Echelon Media

Chiropractors Can Use Social Media Too…

Josh — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:17:51 +0000

There is still a big misconception that small businesses can’t use social media to leverage their brand online. We’ll often hear the excuse that participating in social media takes too much time. I’ll argue that both of these are false. A friend of ours is a local chiropractor in Fargo, ND and we’ll use him as an example of how a busy small business can leverage social media.

The thing to understand is that when using social networks, businesses can dip their toes in the water before jumping head long into the deep end. This is also what we recommend to our clients in order to help them stick with the plan of moving forward with social media. If you feel like you are overwhelmed by what you have to Tweet, Facebook update, video shoot and so on you won’t get any of them accomplished because it is too much work. Take one thing at a time until you are comfortable with it and then (and only then) layer on the next thing.

It is very important to know that social media is a process not a goal.

Facebook Page

At the end of March 2012 Facebook will be switching (or already has) pages to the Timeline just like people’s personal profile pages. This will have a few different effects on what businesses will be able to do with their pages. One of the biggest changes will be stripping away the ability for businesses to have “non-fans” land on a specific landing tab. This method of driving people to a landing tab is to entice those visitors to some kind of call to action like “liking” the page, downloading something or signing up to a newsletter. Now if a business wishes to drive people to those types of landing tabs they’ll have to do so through direct promotion or advertisement (much to the chagrin of everyone).

It is very important to have a completed profile page that people can follow/subscribe to see what is new and happening with your business. This is supposed to be an interactive playground and not just a billboard 2.0. Using Strive as our example you can see a page that receives frequent updates, has followers engaging, questions are being asked with answers given, there is a personality to the site and a very positive and informative tone. This is a process that takes a little bit of time to build into but pays dividends as relationships with customers grow.

Businesses often overlook filling out their profiles with all of the information that’s possible. Take a few minutes to make sure all of the addresses, links, phone numbers and times are correct. The last thing you want is the customer missing out with incorrect or incomplete information.

The total time invested on this page is probably less than 15 minutes a day.

Twitter

Twitter allows businesses to update their background image to a custom image to display on their page. Just like the picture below, businesses can use this opportunity to post link addresses to their websites, social profiles or list other important information such as phone numbers and addresses. Businesses need to take the time to completely fill out their profile with as much information as they can.

Again, when using Twitter businesses should focus on interacting and engaging with their followers and not just blast them with updates about the business as if it is a one-way street of communication.

YouTube Channel

A lot of businesses have the ability to showcase their products and services by creating some simple videos. The second largest search engine in the world is www.youtube.com with billions of searches every day. We have talked about creating a cheap HD video setup in the past. For a couple hundred dollars a business can get up and running and distributing high quality videos.

Like Facebook and Twitter, YouTube’s channels can be highly customized with pictures, information and links. It is also very important to properly complete all the available information for each video, including:

Create an inviting YouTube channel with proper (pictures and information)
Use descriptive video titles
Fill out all the video details
Add links and full video descriptions
Use videos to talk about your business practice or industry

For example:

Can The Chiropractor Help With Pain? – Strive Chiropractic Fargo

How can the chiropractor help your infant – Strive Chiropractic Fargo

The total time into creating these two videos and their YouTube Channel was roughly 3 hours. This is easily something that can be done once a month for any small business looking to spread their brand and gather more eyeballs from the Internet.

Google Places

If you are a business like our Chiropractor in Fargo it is important to either create or secure your Google Places page. By securing your page you’ll be able to update the information on that page including the descriptions, pictures, hours, contact information and links to your website/video/other. Just like our Chiropractor in Fargo creating a nice, clean and simple page that people can easily navigate will boost the amount of calls your business receives. By fully engaging on your Places page higher search rankings can be achieved as you move past your dormant competitors’ listings. Follow this link to learn how to secure your Places page.

Google+ Business Page

Very similar to the business page for Facebook the Google+ business page allows businesses to fill out their profile with pictures, videos, descriptions, hours and much more. The benefit to the Google+ page is knowing that a completely filled out page will have all of the elements that Google is looking for in terms of providing relevant searches on the results page. Although this feature is new to the space it should not be ignored. Some of the advantages to the Google+ page is having plenty of room to provide content to visitors which in turn boosts the likelihood that your profile will raise above the competition.

How to Create Share Worthy Content and Viral Campaigns for Social Media

Josh — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:08:40 +0000

This is a guest post written by Patrick Meninga of Make Money With No Work.

Does your social media strategy consist of integrating Facebook “like” buttons on your website?

Most people will hesitantly agree that this is pretty much the case, so let’s dig deeper for a moment.

Promoting your business should always include some form of content planning.

The goal is to publish content on your website that invites your site visitors to share it with others and help spread your message in a viral fashion.

Social media sharing is one of the end results, but we can shape this process by focusing on our content creation process.

If you want people to share your message, then build better stuff to begin with! Let’s look at a few different ways that we can do that.

Use existing data to point you in the right direction

Your website should already have some clues as to what type of content is a winner for your audience. Look in your Analytics package and sort to see your top content by pageviews or visits.

You might ask yourself a few questions about the top 20 articles, such as:

Which articles have the most comments (and thus user engagement)?
Which articles have the lowest bounce rate (and thus have a message that resonates well with your audience)?
Which articles have the most incoming links?
Which articles have done well in the past via social media?

When you are planning out future content, consider what your audience has responded to in the past, and use that as a guide to create more “winners.”

Promote, test, measure, repeat

Creating share-worthy content should become an iterative process for you.

This means that you are going to consciously create new content with the goal of surpassing the performance of older content. What you choose to measure is up to you based on the goals of your promotional strategy, so you may be judging your content based on the number of reader comments, number of Facebook likes, or whatever the case may be.

But each new piece of content should seek to set a new record when measured against your older content. If it fails to do so, then you have learned something, and you can then try something else.

If it succeeds, then you are onto something, and you should run with your idea and see if you can create more “winners.”

The web makes it very easy to test and measure success in this manner, so take advantage of the lessons you are learning when your audience responds (or does not respond) to your new content.

This testing process is important because eventually you can use this information to create custom content that you know will do well with your audience. You can then be more confident that any dollars spent promoting such content will be well spent, and your whole marketing strategy will become much more effective. You will create less content in the future that fails to engage your audience.

Crafting share-worthy content for your website

So how do you get started creating share-worthy content?

Start with your users, your audience. What is their most burning desire? What do they most want in the world, based on the fact that they are visiting your website?

Start with that hypothetical “burning desire” in the mind of your audience, and then work backward.

Special attention should be given to the headline of your content, as that is where much of the “share-ability” comes from.

One strategy is to start with your headline, make a huge promise to your audience, and then write an amazing article that actually delivers on that promise.

For example, your headlines might be things such as:

“How to Double Your Social Media Engagement in 30 Days or Less”
“Use this Simple Social Media Trick to Double Your Website Traffic Overnight”
“How to Write Articles that Sell Themselves and Spread Like a Virus”
“10 Steps to Building a Social Media Following that Has a Positive Impact on Your Business”

Using the iterative testing process, you might brainstorm several dozen of these headlines, then get together with your team and pick out the top five.

Then, carefully write and polish an article for each headline, making sure to test the response that you get from your audience.

I recommend that you focus on delivering real value to your audience with such articles rather than aiming for hype or sensationalism. That way, your articles will stand the test of time and continue to deliver real value and engage your audience for longer periods of time.

Successful social media starts with conscious content planning

There are thousands of cheap tricks and gimmicks when it comes to social media promotion, but a strong campaign starts with careful planning.

Start with your audience in mind and create genuinely valuable content that makes a big promise using a catchy headline.

Over-deliver with your article and then carefully measure the results of your content based on the metrics that are most important to you.

Keep brainstorming new content ideas and headlines, then test new content you create against your existing data.

Constantly refine your content offering based on the response and engagement. Continue to test and to measure new content until you have reached your social media goals.

Join Us for a Talk About Video at BlogWorld & New Media Expo in L.A

Brian — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:43:38 +0000

BlogWorld Expo 2011, LA

I’m headed to Los Angeles to take in the Blogworld & New Media Expo next week! This conference is going to be “off the hook” in grand style. I was invited to speak on a topic I have written about before on this blog…Shoestring Video and a topic I’ve presented at numerous other conferences. This event is coined as “The World’s Largest Social Media Event” and will feature 275+ Speakers and a tradeshow. I am so excited to be a part of the fun this year.

