the User Experience Institute. (Previously she was the Chief of User Experience Strategy, Americas at Human Factors International.) She has over 30 years experience in the field of human factors/usability/user experience (UX) – including as author, trainer, researcher, consultant, presenter, and developing user-centered methodologies around web design and e-commerce Her most recent authored books are 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People and Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? . (She also has a companion blog at whatmakesthemclick.net and a podcast series on user experience.)

You can also follow Susan on her Twitter handle: @thebrainlady.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto®, ©frentusha, #9749089

I interviewed social media expert Brian Solis, the author of Engage and the End of Business as Usual: Rewire The Way You Work To Succeed In The Customer Revolution. We talk about the crucial role online video must play in the transformation of businesses into genuine social enterprises, what’s holding them back, and what it will take for them to overcome.

Click here to watch the video.

Because this is such an information-rich interview, I’ve broken it up in two parts. The first part goes into Brian’s recent book’s theme around how businesses need to transform themselves into social enterprises to accommodate a “consumer revolution.” The second part goes into the important role of online video in this transformation. I highly recommend checking out the Brian Solis TV YouTube channel, and I’ve included a video interview with Brian on his book, below. (It’s lengthy, and it’s very good.)

Click here to watch the video.

Brian, how do you define this existing “customer revolution?”

I should probably start with explaining the most basic part. We understand that revolutions  “out with the old and in with the new.” They’re a part of life. There have always been consumer, customer evolutions. But we’re finding ourselves in a very special time. (And I’m talking about even before all the “occupy” movements.)

What “consumer revolution” means to me is that it’s not about Facebook or Twitter; nor is it about these social networks giving rise to revolutions, like we saw with Egypt, for example. What it is, is sentiment, pent up sentiment; and experiences of consumers who are just tired of not being recognized or having a voice within the financial ecosystem or the business ecosystem; and who are rising up to be heard; and who are rising up to say that they have a choice and they can exercise this choice.

But you do acknowledge the role that social technologies have played at least the role of a catalyst for this consumer/customer revolution?

Now social networks just happened to come along and become sort of this ability to bring people together around common interest – around common movements that create change, that create visibility. But it’s not because of social networks that this change is now here. Those are just the tools and the channels for consumers to sort of exercise their point of view.

So when I said it was a consumer revolution, I was being quite literal. And then the “occupy” movements come up; and it was like, well, there you go. This is exactly what I’m talking about. The more you ask people why they’re revolting, why they’re protesting, the more answers you get. That’s just a sign of the times of how people want change across a myriad of topics; it’s all related to government and finances and business and jobs. They just want to be heard, and they want change.

So why is big business resistant to this change?

It’s not so much that they’re resistant; it’s that they’re just not aware of the impact of any of this on their business. I attribute that to most leaders today within big organizations don’t really use social networks, themselves.

And that’s what so special about right now. Now, the challenge that new media – let’s just say social networks, global media, etcetera – has within the organization is that it rises from the bottom and works it’s way upward; and when it starts that way, you know how slowly things travel within the organization, you know for leadership to see the importance of any of this – well, social media is stuck in the marketing department right now, right?  It’s either in marketing, marketing communications, or public relations. So, in their mind, social media’s already handled within the organization. They don’t even see or taste or feel any of this until there’s a protest outside their door.

So if the first step of this consumer revolution is protest, what’s the next step? What else does it take to just get whoever is in charge – a manager, the c-suite executive, the one who is the change maker – to say hey, “we need to actually start doing this internally? We need to not have it silo’ed?” Does it take an increasing outside antagonistic pressure by consumers? Or does it work better from within? Or, is it just going to have to take more time?

Well I think it’s a little bit of all of the above. I mean you kind of nailed it. Really what we’re seeing is (and I’m going to try to boil it down into a cute little play on words here): it’s either the “a-ha or the uh-oh moment.” And you know, sometimes more people will learn from the uh-oh moment simply because they have no choice.

But this is also a really important topic to discuss. At the end of the day, you have someone within the organization who’s the social champion. They’re the ones getting businesses to try to have a more human presence. They’re trying to engage in a conversation; and at the end of the day, they have a choice to make. We have a choice to make.

And this is why I wrote “The End of Business as Usual.” You cannot get the ear of the executive by being the social champion. They don’t comprehend how these networks, these channels, and these services, facilitate business. What they need is a change agent.

Explain what a “change agent” is.

A change agent is someone who understands what’s taking place in the market, what is influencing and driving consumer behavior, and to what extent; and how is it impacting the industry and the market – and be able to translate that into the language of the C-suite.

That is why the first half of my book is designed to really make the case of what’s taking place – written for executives, not the social champion.

The second half of your book, The End of Business as Usual, is written about change management. Explain a bit of what that is.

Change management is nothing new; it is designed to help businesses adapt to opportunities, internally and externally. So what I’m really saying is yes, there’s transformation taking place. We can call it social media, we can call it mobile, we can call it iPads, whatever you want to call it. But my book is about how to recognize its importance and what to do about it.

So really, at the end of the day we have a decision to make – do we want to be the social champion and lead the development of social media strategies within the organization, or do we want to change the organization itself? And that’s a crossroads that we have to deal with today.

So Brian, what role do you see online video playing as part of this transformation for businesses – as part of this “change agent” you’re mentioning here?

I’m glad you’ve asked me this since I’ve been experimenting with video a lot myself, recently. I believe that the future of business is storytelling, and video must play an increasingly important part in that – whether it’s an organization, whether it’s a company, whether it’s the government.

While we’re seeing some very interesting examples of video used in storytelling today, we’ll really sort of seeing it still from a monologue standpoint. Now an organization may have one or more videos that is interesting or sharable (or even goes viral), but they’re mostly designed with a top-down marketing take. Meaning that, these enterprises have the mentality of, “I want to create this one video and I want a big bunch of people to see it” – rather than it actually becoming a part of the day-to-day communication – much like we would see an e-mail or phone chat; or in some regards, even tweeting and blogging.

