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5 must-watch Thanksgiving YouTube videos

Espo — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:25:54 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hopefully you are stuffing yourself and having a good ole time. If, for some reason, you are on the computer, be sure to peep out these awesome Thanksgiving clips from YouTube:

Five for Friday 5.28

Espo — Fri, 28 May 2010 09:58:44 +0000

Is it me or is this year flying? It feels like just yesterday that we were popping bottles on New Year’s Eve, now we’re getting ready for the official start of the summer. How was your week? Mine was hectic and am very glad that it’s soon to be over. Hopefully y’all have some great Memorial Day plans and are safe with the adult sodas, I know I will. So with out further adieu, here is this week’s installment of Five for Friday.

7 reasons social media won’t work for your company – Social media is a lot like Tickle Me Elmo – a fashionable craze that everyone wants to have. However, it is not the best tool for all companies. This article does a great job of counter selling the point of you not needing social media for your company.

Freeing Yourself From Gurus – Mark Levy uses a real world example to debunk the guru mentality. Sure these folks might be popular and have done great work, but they are not the end all, be all. Don’t be afraid to show your voice – it’s fun and rewarding.

Social Media in Small Business is Anything But Small – This article from Brian Solis is really interesting in terms of the adoption of social media by small business owners. Since the tools have a low entry point to market, the usage seems like it should be second nature. I just didn’t expect these numbers.

An analysis of five commonly held beliefs about managing crises that erupt online – This article is a great read that was passed along in #pr20chat during a conversation on crisis management. The conversation was great and a lot of folks chimed in with great offerings on crisis management in general. Check out the piece for some 2.0 nuggets.

Is Social Media a New Way to Build a Brand? – This article came way of my friend and mentor Bob Cargill the other day on Twitter. It’s a pretty interesting look into how brands can be built using social media.

Bonus – Touchy Feely Flackery

Hopefully this flack learned that there are good touches and bad touches and the reporter learned to be polite.

My Google search story

Espo — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:44:05 +0000

Google has rolled out some cool things lately and their Search Stories application on YouTube is just one of them. You add in a few search terms and what you want to search and from there they make a video out of the searches. Here’s mine, what would yours say about you?

Click here to make yours now.

Fun with hoodies

Espo — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:35:11 +0000

Anyone that knows me, knows that I have an infatuation with hooded sweatshirts and own a lot of them. So when I saw this video earlier today on other uses for them, I found it interesting. Hey you can keep warm and carry your computer if you get to hot – or are too cheap to by a bag.

However, when looking at the related videos, I saw this one on using a hoody for a baby carrier. It’s kind of disturbing and I hope no one would really try that.

Think this was a case of trying too hard to be funny or something feasible?

The state of the Internet

Espo — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:02:57 +0000

Interesting numbers in this video:

81% of emails sent in 2009 were SPAM
84% of social networking sites have more women than men using them
Facebook has 37.4 Trillion page views per year
Facebook has 30,000 servers and still growing
1 billion videos are viewed on YouTube each day

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

Get Seen – A video review

Espo — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:00:01 +0000

Steve Garfield’s Get Seen (click here if you can’t view the video) is a great book to pick up for novices and experts alike in the realm of video. On top of being a helpful how-to on all things Web video related, the book also walks you through setting up blogs to host the video.

The tips within the book helped get this video picked up by both CNN and the BBC. If only the BBC would send me the link, bloody wankers. So if I can do it, so can you.

Hell, my cat Mookie is even a fan. You can pick up your copy for less by visiting this link (ad) – Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business (The New Rules of Social Media)

If you are an author or flack for a publishing company or author and would like your book reviewed, feel free to contact me.

Elf Yourself in Real Life

Espo — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:00:04 +0000

Late last year, I wrote on the annual rite of passing for the holiday season – Elf Yourself. The viral phenomenon has invaded inboxes, status updates and blogs for each of the past three years. This year, a troupe of elf yourself dancers took over Union Square in New York.

This real-life adaptation of the viral hit was posted in November and has since generated over 334,000 views on YouTube. While I am late to the viewing party it not only raises awareness to the Elf Yourself brand, but also adds juice to the OfficeMax brand as fun, whimsical and relevant to an audience outside of the traditional office-superstore shopper.

Do you think this video adds to the Elf Yourself experience or does it help make it more annoying?

VW = Most Viral Video Ever?

Espo — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:35:02 +0000

Earlier today, I came across this article in Social Media Today that dubbed VW’s Swedish Piano Stairs video the most ever with over 7M views along with a giant number of Tweets and blog posts on it. Click here to see the full breakdown of the statistics.

Awesome SM training

Espo — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:52:35 +0000

Yesterday afternoon, I saw this article on Mashable that outlined how Telstra, an Australian telecom giant trains there employees on social media. After watching the first intro video, I was inclined to log onto their YouTube page to view the 3 R’s video.

I love the use of the CGI as well as the plain and easy to digest platform that the policy was delivered on. While I am sure there is a larger more robust policy that every employee needs to read, this is clearly a way to get the message across subtly.

I wonder if companies will jump on the “me too” wagon with this one.

Stranger danger

Espo — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:01:18 +0000

I know that PSAs are meant to keep kids safe, but this one – out of the 70′s or 80′s – is sure to give you nightmares.

Gives a whole new meaning to stranger danger.

Making an Impact?

Espo — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:48:24 +0000

As many PR pros know, providing a value back to your company or client is the extreme goal. While on the traditional PR front, its easy to track back results to hits, awards or press release views to an extent, tracking success of social media has been more of a head scratcher.

