Well hello again and welcome to issue 3 of More Content = More Cash. This weeks blog is all about the wonderful world of multimedia! The subject is so vast that we can’t possibly fit in all the information we want to tell you into one blog so we are going to introduce you to new topics of multimedia over the space of three weeks. This week, the main focus is to demonstrate the importance of multimedia, the best delivery methods to use and the potential it could bring to your sites.
The next blog will focus on what you need to start your social media fire, we will be giving you some great tips on setting up your social playground.
So dig into issue 3, and fingers crossed it will keep you glued to your screen for next weeks installment!
Issue 3: Creating Fuel for Your Social Media Fire
Importance of multimedia
Multimedia is simply a name given to the collection of text, audio, still imagery, animation and video. This hasn’t changed much in many years but the delivery of this content has been through rapid and radical development. Notably, developments have mainly occurred through digital delivery methods such as the Internet and Digital TV. These delivery methods have transcended into the mobile market bringing content-to-us in a convenient way. Not only does this make it easier to escape into the multimedia you’re interested in but also makes it a lot more accessible. Apple’s iPhone and Amazon’s Kindle are two good examples of this.
Why is this important? Simply entertainment. We are people, we like to be entertained and feel part of something and the only way we know how is for our senses to be triggered through visual or audio means. Of course, touch, taste and smell are our other sense but we’re not quite advanced enough to engage in these digitally (although a lot of research is being conducted in these areas).
Why is this relevant? It is probably a good time to mention social media and the impact it has on the masses. Social media is a means to share multimedia with the community and when I say share, potentially exposure to millions and millions of people. You need good fuel, very good fuel and you also need to be strategic in the way it is created and burned.
Creating your multimedia assets
Before we look at the practical resource issues of creating multimedia, lets go back and recap on our branding. In our first issue, we discussed the messaging behind your brand and the brand values. You’ll need to dig these out as these provide the catalyst to your creative ideas. Lets use some case studies to help understand this:
Mini Cooper (http://aveaword.glueserv.com/)
A great use of filming that adapts depending on user input and upholds the ‘mini adventure’ campaign. A brand value behind the new mini is ‘adventure’.
Honda (http://www.vimeo.com/4281939)
An innovative usage of the video player that begins to take over the whole screen! Again, this upholds the brand value of ‘innovation’.
Compare the Market (http://www.comparethemeerkat.com/)
This is a brilliant campaign to help gain an edge in a competitive marketplace. A brand message here is ‘the ability to compare many’. A clever play on words and the creation of a funny character helped reinforce this in the audiences mind and provided fuel for a hugely successful viral campaign involving a whole site dedicated to comparing meerkats!
StumbleUpon (http://www.stumbleupon.com)
StumbleUpon is a social media site which aggregates sites that have appeal from an entertainment and informative perspective. This should give you a good idea of what other people have done.
So now you have a feel for how this all works and can see the logic behind branding. Not just a logo design but a whole exercise in messaging that is the essence behind all your marketing creativity. In context of the dating market, you should have plenty of scope for some quirky yet fun ideas to run with. We would be interested to hear from you about any campaigns you have run or about to run.
So how do you create this fuel? It certainly helps to understand everything in context and once you’ve been through the process you’ll really start to appreciate the consequences a targeted campaign have on SEO and brand awareness. The point is that you’ll get better and better at creating campaigns as you experience their side effects.
Later on in this blog series, we will look at how to get the best out of freelance work, what is involved in developing a brief and how to manage the projects effectively. For now, I’ll point you in the right direction for finding the skills you need for the job.
- 99designs.com is an excellent place to get a good logo design from many different graphic designers. You put down how much you’re willing to pay and then designers effectively ‘bid’ with their designs for the prize pot
- Freelancers.net, Elance.com, Guru.com are all communities of freelancers covering a wide range of flash design and
- DeviantArt.com is a great place to source artists for illustration, specialist animation and 3D graphics
That’s it for this week, but next week we’ll be looking at setting up your social media playground to best make use of your multimedia assets.
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