*Or why social funding won’t go away any time soon. When 2 people close to me, (Josh and Maya) get their films fully funded via 2 different crowdfunding platforms, Indiegogo and Pozible, I sense a seismic shift. Both platforms and their most famous counterpart, Kickstarter, have quietly revolutionised the way product developers and producers can […]
collaboration
Blog action day charity:water
As you probably know, the upcoming Blog Action Day is October 15 – and this year’s focus for Blog Action Day is water. To participate in Blog Action Day, you simply register your blog and then write a post. BUT what can you write about? Here’s where Age of Conversation comes in! Charity:water is one of the participating partners for Blog Action Day. So what I’d like you to do is to help us with a Bum Rush on the Amazon charts – generate sales for AoC3 and raise money for charity:water.
Who owns social content?
A year later, most clients are now active in social media – they are asking for Facebook apps, one of them has even replaced their corporate website with a Facebook Page and many of them are even using Twitter, personally if not for their brands. The legal/creative issues for user generated content have not gone away – the clients lawyers are still saying “no” to many creative, social content campaign ideas.
It goes like this:
1. Creative team pitch in a cool, engaging user generated/social content, game/application/tactical campaign
2. Client loves it
3. Digital producers spec it out, and it all looks like its all systems go.
4. Then it gets run past the lawyers
5. Lawyers say no
6. Campaign gets killed or its “Back to the drawing board”
Introducing the authors of Age of Conversation 3
I am very excited to be part of a new book, Age of Conversation 3: It’s time to get busy!. It’s going to be a physical book, available directly from Amazon and other online book stores. The new cover, was designed by Chris Wilson. And the website, was designed and built by my friend, Craig Wilson and the hard working team at Sticky Advertising. The editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan have done an amazing job pulling it together
What’s so great about Tumblr?
Tumblr, the NY based, mini blogging or micro blogging service, seems to be reaching critical mass, now hosting more than a million blogs. It’s been described as “the easiest way to share yourself” It’s the essence of the social web – Tumblr has had some high profile blogs get book deals based on popularity along, such as LATFH, and This is Why Your Fat. Smart copy and ideas get a lot of traction, like Wordboner, and Steal Our Ideas. Tumblr has created an entire sub-culture of categorized, sharable content, F***Yeah Tumblrs such as F***YeahBabyAnimals.
If you’re not familiar with it, its like a cross between Twitter and a more traditional blog such as Wordpress or Blogger. I fell in love with Tumblr a few months ago, because its so easy to use and intuitive. It became a way to keep the photos, conversations and links recorded in a timeline. I realised when I started using it that I’m a compulsive sharer, and it became a fun extension of the kinds of things I like in my personal life, a more aesthetic focus than my Wordpress blog where I write about work related subjects
What’s so great about Tumblr then?
Too many agencies spoil the brand
I find the most successful campaigns or brand strategies has the idea owners (usually the strategic, brand or above the line agency) run the idea through the relevant channels. That’s not to say that they need to do everything, more that they need to be hands on where the the rubber hits the road, the point at which the creative concept (the big idea) becomes a tactical execution. It’s in the clients interest to give this responsibility to the lead agency, and hold them accountable for the execution. So many times, the way the “big idea” is executed becomes about cutting corners because of “saving money”, or its “death by a thousand cuts” the slow, slicing and removing of functionality because of a lack of understanding how it is an essential part of the bigger, strategic picture.