Sam Blogs….

I am sure you all remember this:

This was seen as an online marketing masterpiece. It was a very succesful viral video and also a very engaging advert. It has been viewed nearly 12,000,000 times on YouTube and many more via television. The idea that ‘life is for sharing’ also conforms to the 2-way participation methods that Public Relations prides itself on. All in all then, a very sound example of online/new media marketing and PR.

However, now T-Mobile have another campaign running.

Whilst this again goes along with the idea that ‘life is for sharing’ and yes, it does provide another chance of a viral marketing campaign for t-Mobile, am I the only one who finds that all this is becoming a bit boring? Maybe even becoming passe?

I hope it isn’t getting to this stage for many, but I fear that the reliance on these methods to advertise have a very short shelf life and the longevity of the campaigns may decrease as people become anaesthetised to them!

Well it has been a busy for weeks for most students what with deadlines for coursework and exams. It is safe to say I have been pretty stressed out. However, it seems to have been an even busier few weeks for Gordon Brown and his merry bunch of idiots in the New Labour party. It was been widely reported as the worst period in his tenure, facing criticism not only from the back benches and opposition but also from within his cabinet.

Much of the criticism was focused, amusingly, around a certain youtube video regarding MP’s expenses. The video gathered all sorts of coverage, from being ripped apart on Have I Got News For You to the usual BBC news reporting. However, it is hard to take this man seriously. Take a look for yourself…..

Now I am sure you will admit that, whislt this was a rushed video to try and limit the damage caused by the crisis of ‘expenses’, the facial expressions of Gordon Brown are quite worrying. However, this is not the main issue that has been raised regarding the video. As I mentioned, this was sort of a ‘holding statement’ in response to a issue that was snow-balling into a crisis for the government. Labour’s use of communications as a method of damage limitations has back fired in the past and this is a further example of it. What the premier was proposing in the video was rejected in the House of Commons – leaving him with a fairly large amount of egg on his grimacing face.

Now, the backlash of this defeat – his first in the commons – has lead many to question the Government’s methods. Hazel Blears, Communities secretary, crticised the use of ‘new media’ by the government – stating ‘YouTube if you want to’. Blears then went on to suggest that new media does not aid the communication process or image promotion of the Labour party and more time should be given to old fashioned face to face politics – ‘knocking on doors’ and ’setting up stalls in town centres’.

Personally, I agree. Whilst new media does assist in reaching certain audiences and provides an instant resource for both the public and media to use, it can not and should not do so at the expense of face-to-face communication. Politicians are representing the people and should interact with them at a personal level – after all we elect them to serve us. to try and do so over the internet not only leaves yourself open for criticism from all angles but it also allows people to look at your silly face again and again and again.

In other news – Birmingham City have been promoted to the Premiership. Excellent.

Following on from my previous post, regarding the song I have put up on youtube, I have found ot a few handy little tips when looking at how popular and how wide reaching your video is. As a member who has a video up, you can click on a button marked ‘insight’ when looking at your own videos. This takes you to a screen which examines views, popularity, discovery, demographics, community and hot spots. Basically these tell you all you need to know regarding the viewing figures of your video.

Looking a bit deeper, the views section plots a line graph to show when your video received the most views, plotting time span along the x axis and number of views on the y axis. This would be incredibly useful if I was a company who had posted an advert or viral video, so to measure whether or when my video was most popular and presents data which may mean you have to rethink the placement of video if the number of views are dwinderling.

The next section is popularity, this takes the form of another line graph, but instead of number of views on the y axis, it plots how popular your video is compared with others on a scale of 0 to 100. Again this would be an invaluable tool if you were utilising youtube to put information regarding a product or an advet as it would give you a comparison between your and other’s content.

Following on from that is a section on Discovery. This is the most impressive part of this entire tool, it allows you to see how people discovered your video. It plots a bar graph of how people are finding the video. The majority of ours comes from a youtube search but it is the other results that are most intriguing. It shows you how many times your video has been viewed by an external link – and on what site, so it takes me to blogs that people have posted my video on!! Amazing in my opinion, so I have had a look at what people have been saying and it is quite positive. To think if you were a company, you could see how many people had embedded your video on their pages and then see what they were saying and join in the debate! How cool is that?! Add to that you can see what people searched in google to find it and also from what other videos people went to yours from, building a huge picture of your audience.

The demographic analysis tells me that the majority of viewers are males between 18 – 24, again very useful if you are company targeted specific stakeholders. Oddly, 3% of the views are from people aged 65 and over!!

The community section is a youtube internal evaluation of where members were from who commented on or rated the video. This again will help a company in see who is engaging with the video and whether or not your video has caught the interest of an unintended audience in a different country.

The hotspots section shows the points in which most people are rewinding to during the video or when people are leaving the video, obviously this is important to show if you are keeping your viewers attention and whether or not there is a certain part of the video that people are enjoying!

Well I hope you like my insight into youtube ‘Insight’!

Incase you have missed the video, here it is again: