Greg Verdino

5 ways every marketer can have a "dancing man moment"

Last night, social media serendipity led me to a video of a man dancing at an outdoor music festival. The dancing man himself isn't anything special -- a clumsy show of flailing arms and legs that wouldn't get him through the first round of auditions on So You Think You Can Dance. 

What happens next is pretty special (or at least interesting.)

When the man starts dancing, he is the only member of the crowd moving.  In fact, it almost seems as if the rest of the audience is blissfully unaware that they're at a music festival at all.  But within seconds he's joined by one, then two, then three other dancers.  Within three minutes, hundreds of people are dancing.

And like countless other seemingly insignificant moments, all of it was caught on video and uploaded to the web.  Within a month of being shared on YouTube, more than one million people have viewed the clip, more than five thousand have rated it, and more than three thousand have left comments. And it turns out that these few minutes in time were captured and uploaded by several different amateur shooters who were there to witness it, so the cumulative numbers are higher still.

That's a pretty impressive ripple effect (or maybe it's a butterfly effect) for something that began with literally just one person willing to do something nobody around him was doing.

Now is probably as good a time as any to watch the video, if you haven't seen it:

[Feed and email readers, click through to view.]

OK, so what does this have to do with marketing?

Certainly the dancing man provides a clear (if trivial) example of how the actions of a sole individual can provide the catalyst that not only directly influences the behavior of the people around them, but also have the potential to scale up to have something approximating mass reach.  Rather than reaching out to millions in the hopes of finding and connecting with "the one" (who responds, who buys, who changes their behavior), why not start with the one who can influence hundreds and ultimately reach millions?

Perhaps the dancing man also offers a lesson about risk and reward -- as a marketer, are you willing to try something (and potentially look foolish) on the off chance that it will deliver an exponential result?  Or will you sit on the sidelines for fear of failure?

But mostly, it leads me to ponder how marketers can have their own Dancing Man Moments.  Off the top of my head, here are five ways:

1. Be the Dancing Man: do something remarkable to spark a movement; star in the story yourself
2. Bear Witness to the Dancing Man: document his actions; capture the moment; be the storyteller
3. Put the Dancing Man on a Bigger Stage: celebrate him; tell everyone you know (your customers, audience, fans, friends); provide access to your larger network of distribution (after all, chances are your brand is bigger than his...)
4. Join the Dancing Man: tap into the momentum of the movement; follow the dancing man's lead but play your own unique part in how the story unfolds
5. Be the Song to His Dance: go beyond just joining in; contribute something unique and different, yet complementary; in fact, why not inspire him to dance in the first place

But enough of my yammering. I'd love to hear from you -- what do you think marketers can do to have their own Dancing Man Moments?

Book 'em Verdino: announcing microMARKETING

I'm excited to announce that I've inked a deal with McGraw-Hill for the publication of my first business book, microMARKETING: A Breakthrough Approach to Building Brands by Thinking and Acting Small.

If the title alone isn't enough to clue you in, I'd like to give you an idea of the ground I'll cover in the book.  Here's a bit of how I described the book in the proposal itself:

A media revolution is underway, fueled by a micro-content phenomenon that is shifting the balance of power from mass communications to masses of communicators.  This shift plays out daily on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Ustream and other social sites.  It’s in the notion that an otherwise normal individual can use social media and low-end technology to become a micro-celebrity with a significant following.  It’s in the viral effect that takes hold when even one online influencer (in essence a one-person media outlet) sparks a conversation that makes or breaks a brand.  It’s in the shift in behavior that is turning the smart phone into the “first screen” for Gen Y and many increasingly-mobile Gen Xers.  It’s in the shift from watching 60 minute television shows interrupted by 30-second advertisements, to watching 30-second pieces of online video content with no advertisements at all.  It’s even in the changing of our expectations of product design and retail sales, giving rise to dozens of successful small businesses and individuals (think Threadless, think Etsy, think Mimobot, think Lemonade) that can create and sell enough high quality, unique or custom merchandise at a premium to shoppers for whom choice and individuality matter more than convenience and price. 

These are exciting times, but they can also be scary times for marketers who have been trained to think that bigger is better, and for whom the excesses and successes of the past 50 or so years – big budgets for major media ad campaigns designed to sell mountains of product through big-box retailers – seem to be the only way to build a big brand.  For better or worse, the new reality is that the old way doesn’t work so well anymore. Simply put, micro-content and macro-marketing don’t mix – and trying to maintain the status quo while consumer behaviors and expectations change amounts to little more than a recipe for failure.