My session is called “You May Not Win an Oscar, But Your Videos Won’t Stink, Either” and I think that title pretty much sums it up for the most part. The session is really a “HOW-TO” and a “WHAT-DO-I-NEED” type of session. I’ll layout the basics and pass along some knowledge (from experience) that will enable you to take your online video up a few notches quickly.

Key Points

1. Shoestring video equipment “shopping list” and what to look for
2. Planning your shots, when to shoot and simple lighting techniques
3. Time-saving video production techniques

My session is a part of a larger Tourism Track at BlogWorld and I honored to be among some of the coolest cats in the industry. If you’re in the area be sure to stop by. If you’re gonna be there let me know what you’d like to hear about! I am tweaking my presentation every single day! For instance, today I just picked up a new GoPro Hero HD2 camera and am already finding new uses for it in my shoestring equipment arsenal. We’ll talk about it all during the session!

If you can’t make it be sure to follow the #BWELA on Twitter!

Tips to Grow Your Business Facebook Page

Brian — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:14:42 +0000

There’s nothing more frustrating than starting something and not seeing growth. The problem isn’t Facebook, it that most of the time we focus too much on ourselves and not enough on the greater community at large. Being a successful social marketer for your business requires you to be an engaged social marketer within the greater community.

We have all seen those pitchy Facebook pages, or streams of non-stop blatant and nauseating advertising messages disguised as “genuine” conversation. These types of posts often receive little or no response. Consumers these days are increasingly savvy. They know B.S. when they see it. Maybe your pages are not growing because you are guilty of not being “genuine” enough? To be genuine, you simply have to stop being a robot. Online it’s all about interaction

So how can you ramp up the interaction rate of your business Facebook page to foster growth? Here are a few tips:

Don’t forget to “like” other pages as your page and customize your “Featured Likes” under your “Edit Page” options. We all have partners and stakeholders so be sure to put them front and center. You’re allowed five featured likes. Use at least three of them for your most important partners and leave a couple open to randomly rotate among your entire “likes” list.

Share! Don’t be a selfish self-promoter! Share content from others too. The share button is a powerful tool in building relationships and providing topical content to your followers.

Keep an eye on your newsfeed even when you’re signed in as a page! If you find something interesting “share” it. Chances are others will find it interesting too and the original author will think you are cool beans.

LIKE! Like and comment on the content of others. Spread some love! It puts your name in front of more people and it tells people that you are listening. What comes around goes around. Show a little love, get a little love.

Comment on and “like” the post comments that people contribute to your page. Again, it shows that you are listening and appreciate the attention that your fans are giving you. If a comment requires a response…respond. It is kind of like rewarding good behavior. It makes people feel good and encourages future interaction.

You see, by dedicating a little more time to engagement you’re tapping into a huge pool of people who will start doing some of the marketing for you. It’s not just “playing” around on Facebook. It’s marketing. Simply put, social media is word-of-mouth advertising.

Recently, the Fargo-Moorhead Convention & Visitors Bureau (FM CVB) marked the 15th anniversary of the release of the film ‘FARGO” by creating a full-scale replica of the infamous wood chipper and brought the actual movie prop to the community for “The Wood Chipper in Fargo” exhibit. To promote the exhibit, we created a presence online with a Facebook page [hyperlink:http://www.facebook.com/FargoMoorhead#!/thewoodchipper]. In just a few months, the Facebook page has grown to more than 7,000 fans, and is growing at approximately 1,000 new fans a month. We’ve also seen a true “real world” impact. Walk in visitors to the F-M Visitor Center are up more than 30 percent in the months following the installation of the exhibit and launch of our social media efforts. The “Wood Chipper Community” is extremely engaged and responsive too. But, let me assure you it didn’t happen all by itself. It took dedication to our fans and continued efforts of outreach and interaction to foster this healthy and vibrant online community.

You can do the same for your business. All you have to do is get involved in the conversation, reward your audience for their participation and spread the love.

To Coupon or To Groupon?

Josh — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:20:26 +0000

I think both new and old forms of coupons and saving will be more successful in the coming years, but is one more practical than the other?

There has been a lot of talk lately about coupons and couponing (is that a made up word?). Having worked with the Pitch Anything McGraw Hill book, I have learned there are dozens of books about to be released on the subject of coupons and savings. No joke. Clipping coupons is about to become the norm for a large group of people. Except few people actually clip coupons anymore with the Internet around.