Video storytelling puts a human face, puts an emotion in the way that other mediums can’t handle; or, are not designed to handle. I think that video is among the more perfect social objects there. Especially with all of the new technology taking place because you can carve it, you can edit it, you can remix it, you can just take out certain snippets that are appropriate for your audience; and you can have the voice, the person, the character, whatever it is, bring the story to life in just such a wonderful and engaging way that really what we’re talking about doing is not just engaging the viewer, but causing the viewer to share it; and then more importantly, to take action. So I actually believe that we haven’t even begun to see what’s possible yet (with online video for business communications).

So could you see companies assigning their own ambassadors around online video? I.e., people who can participate via video to offer these experiences – where the technology is getting so much better now where you can have real time interaction, engagement; and where there can be multiple streams of conversation?

Oh man, well if anybody knows the answer to that it’s you guys at ReelSEO. But yeah, I say absolutely. What you’re mentioning here is one of the things that are most fascinating to me with online video and where I see it going. Take Google Hangouts for example: when that was launched, Michael Dell (of Dell computers) personally announced to everyone that they were thinking about using Google Hangouts for hosting customer conversations, having live dynamic discussions around certain topics. You could see maybe the Apple Genius Bar doing the same thing – scheduling calls with as many people using Skype or Google Hangouts to have these discussions. What a wonderful way to bring the brand to life through these “video ambassadors,” through these representatives who then embody sort of all the characteristics of what the brand is, what it’s stands for, it’s mission and values.

But, you know, what we start to get into the territory that again comes down to change. You have to first design that experience. You have to design the representative’s characteristics and mannerisms and passion and words and the persona, and what they’re going to represent. All of these have to be designed, much like old-school style guides used to have to be designed for brand usage. Now we’re talking about sort of the persona of the brand, the brand essence.

The problem is, businesses are not defining that right. The closest things they have are either the style guide, or the mission and vision statements. If you read some of those, I mean, my goodness, those must have been written by marketers; they actually don’t speak to you at all.

So this is at a time where a business could look at that and say, you know, what do we stand for? What is our mission and vision?  Because if we’re going to use video to bring that to life, if we’re going to put real human beings on camera, what are they going to do?  What are they going to say?  What are they standing for?  And more importantly, what do we want people to see?  And what do we want them to align with?

What it seems you’re talking about is the need for a well-designed training program, and selecting people into that program who have both the hard skills and soft skills (like emotional resonance) on camera. But without all that in place, could someone who’s at least a key influential, either inside or outside the company, at least get things started on a low level – perhaps as a spokesperson or something else?

Right, the key influential could be the person that would be helpful. But here again lies the problem with big business and most organizations: At the end of the day, you’re dealing with an outdated infrastructure that is not designed to support that type of a spokesperson. What they’d do is put a different spokesperson in for it – like the executive, the sales lead, whoever it is, the talking head – and they are the last person that should be in front of the camera for this era.

So who are enterprises who have been successful with this needed transformation? Who are you seeing who are getting the right type of spokesperson or key influencer behind their brand?

We see that with Dell, we see that with Virgin, we see that with other companies – where they’re putting the person who really is passionate, who really is a master of that particular domain in front of their brand. They’re trained against it, there’s a mission and vision against it and there’s also a persona around it. Virgin spent a ton of money figuring out who it was that they needed to be and the experiences that they want to create for their age medium. That is really what it takes now.

So getting back to your book, The End of Business As Usual: What would you say is the key takeaway for anyone reading your book, who realizes the need to transform they way their organization does business, and are ready to actually get started?

Well, there are two aspects of it: you want to be the change agent and you need fuel. You need not just inspiration, but actionable insights so that you know exactly what to do. Most people just don’t necessarily know what to do, how to make the argument, what you’re really fighting against, and how to break through all the challenges and red tape that exists.

But I have to say; it’s a fascinating personal journey. Because even though you’re the professional that’s trying to change business, you’re also part of the revolution around all of this. You’re that connected customer that is driving all of this change; and in many ways, you’re the very person you’re trying to reach. There’s a great sense of psychological adventure with seeing the impact that you’re having as an individual and to what extent.

For some great validation, you start to realize that you’re not just approaching change for the organization as a professional; but as basically the person causing the change, it brings a whole new sense of realism to the approach. You have a whole new sense of devotion that you’re inspired to change, and you can actually have great clarity so that you know what you’re path is and that you’re stronger, and everyone in your organization is stronger for it in the path ahead.

So how does someone, who wants to be this change agent, start the transformation with a business? How much of it is just making a business case (with ROI on the financial and social side) – or do you have appeal more to self-interest, even selfishness? What’s it going to take to get through to the other people in your organization?

Well, you know it’s a little bit of all of the above. Part of, what you’re talking about is exactly what’s taking place. It’s the psychology of influence, and it’s also the sociology and anthropology to understand the behavior necessary to apply that influence; and how to steer it in a direction that’s within your control. Now, there are fantastic books about that already out there. I couldn’t necessarily go to the champion, the change agent, and say here’s how you’re going to use psychological pressure to get change. But what I did do is put it all in English (i.e, easy to understand) in a way to say here’s how to get your way because you believe that this is the right way; and here’s you’re fighting chance and what’s going to break through. So, it’s sort of assumes and takes into account exactly what you’re talking about, but packages it in a way that makes it easy to not only understand, but execute.

So maybe, start with something small, and real simple and show how you can measure success. So my last question for you, Brian, is what will make you consider your own book to be a success? 

