Strategy and Planning – What are your ideas?  What are your goals?  What’s the competition doing?  Before you do anything, you need to see what else is out there to understand the other offerings and how they are positioned against the market.  How are other apps promoted?  Look at penetration and user feedback.  Download them and see how they work.  Generate your own ideas on how you think your app should function.  All of your ideas need to be vetted and you need to get on the same page with your stakeholders.  Your app needs a name so you’ll need to deal with copyright issues.  Time: 3 days to 3 months.

Design – After looking at what’s out there, you should have some good ideas for designing your app.  A design document is necessary so that engineers know what to build and is even more important if you are dealing with offshore resources.  The design document should list the requirements and the functionality necessary to meet the requirements.  The more you think there is a chance for misunderstanding, the more detailed your design document needs to be and can include market requirements, user profiles, wireframes, storyboards, use cases, pseudo code, etc.  Best if this document is not written by an engineer but someone who is spending a lot of time with users.  Time: 5 days to 6 weeks.

Programming – When a lot of people get quotes for apps, the quote is only for programming, but as you can see, an app needs strategy, design, testing and promotion in order to make it viable.  Once you get your designs done, you hand them over to an engineer, or a team of engineers, who then code the project.  To do a serious app, your developers should use native xCode and be write in Objective C and Cocoa Touch.  These perform better, are easier to test and offer the full functionality available in iOS (Apple’s mobile operating system).  Whether you do offshore, in-house or use a local vendor is subject for a future discussion (I’ve addressed some of it in this post on development cost).  Biggest pitfall: You think you’ve communicated everything but instead of realizing your vision, you get a zombie app.  Safeguard: Regular and excessive communication – have them repeat back their understanding of what they’re building.   Time: 10 days to 3 months.

Testing – This is a big one that doesn’t get enough attention.  Testing is a big exercise that requires methodology and diligence.  If you’re doing this in-house, you need to go and buy the target devices which can include: iPhone 3, 4 and 4s, iPod 3 &4, iPad 1, 2, and “new.”  In addition to the hardware, you need to cover the operating systems: iOS 3, 4 and 5.  Although you can set your app so that it is only compatible with iOS 4 and above, you have some thinking to do.  I use some of my friends as a barometer of typical users that sometimes lag in upgrading.  One friend has an iPhone 3GS and he runs iOS 3.3.x, so if you make it only compatible with iOS 4+, you’re saving money but you’re missing part of the market.  If you are a global company, you should also test in various geographies.  We’ve developed apps for global companies and during testing found bugs that only manifest in certain countries and on certain carrier networks.  Given the possible combinations of hardware, OS, geography and carrier, there could be millions of test cases, so really you can only cover the big ones (major carriers, major countries).  For example, I’ve seen European apps with server-side components that don’t work in the US and vice versa.  Carrier specific issues are difficult to diagnose and one bug can take weeks to fix.  As part of testing you can also perform usability testing with your target users in a user interface lab.  Time: 2 weeks to 2 months.

Release and Promotion – Have you ever taken a chance to see a film that had a good title but you knew nothing about it and then found the movie showing to an empty theater?  Hollywood knows very well that a film needs a heavy promotion budget in order to get people into theater seats.  Same is true with apps.  Nuff said. Time: 4 days to 2 months.

Developing an enterprise iPhone app can be a rewarding experience both for you and your company.  This is a basic summary and by looking deeper into each of these best practices, you can have better luck with enterprise iPhone app development.

One of the first apps that companies (Chanel, Audi, Ericsson, Cisco, Oracle) tend to create is a marketing and branding app.  Plain and simple, it allows your customers and prospects to receive company information via a mobile app created for your company.  One of the favorite categories users enjoy is video.  It’s also one of the best selling opportunities but to make it effective, you need to think through the user interaction and how you’re going to move them where you want them to be.

Marketing apps typically consist of the following:
- News: Your latest press releases.
- Products and Solutions: Information about your products, solutions and services.
- Events: Upcoming trade shows, lectures or webinars.
- Podcasts: Some users like to listen while driving, working out or doing other activities.
- Videos: Highlight your expertise by teaching your audience something new.
- Twitter: Allow your users to spread the word for you.
- Feedback: Your users can let you know how you’re doing and you can adjust your app accordingly.

You can see an example of a corporate marketing app we built here:

http://itunes.apple.com/md/app/ericsson-ip-broadband/id436274599?mt=8

Benefits:

- Increase sales.  Your app can become a powerful selling tool to drive sales and improve brand perceptions.
- Increase Marketing Return On Investment (ROI).  If you are creative and execute well, you can get a great return on investment.  IBM created a marketing app with their agency that provided a 1:156 ROI.
- To visit a mobile site regularly, users previously would have to remember and enter your mobile URL (not going to happen).  With an app, you make your information easily accessible as your company occupies a spot on their launch screen.  Someone who is a prospect might want to know more about you and by making it easy, they’ll learn more which can drive the decision in your favor when the critical moment arrives.
- You can leveraging the power of video to sell your company.  Nothing is more powerful than a well crafted video and in this case, mobile video is optimized for the user’s device for a positive user experience.  After all, if a film-maker can change the world with a well made film, you can guide your prospect’s perceptions of your company with a video.  The visual nature of video provides an excellent opportunity to communicate the unique message and experience of your brand.
- An app makes you relevant.  Studies have shown that interactive features improve brand perceptions (e! Sience News).  I know when I go to a corporate site and if they don’t have any interactive features (Twitter feed button or share buttons) I perceive them as a dinosaur.  On the other hand, I remember being very impressed with companies that had a mobile app downloadable from their homepage, even though I never downloaded the app.
- An app can push alerts to your users, notifying them of events, new products or services, or other relevant information.
- An app can become a hub for communicating with your target audience.
- You can always add to your app.  After you get out there, you can always add an ecommerce module, a GeoSpatial app, or whatever else you can think of.
- You can reference your app in your advertising, creating a solid connection with your audience.  Say you’re running a TV ad campaign.  We’re now seeing brands refer to their app, rather than referring to their web site.  When the purchase opportunity arrives (launch date) you can alert your customers and put them into a purchasing transaction, right on their mobile.  The nice thing about sending people to your app is that you own and control it, where you have less ownership and control at a social site.
- Leverage time by getting out there early.  Unless promoted by advertising, apps tend to be a “long tail” phenomenon, meaning that they acquire audience by being out there (over time) and being found.  With proper optimization, you can gain thousands of loyal fans per year, just by having the app available and building your audience.  In this way, an app works well with SMS and email marketing and the app can drive opt-in subscribers.  Building your base early will always serve your brand well.

1. Get your teenager to do it.
2. Get the guy down the street to do it.
3. Take it to a reputable garage.

If you go with the cheapest option, you might end up having to redo it and a lot of your time will have been wasted.  Worst case, your engine will seize for lack of oil.  With iPhone and iPad app development, you have the same options.

No Code App Creation Tools

One choice is to use a “no code” tool that creates your app according to preset rules.  I’ve looked into these from time-to-time and found that they were hard to use and weren’t flexible in functionality and look-and-feel.  If your app isn’t an important part of your strategy or if you don’t mind not having complete control, this might be fine; however, if you want a more serious app, developing with the tools Apple provides is best and the way most people do it.

Hiring Criteria

Here are the criteria for hiring development resources (agency or individual):

1. Have they developed iPhone apps before and can they prove it?
2. Do you trust them?
3. Do they have a track record for quality and on-time delivery?
Bonus: Do the programmers have a degree in computer science?

Offshoring

Offshoring is a good option, but unless you already know someone that you trust and meets the above criteria, you are not going to know who is good and who is not.  It’s very important to have clear expectations, detailed design documents, and excellent communications while keeping in mind that the standards for workmanship are not as high in other parts of the world.  The savings can be substantial, but this may be offset by the amount of time you spend making up for communication and cultural differences.  I find that projects are more likely to be delivered late and that we spend a lot of time reporting and tracking bugs.

Hiring offshore is a lot like dating.  There is a lot of searching and you can have a lot of first dates, but it takes time to find a trusted resource that will do the job.  If you have a high volume of work over a long period of time, finding and retaining an offshore team can be worthwhile.

I once hired a programmer in Moscow who purported to have all the skills I needed with many examples of work and clients.  I started by giving him a chunk of the project.  He blew by the deadline and when I pressed him for his output, he admitted that he didn’t have the skills.  In the end, he didn’t charge me but it was a waste of my time and the failure pushed all the timelines back.  Although local may seem more expensive, when you consider the cost of your time and the quality of the work, local can be more cost effective.

Hourly Rates

Western developers can cost anywhere from $75 to $250 per hour, depending on their experience and brand name.  Mobile developers have been in short supply for some time now.  Going with an app development company pushes the upper end of that scale, but it’s a one stop shop that handles the project from end-to end.

Sample Project Costs

Here are some price ranges for iPhone application development projects:

Simple Apps: $4,000 – $10,000 – Tech Crunch did a survey of 124 developers whose development cost averaged $6,453.  They said if they counted all the personal time invested by the owner, this figure would be five to ten times.

Moderate Complexity Apps: $50,000 – $150,000 – The official Barack Obama app reportedly took 22 days to develop, ten people (not all full time) with rates varying from $100 – $150 per hour.  Figure $50,000 – $150,000.

Complex Apps: $150,000 plus – If your app calls for a lot of bells and whistles or new technology that hasn’t been done before, it could cost a lot.  In this way, it can cost as much as any other type of application (desktop, enterprise, or supply chain).

Don’t forget upfront research, legal issues (your app needs a name that doesn’t violate another’s trademark), and marketing and advertising costs for the app (to name a few).  The bottom line is you get what you pay for.

Utility Apps

Utility apps are popular and easy.  A utility can be a calculator, clock, flashlight, notepad, etc.  Are you a real estate office?  Maybe a loan calculator.  Are you a music store?  Maybe a metronome.  Are you a doctor’s office?  Maybe a BMI calculator.  What else does a doctor carry in his or her pocket?  These are all candidates.  It doesn’t matter if there are other metronomes out there, just make sure yours is good.

Why utility apps?  Because they are useful and get a lot of downloads.  You can put your brand on them.  You can have users click out to your website, you can attach promotions.  It’s kind of like making custom branded pens and giving them to your customers.  Perhaps your company makes seed for grass.  You can make an app that calculates how much seed you need per 1000 square feet.  Maybe you’re a networking company.  You can make a network load calculator that shows when an old network is saturated and needs to be upgraded.

I think the hard part about getting into apps is getting your first one out there, so a utility is simple and gets you some experience in the space.  Your next app will be much easier because of it.  What else is there?

Branding Apps

Just as your website is a place for customers and prospects to get information, so can your company create an app for the same purpose.  You might ask, why not just create a mobile website?  Well, that’s good too, but you have to be connected to view the site and mobile users aren’t likely to type in a long URL to see what’s new at your company; however, if they have an app with an icon that takes a space on their device, they are more likely to fire it up when they’re looking through apps while waiting in line at the grocery store.

Why not just make an app that links to my website?  On Android, you can, but with Apple iOS, they consider this too simplistic and it will be rejected.  Apple wants useful apps in their store, so you have to make it useful.  In your app you can have different sections like News, Products and Services, Events, Podcasts, Videos, Twitter Feed and a place to leave comments and suggestions.  You can keep it up-to-date with an open source content management system (CMS) such as Joomla.

Other features you can add are the ability to download content for disconnected viewing (such as when you’re on an airplane).  The app can be made to download all text, audio and video and stored on the device for hours of offline consumption.

These are just a few ideas for getting started.  Remember, you don’t have to come out with a killer app on your first iteration.  Releasing a simple app at first gets you “in the game” and can pave the way for more sophisticated apps down the road.