So all this raises the question, should a company provide an ongoing assortment of coupon codes or blow their whole load in a one day sale like Groupon?

I have to admit there is something addictive and sexy about a Groupon in a way that reminds be of woot.com. But Groupon has its limits such as location and the number of discounts it provides on a given day. In the booming metropolis of Fargo we don’t get Groupon deals, so the next closest Groupon list I could find to subscribe to was Minneapolis a few hundred miles away. I do admit I look at the deals but have never committed mostly due to not eating Chinese frequently in a city 3oo miles away, oh well.

Lately, I have heard that Groupon’s sales team suggests businesses being listed on their site up their prices considerably before posting the deal so they are not really out any money in the promotion. Now after reading that article and seeing the Groupon deals float through my inbox, I began to think that in fact the prices are inflated and most of the deals I would never need. I want camping gear, not cakes!

This makes me think that Groupon is fun and cheeky but not really for me as I have yet to use them once, although the skydiving deal looked enticing.

Now this leads to normal coupon sites and the ability to either copy and paste a code or print it out to redeem. I myself use these kinds of codes frequently. How else can you bear buying another domain through Godaddy’s check out cart if you don’t it get for 50% off?! I still see a need for coupon sites and coupon codes, but can a company innovate and change the way we shop?

For instance, if the site Harry and David produced a Harry and David coupon code (which they do, non affiliate) can they change the way people shop? The reason people love Groupons is due to the fact that it’s like the lottery and every morning the new, next, better deal will be waiting in their inboxes. This forms a community and a group of people talking about the next latest greatest thing.

But for an average online retailer not on the Groupon hit list, is there a way to catch the same zeal?

The first thing a company would have to do is get people talking about your product preferably on your terms (ie. social media, blogs, Facebook and Twitter). Then they would have to segment their followers into groups that like the same thing such as: organic lawn care vs dog tricks. There is no law that says one user can’t be in two different groups, by the way

With this segmenting and creating specials or deals, businesses and coupon sites could offer me more of the coupons and discounts I want. You know how Amazon starts blasting you with emails when you check out a product like a Netbook? They are trying to get me to purchase a netbook through them after looking up some info about netbooks. Except the only problem is, I was only showing a friend the different netbooks and I have no intention of buying one myself. So now I am being spammed for being a good friend.

What if, when you bought something you not only wanted but often buy such as Coke from the grocery store, your favorite coupon site automatically sent you monthly coupons for your next shopping trip or notified you of a killer 2-4-1 case sale going to take place next week? Now that is something I would want.

I don’t want to think as a shopper/consumer, I just want to know of the best deals for frequently purchased items and have them automatically sent to me. The first site/company/app to nail this will have a walk off homer in my book.

What are your thoughts? Do you use coupons? What is your favorite coupon site? Does Groupon really suck?

*img source: http://www.momsneedtoknow.com/printable-coupons-2/

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Bank Marketing Ideas

Josh — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 00:10:22 +0000

I get a lot of searches for different industries looking for useful marketing ideas. One of the terms I see show up now and again is Bank Marketing Ideas. I can’t help but wonder how fierce the competition in the banking industry is. The whole banking system is set up cleverly to make a lot of money. That is, if you have customers.

Every bank needs a sign

Whoever implemented the first digital time / temperature sign at a bank was a genius. That person deserves a medal. I mean really, they do. Every day on the way to and from work you look to see the time and outdoor temperature. It just so happens you also see the name of the bank displaying the sign, reinforcing its brand recognition.

Although, displaying the time in military time (where the day starts at 00:00 and ends at 23:59) and the temperature in Celsius (most Americans don’t know what that is) would be a more unconventional marketing idea. That would cause people to stop and think for a second. That would be reason enough for someone to talk about what they just saw. The effects might be minimal, but you never know. It would be fun to watch people drive by staring at the sign (with your brand on it).

To go even further, why not put up a daily trivia question? Or a random daily fact. People might even drive by your bank every day just to read the trivia question!

Free money

People love free money, almost as much as they love air. In Seth Godin’s book, Free Prizes, he told a bank advertising manager to slip a few $100s into the ATM. People would talk then. Mission accomplished.

