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An Unknown Band Goes Viral

Singer-songwriter Dave Carroll of the “Sons of Maxwell” Canadian pop-folk band was frustrated with United Airlines after getting no response on a request to fix his damaged Taylor guitar. He turned that frustration into a YouTube video. His life will never be the same.

When traveling on United Airways at the airport in Chicago on March 31, 2008, Dave heard a woman in a window seat say, “My God, they’re throwing guitars out there.” Dave knew they were his bands guitars. When arriving at their final destination in Omaha, Dave opened his hard-shell case and found that his $3,500 Taylor guitar had been broken. The United Airlines Staff in Omaha refused to take responsibility.

A Dissatisfied Customer Turns To Social Media

Over a year later , Dave had made no headway in getting United to pay for his guitar. So he decided to write a song about it and puts it on YouTube. He posted it on July 6, 2009. In just four days the video had been viewed over 1 million times.

Within days, Dave was being interviewed by media companies like The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CNN and FOX. The YouTube view went viral.

Taylor Guitars Sees An Opportunity

When Social Media opportunities present themselves two things can happen. They can be seized quickly or lost forever.

During the interviews Dave was talking over and over again about his wonderful Taylor guitar. Taylor Guitars was getting incredible exposure. Within days of the video being posted, Taylor Guitars posted their own YouTube video advising traveling musicians on how to pack their equipment. They saw an opportunity and they acted quickly. As a result, Taylor is now making a record number of guitars.

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Carlton Cases Acts

Carlton Cases makes durable cases for musical instruments. Within three days of the incident they had entered into a contract with Dave Carrol to introduce and market the Dave Carroll Traveler’s Edition Guitar Case. They did little more than take their current case and change the label on it.

The Exposure Continues

It’s been more than a year since the video was posted and it has been viewed over 9 million times. Song 2 and song 3 have been posted and have over 1.3 million views combined.

Here’s Dave’s original video:

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United Airline Does Nothing

While United Airlines was coming into this situation from a different angle, they question is whether or not they should have tried to respond to the the social media explosion. Should they have posted their own video? If they did how should they have approached it? What do you think?

Popularity: 37% [?]

YouTube Wants More of Your Time

Google, which owns YouTube, is trying to get the average user to take some of the five hours she spends watching TV and spend more of it watching YouTube. This mission is a little different from what Google does with their primary search engine.

“Google is all about giving you information quickly and then getting you to leave. YouTube wants to give you information that will make you want to stay” said Quentin Hardy, executive editor of Forbes.

Improving Their Search Tool

One way they are attempting to accomplish this goal is to improve their search engine. With 24 hours of content posted every minute, YouTube users have more videos to filter through before they find what they want. And many users are missing great content.

YouTube is launching their new feature called “Topics.” With this tool YouTube will hone in on comments from video viewers, sites that have linked to the video and other videos the viewers have visited in the past. The algorithm will be incredibly complicated but over time will develop into a tool that will make YouTube more efficient.

Businesses need to create content in their YouTube videos that will generate comments and links. This will improve their ranking in the YouTube search.

Popularity: 4% [?]

A Simple Expression Of Love Goes Viral

One of the coolest stories in social media today is that of Matt Harding. He was born on September 27, 1976. As a video game developer in Westport, Connecticut, he was not enthused by his career prospects. Matt quit his job and started traveling. One of Matt’s trademarks among his friends was a dance that he was known for. So, while traveling in Vietnam, a friend suggested he do his dance and they put it on video to upload and show his friends at home. So they did it. His friends loved it when they saw it on the web.

He recorded the dance at many more locations on his trip and ended up creating a video containing nothing more than dance scenes. The video was passed around the internet. Matt’s video was being viewed thousands of times a day, prior to YouTube. Once YouTube came into being, Matt uploaded it there. It had gone “viral”.

Stride Gum Sees an Opportunity

After the video was uploaded on YouTube, viewership exploded. When Stride Gum saw the viewership the videos were getting, they saw an opportunity. They approached Matt and offered to sponsor his trips. So, with Stride’s sponsorship, Matt was able to organize another trip and completed a second video. This consisted of Matt dancing alone in from of famous monuments around the world.

In the middle of the second trip, while Matt was in Rwanda, the idea of dancing with people from the area presented itself. So he decided to do a third video, this time dancing with people. The video took 14 months to create and involved travelling to 42 different countries. It contains shots from 70 different locations. This trip was far more complicated because it involved much more organization. But it was well worth it.

A Viral Video

On September 26, 2009, I wrote my first article about this video for my BusinessAndSocialMedia.com site. It had been viewed 23,795,433 times and ranked by 98,051 people. As I update the article, in November of 2010, it has been seen 32,500,284 times and ranked by 107,536 people. It is still being viewed almost 23,000 times a day!

A Subtle Promotion

When you watch the video the first thing you see is a black screen and then the word “Dancing” appears. From there the cut goes to an alleyway in Mumbai, India. And Matt begins to dance. The video cuts from location to location with music and other audio from the scenes. At the 4 minute 25 second mark of a 4 minute 29 second video, a special thanks to Stride Gum appears with their web address. Five seconds of exposure! And Matt didn’t even wear a Stride t-shirt!

