Facebook Marketing Meets Google Hangouts: How to Expand Your Video Audience

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Our live Google Hangouts On Air webcast as it appeared live via our Facebook Page

Our live Google Hangouts On Air webcast as it appeared live via our Facebook Page

Sometimes I learn best by just going for it and trying new things. In this case, not only did I learn a new capability with Facebook Pages, but I also learned a new way to expand a video’s reach. In the hope that this trick is useful to you, I’ll explain how and what I did.

The day before our last “3 Geeky Amigos Takes on Facebook Marketing“ live webcast via Google Hangouts On Air (please find this video embedded below), I happened to see a local Internet marketing “guru” pitching the ability to create a “simulcast” of a live video Google Hangout via a Facebook Page. Sadly, this dude and his presumably “JV partners” were pitching their ability to create this functionality like it was a breakthrough so that you would buy their app for building Facebook pages with video embeds. 

I liked the idea, but I suspected it wasn’t that hard to do. Given that my pals and I do 3 Geeky Amigos as kind of informal R&D sharing event… as well as because it’s fun for us to learn and share how to use tech stuff like Google Hangouts On Air (and this IS a great platform for producing and recording live video conversations because they instantly publish to YouTube)… about a half-hour before the semi-regular (Tuesdays at 3pm PT) start time of our webcast, I started trying to figure out how to do this kind of “simulcast.” 

As someone who does know how to create custom, interactive Facebook Pages for clients, I use an online app called GroSocial. So I wasn’t starting from scratch. However, I checked with my contact at GroSocial and he hadn’t heard of anyone doing this before; and he encouraged me by saying, “cool idea!” 

Bottom line, Google Hangouts On Air provides an iFrame embed code so that you can post your live video “event” inside any web page. GroSocial has an iFrame module so that you can embed any iFrame inside a Facebook Page. Once I aligned those pieces in my mind, linking them together was a piece of cake.

Thus, voila! In just a few minutes, our webcast was live on Google+, YouTube and Facebook all at the same time (and of course it lives on via YouTube and anywhere else that we choose to place this embed code and could have been live simultaneously on any number of webpages. Thank you, Google.) In other words, it could have been live on our website as well. All I would have needed to do is to create a blog post or new page and use that same embed code. Pretty cool, eh?

I explain and show more via the recording of this webcast below. Enjoy and let me know if I can help you to expand your video, social media, or any other form of Internet marketing reach… anytime, anywhere.

What is certainly clear is that what I started calling “The Video Web” years ago is really gaining fresh momentum. 🙂

Webinar Video: Internet Marketing Success in 4 Easy “Booster Rockets”

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Webinar via YouTube: Internet marketing... success

Last week, we recorded a live webinar as part of the re-launch of New Marketing University (NewMarU.com). I entitled it, “The 4 Booster Rockets of Internet Marketing Success” and we covered four key areas that are high leverage for any small business that wants to expand the effectiveness of its online marketing, including why these strategies are important and an overview of how we approach them.

The good news, if you are just passing by, is that I felt that this webinar was such a valuable introduction to how ComBridges approaches these kinds of innovations in Internet marketing as well as a taste of the kinds of useful information that will be available more and more via NewMarU.com, I decided to post this recording free and open to all on YouTube with no email registration required. In fact, this 45-minute video webinar is embedded below on this page so you can just click and enjoy it right now. 😉

In case you want to know what’s covered without watching anything, we discuss the following four strategic Internet marketing tactics:

  • Lead capture and lead nurturing along with the need to design a sales funnel process
  • Truly interactive Facebook Pages that go “beyond the Like”
  • Authentic engagement and what makes video content marketing more effective
  • Cost effective small business mobile apps to reach the rapidly increasing number of website visitors using smartphones and other mobile devices

All this and more in only about 40 minutes plus Q&A. Please check it out and comment, here or on YouTube. And if you want more, click on the “YouTube” logo to subscribe to our YouTube channel or register at NewMarU.com. Thanks! We look forward to hearing from YOU.