Enter micromarketing – a new approach to building brands, marketing products and services, and growing meaningful long-term customer (and corporate) value.  Micromarketing emphasizes relationships over reach, interactions over interruption, and the network effect over the broadcast network.  It is built upon the premise that the “next big thing” is really lots and lots of small things, and that to survive and thrive, even the biggest marketers must think and act small (make that “micro”), too. 

microMARKETING is not a "Twitter book."  Puh-leeze... In signature Verdino-style, I will aim to help marketers understand the larger trends that are driving the popularity of tools like Twitter and what the real world implications are for businesses (even if Twitter itself -- or Facebook or YouTube, for that matter -- goes away), but my focus will be aimed squarely at the big picture.  I also don't plan to trot out the same ol' tired social media case studies.  In fact, one key piece of my approach is to help large companies understand how to thrive in the era of micro-content and micro-culture by taking lessons from the people and organizations that are involved in the revolution at the grassroots level.  In other words, I'll be looking at what the biggest of big corporations should learn from "whatever experts." 

Again, from the proposal:

Over the past several years, social media has evolved from a trend to watch to an irrefutable fact of life for marketers of all sizes.  Now – before most companies have even gotten social media right – the mainstreaming of micro-content services, the ubiquity of powerful low-cost handheld technology (from Internet-ready phones to consumer-grade HD cameras) and the rise of DIY culture promise to change the rules of consumer engagement yet again.  It is important to understand how these changes impact our ability to build brands, manage customer relationships and drive sales today, and this will only become more important over the coming years as more and more consumers flock to the technologies that are powering the shift.

On the flipside, it is also important that marketers not get swept up in the hype surrounding a single tool or tactic, losing sight of the bigger implications for their businesses.  As has happened with core social media tools like blogging, podcasting and social networking (and short-lived fads like Second Life), marketers now run the risk of not seeing the forest for the trees – of jumping on the “Twitter bandwagon” with short-lived, ill-advised tactics that do little to impact their businesses.   

On the one hand, microMARKETING educates decision makers about larger trends and what they mean for companies who are looking to more effectively engage consumers through new digital channels.  On the other hand, it delivers tangible and practical case studies, stories, tips and tricks from familiar competitors (other large corporations) and unlikely sources of inspiration (micro-businesses and individual creators.)

microMARKETING is slated for a May/June 2010 release.  I need to hand in the final manuscript by mid-October.  Needless to say, I've got my work cut out for me over the next few months.

That may mean less blogging for the next few months, although I'll still try to post here at least once/week.  And you should stay tuned for periodic updates on the book, my progress and the process.  Hell, I may even ask you for some input along the way.

Finally, I'd like to thank the good folks at McGraw-Hill -- especially Donya Dickerson -- and my agent Ethan Friedman at LevelFive Media.

Good times, ahead...

O tidings of comfort and... wait... what?

The holidays are upon us once again.  (How's that for a big ol' honkin' statement of the obvious?) 

Considering that the next couple of weeks will be a blur of holidays, time with my daughter and a bit of travel -- not to mention the fact that I have a crushing amount of work to complete between now and my trip to CES -- I figure my blogging schedule will be a bit sporadic between now and the end of the year.

I hope that everyone has the opportunity to reflect on the year that was, plan for the year ahead and spend a bit of time with the important people in your lives.

For the rest of you, I offer up a smorgasbord of holiday weirdness post-YouTube style.  Please feel free to while away your holiday time off watching a few weird animated shorts.  This ain't your daddy's "A Year Without a Santa Clause."

[Feed and email readers: you know the drill.  Be sure to click through to the blog to watch the embedded clips.]

The first two have been highlighted by a brand spankin' new site called eGuiders that went into public beta yesterday and aims to curate the best-of-the-best web video content so you don't have to slog through millions of pieces of web junk to find the few worth watching.  (Disclosure: I've been serving as an unofficial advisor to eGuiders.  Check 'em out.)

Snowy the Frostman puts a twisted spin on the animated holiday classic.


Happy Tree Friends offers up Japanimation-style holiday shorts that are not for the sensitive or squeamish.

Next up: thanks to the Firehouse agency in Texas we have a new holiday classic based on an old world tradition - the Christmas Pickle. (Tip o' the Santa hat to Chris Wilson.)

And finally -- how can a guy who throws the devil horns every chance he gets resist a mash-up that combines A Charlie Brown Christmas with some killer metal.  Have a head banging Christmas and a rocking New Year.

Want '09 predictions? How about 50 of them?