So you’ve decided to launch a podcast and now you want to be sure to get as much return as possible for all the effort you’re putting into it by distributing it as widely as possible.  Deciding how to syndicate (distribute) your podcast is a very important consideration and can make the difference between a popular podcast that gets traction or one that never gets off the ground.  This article is about how we do syndication at MobileCast Media and it’s information you can use to build a larger audience with your podcast.

How Are Podcasts Distributed?

Podcast listings are placed into podcast directories, such as iTunes, via a programming language called RSS, or “really simple syndication.”  By surpassing WalMart in 2008, iTunes has become the largest distributor of music in the world and it is also the largest distributor of podcasts.  In iTunes, the same field you use to search for your favorite song is the same field used to search for your favorite podcast.  When you use the main search field, both song and podcast results show up on the same page – which is great exposure for podcasts.  Therefore, a proper listing in iTunes can provide a big turbo boost for  audience development.  Listing in iTunes is not easy and how you are listed is very important.

Without an RSS feed, you technically don’t have a podcast – you have a simple downloadable audio or video file – no iTunes.  RSS is written in XML, which means extensible markup language – a language for making documents readable by machines.  The RSS feed contains information, much like an old style library card, such as title, description, author, website, etc, and makes it possible for users to subscribe to a podcast and receive all future podcast episodes without taking further action.  New episodes are downloaded automatically.  These podcast episodes can be seamlessly and automatically pushed to mobile devices (not just iPods, but nearly any mobile device – Android, Palm, etc) so that content can be consumed on-the-go.  That’s the big advantage of podcasting – subscribe once and consume on your mobile device while you commute or while you perform tasks (working out, chores, repetitive work).

Why Not Use a Free RSS Service to Create Your RSS Feed for iTunes?

Free RSS services tend to reduce your potential search engine ranking and therefore the popularity of your podcast.  How does this happen?  High search engine rankings come from inbound links.  If your RSS feed is properly written, it will contain inbound links to your domain (www.yourcompany.com) which helps your site’s ranking.  If some of these links point to the free podcast service, they are increasing the ranking of the podcasting service and not your domain.  What’s the downside?  If you’re an individual hobby podcaster, it’s probably a good trade to have a free service handle your feed in exchange for ranking because you don’t have the resources or knowledge to write your own feed.  However, if you’re a business, you want to retain 100% of the search engine ranking benefit.  A good search ranking is everything in this world and companies spend a lot of money on search engine optimization (SEO).

Before we go much further, let’s run over some statistics of how your podcast is likely to be accessed.  General numbers are based on our experience in producing hundreds of podcasts over the last five years as a service provided by our podcast production company.  Numbers for an individual podcast will vary on a case-by-case basis.  50% of your podcast downloads will come via iTunes.   Another 40% of your podcast downloads will come via your web landing page (mostly PC and Mac).  Hopefully you have a landing page.  This is why search engine optimization so is important.  The remaining 10% will come from other podcast directories, who provide a smaller number of downloads, but a good number of inbound links, which are very important.  Some people will start a podcast or blog just to get these inbound links and the search engine benefits that come with them.

What Are The Best Options For RSS Syndication?

Option 1. Consider using a blogging platform for your podcast website.  You can save a lot of time and avoid a lot of complexity by integrating your podcast with a blogging platform.  At MobileCast Media, we like using WordPress, but other platforms will do.  Its very important for search engine optimization (SEO) that your blog is self-hosted.  A hosted site is much easier to set up, but doesn’t provide SEO benefits for your domain.  Let’s say, for example, you own Acme Butter Company and you’re starting a podcast called Butter Sticks.  If your site is a hosted blog, the URL would be buttersticks.wordpress.com, with all of the search engine ranking benefits going to wordpress.com.  On the other hand, if you host your own site, the URL will be blog.buttersticks.com or www.buttersticks.com/blog and the domain www.buttersticks.com will get the search engine benefits.

