The reason I have failed to blog very much over the last several months is that when I become passionate about something it begins to consume my life (to some degree). I am no less passionate about social media, but I have found that to begin to learn and develop and use other social media channels you need to decide how much time you can afford devote to one channel over another.
When I started my social networking/media journey, I focused on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I used my Google Reader to aggreagate every article and blog that would assist me in soaking up as much information on the “new media” as possible. In turn, I decided to share those articles and blog posts with anyone who thought they might find them of value. This pay-it-forward mentality has resulted in my Twitter following rising to almost 2,000. But for those who follow me on Twitter, I have not fufilled my end of the bargain of late, and my reader has thousands of articles that I have missed and will likely not get to.
The good news is that much of what I have learned I have been sharing with my old client’s as well as the many new ones who are looking for assistance in developing social networking/media strategies (the blog has provided an ROI on my time effort and energy), and the articles I shared in the reader was a great source of information to pass on to these client’s. Unfortunately, by redirecting that energy, I have been somewhat off of the SM grid.
The primary reason though, is that I have been devoting a considerable amount of time to learning how to effectively use Youtube as a social media channel for my firm, and therefore my clients. Triad Strategies has invested in three video cameras, Adobe Creative Suite CS5 Master Collection, and the expensive 64bit computer you need to install the software on. The reason: If you are going to effectively reach all of your various audiences, you need to develop content that your audiences find value in, and deliver that content.
One of my former employees got me started on video in the late 90′s, when you needed to encode the video for people who were still using dial up modems. He had a great idea (thanks Tom) but we were ahead of our time because the audiences we wanted to reach did not have the means to have a positive experience with our content. Youtube, Vimeo, and the other video sites have changed all of that.
So, for the past several months I have gone back to school (the internet) and taught myself how to edit video, play with sound, create graphics, and dabble in special effects. If you have not found lynda.com yet, you have missed one of the best on-line training programs on the web. Today, we are posting video content weekly, and it is our hope that our friends and followers are enjoying the fruits of our labor. Of course, that labor is assisting us in further branding and marketing our firm, and that was one of our goals in jumping on the social media train. In our case, we plotted our course and new where we were headed every step of the way.
I will be blogging about the value of Youtube as an important communications channel over the next few weeks, and hope that you enjoy the content we are distributing. Feel free to check it out, and I would love to hear your feedback. In the mean time, I have pasted in a few links on how we are using it to support our brand and mission, and also included one we produced for my wife’s yoga boutique. Enjoy.
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