I have to be honest with you with my previous book, Engage: aside from numbers, with Engage I started to see success when people would say, you know, that book really helped me design strategies that we could see really worked. And that helped us think or rethink the approach we were taking that, apply new kinds of metrics where we can actually see an impact that we are having in our work. And that, to me, was success – that people were actually applying all of those experiences and lessons and seeing it work for their benefit.

For this book, The End of Business As Usual, I’m going to define success by people who have fought the fight and who are documenting their fight, the challenges that they’re having, they’re blogging it, they’re video blogging it, they’re sharing it, they’re saying I’m reading this book, here’s what I’m learning, here’s what I’m applying, and here’s what you need to know. So I want the book to sort of be like this source, this well of information, not just for the person reading it, but so much so that the people that are living through it, because of the book are telling everybody else what they need to know. So almost creating an advocacy network, or an ambassador network of people who are living and breathing this because of the book, and extending it’s reach through their experiences.

Image courtesy to iStockphoto, ©ilia-art, #1247033

In our continued "Is That Legal" video series, I have entertainment law attorney and friend-of-ReelSEO, Gordon Firemark, answer a fan's question about making parody videos of professional wrestling for their own marketing activities. 

Entertainment Lawyer Gordon P. Firemark on Parody Videos in Online Marketing

Click here to watch the video.

Disclaimer: The following is meant for general information purposes only. It should not be construed as, or substituted for, professional legal advice. For that, I recommend you contact a qualified attorney in your state!

Here's an excerpt of Gordon Firemark's statement on doing parody or satire in online video marketing, or other business or professional use:

Parody is among the kinds of things that we as a society have decided are worthy of the very highest level of protection. Parody falls under the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and freedom of the press. When you create a parody, what you’re doing is criticizing, commenting, poking fun at the thing you’re talking about.  You are using irony and humor and sarcasm, essentially, to foster a discussion of issues that arise from the thing in question.

So that kind of discussion is very important for a free society to have and therefore we have given it a great deal of First Amendment protection.  Parody is also a part of the fair use defense to copyright infringement.  What that means is that if you are poking fun at a film or a photograph or a song, it is OK to use that work of art, that copyright protected work, as a part of the parody.  You need to use it in order to make fun of it.  So parody is a defense to the claim of copyright infringement.

The other thing I want to emphasis is that as long as the parody is creating the commentary, it is OK that it bends the truth a little bit, but it has to be very clear that what you are doing is a parody. If there’s a sense that you are making a true statement about a person and that statement is false, it could be construed as defamation. So you have got to be very careful that what you say is either true or an expression of opinion, and that is what parody really does.

I should caution that the First Amendment only operates here in the United States. So if you are in another country, you need to investigate your local jurisdictions, freedom of speech, freedom of press regulations and protections.

My Own Non-Lawyer-Qualified, Non-Legally Qualified, Marketing-Related Tips for Dealing with Legal Issues on Parody Videos Online

Keep in mind that these are my own tips as a marketer, and should not substitute for the professional advice of a qualified local attorney! But that being said, I’ve seen these done often for that extra legal “insurance:”

• Include a disclaimer. I recommend doing this at the beginning of the video or somewhere in the “description” field on the disclaimer. For some extra insurance, considering including link to a disclaimer page on your website.

• Contact the original enterprise or individual. It doesn’t hurt to let the enterprise or professional individuals of whom you’re doing the parody of know of your intentions. That’s a goodwill effort, and they may even find it humorous and share it amongst their own colleagues.

Republican Texas Governor and GOP presidential primary candidate Rick Perry has neared the three-and-half million mark on his YouTube “Strong” campaign ad since it was released just 5 days ago, but generated nearly half a million dislikes and caused the campaign to disable all social feedback on their YouTube channel – Making for yet another big example of politicians don’t really care to actually be “social” with their online videos.

Click here to watch the video.

• Disabling “Comments” – too many politicians treat YouTube and social media channels as a one-way broadcasting venue. It’s understood that you may receive a good amount of people who are politically opposed to you and may choose to express themselves with vulgar language or even false statements, but it makes much more sense to moderate those comments with a social community manager than to just attempt to silence everyone and receive the PR fallout.
• Disabling “Likes/Dislikes” – again, this goes back to the importance of accepting honest feedback from the public. The fact that Rick Perry’s campaign decided with their follow-up video ad (Rick Perry: “Repeal") to turn off even this very basic poll feature will only get them even worse media attention, and public discontent from the people whose votes they’re trying to get. (Or, are they?)
• Not paying attention to timing. When Rick Perry’s campaign released their “Strong” video ad online, it was done right at the same time Perry was saying he was against the U.S. spending money to stop actions of serious persecution of homosexuals in foreign countries (such as imprisonment, assault, rape, and even death) – especially by sovereign governments. The overwhelming majority of the public, including many conservative Christians, associated the timing of Perry’s statements on that subject with his “Strong” YouTube ad.

Here are some of the more amusing and poignant video parodies I’ve found online around the Perry ad, all of which deal cleverly with the hypocrisy of political candidates running on the idea of “moral superiority.” (Caution: some of these videos use profanity and slurs for their parody and satire purposes.)

The “Jesus Response”

The homophobia response

The Jewish Response

Click here to watch the video.

The Atheist Response

Click here to watch the video.

The “gay lisp” remix

This one happens to be my personal favorite:

Click here to watch the video.

The “combine-your-prejudice” satire

Click here to watch the video.

The Rick Perry campaign disaster should be a lesson to not just other politicians, but everyone else who is commercially and professionally minded with their own YouTube videos and other online video campaigns. Don’t be so fixated on “going viral” with your video trying to get the largest amount of views as possible. Instead, have a strategy that is built around establishing genuine and lasting connections with your general and target audiences.