This Week’s “3 Geegy Amigos” Tech Talk Show via Google Hangouts

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3geekyamigos-logo

We had fun today and I think there’s lots of useful information for you, as we live recorded this week’s episode of our new tech talk show, “3 Geeky Amigos” (live almost every week, Tuesdays at 3pm PT). We learned a lot including how to do lower-third graphic titles inside of Google Hangouts On Air and talked about everything from iPhone apps to Gmail’s upcoming interface update, Moz.com to free WordPress training, Internet marketing (of course) to social analytics software and even a little bit of Twitter’s Vine video app. Note: All of the links that are mentioned in this edition are right there for you in the YouTube video’s description. So click on the video title in the embedded video below if you want the links. Audio-only version also offered below, just in case that’s more convenient. You can even download that one.

Enjoy and we’d love your feedback!

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/96188513″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

New Experiment: Weekly Tech Talk Google Hangout with “3 Geeky Amigos”

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3geekyamigos-logoOf course, we are all always learning; and another “always” is that I’m always telling myself (and others) that I need to do video on a much more regular basis.

I’ve also been attracted to the streamlined production efficiencies offered by Google’s Hangouts On-Air which not only provides a nifty and unique interface for group video chats, but a seamless integration with YouTube so that when you choose to record your Hangout, the “On-Air” part auto-magically posts the recorded video conversation to YouTube.

I’m also lucky to have some wonderful, knowledgable (OK, fellow “geeky”) friends who are excited to join my in this high tech video playpen (or I guess the tech term is “sandbox”). In this case, my co-hosts are Taylor Fogelquist of Active Ingredients and Peter Klein of Empower Your Brilliance.

The result is a new weekly tech talk show that we’ve dubbed, “3 Geeky Amigos.” You can join us live at 3pm PT every Tuesday afternoon (except June 18th). We’d love your feedback. Please tell us what you’d like us to explore. What would be most useful or interesting to you?

Here’s the first episode embedded below. It’s more of a “rehearsal” than a “premiere.” I’m confident we will keep getting better and better as we find the flow of this new media environment and get YOU involved. 🙂 And, we hope you will also join us this Tuesday at 3pm PT.

Great Video Underscores the Mobile, Multi-Screen Marketing Revolution

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One of my mantras seems to be “it’s hard to keep track of how fast things are changing when things are changing this fast.” 

It really is hard to ‘grok’ 67 million iPads being sold in just two years, isn’t it?

The question as posed by this video is “Are You Adapting?” That’s a great question given that mobile web traffic was 1% is 2009 and it was about 12% in 2012 and that’s rising rapidly. I highly recommend this highly visual video via the Associated Press and the international sports video agency, SNTV as a wake up call. (And, if you will please forgive a brief moment of shameless self-promotion, we would love to help your company or organization adapt to and take advantage of these changes. I think it’s safe to say that they will effect every organization either as an opportunity… or an opportunity missed because someone else in your niche got there first… or adapted more effectively.)

New Internet Radio Interview: What’s So New About New Marketing?

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One of the fun things about having written a book about Internet marketing is getting to do interviews. Thanks to Susan Scher of the BlogTalkRadio show, “In Other Words” for the opportunity to take a full hour to discuss why I think that understanding the new dimensions of online communications is so important. Among other things, the interview (linked below) covered topics like “what’s so different about New Marketing,” authenticity, the rise of online video, the empowered consumer, social media marketing, my Attract/Engage/Relate approach to sales funnels, content marketing, and much more. Please enjoy and let me know what think.

Listen to internet radio with Perfect World Network Radio on Blog Talk Radio

2013: The Year of Anything is Possible

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As we enter the New Year, the inspiring message that “Anything is Possible” has come front and center for me. It feels so strong and positive that I want to start 2013 with a more personal than usual blog post.