Imagine someone pulls up to the ATM at midnight on a Saturday on his way to the next watering hole and he requests $40 and gets $120 instead. Would he go to the bar and promptly tell everyone? How much would you want to bet the bar clears out and a mass of people start withdrawing from that machine? I am willing to bet that each $50-100 you put in the pile to replace a $20 would be redeemed in the astronomical charges implemented at the only machine in town dispensing cash at 4 a.m. on a Saturday.

Stop with the fees already

Banks charge way too many fees, for everything. In a room with 100 people in it, not one would suggest otherwise. Set yourself apart from the crowd and stop charging fees. Maybe you opt out of fees and opt into advertising services like credit help, financial counseling or long-term planning and management of money. Perhaps you break all the rules and say no one will ever be charged a fee so long as they accept advertisements about these great services you can offer them.

What kind of marketing idea generator said its OK to add random fees to a bunch of different accounts and then promptly remove them with no questions asked when a customer asks what they are for? I mean, if the person whose job it is to dispense and receive monies can simply remove the fee on a whim, that fee should not be there. But I am willing to bet that people are happy when those fees are removed and do not report the devious nature of the fee to others. On the other hand, all of those people who don’t know how to check their accounts or balance checkbooks simply get feed to death.

Please upgrade your website

If Mint.com can offer a free budgeting service and attract thousands of people by crunching numbers and displaying them in charts, so can you. Mint.com makes money by referring people to credit card and mortgage companies. I would use a budgeting service if my bank offered it. A lot of the people who use my bank would too. Other people who don’t use my bank would consider switching or opt in to the free service because of the reputable brand. The problem with Mint.com is that it is not a Wells Fargo, US Bank or JP Morgan. Imagine how many people would be willing to give you a platform to help market other products and services to others. Remember it is always good to promote your competition as long at it is on your terms.

Invest in the community

If your bank supports a nonprofit or charity people can relate to, then you will have more customers just because people want to believe they are part of a good cause. People are emotional. Stories of helping others and photos of people in need play to our emotions and we want to help. Not only that, but once something has reached our emotions, we remember it. If your bank donates a percentage to schools, homeless shelters or dog rescue, potential customers will remember you and maybe even switch to your banking services. And I mean really donate, not just donate a lump sum and then spend twice as much telling everyone about it.

For example, how about using the save your change program to match donations to a school? Some banks have the save your change program where if you spend $2.12 on something they round up to $3 and put the .88 in a savings account for you. For every individual participant, save the change adds up to about $200-300 a year in savings. If my bank offered to match that savings from my save the change participation and donate it all to a local school, animal shelter or whatever, I would probably do it, gladly. I can just picture schools rallying all the parents to switch banks and sign up for your save the change and donate program.

Give out candy and dog treats

My girlfriend always talks about it whenever she goes through a drive-thru of any kind and the person at the window gives her dog a treat. Her cat was even offered a treat once. Kids love to go to the bank with Mom and Dad if they get a piece of candy from the teller. Use this idea and expand on it because adults like free treats too. Maybe on Fridays, everyone or selected people who use the drive-thru get a $5 gas card or a coupon for a free coffee. Or maybe they are offered a special such as a savings account with no minimum balance or the interest waved from their credit card for one month. Or maybe every single person who goes through the drive-thru gets a piece of Godiva chocolate no matter what day it is. People like to be surprised for the better, not that they just incurred $300 in overdraft fees. Use your imagination.

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How to set your Business Facebook Fan Page as your Employer

Josh — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 20:27:25 +0000

For the more part people have figured out how to create a new Facebook fan page to represent their business, charity, organization, brand and so on. One problem that people might have is establishing their fan page as their business for their personal Facebook profile. For instance, if you have a blog that you create a fan page for and then decide to list that blog as your business for your personal profile you might have to change some settings in order to accomplish this.

For me to add Echelon Media as my employer, all I needed to do was select the link on my profile and then select the business fan page I created for Echelon Media.

How to select your Facebook fan page as your employer for your personal profile page

Not all Facebook fan pages can be selected as a business. This is because Facebook doesn’t recognize all fan pages as businesses.

For example, if your fan page is listed as a “personal blog,” Facebook likely will not allow you to list it as your employer. To get around this, you will have to edit your fan page so it is listed as something more business oriented such as “local business.”

