New prime minister John Key has been somewhat missing-in-action since coming to office in November but it has been interesting to watch the media ruckus over his broken right arm and the repeating of the fact that Mr Key shook hands with 120 rugby league players soon after breaking his arm and before getting medical treatment. A nice bit of mythology in the making.
the new ‘geek porn’ is turning PR heads
As the article says: “It has no production values, no nudity and no laughs, and yet a three-minute silent video of a man opening a cardboard box has been watched online by almost half a million YouTube users.”
Unboxing is its name. Youtube videos of men doing nothing but unwrapping new consumer goods from their packaging. Attracting viewers in their tens and hundreds of thousands.
A ‘neuro-marketing’ expert says it taps into some strong primal desires. It’s been described as ‘geek porn’!
It’s cheap, it’s so simple, it taps into everyone’s desires. It’s powerful PR for the companies whose products are unwrapped.
Yeah, but what’s my point ?! … Great PR ideas can be done online for next to nothing and to great effect. Feel the power.
wiki webinar thursday
There are lots of great wiki tools around for building collaborative intranets, extranets, blogs and other websites, including as repositories for user documentation and other tech writing.
Twiki is a strong open source product and Confluence (from Atlassian) comes highly recommended.
Wikis are new in the tech writing space but they are more and more getting big wraps as powerful tools for managing and displaying documentation.
A colleague, Jon Hertzig, has been using Confluence to build a wiki and technical documentation management system for Wellington-based software developers OpenCloud.
Tomorrow, midday (New Zealand time), Jon’s leading a webinar to explain the work he has been getting from this new tech writing tool. Find out more here about the webinar and how to join.
how to keep on top of social media conversations
Trying to find social media conversations relevant to your industry but not sure where or how to look for them — here’s some mighty tips from the guys at ReadWriteWeb.
It shows how to identify the top blogs on any topic; how to find their most popular recent posts and their best blog archives; and how to find where else they are having conversations online.
A little bit techie but easy enough to follow and worth its weight in gold. It will let you more easily keep in the know about what people are saying about your industry and, more importantly, what they could be saying about your organisation.
the power of video
Last month, we looked at how video could be the new media release. Here’s a good example from Ford showing the power of a simple video compared with a traditional media release and a social media release.
best intranets feature social media
Usability guru Jakob Nielson has just judged the best intranets for 2008, and he says intranet trends are towards more collaboration and Web 2.0 tools, more personal customisation, an increase in user-centred design and bigger budgets. Find out more here.
PR, marketing, social media – spot the difference
Some good thoughts here from Beth Harte on the links and separations between PR and marketing; and where social media fits into the mix; and why the term ‘social media marketing’ may be a bit of a tangle of concepts.
merry Christmas and best wishes for 2009
Merry Christmas, everyone. Have a relaxing break and see you in 2009. Facttactic will be back in action in early January, and I look forward to seeing you then.
Adam
the social media crystal ball for 2009
Where is social media heading in 2009? Here’s a few thoughts from some experts (compiled by US social media marketing guru Peter Kim).
(If this online document is too small to read, download the PDF here)
markets are conversations
A couple of days ago we talked about an authentic and ‘human’ voice in your online communications. Here’s some more info in a knowledgeable and very readable presentation. (Click on the controls at the bottom of the presentation to view it.)