Web TV & The Squamish Oceanfront
With people turning to the internet for entertainment more as time goes on—whether it be to socialize, look at photos, read articles or to watch 'TV' (as we will discuss in this article)—the role of an online marketer continues to change. Simple blog posts or, even more recently, a short wall post or tweet, are quite often not enough to engage and retain the targeted audience.
Content is king and when combined with a platform that delivers such fantastic rich media, it is only natural to see an increase in people choosing to watch 'TV' online. However, rather than TV of the traditional variety, including soap operas, full length movies and reality programs (how is Big Brother even still being watched??), more and more viewers are enjoying online television in the form of 'webisodes' (a.k.a. podcasts). These 'webisodes' can either be informative of a product or service, document an event or tell a short story (or combine all of the above).
Webisodes are a great method of engaging people for a short period of time. Generally from 1:30 to 3:00 minutes, the goal is to have a video that gets people fired up about what an organization is doing, generates brand awareness and excels in the search engines—yes, the search engines scan video sites like Youtube and Vimeo as well.
Implementing Your Company’s Social Media Program
As a provider of online business solutions, it should come as no surprise that we recognize the importance of building an online presence for your company. Integral to that growth is the integration of Social Media into your website. However, in the same way we feel that customization is the key to any successful website design—no cookie cutters here—so, too, is it important to approach social media on a client-by-client basis.
We are keen advocates of socializing your online presence, but social media isn’t simply another flashy piece of functionality we can build into your website. Social media enables people to share information that’s relevant to them. And it’s a means to making your company or your brand more ‘transparent’ to your customers.
Engaging your company in the realm of social media necessitates an ongoing commitment and, quite often, a cultural change within an organization. A Facebook page with no posts, or a blog comment that goes unanswered, is as beneficial as a beautiful storefront that’s never open.
Different companies require varying degrees of social media engagement depending on how they communicate with their customers, and how their customers relate to the brand. Other contributing factors include in-house resources and focus; for example, who is going to be dedicated to managing the program, where is the content coming from, and what are the expectations or goals in terms of creating this social media audience?
Getting Rad With VentureWeb's DH Race
As many will know, each of the Ventureweb team is as passionate about their extra curricular activities as their day to day tasks in the studio. Whether climbing, hiking, skiing, or in the case of this post, mountain biking, we live in Squamish moving throughout the Sea To Sky corridor like a colony of ants in pursuit of checking the next goal off our bucket list, the next adrenaline rush being gained and in general, to have a great time in the outdoors.
With numerous members of the team participating in mountain biking, whether on a small scale or a fanatical one, it is a natural progression that we give back to the biking community of Squamish. Aside from team members like Olly and myself continually maintaining trails in the area, (check out Powersmart after the weekends re-work), we jump at the opportunity to sponsor the local SORCA races.
Empathy, the new social face of customer service...
The continued mainstreaming of social media has been catalytic in transforming this once settled landscape from a closed one-to-one transaction to a more open and conciliatory experience characterised by empathy.
In this new paradigm, traditional constructs, ways of communicating and business processes are being constantly questioned by customers. The challenge businesses face is that this questioning is taking place at the margins, on independent platforms, where their presence is neither required nor requested.
Sites such as ComplaintCommunity, Cofacio, GetSatisfaction, Amplicate, Vark, Plebble, alongside their more established counterparts like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and TripAdvisor are shifting the power of voice back in favour of customers. A company’s ability to remain relevant given the changing needs of an increasingly vocal customer, requires companies to actually demonstrate their customer centricity, rather than treat it as a box to tick on a ‘to do’ list.
The drive towards creating a multichannel service experience is now a more complex undertaking. The convergence of social media and smartphones has added a multiplatform dimension to the online proposition, resulting in the proliferation of ‘unstructured’, yet highly influential, ‘now’ conversations between people. Telephone, email and letters (yes they still exist) are being replaced by video, audio, microblogs, instant chat, SMS alternatives. Communicating with our ‘friends’, real or perceived, is exciting, visual, participatory and even voyeuristic.
For more fantastical posts, please see our archives