When you created your Facebook fan page on https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php, you had to select which category your page would fall under. Depending on which category you chose, you may not be able to list the page as your business on your Facebook profile.

If you are unable to list your fan page as your business, chances are you will have to go in and edit the category that your fan page falls under.

To edit your fan page’s category, navigate to your fan page and click on the Edit Page button in the top right. Then click on the Basic Information link on the left and choose a more business-oriented category such as “local business.”

After your page’s category has been updated to a business friendly category, you’ll be able to add that fan page as your business under your personal profile. It may take a minute for Facebook to recognize the changes you made. If it doesn’t work right away, refresh the page and try again.

This can be one of those annoying ticks that does not present an obvious solution without knowing the limitations of the different fan pages.

What are some other Facebook issues you have come across?

Talking Movie Making with Destination Marketing International (VIDEO)

Brian — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 15:53:31 +0000

Brian Speaking at DMAI 2011

Recently I had the opportunity to speak to a crowd at Destination Marketing Association International‘s Annual Convention. The topic was movie making and I was joined by my friend and colleague, Jeremy Harvey from Visit Loudoun. Together we covered destination movie making ranging from the low budget DIY to large scale productions with casts and crews.

The bulk of my portion of the speech had to do with creating low cost video in-house for travel and tourism promotional purposes.

Now I’ve talked about the “poor man equipment wish list” before on this blog in a post called “HD Video on a Shoestring Budget“. Not a lot has changed since I wrote that post a while back. But I do have one very important and useful addition to the list of equipment featured earlier.

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of audio. It can be really difficult to get quality audio in the field so consider picking up a simple stereo hand held audio recorder. For around $100 you can have a versatile recorder that you can use to get audio tracks to add to your video. Have wind noise? No worries. Just replace it with separate tracks. Very similar to what you see on the evening news.

Another big positive of having an hand held audio recorder is the fact that the people you are interviewing are generally much more comfortable having a mic in their face than a video camera. I have found that the content I get when just capturing audio is much more authentic, relaxed and usable.

I also shared some tips with the audience on how to make things as easy as possible. There is only so much time in the day. So making the most of your time and getting what you need fast is key. Here’s my brief list of tips that could save you a ton of time in the field and in the editing studio:

•Go “SHOOT” when it is busy
•Get 5-10 Shots MAX
•Fronts of Heads & Teeth
•Limit the shots to 5- 10 Secs
•Keep the LIGHT behind you
•Pay MORE attention to AUDIO
•Pay attention to the CAMERA (Being a human tripod)
•Less is MORE

Using these tips and equipment costing no more than $300 I spoke about how we all can create multi-use content to use in various capacities that were not limited to being used on just a blog post or social media post. Here’s an example of a video I shot with a total shoot, production and distribution time of about an hour. (including driving to the site and back to the studio!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF9E6k4k5iA

The key is “multi-use.” Create content that is versatile with a long shelf life and the time you put in can pay dividends for months, even years in the future. Always try to create content that you can use for the following purposes:

•Website Content
•Blog Posts
•Search
•Social Media
•HELPING Our PARTNERS
•GAINING the TRUST of the community

We shared quite a few other examples during the session. One of my most favorite example that I was able to share with people in this session was a video that the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND produced. It’s my favorite and most simple to produce. If you like eating ice cream bars, coloring with crayons and unlocking some true creative energy this video style can be a lot of fun. It was great to see how people reacted to watching it. They smiled, they looked intrigued and genuinely surprised that something so simple could be so motivating. Take a look for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNl8Q5Ni9RU

I love being a part of conferences like this because I always learn something too. My speaking partner, Jeremy Harvey introduced me to GoPro Cameras and showed an impressive example of the capabilities. Granted it may be a bit more expensive than some of the equipment I recommended in my shoestring video post, but I think the versatility that it offers and ease of use make it a great tool to shoot for if you have the funds. Take a look at the example we shared shot entirely with GoPro equipment.

3 Days in Rio (personal vacation 2011) from Daniel Ferro on Vimeo.

Another great aspect of the GoPro Cameras is that it is capable of doing time lapse productions. I’ve looked at a lot of cameras over the years and have rarely (if ever) seen this feature on cameras in the $300 or less category! We shared an example of time lapse and talked briefly about how destinations could create easy content by hitting record and walking away.

