At McCannSF we have used these platforms to spread and broadcast our client’s messages and to support their messaging pillars (yeah I can talk account person speak). But I feel like we have only just scratched the surface.

As I look at my twitter application TweetDeck I see so many of the people I follow sharing interesting links and articles. My perception is that our use of these social platforms has been evolving.

Our understanding of how we use the social web to manage our personal brand has matured for example; Leslie (one of my Art Directors) only uses twitter in a purely professional and only shares work based content – and I so have no idea what she had for dinner last night.

I am on a tangent again, so coming back to the question I posed in my headline.

Is it time to re-visit the viral video?

Viral video was the first stage of using the social web, Viral 1.0 if you may. It was always “Let’s produce a video” it will have all the messaging tied up into it, we’ll release it on YouTube and people will watch it and if they like they might share it.

Please don’t misunderstand me, it still works, look at the LED sheep herding video that made the rounds last month (yes I twittered it).

Maybe viral video is wrong. Maybe we should look at producing work that is designed to provoke a conversation? This includes video but I think the ‘conversation starter’ can be many different content types: images, written prose, user ratings etc.

1. Just seeding content is first stage.
2. Next we should engineer an easier way to share and interact with the content, let users/viewers sign in with their Facebook or twitter accounts to take advantage of their networks.
3. Finally we should join the conversation as an official brand spokesperson and to move beyond the first hello and be part of the little micro community that will develop around that conversation.

This is going to be hard because we are often not allowed to become the official brand spokesperson due to legal reasons and the clients often don’t want to take on the responsibility of more work. This is something we need to solve beyond Creative and UX level and maybe beyond the client level to the legal teams that scrub our work before it is published. And that should be a whole new post: publishing or conversation?

Lets produce content that is designed to start and join the conversation, tools that aid debate and reason and opinions that fuel flame wars across the social web.

This is another way to look at how can we provide value and service to users and at the same time balancing the needs of our clients and their messaging pillars.

Via today and tomorrow

While sipping my morning cup of tea I was browsing my usual blogs and news sites and I came across this article on techcrunch on of my favorite and daily websites: mint.com.

Mint is a website that securely logs into your financial accounts (if you are in the US) and provides a really sweet financial monitoring service. Since using Mint their service has really allowed me track what I spend my money on and adjust my spending accordingly. It really provides a clear view of my spending habits and I now save way more by spending less on restaurants etc.

One of there best features is the ability to compare your spending to the average American by City, State and the whole of the country.

This article on techcrunch goes further by looking at the historical data month by month and comparing debt and investments since August last year. This is a really smart move by the CEO and founder Aaron Patzer gaining further exposure for this great website and a great example of user generated content (data) being used for promotional purposes.

I fully expect that this will be picked up by the traditional news channels early next week.

Read the article.

And following on from my previous post here’s a really interesting site that at first blush looked like a professional site and application that was advertising Poloroid. But is in fact a fan based program all be it from an French Creative Director who is using this home grown program to show off his skills. He even calls it Polodroid, a subtle mis-spelling that really caught me out.

It will be interesting to see if Poloroid will try and shut it down or just let it live on. It’s a good as program most digital agencies that could come up with.

Visit the site here: Poladroid project