Relating to an earlier post about Twitter, a relatively new website, 12seconds.tv, has just gone into public beta. The site is the video equivalent of Twitter, offering microvideo, as opposed to microblogging. Tech crunch discusses a new iphone app that enables Iphone users to upload 12 second videos. However this app is more limiting than normal camera equipped mobile phones, in that Iphone users can only submit 12 second slideshows, while mobile phone users can email 12 second videos to the site which posts them automatically.

The success of Twitter, as in any social network, is the community adoption. Millions of people are now using twitter and it continues to grow in popularity. It remains to be seen whether 12 seconds will have the same success. From an early perusal of the site, it does not appear that there is a great deal of exploration of the format. People aren’t uploading videos that they’ve spent a great deal of time on, rather they press record and hit send 12 seconds later. It seems like there’s an opportunity for some more creative usage than simply pointing your webcam at yourself and uttering a sentence, although presumably if you continually utter interesting/insightful/hilarious sentences that may be all that is necessary.

Like Twitter, the value of 12 seconds may lie in it’s preview/teaser offerings, as a way to entice people to click links to more content rich sites. Many twitter users are also bloggers, and will post interesting links they find to their twitter account, which then reinforces their value as bloggers, because they are seen as purveyors of interesting and “follow worthy” content. (For those unfamiliar with Twitter, users can follow people, giving them real time updates of that twitterer’s ”tweets,” 12 seconds includes this same ’follow’ function ). By the same token, 12 seconds may have value for Youtube users, as a means of promoting new videos, or as content filler for the time in between their more substantial videos.

Most importantly, this seems like a golden opportunity for any small business that has news to announce. In much the same way as Zappos (a fantastic company by the way) emails announcements of their latest and greatest products, this format would be great for retail companies looking to show off their newest items. Travel agency’s can announce their new great travel deals. PR companies can make quick announcements. With a little creativity the 12 second format could be utilized to great effect, and if if it’s both interesting and valuable content users will appreciate it. One of the other great assets is the main page automatically displays every new video that is posted in chronological posting order. New videos will be posted for all to see, as well as a user’s followers. As always with social media, good content is of the utmost importance - create good, informative, entertaining/interesting content, and they will follow.

Marketing Tools, Web 2.0 Social Networking

Constant Contact is our top choice for a bulk email manager. When choosing a bulk email provider trust is an important factor, due in large part to the importance of spam compliance when conducting an email marketing campaign.  The CAN-SPAM act of 2003 outlines a number of requirements for bulk emailers that small businesses might easily overlook when conducting an email campaign. A tool like Constant Contact ensures that all elements of the compliance act are followed, as well as providing powerful management and tracking abilities.  It facilitates contact management for different campaigns, and allows the sender to see how effective each email is by measuring click-through to links in the email.  For those who aren’t aware of the CAN-SPAM acts specifics, here is a brief summary:

• Header Information must be accurate. All information about the sender must be true and accurate, including routing information, email address, domain name.
• Subject Line- All information in the subject line must be accurate and cannot contain misleading information about the content of the email
• Opt-out method – Most commonly seen as an “Unsubscribe” button at the bottom of the email, recipients must be given a way to be removed from the email list. When someone does choose not to receive further emails the sender must honor their request. This feature is one of the most important for small businesses as it is one of the most easily overlooked aspects of email marketing. Constant Contact provides the link at the bottom of each email and updates all your contacts when they opt out, making it easy to comply.
• Proper Identification and Valid Postal Address – Emails that are advertisements must be labeled as such, and include the sender’s postal address.

Being a spammer not only has legal consequences, but damages your reputation with your customers as well. Using a tool like Constant Contact alleviates that worry, and makes email marketing that much easier.

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Guy Kawasaki, co-creator of aggregator juggernaut Alltop.com, has created an incredibly informative post on how to leverage twitter as a marketing tool. He goes in depth with specific tricks to maximizing “tweet” visibility, and discusses his successes using twitter for alltop, as well as highlighting the ways companies like Amazon and Wholefoods utilize twitter to maximize customer interaction.

For small businesses trying to reach consumers, Twitter, if used correctly, is undoubtedly one of the best tools available, and it’s free. For those unfamiliar with Twitter, it is essentially a mini-blogging tool, that allows users to create posts up to 140 characters in length. As a user one can post “tweets” as well as follow the posts of others in the twitter community. The value of this relational tool for marketing is really quite extraordinary, due to the exponential connectivity of Twitter followers.  Here is the most poignant example of Guy’s usage in numbers:

177 people agreed to repost all Alltop news as their own tweets. This took automated tweeting to a historical new high—or low depending on who you asked.

Then my new book, Reality Check , came out, and I made an offer of a free copy of it to anyone who signed up for the Alltop Twitterfeed. Another 280 people signed up—bringing the total to approximately 450 people.

We counted, and these 450 people had a total of 140,000 followers. This meant that whenever we announced a new topic, the 140,000 followers of 450 people received notification. These 450 people had followers in common, so their tweets didn’t reach 140,000 different people (see next section), but this was the Mother of Retweeting.

The post explains how to find followers, how to build a profile, everything you need to know about getting started with Twitter.

Social Networking, Web 2.0 Social Networking, Web 2.0