For example, in North Dakota our visitors often comment about how gorgeous our sunsets are and how they had no idea it could be so beautiful here. Why not share it with the world! I can’t wait to shoot one my GoPro arrives!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SsSAaJ6BII

I hope I have been able to outline some of the basic content we covered in the session. Bottom line, and the point that I really wanted to get across is that video isn’t just for people with degrees and top-notch equipment. We live in a time where technology is affordable and within reach. Just get out there and experiment. Have fun, put yourself out there and start creating video. You can’t get good at it unless you start trying. Don’t take yourself so seriously, allow yourself to have fun and don’t be afraid to make an ass out of yourself once in a while to get that perfect shot.

Below you can see some of the slides from the presentation.

DMO’s-Destination Movie Making Organizations

View more presentations from bvmatson

What are you thoughts and ideas for making video on a minimal budget? What are some of your successes? Failures? We’d love to extend this conversation and learn even more from the community! Leave your comments below.

Join Us for a Talk About Video at BlogWorld & New Media Expo in L.A

Echelon has been acquired by Wolfe LLC

Josh — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:49:31 +0000

It is a big day for Echelon Media. As of today we have been acquired by Wolfe LLC. Read the rest in the press release below….

PITTSBURGH, July 6, 2011 — Wolfe, LLC (Wolfe) www.wolfe.com has acquired Echelon Media, LLC (Echelon)www.echelonmedia.com, a social rewards platform and recognized leader in social media customer engagement strategies. Leveraging the “Echelon Platform,” Wolfe extends its leadership in providing branded gift cards, social gifting and reloadable Visa®, MasterCard® and Discover® rewards cards through social networks. Together, the companies will provide a turnkey social media solution to companies that are seeking to increase user interactions over social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others. GiftCards.com, a Wolfe property, is already recognized as the top branded gift card website in the world.

“This acquisition will allow Wolfe customers and partners to leverage branded reward cards over social networks, especially on Facebook,” said Jason Wolfe, Wolfe CEO. “It shows our commitment to the Facebook ecosystem and leverages the Wolfe products with social media capabilities that will drive additional business for all of our clients and partners. As an Echelon client we were so impressed with the results, we made the decision to acquire the company. Echelon has a unique ability to build momentum fast for clients in this new and exciting space.”

“We launched Echelon for the purpose of leveraging social networks through incentives and rewards to drive customer loyalty and engagement,” said Josh Whitford, CEO and founder of Echelon. “We believe that social rewards are increasing brand awareness and driving more customers into stores. The acquisition by Wolfe of Echelon will allow us to establish ourselves as the dominant player in the social rewards market.”

With the growth of sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, new companies are offering ways for brands to track and leverage consumer interactions over social networks. Echelon provides these companies a turnkey platform to reward customers for their social actions. Echelon will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Wolfe and will continue to grow its operations inChicago, Pittsburgh and Fargo, N.D.

About Wolfe:

Wolfe, LLC is the parent company for industry leaders MyCoupons.com; the oldest online coupons site with over 1 million visitors per month and GiftCards.com; the world’s largest on demand gift cards and greeting card site. We also ownSwapagift.com, GiftCodes.com, and WRL.com. Together our unique combination of sites provide the ability to offer more unique corporate and consumer opportunities than anyone else in the marketplace.

About Echelon Media:

Echelon Media, LLC www.echelonmedia.com is a leading provider of social media rewards applications and services. The company also provides a variety of other services that assist clients with social media strategies. Founded in 2008, Echelon Media maintains offices in Fargo and Chicago.

SOURCE Wolfe, LLC

How Bakeries are Using Social Media to Gain Customers

Josh — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 21:05:27 +0000

Recently we were quoted a ton in the May issue of Modern Baking on how bakeries can use different social media tools to increase business and revenue.

Here is the link to the article:

So how can businesses and bakeries use social media to increase sales?

The #1 thing they can do is to interact over social sites such as Facebook and Twitter with their clientele. We are not just talking about sending out an update on your next special or when your store hours are, we are talking about genuinely engaging in conversation with them. This dialog can cover anything and everything under the sun, but your customer needs to view you as a person that cares about them and not just some business with a Facebook page.

Follow the link to the article to see other great ideas.