Yep, it's that time of year again -- time for the marketing bloggerati to polish up their crystal balls and make some bold statements about what you can expect in the coming year.  And you, faithful readers, scour the web looking for even just a few useful nuggets from your favorite bloggers and industry pundits.

Well, this year Peter Kim has done everyone the favor of gathering 2009 predictions from some of the sharpest minds in marketing and social media, and pulling them together in a single eBook that contains 50 or so clear-eyed, thought provoking ideas about what the next 12 months hold for media, marketing and the web.

As one of the contributors, I've had the opportunity to read everyone's predictions and can say for sure that you'll want to download a copy right away.  Lots and lots of good stuff -- from a great cross-section of the blogging community, representing a variety of different points of view.

If you want a flavor for what the eBook has to offer, check out these thought starters from Pete's 14 Nostadami (Pete himself contributes an intro and some takeaways rather than his own predictions.)

• "Although it is now cheaper to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology - it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful." - David Armano
• "You may not always start the year as a leader, but you can certainly finish it that way." - Rohit Bhargava
• "Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation." - Pete Blackshaw
• "Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn't come the way people thought it would." - Chris Brogan
• "The tipping point has not only *not* been reached, but could still tilt *away* from Social Media." - Todd Defren
• "There's a lot of fixing that needs to be done." - Jason Falls
• "Dwindling budgets suddenly make low-cost social media look like the pretty girl at the ball." - Ann Handley
• "We're going to develop a set of better metrics to help guide, direct and validate 'commitment'." - Joseph Jaffe
• "The movement is rooted in a desire to have quality, not quantity, as people cocoon in the face of the economic crisis." - Charlene Li
• "After a pre-qualifying wrestling match..." - Ben McConnell
• "These will be cumulative events and interactions that will build brand loyalty for the companies that pay attention to them." - Scott Monty
• "The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies." - Jeremiah Owyang
• "Companies that focus on earning love will thrive during hard times, and kick ass when good times return." - Andy Sernovitz
• "Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter." - Greg Verdino

But these 14 soundbites only hint at the smart ideas contained in the full eBook -- so be sure to download the complete thang.

As for me, I'll most likely expand on some of my own predictions right here on my blog over the coming few weeks.  In the meantime, I'm sure Pete and the other authors would love to hear your feedback.  Feel free to drop a comment here or any any of the contributors' own blogs.

Hey honey, waddaya think of the new shed?

Remember "QVC meets MTV" hipster shopping site Honeyshed?  I don't blame you if you don't.  They beta launched a while back to much fanfare and some not-so-hot reviews, only to go into hibernation before getting out of beta or attracting much of an audience. 

Well, they're back -- totally revamped and raring to go. 

Bankrolled by Publicis and billed as "Home Shopping for the Digital Generation," Honeyshed rolls on-demand videos of cool(ish), (at least somewhat) attractive young people pitching everything from t-shirts and panties to gadgets and DVDs.  The site comes with all the usual social media trappings -- viewers can review products, share them on social sites and even submit videos of themselves hawking their own stuff.  And has a clear, well executed e-commerce tie-in -- you can click through to the sponsors' own commerce engines to buy whatever you like or "stash" products you might be interested in buying later.  The content doesn't seem to be as weird and off-putting as I remember from the first launch, but it still has a clear post-YouTube sensibility (but thankfully, old school post-MTV production values.)

So will Honeyshed work this time?  That depends on whether or not the team can lure in enough paying sponsors interested in having their products showcased on segments.  No sponsors; no revenue; no content...  And if Honeyshed is gonna pull this off, they'll need to attract a sizable audience in the right demographic.

So the real question is: will the new Honeyshed appeal to the digital generation? 

Did the gang at Honeyshed get the tone right this time?  Will twenty-somethings log on for their daily dose of a hipper Home Shopping Network?  Will Gen Y and Millenials find the paid-for pitches credible, and does this even matter so long as it's clear that that's exactly what they're tuning in for?  Is this even how people shop anymore? 

Let's ask some of them.  I'm hoping that my favorite honeybee, a real live digital girl, a social media guy and the smartest USC marketing grad student I know will be willing to give it a whirl and chime in.  While we're at it, I wonder whether Aronado thinks Honeyshed is lucky or sucky.

And of course I'd love to hear from the rest of you too -- what do you think?

Check out the site -- it's live now -- or if you're really lazy, I've embedded a slideshow of screengrabs below [feed and email readers will need to click to the blog to see the embed.]