Take a look:

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The video has generated all kinds of spin offs. Just Google “Matt” and you will see many links related to his videos. Most of those take you to YouTube, where there are more videos related to the project.

You can click here to get to his website ( http://wherethehellismatt.com/ ) and view his latest video.

This is prime example of a viral video and what viral marketing can do.

Popularity: 50% [?]

Creating A YouTube Presence

One of the coolest stories about YouTube marketing comes from a company in Orem, Utah. Blendtec makes high performance commercial blenders. Their primary market has been commercial. But, in part thanks to YouTube, they are creating and selling high end versions for the home market.

Blendtech’s “Will It Blend?” YouTube Advertising Campaign

As a regular practice, Blendtec has put its blenders through destructive testing for years. Sometime in 2006 Blendtec’s marketing director, George Wright, came upon the company owner, Tom Dickson, putting a blender through one of these tests. He was testing the blenders with heavy chunks of wood.  When Wright saw this he came up with an idea that would change the company. Record the testings and post them on YouTube.

Blendtec created five videos to post on YouTube. In those videos they attempted to blend marbles, a rake handle, a McDonald’s Big Mac Value Meal, and the combination of Chicken and Coke. The videos were a hit and within the first week of the campaign they had been viewed over 6 million times. That is what they call a “Viral Video” on YouTube, because it spreads like a virus.

Blendtec now has over 100 YouTube videos. They have been viewed over 120 million times. And their sales have increased over 700% since the start of the campaign.

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To see more videos click here.

Popularity: 44% [?]

KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid!

Your YouTube videos need to entertain, educate or inform. Otherwise, no one will watch them.

Keep and eye television commercials when you watch them. What kind of backgrounds are in the video? What colors are used? How big is the subject? What kind of aduio accompanies the video?

I’ll bet you find that the videos with simple content is the easiest to remember. Keep that in mind when making your video. Here is a good example:

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Simple!

Popularity: 5% [?]

One of the great things about YouTube is the fact that it is a wonderful source of information. And if you find a video to be very valuable, odds are it is valuable to other people similar to you such as your business contacts. If this is the case then you may want to post the video on your blog or your website.

How To Put A YouTube Video On Your Blog Or Website:

Be Aware Of Who Controls The Video

When you post a video like this on your site, be aware that the video can be removed from YouTube by the person who posted it. If they remove it then it will not show up on your site. So if you have a lot of videos posted that you do not control, then make it a point to review your site regularly and make sure everything is operating properly.

How have you used someone else’s  video on your blog or website?

Popularity: 4% [?]

Old Spice And The Blender

The Old Spice videos have been the classic example of “viral” videos. They won an Emmy, doubled sales, and started a TV career for the star. BlendTec blenders has created videos that have led a marketing campaign that increased sales five fold. Two of their 102 videos are approaching 9 million hits each.

Will It Blend? – Old Spice

Today a video was posted featuring both products. I am writing this article at 10:30 pm and it has been viewed over 44,000 times already.

With this video BlendTec and Old Spice are cutting new trails. They are combining their products and marketing to both their audiences. While I’m sure there is some overlap in their markets, I am willing to bet that this video will set records.

Who Will Follow?

It will be interesting to see what other marketing campaigns combine their popularity and create joint videos. Who would be two companies that could create a joint video campaign comparable to this one?

Popularity: 33% [?]

Huck Huckabee

The Old Spice Guy

Here is a follow up on my July 30th post:

One of the most popular social media campaigns of all time is that by The Old Spice Guy. Old Spice made a video with former National Football League wid receiver Isaiah Mustafa. As I am writing this the initial video has been viewed 19,584,150 times. Click here to go to the YouTube page with the initial video on it.

The Campaign Expanded

After the initial video was created, Isaiah made several more in response to Twitter fans. Within weeks Old Spice had 199 videos posted. This interaction is a prime example of what exchanges in social media can lead to.

Click here to go to Old Spice’s YouTube page. I have a good time looking a them on occasion.

The Unique Farewell

The campaign could have gone on indefinitely. Then on July 14 they created the farewell video:

These videos will be viewed for many years. What is your favorite viral campaign?

Popularity: 33% [?]

Google and Wharton Create FastForward on YouTube

The Wharton School of Business is one of the most respected business schools in the world. They have created over 1000 YouTube videos dedicated to the changing face of marketing. And much of their focus is on what is happening with social media.

They had a conference at the school that involved many business owners. And they created some great videos like the one posted here. Most of the views are very general but they emphasize the importance various businesses are putting on social media. And the fact that Wharton invests as much as they do in YouTube tells us a lot about they value this institution sees in it’s services.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Cisco Systems Prediction

Cisco Systems is an American multinational corporation that designs and sells consumer electronic goods and networking technology. They employ 65,000 people. Their 2009 revenue was over $36 billion. I think it’s safe to bet that they know what they’re talking about.

Cisco is predicting that Internet networking traffic will quadruple by 2014. And most of that growth will be driven by online video.

The opportunity is there to get respectable and efficient videos in front of your customers. Tools like the Flip Video camera and Windows Live Movie Maker software (which may be in your computer already) make it very cost effective to put together videos about the things you sell. And when compared with text a video normally renders a more complete story about the items you are marketing.

You need to start learning how to make them! Give me a call if I can help you get started.

What videos have you created?

Popularity: 4% [?]