For politicians in a volatile field (and with many haters present), that should include how to get the best positive-to-negative feedback over the long-term – which means not treating your YouTube channel like a billboard, where you turn off comments and expect to only receive overwhelmingly positive feedback. If you can’t learn to be genuinely social with your YouTube video channel and handle genuine responsiveness, then you will truly “suck” in your online marketing – whether you’re a politician or any other businessperson.

In this finale segment on the Orabrush YouTube marketing story, I again interviewed Orabrush CMO Jeff Harmon to talk about how his company has managed to get legally-binding permissions for shooting people and locations featured in their YouTube videos, without it slowing down your production plans. (You can read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3).

DISCLAIMER: The following video and article are meant for general information purposes only. They should not be construed as, or substituted for, professional legal advice from a qualified local attorney!

Click here to watch the video.

Jeff explained that for some locations, where they’re only going to be shooting at briefly and may have too many regulations to quickly get a permit, they usually do “run-and-gun” shooting. (I.e., set up and shoot quickly, and get out before attracting unwanted attention from any local authorities.) “You just hope that it’s not going to be a problem,” said Jeff.

If the Orabrush video crew is planning to shoot in a restaurant or store location (which they have done before), their plan is to go to the owner before and sell them on the idea of increased visibility from their popularity on YouTube. He’ll say to the owner something like, "OK, we get 'x' many views on our videos – can we use this place?" And then the owner just has to sign off on permission for them to shoot there.

Jeff says that this type of schmoozing with mentioning YouTube has proven successful for them with getting both professional actors as well as regular people. “Say if we’re running around doing man-on-the-street stuff, you’ve got to have somebody that's just chasing people down, and asking, "can we use that on YouTube?" Says Jeff

“And usually if you say YouTube, they're like, "sure!" You know, it's very easy to get people to agree to YouTube stuff. Locations are much cheaper if you're shooting for YouTube. Everything is a lot cheaper.”

Jeff says what’s worked for Orabrush from a cost-savings is after they understood as much as they could with all the legal regulations for shooting video, they downloaded all kinds of releases – location releases, model release, actor releases, etcetera. Jeff said that they started out just doing keyword searches for all of those terms and downloaded the templates from online, and then later had them customized for their own business purposes. (Note: I personally recommend for most businesses today that they at least consult with an attorney specializing in new media and intellectual property law, and see if they already have a template they can customize to your needs. There’s much less of any kind of “insurance” that a stock template will be legally binding!)

Click here to watch the video.

When Orabrush did a YouTube video for "The Dirty Dash" – a half-marathon race that runs all across the country, along with some fun mud race events – they contacted the people who own and run The Dirty Dash, and asked them for permission to shoot a video. “So they have everyone who comes in, has to sign a release that basically says, if I die, or, if I'm on video, or anything – Dirty Dash can use it for whatever they want,” said Jeff. “And so, all we had to do is get one signature from Dirty Dash, and then we were good to go.”

For more legal information around doing online video for whatever business or profession you’re in, check out my own “social responsibility” project over at youtube.com/legalvideoguys. There you’ll find interviews with attorneys and other online video marketing professionals on the important legal issues that all of us should be paying attention to today around online video, and hopefully you’ll find them entertaining as well as informative!

In Part 3 of our series on the Orabrush YouTube marketing story, I interviewed Orabrush Spokesperson Austin Craig to talk about how his company measures success with their video marketing strategy through ascribing values to the social activity around those videos – which we refer to here as "social video return on investment, or ROI (You can read Part 1 and Part 2 here). 

Click here to watch the video.

Why “Viral Video” is Still a Misunderstood Marketing Strategy

Either this is A) An advance photo of the 2011 Orabrush Christmas Special video production, or B) A risky move into the adult video market?

With the Orabrush panel ‘Screw Viral Videos’ at Search Engine Strategies Chicago – Austin said that what they were trying to communicate from the title is that you don't want to try to have some “smash-hit, out-of-the-park, one-time, one-hit wonder video.”

Austin also mentioned in this video interview that unlike companies that are fixated on hopes of their video “going viral,” they’re focused on the qualitative as well as the quantitative of feedback from their videos. That means one very important thing (which I find is also overlooked by these same viral-fixated companies): plan for good customer service.

“We're not just looking at the quantitative feedback on our social media –you know, how many likes or how many comments we got – but the qualitative,” said Austin. “Social media is supposed to be about having a conversation. So, what we've done there is we've used it to interface with our audience, and do customer service, and do polls, and do surveys, and find out what people want from our product and from our company, when they're having problems, and what we can do to help them overcome those problems.”

Austin advises companies doing social video and really want to engage with their customers should plan for more person-to-person contact as well. “We get a lot of questions that are pretty easy to answer, but people just want to ask a person, like, where can I find it in a store? Even though you can go to the site and find a map, it's important to be responsive to those and say, hey, did you check out the map? You should see the map on our site – that will direct you straight to our store that has our product. So of course, there are the social metrics, but there's also the conversation – quantitative and qualitative; regardless of whatever you have (with either your video or your product or service), there's going to be those kind of things that you can keep an eye on that are going to drive forward your bottom line.”

“Video is just a communication medium; and if you can do something that speaks to your audience, and speaks to your potential buyers, that's going to be a big deal,” said Austin. “But you need to be able to measure that. You need to have platform upon which you have metrics; and you know when it's working and when it's not, so you can turn the knobs and adjust little things here and there to make sure that it is going to work for you. Video doesn't do anything if you don't have that kind of foundation and that kind of basis.”

Here’s a good way to go about establishing a Social ROI strategy for your video:

• First, have clear marketing objectives with your video campaign.
• Next, decide what you want to measure (that’s most valuable for gauging social activity and sentiment you decide is most important for your business goals)
• Next, have a video platform that can provide you with those metrics you’re going to measure.
• Measure consistently across where your video can be shared – on social media channels, video sharing sites, even e-mail, and;
• Decide what hub (your final destination point) will be for bringing people to with your video. This is typically a website or landing page, but it can also be a community site or other online location where your consumers are having ongoing conversations and sharing content.