Honeyshed Sneak Peek

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: gregverdino verdino)

Disclosure: I used to work at Publicis-owned Digitas and personally know some of the current Honeyshed management team.  I left before Honeyshed launched and I don't owe them nothin'. :-)

YouTube on the hunt for 'good' videos

OK not really (why should they be, when they've built their business by being the go-to portal for crap) -- but this spoof from the Onion News Network hits the nail right on the head. Funny stuff...

YouTube Contest Challenges Users To Make A 'Good' Video
[Feed and email readers click through to watch.]

Cellphone film: mankind is no island

I guess my Wesleyan University commie-sympathizer pink socks are showing today, but I love this video.  Mankind Is No Island is a short film that explores a global social issue using nothing more than a mobile phone, found typography and a simple soundtrack.  Last month it took home the big prize at Tropfest NY, the world's largest short film festival.  Social significance aside, Mankind is yet another demonstration of the democratization of the tools we use for content creation.

[Email readers and feed demons, click through for the video.]

Hat tip hat trick: PSFK, The Tastemakers Society and Lens Culture.

Do you feel lucky, startups? Do you?

If you didn't catch my episode of Lucky Startups live, you can check out the VOD now.  We discuss start-ups, social media, marketing, ooVoo, Amanda Gravel and the grim reaper.  It rawks!

[Feed and email readers, click through to watch the embedded video.]

Watch me on Lucky Startups: 10/10 @ 4pm EST

On Friday, October 10th at 4pm EST, I will be a guest on the live web show Lucky Startups.  That's either today or tomorrow depending on when you catch this post and what time zone you're in, so mark your calendars and be sure to check it out. 

You can catch me in all my online video glory by tuning into the Lucky Startups Ustream channel.

I'll be chatting with my Twitter-bud Aronado Placencia about what it takes for a start-up to catch my attention, how new companies can go to market and generate interest among marketers, and lots more.  I know Aronado usually features a cool start-up or two on each episode, so maybe I'll get to listen to some pitches and wow some suitably impressed founders with my sage advice.  If nothing else, I will prove exactly why I don't like doing video (hint: I'm hideously ugly and awkward in front of the camera.)

If you've never heard of Lucky Startups, their elevator pitch goes something like this: 

Lucky Startups is a live-streamed web video show that allows any startup to get exposure, a captive audience, and valuable feedback from potential business partners, customers, members, and investors.

Tune in Friday, October 10th at 4pm EST.

My blog has entered the terrible twos

My blog turned two over the weekend -- on Saturday, October 4th to be precise.  But since it was out binge drinking and barfing all over its shoes, I figured I'd wait until today to write a post.

The time has flown -- and while two years seems like no time at all, I know that it translates into something like 1,100 internet years. So I thought that this might be a good time to offer up a retrospective of posts from the past 24 months.  It's a great way for new readers to get a sense of the things that have held my interest over the past couple of years -- and a good way for long time readers to relive the glory that is me (that last bit is written with more than a hint of sarcasm, of course.)

For me, it has been interesting to look back at everything I've written here and find that -- although the specific details, companies and pet peeves may have changed -- my overall themes have remained the same.  Depending on your point of view, that either means that I'm consistent or that I've fallen into a rut.  You can decide for yourself. 

Anyway, thanks to everyone who has stuck by me, remained a reader, linked to me when I've written something noteworthy, and spread the word to their friends and colleagues.  I appreciate it.  I really, really do.

And so, without further ado, here are 24 posts from the past 24 months -- charting the course from my blog's humble beginnings to it's just as humble present.  Let me know what still resonates, what you think is a load of crap and if there are other posts you've enjoyed as well.

2006

• Don't let ads kill the video star

2007

• Let's define the word "pull"
• Does your ad agency advertise?
• Be the content
• Are you at war with your customers?
• The social media disconnect
• Do you make your customers uncomfortable?
• Get off the scale
• Are you a giver?  Probably not.
• Social media: how much is too much?
• What did you expect?
• Frank Zappa school of marketing
• A t-shirt is like social media because...
• How are television ads like SUVs?
• Britney Spears school of marketing
• The 7 strands of "blog dna"
• Black Eyed Peas school of marketing

2008

• Beyond knowledge: head in the cloud
• Tweet or change the world.  Pick one.
• The 'you test' for social media agencies
• Twitter, shunning, Siberia and solitary confinement
• Hate to tell you, but Web 1.0 was social too
• Social media: lipstick on a pig or total makeover?
• Next big thing? First, master the last big thing

If I can ever find the time to put it together, I am hoping to collect these same posts in a free e-book so that I can share them with clients and colleagues that don't read my blog.  I'll let y'all know when (if) the e-book is ready to rock -- hopefully you'll have some friends you can share it with too.

Thanks!