It is the challenges of running a business (ComBridges) while simultaneously working to grow our “start up,” New Marketing University, that makes this message of “Anything is Possible” personally relevant for me. In fact, it’s the sometimes seemingly “impossible dream” of a large vibrant community of participants and members in New Marketing University that keeps this project alive. You could say that I’m writing this post in order to inspire myself. I also hope it helps to move some of you forward as well.

Media Windows Open Doors

My consumption of two recent pieces of media has helped to open these expansive “doors of perception” for me. One is a seemingly miraculous cancer healing and the other is from a young man named Steve Jobs whose life was changed when he discovered that he and his teenage buddy Woz could manipulate billions of dollars worth of global infrastructure. Given that these two stories are true, I ask that we wonder together, “why not me?” (No reason.)

There’s More to Life Than We Normally Know or Imagine

Anita Moorjani’s book, Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing (affiliate link) is mind blowing in every sense of the word. I highly recommend it. I have found it to be an extremely uplifting read. The video at the end of this post will tell you more; but, bottom line, through a NDE (near death experience), Moorjani healed from the worst possible cancer… in less than two weeks! She was literally on her death bed when it all turned around. When you read it, her story rings so authentically true that it has expanded possibilities for me beyond anything I could readily imagine. If that can happen for her, there really is nothing that is not possible.

Opening the Visionary Eyes of Steve Jobs

Over the New Years weekend, I watched a short little documentary movie called Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview via Netflix. In this truly historic interview, Steve Jobs explains that he also had a life changing experience without which he may never have become, well, Steve Jobs.

image via Wikipedia

As a teenager, he and his pal and soon to be partner, Steve Wozniak, heard that it was possible to build a box that would let anyone make free phone calls to anywhere in the world. Jobs literally said, “we didn’t believe it was possible.” But, they decided to see for themselves anyway.

Low and behold, in the bowels of a technical library, they discovered the appropriate AT&T manual and figured it out. Soon they were bouncing calls off of satellites and around the world for free. Jobs shares in this movie that it literally changed his perception of what was possible. Jobs and Woz, two kids really, were able to gain control of such technological power that they discovered that they were capable of having a far greater reach and were able to make a far bigger difference than they had previously imagined.

It wasn’t long before these two were pioneering the personal computer revolution. Like Moorjani, they discovered that anything really is possible.

What About You?

What is your “impossible dream”? And, more importantly, what are you going to do about it?

My commitment is to keep offering my authentic enthusiasm for the Internet marketing revolution (along with as much useful information as I can) in order to help as many people and businesses as possible to take advantage of all these changes. Please don’t hesitate to let us know how we can help. We look forward to helping you to expand your possibilities while also enhancing our own in the process.

New Forms of Online Video and TV Advertising Empower Advertisers

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In today’s TheTVNews “New Media / New Marketing” video report (which is embedded below at the end of this post), I talk about the tectonic shifts in the online video and TV advertising spaces. Video and TV advertising will never be the same as advertisers take advantage of new video-enabled advertising and marketing tools that are far more targeted and responsive than traditional TV could ever provide. Clearly, the old broadcast “shotgun” approach to advertising is rapidly going the way of the horse and buggy. Today’s advertisers rightly require accountability for their valuable advertising spends.

Native Video AdvertisingAlso, unlike, traditional TV advertising which is still extremely large in scope, the upstart online video advertising market is continuing to grow rapidly. According to one study, it grew 27% in 2012 and will grow at least 20% next year as well.

For your reference, here are a few links that provide more in-depth insight into these changes in the video-related advertising marketplace, including a new research study on “native video advertising” and a New York Times perspective on “programmatic buying.”

1. ReelSEO: Native Video Advertising Drawing Much Interest from Major Brands which references this Forbes study, “Going Native, How Marketers are Reinventing the Online Video Advertising Experience,“

In the words of the Forbes/Sharethrough study, ” ‘Native advertising’ has emerged as the convergence between original brand video content and dramatically new approaches to distribution that ensure an ad matches the look and feel of a website and does not interrupt the viewing experience in the manner of a television commercial.”