Once you have these things in place, you can start focusing on how to have a sustainable video strategy to communicate with the people who are your stakeholders. Here are some of the ways you can categories your stakeholders around a Social Video ROI strategy:

• Customers/Clients (the people who are going to be buying from you or hiring you.)
• Consumers (people who haven’t yet become customers but are consuming your video content and are in various stages and abilities to promote your video content.
• Influentials – these can be popular and/or authoritative media people, business leaders, and other thought leaders who can drive people to your video and influence sentiment.

Also keep this in mind: Being a B2B company can also mean that while the quantity of your audience may likely be much lower than a B2C company, the quality of each audience member may have a higher stake of influence and purchasing power.

Here’s a sampling of my own suggested metrics that lend themselves well for most companies doing online video today for combining social activity:

Passive Social Video Metrics

By “passive,” I mean where it only needs to involve consumption of the video experience by the end recipient – i.e., the viewer. (I call this simply, “viewership.”)

• Number of views
• Length of views
• Average length of views / drop-off rates
• Frequency of views
• Calendar of views (month/week/day, morning/midday/evening/night)
• Total time spent viewing

“Active” Social Video Metrics

By “active,” I am referring to where the recipient takes an responsive action that is shared with an audience and/or the video owner. (I also refer to this as “engagement.”)

• Shares
• Comments
• Clicks (to another URL)
• Clicks-to-conversion (whatever you set up your conversion funnel to be)
• Backlinks (people linking back to your video, or page with your video)
• Sentiment – measuring the general feeling or opinion of your video through the conversations that are being carried on – both in the crowed and with you and your company, directly.
• Influence – what is the popularity and authority of those who are participating in the conversation originating with your video?
• Content – what type of content are people doing as a response to your video? Text, images, audio, or even video responses?
• Customer and other stakeholder feedback – does your video inspire these groups to want to learn more about your business and talk with you directly? (I.e., without having an audience?
• Online/Offline media – Are they choosing to engage with you and your company through email, phone, or even in person at your office or one of your stores (or wherever your products and services are available?)
• Incentive – What times of promotions, contents surveys, or platforms for user-submitted content are you doing or supporting that will generate such responses to your video content?

Photo courtesy of iStockPhoto.com, © yayayoyo # 13821627

In Part 2 of our series on the Orabrush YouTube marketing story, I interviewed Orabrush Spokesperson Austin Craig to talk about how he became the company’s spokesperson for their highly popular YouTube channel. (You can read Part 1 here). Austin shares several tips for others who are considering being a web spokesperson or web personality as a professional career choice. 

“When we started, it was a couple years ago. Becoming the spokesperson for the successful YouTube channel -- that wasn't even a thought,” said Austin. “It wasn't a successful YouTube channel in the beginning of course; it was just a brand new YouTube channel. I didn't even know being a spokesperson for a YouTube channel was a thing that you could do. I was just making a video with a friend (future chief marketing officer Jeff Harmon).

“The first video we did ended up working really well. He said, hey this is really selling some product! Why don't you come back and make another video? And then we made another one, and then we made another one; and then he's like, why don't we make this a pretty regular thing? And it developed into what it is today.”

“I think being web personality now is something established well enough now that I think it is a career prospect that people can seriously look at. So yes, being a web video personality – that's a legitimate thing you can work toward and become, and it can pay out.”

Orabrush's Spokesperson Austin Craig with ReelSEO's Grant Crowell (©SESConferenceSeries, via Flickr)

Austin was already well suited to becoming a web video spokesperson, having done some radio and television work as part of his studies and on-air training in broadcast journalism at BYU. “There they teach you to get really comfortable in front of a camera, in front of a microphone,” said Austin.

“Before doing that, before training at school to be a broadcast journalist, if you look back on my early tapes from school when I was first doing the student news report at my college from BYU, I was a deer in headlights! I was so terrified,” said Austin. “To me, it was comical and embarrassing.”

Click here to watch the video.

Austin then had an idea: “I should post these online just to give other people some hope! There's definitely hope if I can pull it off, you can do much better.” It's just getting comfortable in front of a camera, and the only way you can accomplish that is to practice, practice, practice.”

“What's worked for me is just experience; and the only way you can get experience is by trying it out,” said Austin. “This doesn't have to be experience working for some huge company. It doesn't have to be, you know, I get hired by this company and be their spokesperson for this product or for this service. That's not even the experience that I'm talking about. It's just being in front of a camera, and getting used to acting natural in what is a very unnatural setting, where you have lights and a camera, and they're might not even be another person listening to you, live. It's just this thing recording you. Getting to act natural in that setting is just practice. So set up the camera, set up some lights, and start making videos and start uploading them. People are going to comment, people are going to give you feedback whether you want it or not. So be ready, and then learn from it, adjust, and learn and grow up. I think it's just doing it over and over and over, over a period of time you'll get a lot better at it.

I interviewed Orabrush’s Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Harmon, to talk about how they used YouTube to sell over a million units of their tongue cleaner and sign major deals with big box stores, and why they say you have to “screw viral videos” if you want to be successful with today’s online audiences’ increased social expectations.

Orabrush was recently featured on the official Google Blog about their online video marketing success and being a rather interesting YouTube case study: “The Orabrush story: How a Utah man used YouTube to build a multi-million dollar business.” I recommend checking out that article first for some good insight on the company’s backstory, along with and their video marketing strategy, which is well summarized in the infographic below.

Below is one of their more recent and highly popular YouTube videos from last year’s holiday shopping season. I also recommend checking out their more recent videos on the Orabrush YouTube channel.

Click here to watch the video.

I also recommend checking out Greg Jarboe’s interview with the Orabrush guys at Search Engine Strategies New York, and at the SES Conference YouTube Channel.