Sure Radian6 can tell you the sentiment and conversation count and free web apps like TweetStats can tell you how many Tweets you do both personally and professionally with breakdown by day and other statistics. The problem is that number don’t work for PR folks. We all excel in writing and also communications so how do we grade success? It’s a question that many of us struggle with, however, I think we can make a case for stories and positive unsolicited interactions that pop-up every now and then.

Earlier today, I came across a video from a customer that I interacted with on Twitter, that’s a perfect example of making an impact in the space.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUcCsf9PUMs]

The slow death of traditional media continues

Espo — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:34:38 +0000

First it was the Internet, a fad that traditional news media would tolerate. This was the beginning of the end as it berthed blogs and last I checked some papers still don’t want to admit that blogs and other forms of online media have made the morning paper as outdated as a VCR.

Aside from killing the traditional newspaper Industry, the Internet, along with cable television, created a 24-hour news cycle that began to challenge evening news. However the assault on mainstream media had always been lacking something- live video to go along with news that could go along with the pulpit that anyone with a computer was given with the Net.

Well that all looks like it changed when Google announced Reporter’s Center on YouTube. Not only does the site promote the ability to help shape and create news, it also gives pointers from reporters and credible news sources. For Google it is a genius move as any video that’s uploaded onto their site has the chance to go viral if it hits one news source. Imagine if Twitter had this during the height of the Iranian protests. Google obviously saw this and is looking for a grainy cell-phone video to become the next big thing and add popularity and capital into their video money pit.

Here’s a how-to video on starting a citizen journalism organization, which just furthers the assault on news as we know it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL3CeFUp5EI]

Image: deadtechnology.wordpress.com

Minor league swing trick

Espo — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:51:44 +0000

On my Yahoo this morning, I came across this video of Josh Womack:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YngyMco72QA]

While he may have not have made a big enough splash on the farm to make the Bigs, he still got his 15 minutes of fame.

Carl's Jr. the Viral Star

Espo — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:30:29 +0000

With my job I’m tasked with a number of things from PR to social media. Recently, I was tasked with looking into ideas for viral videos. Our recent effort was decent but we couldn’t catch lightning in a bottle like we had wished. Looking at recent vids that have set the Internet ablaze, one company that constantly comes to mind is Carl’s Jr. and their recent campaign with having YouTube stars hawk their products. While I found these videos very interesting and appealing it was another viral idea that actually struck me as pure genius and I saw it on MTV of all places.

While watching an episode of Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory, I was struck at a business proposal that rung more minor league baseball than a large corporation. From what I gathered on the 30 minute episode, Dyrdek would make two viral videos for Carl’s Jr., one with the happy star, and in return, the restaurant would fund a project for the TV skate mogul’s charitable foundation. To me it sounded like a win-win for everyone, Dyrdek wanted the skate park for LA and the company wanted their brand to gain viral buzz with an icon wearing their suit. Check out the full partnership here.

The end result was a great video called Happy Star Saved My Life! that was featured on the show and has over 1 million views, a Guinness Book of World Record for the world’s largest skateboard and a safe skate spot for the inner city of LA.

Oh wait, I forgot to mention the second viral video…Enjoy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqy2oQQYTlc]

10 Worst Sports Pitch Men

Espo — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:50:49 +0000

With the new show on the Discovery Channel show Pitch Men, two of the country’s best product hawkers show their skills showcasing some oddball products. These guys show that they can sell ice to an Eskimo, it also made me wonder how other starts are at hawking goods. The first one that comes to mind is Michael Jordan who is the ultimate pitch man, from McDonalds to underwear, he can sell ‘em all. The same can’t be said for his brothers in sweats,who may have skills on the gridiron, hardwood or diamond, but lack the charisma of his Airness.

Below is a list of the lackluster performances that left sponsors wondering where their dollars went to.

10. Dein Sanders & Adam “Pacman” Jones – Driver Select

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9jjtKZo6-Y]

I don’t know how the preaching DB got hooked up with the “Make it Rain” DB

9. Dustin Pedroia – Dunkin Donuts

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R36Ghp__03w]

While I love the balding second baseman on the field, his acting is so bad, he has a total of zero lines

8. Jonathan Odgen – Gebco

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGWmk2dkXrw]

The big man protected the blindside a hell of a lot better than his dancing that picked up some hunnies from the block.

7. Charles Barkley – Right Guard

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT2JZtZoL4o]

Where the hell did Sir Charles get the English Accent

6. Scotty Pippen – Mr. Submarine

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVmSm3FVaFQ]

This commercial was best left in Chicago. “This is one six footer I can’t handle alone,” innuendo at its best.

5. Jonathan Papelbon – 125 Auto

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4PkgqTkF34]

Stick to closing games and drunk dancing paps.

4. Hulk Hogan – Hitachi (Japan)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDk5QOb1GRc]

Say it ain’t so Hulkster, singing with Japanese.So much for the Real American Hero.

3. Hulk Hogan – Right Guard

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2784o1swxv4]

Like Sir Charles, the Hulkster should not be hawking BO guard. Accents don’t fit bad asses.

2. Dwayen Wade & Sir Charles – T-Mobile

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QIH8NrNeso]

Flash should know that he can make more money spreading his VD around than hanging out with an overweight, drunk bad golfer.

1. Michael Vick – Nike

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oag8iBB7HE]

I am sure Nike wishes the could have this $100M back. Oh wait, they do.