My favorite native video advertisement is the Red Bull “Athlete Machine Kluge” embedded here, but click on “YouTube” in the lower right corner of this clip to view on YouTube… and turn up your volume! 🙂

2. NYTimes: The New Algorithm of Web Marketing
Not only are we living in the era of the empowered consumer, but we are also seeing advertisers take on new power as “programmatic buying” technologies allow advertisers, not media companies to set advertising rates based on the real value of the highly-targeted consumers.

This is a major new trend that I believe can be expected to accelerate rapidly. And, as with all rapid changes, there are those who are dragging their feet. The Times reports, “That shift is punishing traditional online publishers, like newspaper, broadcast and magazine sites, who are receiving a much lower percentage of ad dollars as marketers use programmatic buying across a much broader canvas. Some sites, like CNN.com, refuse to even accept advertising through programmatic buying because they do not want to cede control over what ads will appear.”

Everything old is new again, especially in the online video advertising and TV spaces. Here’s my video comments about what’s linked and discussed above:

As always, I look forward to your thoughts and feedback!

New YouTube Video Invites You to Our Online Course in Internet Marketing

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I don’t know how to get more personal than creating a 3-minute video invitation that explains the real value that I know will be available to those who join me in the four-part online course in Internet marketing, Start with a Solid Foundation: Building on the 8 Key Concepts of Sustainable Online Marketing. At the very least, I’m “walking my talk” about using online video; but I hope it’s more than that… By the way, I have a few discount coupons for anyone who signs up by Saturday. Please let me know if you’re interested.

Please check out this video and let me know what you think:

You can also click here to check out an online press release overview of the new book and the new course, “Internet Marketing’s Missing Links Revealed and Illuminated by New Book and Online Course.”

I hope you’ll join us! Any questions? Please use the Contact Us form and I’ll do my best to get right back to you.

Roger McNamee Sees a Future that Empowers Content Creators

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Thanks to a tweet by thought-leader, publisher, Tim O’Reilly, I was drawn to a video interview and then a TEDx talk from last summer, both by the very successful Silicon Valley venture capital investor and real life touring rock star, Roger McNamee. Both videos (and soon my concise video commentary via TheTVNews.tv) are embedded below for your viewing convenience.

Bottom line, McNamee illuminates, among other things, why HTML5 is so important and how Microsoft, social media, and I say traditional network TV, are all on the decline. In their place there will be a wave of “highly differentiated content,” and the thusly-empowered creators of this new breed of content will quite literally own their own stores—and, just to be clear, those are media “stores.”

In other words, as if we couldn’t already, HTML5, iPads and mobile distribution will enable those of us with our own “bands” (teams & other creative resources) will be able to seize the controls of our own destiny, in the web sense at least. (And, along these lines, I love McNamee’s concept of “full contact investing” where he uses his rock band’s marketing as an experiential testing ground.)

Obviously, content marketing has laid some of the ground work here, and so has blogging. But his vision is bigger than that.

Content creators with the hutzpah and the resources to develop real destination websites can include new, highly integrated forms monetization to produce extraordinary opportunities in the very near future. The time is now to act on these phenomenally potent changes. Please watch the videos below to understand more.

I’ll certainly be doing my best to do so as well as to educate you how to take advantage of these changes via NewMarU.com. So please STAY TUNED! 😉

If you prefer to read a text summary of some of McNamee’s key points, check out Facebook Investor Roger McNamee Explains Why Social Is Over

Here are the videos:

The first is via Sarah Lacy’s PandoDaily blog and this post:
Roger McNamee on the New Web: “Everything That Mattered Over the Last Eight Years Won’t Matter Anymore”

And the other video is Roger’s TEDx Santa Cruz talk (where he even paces like a rock star)
entitled, “Disruption and Engagement”

Please let me know what you think, via the comments below or any other channel. Are these insights useful to you?