I interviewed TripAdvisor’s Manager of Business & Trade Public Relations, Kevin Carter, who shared with me some of the newer activities their company has been doing to encourage online video marketing with lodging owners, and video participation with travelers. Kevin and I also share our tips on what types of videos travelers want to see, and how lodging businesses can do better online video marketing themselves.

TripAdvisor® is a popular travel and lodging site offering both trip planning and featuring reviews and advice around hotels, resorts, rentals, flights, cruises, vacation rentals, vacation packages, travel guides, restaurants, and other attractions. “We’ve been working hard to make online marketing, including video marketing, as intuitive for business owners as possible,” said Kevin.

Unlimited video submissions

On TripAdvisor, both travelers and property/business owners are able to submit videos, enabling researching travelers to view both types when they are deciding which properties to book.

“Properties looking to increase their engagement with travelers can register their properties for free on the TripAdvisor Management Center and submit their own videos from there,” said Kevin. “Once they have registered, they have access to a wealth of free resources and tools to help them respond to traveler reviews, track their success on the site, update their hotel details, and even upload an unlimited number of photos and videos meeting our site’s criteria. We consider it a great way for them to put their best foot forward and capture travelers’ attention."

Video reviews

The TripAdvisor Travel Video library categorizes videos by “top rated” and “newest," as you can see in the screenshot provided below.

Encouraging user generated content

TripAdvisor has a lot of tools and resources available through our Management Center and Widget Center to help properties encourage more user-generated content. These include reminder cards and online widgets. One hotel group that is doing a great job encouraging and leveraging UGC is New York City-based HKHotels. (Early last year, HKHotels announced having all 4 of their New York rank in the top 4 hotels in NYC by the members of TripAdvisor.)

Click here to watch the video.

Marketing help videos

TripAdvisor also has a video help site just for businesses, including how to market your property, get reviews, respond to reviews, and use video to better promote your property.

Property slideshows into videos

Tripadvisor recently launched their TripWow slideshow feature for lodging and hospitality owners with business listings on their site. Here's how it works: it automatically populates photos both owners and travelers have submitted into an animated slideshow, which will automatically play upon opening the property page. (You can watch the TripWow video overview and quickstart program for more info.) Kevin recommended checking out the TripWow example, “Cape Code Beachfront Home.”  I personally recommend seeing the video demo below.

Click here to watch the video.

Video SEO enabled

Here’s a special perk for the video SEO crowd: The Tripadvisor.com site boasts over 431,000 results in Google Video Search, and all videos in the TripWow subdomain appeared to be fully indexed.

Kevin described the lodging industry as a mixed bag. “Some hotel brands are using video very well to capture the attention of travelers and inspire potential guests, while others could certainly do a lot more to leverage photos, videos and traveler reviews in their online marketing programs. There are a lot of opportunities today for properties to leverage video and other content, but not everyone is taking full advantage of them,” he said.

Kevin said that in addition to text reviews and opinions, travelers are more heavily seeking out properties that have photo and video content when they are making booking decisions. “Essentially, they want to make sure they are getting the best value for their money and they don’t want any surprises,” he said. “Video is a great medium for revealing what a property actually looks like and what a traveler can expect when they arrive. Certainly from a traveler perspective: the more content available, including video content, the better.”

“Travelers want to be inspired,” said Kevin. “They tend to respond well to compelling video footage that provides a thorough and accurate representation of the property, including the outside, the main lobby, rooms, the dining areas and the top amenities."

Kevin described an effective video as one that can “draw you into the property, help you imagine yourself in the destination and paint a compelling, yet accurate, picture of the experience.” He said that there are number of brands who are getting better at doing this online, and shared with me the example of one of the top-rated videos by travelers on the TripAdvisor site, The Porto Elounda Deluxe Resort.

Kevin cited these to be the most common mishaps by businesses doing video today:

• Setting false expectations for guests by depicting experiences that are dramatically out of sync with the rooms or the service that the average guest is likely to receive, and;
• Dedicating a lot of footage to people talking about the property. “Again, travelers want to be inspired, so it’s best to show the experience rather than talk about it,” says Kevin.

• Collaborate with travel authors and hotel consultants. These are people who know the ins and outs, from both an insider and outsider perspective, who regularly connect with many travelers. It works to both of your benefit to collaborate on some video content you both can share online around a helpful and creative topic. This also speaks to the next tip:
• Produce, distribute, and promote sponsored web videos around interesting content, and familiar/trusted personalities.
• Feature your customers – this really should be a no-brainer. Travelers seem to respond best to videos featuring other travelers like themselves. Simply having them share their traveling stories and their experiences with your property – whether is owner-produced or consumer-produced, is perhaps the best way to persuade others to check you out and make reservations.
• ASK your customers – ask them what they would like to see, and respond to their questions and comments with custom video. You can also encourage them to submit videos of their experiences at your place, and reward them for their feedback. (Having a contest tends to be pretty effective.)
• Optimize your videos, yourself – both on your own site and YouTube channel.
• Vet any agency you’re considering hiring to do your online video marketing activities. I personally get emails from one company touting themselves as being best online marketing agency for the lodging industry (whom I'm particularly familiar with since they also do the search engine marketing speaking circuit). Their sales people like to assure me that they do online video optimization for their clients. However, every time I respond to them to show me just one actual client example, nothing. So my advice if you’re considering an agency: Make sure that they can first show you an active example, or at least a single case study!

I interviewed social media strategist and author of “The NOW Revolution,” Jay Baer, who was one of the featured presenters at the recent Blogworld New Media Expo in Los Angeles. In this video interview I asked Jay how he recommended companies handle the growing expectation for near-immediate responsiveness with business video and other media, while managing to stay out of trouble?

How to Be Prepared to Move in Real-Time

Click here to watch the video.

“We have changed the way we look at response time. Clearly, customers have an expectation now around almost immediate responsiveness… they expect you to get back to them within minutes,” says Jay Baer, President of Convince&Convert and author of The NOW Revolution: 7 shifts to make your business faster, smarter, and more social.

“So, keeping this as our reality, you have to be prepared to move in real-time as an organization. But you can only move in real-time safely once you’ve modeled scenarios over what’s NOT alright,” aid Jay.

Jay recommended in his book the need for all companies and online professionals today to have in place a strategic framework for immediacy. “You need a framework in place to make it clear to the people within your organization what are the guidelines – what are the things you can and can’t do [with social media and online video]. “We actually teach scenario modeling… so people have that ‘third rail’ that kind of guides their own behavior,” he said.

“The first think you have to do is acknowledge. You have to say to people, “I hear you.” You have to be responsive quickly with making sure people know you’re aware of something and are working on it, and then you can actually create and publish the video, or whatever other content you have planned,” said Jay.

I interviewed Blogworld’s CEO and Co-Founder Rick Calvert at their Los Angeles conference earlier this month. Rick and I discussed some of the big trends with online video in the publishing and marketing space, which I’ve labeled as the “Big C’s:” Context, Collaboration, Consistency, and Community.”

Click here to watch the video.

We included a video of our interview with Rick Calvert, along with closed captions – which should help greatly with following this because of our audio troubles. We wanted to go for the natural conversation style without using a handheld mic, but had to deal with a lot of room noise. Also, we were without lavalier mics, and without the of a wide angle lens for Canon Vixia HF S200 (which would have allowed us to get in closer), and without the benefit of a boom pole for my Rode Video Mic Pro shotgun microphone. So I recommend turning on the closed-captioning while you watch this video, and you can read an excerpt of our interview below.

Relationship Video Marketing: The Blogworld Interview with Rick Calvert

Rick, what do you consider to be a big new trend this year with marketing?

A big one is context. There is this expectation from the consumer, from the audience, that they expect us to know what they want, now.

For example, consumers don't want to get ads to buy a car when they’re not in the market to buy a car. But when they are in the market to buy a car, they do expect you to know that, and for you to be delivering those messages to them, right then.

Here’s another example: If a car company sends you and ad for something for a new car, and you already bought a new car, you're just annoyed. It doesn't make you feel good about them. Now if they do send you an ad about a car – even if you don't end up buying it, but you are in the market, you think "wow, that's really smart of them" with the timing and everything. Your general perception of that company is now different. It's like they're actually paying attention to you, and they really give a damn for what you want.

So being in the market right now, being in any kind of business that has to communicate to your customers – it’s actually getting harder and harder. Customers’ level of expectations is very, very high.

What are you finding people are talking about at this year’s Blogworld / New Media Expo with regards to online video?

We noticed that there are a lot more video-related companies here than there were last year.

We've seen [online] video become more and more a part of new media, in general. More people are creating good video content; and more consumers expecting to get that good video content. There are more and more people who are doing video because the tools are getting easier. Video editing on the Web is making big leap forward.

My own example: I don’t do video editing because I’m not good at it, but it’s also because I refuse to use a Mac. But now, supposedly, with new collaborative video editing tools like what WeVideo is offering, the software looks as good as anything you could get on a Mac. They say that it's a collaborative platform – so you can upload the video, and if you want to do any editing, you can ask the community for help.

I think with online video we’re moving more and more in that direction – collaboration. So as content creators, we can help each other create better content. It’s as important for us as content professionals to be doing that as it is for the consumer.

In our interview here last year, you mentioned your fear of the “traditional” market coming trying to take all of this over from us new media professionals, once they think they have it all figured out. So what can we learn from the traditional market?

Well, they make money better than we do, obviously; and they're professional in a way that a lot of us aren't. When you turn on the radio, you expect to hear the program at 3 o'clock, every day. That's when it's scheduled. When you subscribe to a magazine, you expect to get it once a month. You expect the newspaper to be on your porch every day. I think a lot of us are guilty of not having that consistency, not having that consistent level of professionalism.

So we as new media professionals need to really focus our aspiration of what we’re trying to build with our content towards creating a bona fide media entity, versus saying, "I'm just building a blog, or, I'm just building a web video series, or I'm building a podcast." You need to think bigger about your content and what you want it to accomplish. I think we can learn a lot from the traditional media guys; and if they actually do figure out a way to block us out and regain that monopoly, they'll do it in a heartbeat. It's business.

I think Google would want to eliminate all of the SEO people, too.

Absolutely!

So what has Blogworld been doing this year with it’s own online video activities, around this conference and others?

We thought we’d walk the walk and encourage all of our speakers – about 75 of them who did it this year, to upload videos of themselves on camera, giving a preview of their sessions. We call it a mini-interview – to give a sense of what it's going to be about, why you should come, this is what I want you to learn.

I understand you’re doing more videos with your “Virtual Ticket” library, too.

Yes, we sometimes have 20 sessions going on at the same time every day, and you obviously can’t bee in all the rooms at once! So people on-site can upgrade to that virtual ticket; and those that aren't at the conference can also purchase the virtual ticket as well. And yes, along with videos of all the sessions, there’s a lot of additional content, including video content, in there. We're trying to make that feel more than just recordings of the session. We're trying to give them a real feel of what's happening here. There are shots of the shows, there's interviews with the speakers, attendees, exhibitors, and more. Our attendees love it, our speakers it, and we know it's going to be even more prevalent next year.

I interviewed Google’s spokesperson Andrea Faville to learn more about the video features available on Google Plus Pages for business; along with a number of examples from businesses across the small-to-large range, and the great new “Hangouts with Extras” they’re previewing for everyone!

If you haven’t already done so, I recommend also checking out Jeremy Scott’s earlier coverage here at ReelSEO on Google Plus Pages for Business & Brands.

“We've already seen a number of businesses do great things with video on their Google+ Pages.” says Andrea. Here’s a few examples she shared:

A number of larger businesses, like the Dallas Cowboys and Burberry, created special videos welcoming people to their Page. Bands like Coldplay and Train have posted music videos; and Andrea also mentioned that H&M posted video clips from their Versace fashion event. (Note: I didn’t see the Versace videos on the H&M site, or anything in their “Videos” category at the time of this article being published.)

On the small business side, Zen Bikes, a bike shop in NYC, features a video tour of their store. (Watch “Zen Bikes In The Beginning.”

Click here to watch the video.

Hangouts is the video chat and conferencing program available for all Google+ Page owners, and Page accounts can include up to 10 people. Here are some examples Andrea shared with some notable brands using Google Hangouts:

• Good Morning America hosted a series of Hangouts with viewers
• The Muppets hosted a great Hangout last week, and they even did their own video promo you can watch below. (I've also included a screenshot of one of their live chat sessions, which are made available around any video you post in your Google+ Pages account.)

Click here to watch the video.

• The New York Times has announced they will be holding Hangouts with sources and reporters.

I asked Andrea, what are some ways that businesses can make their own use of Google Hangouts. Here were some of her suggestions:

• Have an open conversation with customers. ”These can be as simple as holding an ‘open Hangout’ and letting customers join and leave as they'd like…” said Andrea. “Hangouts can also be used to answer customer questions in real time, or solicit feedback on a new product.”
• Create a unique experience. “For example a restaurant could host a Hangout with their chef showing off his latest recipe, or a bookstore could host a Hangout with an author that visits their store,” said Andrea.

For more on setting up, featuring, or being part of Google Hangouts, check out the Google+ help page, “Start a Hangout.”

Click here to watch the video.

Andrea gave me a demo of their new 'Hangouts with Extras,” which provides even more ways to interact with those you’re hanging out with.

• Screensharing: when you want show off whatever you’re doing on your computer screen
• Sketchpad: when you want to draw, doodle or share notes together
• Google Docs: when you want to write, plan or present something with others

Andrea informed me that this is currently in preview mode, so it may have some features revised moving forward. But right now they are making it available to everyone to try out. Here’s how simple it is to do:

Step 1: Go to your home page, and on the right hand sidebar under “hangouts,” click the button, “Start a hangout.”

Step 2: When you see the Hangouts screen appear, select the link in the center, “Hangouts with extras”

Step 3: Enter a Hangout name and invite others individuals or entire groups, or Circles, to join you.

In the example below, I select one individual from one of my Circles. (You can select up to 10 people in one or multiple Circles.)

And here I am in a Google Hangout (with extras) with Andrea!

• Include other video platforms. Right now you’re limited to using YouTube for uploading and embedding a video. (You are able to link to videos on other platforms, but their video player won’t show up in your page.) For this to be a true business solution, it should allow for embedding videos from other platforms not affiliated with Google.
• Have a video recording feature (i.e., video screen capture) for Google Hangouts, like what is already available through GoToMeeting (and with Skype 3^rd party add-ons, albeit for just one or a couple people). Andrea informed me that Google is looking into having this feature in a later release.
• Allow for Google hangouts video recordings to be made public or private. Being able to feature a live or subsequent group text chat, which live video streaming sites like Livestream, U-Stream, and Justin.tv do – could be a nice solution for businesses and brands doing their own live events with a remote audience, and for people not to miss out on something that the couldn’t be available for the live showing of. This would also be nice to have recordings of Hangouts posted in the Google+ Pages “Videos” section.

Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain made news recently for his campaign cancelling an interview with newspaper this Thursday, saying it didn’t want the interview to be video recorded and arguing that video is only typical for television. But do the latest stats show otherwise?

According to the New Hampshire Union newspaper’s website, Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon told Politico that the campaign will not allow any future newspaper editorial board meetings to be videotaped.

“Videos are typically used for television and it's a newspaper. We decided we didn't want to do the video,” Gordon said.

I asked the folks over at comScore to send me their Video Metrix statistics on total videos in the past year by the newspaper industry. Here’s what the data shows:

Newspapers’ Video Views

• In October 2011, videos published online by newspapers were watched over 56 million times
• In the past 12 months, videos published online by newspapers were watched over 720 million times.

Newspapers Unique Video Viewers

In October 2011…

• The newspaper industry had over 14,561,000 unique video viewers online, and averaged 952,000 daily unique viewers.
• The average newspaper viewer watched 3.9 videos online.

The data also suggest a trend towards more newspaper videos being watched online as political campaigns and elections heat up. For example, the November 2010 stats (during the mid-term election), had an 80% viewer increase over the most recently reported month.

Is Newspapers' Video Share Slipping?

According to comScore, the newspaper industry's total online videos compared to the entire News/Information industry (i.e., news journalism) dropped from 9.56% in October 2010 to 4.35% in October 2011. That figure is partially due to a huge jump of online videos by other sectors of the news journalism industry, along with a decline in newspapers' own resources and newsroom staff dedicated to video content.

It’s most unusual for a candidate seeking the highest office in the land, who is actively soliciting interviews with influential newspapers (and a conservative newspaper at that), would reasonably think that newspapers should only do traditional (i.e., “print”) media, and not video; and apparently, not video that would be able to be viewed, shared, and commented online.

So do you believe Cain’s campaign is serious? That his previous interview performance with another newspaper – the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – wasn’t the actual reason they didn’t want to allow for video recordings of future interviews with newspapers? Do you believe that there’s a serious argument that newspapers should be doing online video as part of their news journalism? Or maybe at least, when interviewing political candidates?

Me thinks someone needs an video edu-Cain-shun. (OK, submit your entry for Worst Pun of 2011.)