The main advantage of putting your podcast onto a blog website is that it creates the RSS feed for you automatically (with the right plugin) and blogs have a lot of features that automatically end up providing search engine optimization benefits.  All of this saves you time.  If you haven’t guessed by now, publishing and promoting your podcast can take a lot of time.

If you are a corporation and your look-and-feel is very important to you, it’s possible to customize the WordPress theme to match your corporate theme.  Blogs have a lot of social features (e.g. trackbacks, comments, etc) built-in, which helps your podcast become “part of the conversation.”

Option 2. If you cannot use a blogging platform, you can create a page on your corporate website as the podcast landing page and create your own RSS feed and host it alongside your web page.  Technically, you don’t need a web page to have a podcast, but if you don’t have a web page, you’ll be missing out on 40% of your audience (per above).  Hopefully you have a podcast landing page and it looks good.  Not only that, but the podcast needs to be well-described with proper keywords and a good title.  Crafting the title and description is a mixture of good copy writing and SEO.  After all, how can someone arrive at your web page via a search engine if you don’t have the relevant keywords on your page?

Having a web page alongside an RSS feed offers the most control of your syndication while providing you maximum search engine benefit.  Creating this RSS feed can be developed by some webmasters if they follow the iTunes Technical Specification.

Are there Pitfalls?

Whether you’re dealing with a free service or developing your own feed, there are pitfalls when dealing with RSS.  The largest pitfall that many unsuspecting webmasters soon learn is that header (channel) information in the feed, such as the podcast title and description, or the feed URL, can be extremely difficult to change once submitted.  Normally with a web page, the webmaster can “hack it until it’s right,” but a feed is more like a press release – once it goes out it is difficult to retract.  Apple has set up change processes, but these processes haven’t worked well in the past and feeds can remain broken for years.  It can be nearly impossible to even remove a broken feed.  At one point in 2008, one-third of the Fortune 50 had bad feeds in iTunes, resulting in untold brand damage.  A prominent example is the feed for the Chevy Volt which has been broken since 2008.

How does Really Simple Syndication work?

RSS starts by creating an RSS file.  This is a text file usually called rss.xml and it contains all the information about your podcast, where the download files are, episode titles, descriptions, etc.  Once this file is complete, you put it on your website, for example, http://www.acmebutter.com/podcast/rss.xml.  Once it is on your website, you perform a one-time action to register your podcast with podcast directories (such as iTunes).  The podcast directories then pull information from this file to create the podcast listing.  From now on, podcast directories are going to check this rss.xml file for updates every few hours.  When you want to release a new episode, all you have to do is upload the new mp3/mp4  and then update the rss.xml file.  The podcast directory will read the new file and automatically update the listing and users can start downloading.

By the way, now that you know what the URL for the RSS feed looks like, it is a good time to reiterate the point that free RSS feeds are not optimal.  If the RSS feed uses your domain, such as www.acmebutter.com, this is great and helps your search engine ranking.  If the RSS feed is hosted on another site, it will help the ranking for that site, but not yours.  This is why it’s important not to use free services that point to their own site.  Properly executed RSS feeds can have such an impact on ranking that sometimes the podcast landing page has a higher ranking than the corporate homepage.  Since the feed is self-hosted, this means Acme Butter has full control of the feed and it can’t be held hostage or be subject to a free service provider’s downtime.

What’s The Process for Getting the Syndication Feed Started?

A lot of people ask us for the process for working with an outside vendor for RSS feed creation, so I have listed the process for my company, MobileCast Media.  If MobileCast Media were providing the recording and syndication services for Acme Butter, this is how the interaction would work:

1. MobileCast records and edits Acme’s first podcast.
2. MobileCast writes the title and description using professional copy writing standards and with SEO in mind.
3. MobileCast gives mp3 or mp4 files to Acme to post on the webserver.  If the file is called episode_one.mp3 and Acme wants to place this in the “podcast” directory, the URL will be http://www.acmebutter.com/podcast/episode_one.mp3.  Acme communicates this URL to MobileCast.
4. MobileCast provides podcast art (600 by 600 pixel graphic) to Acme to post on the webserver.  Lets say the file is called podcast_art.jpg and Acme places it in the “podcast” directory, the URL will be http://www.acmebutter.com/podcast/podcast_art.jpg. Acme communicates this URL to MobileCast.
5. Acme creates a podcast webpage and calls it index.html.  This makes the podcast landing page http://www.acmebutter.com/podcast/.  Acme communicates this URL to MobileCast.
6. Acme decides where the rss.xml file will live.  If Acme places it in the “podcast” directory,  the URL will be http://www.acmebutter.com/podcast/rss.xml.  Acme communicates this URL to MobileCast.
6. MobileCast now has all of the information necessary to write the XML feed:  the mp3/mp4 URL, the graphic URL, the landing page URL, and the rss.xml URL.  MobileCast writes rss.xml file and provides the file to Acme.
7. Acme then uses the written copy (title and description for the overall podcast and the individual episode) from the rss.xml file to list the podcast on Acme’s podcast page. Acme places the rss.xml file in the designated directory.  Optionally, Acme can write additional copy about the episode for the web page since the RSS description is brief and the web page has more room to describe the podcast or place a transcript (great for search engines).  Once the page is posted, the podcast is “live,” though only to visitors to Acme’s website who can also manually subscribe.
8. Acme informs MobileCast that the rss.xml file is in place.  MobileCast then submits the podcast to iTunes and perhaps other podcast directories, as desired by Acme. Anywhere from two to seven days later, the podcast is accepted into directories and is listed.  The podcast is now “live” in iTunes (and other directories) and users begin to download.

To the extent that URL paths and file naming conventions can be determined in advance, the process will be smoother.  With these tips, you’ll be able to maximize the exposure and search rankings for your podcast which can help you build a larger audience for your program.

First Key To Success:  Understand Your Audience. It is very important to understand your audience needs and interests and how they go about fulfilling their information and/or entertainment needs.  When choosing a topic for your program, there is a lot to think about.  Podcasting is all about reaching deeply into niches, so you want to choose a topic that is not so broad that you can’t compete with other media covering the same topic, and not so narrow that the audience is too small.  The format you choose is important too: monologue, interview, panel discussion, or mini-documentary.  Many podcasts are found through search (either iTunes or Google). Google’s Adword tool can help you understand search volumes for particular keywords, which can help you understand the metrics of what people are looking for.

You have to also understand why someone would consume your media via podcast versus other media.  One key advantage of podcasting is that it seamlessly pushes content to mobile devices and therefore can effectively reach busy commuters and multi-taskers.  This helps you reach the busiest people in society, something that is otherwise hard to do.  In the 90′s, I loved to listen to books on tape while I ran around town or during weekend projects, but the topics were limited.   Now a whole other world of deep content is available for me to consume via podcast.

Second Key To Success: Publish on a Schedule. Most people who take up audio or video podcasting lack the commitment to yield fruit.  After producing three or four episodes, they realize the level of effort required and quit.  Others will produce 10 or 20 episodes and see some returns, but then stop.  Leo Laporte, on the other hand, has been publishing regular podcasts for five years and now has an audience in the hundreds of thousands.

It is also important to keep an editorial schedule and publish on-time.  For a weekly podcast, this might mean releasing episodes every Thursday morning, and for a daily news podcast it means releasing every day at the same time.  Every week night for the last three years, my wife and I have watched the evening news via video podcast – we love the fact that it is virtually commercial free.  We look to NBC, ABC, and CBS.  Every night it seems to be a contest to see which network has its download ready at dinner time.  ABC and CBS are usually not ready and sometimes don’t put a podcast out for days.  Nearly every night, NBC has its act together and releases its podcast around 5pm, so they get our viewership.

This brings up another point: people don’t like low quality content in any medium, which is why network news wins for us.  I like network news because it’s more watchable.  Good production values don’t have to go overboard but they will help you build audiences.  If you can’t afford video, stick with audio.  Businesses need to keep in mind that they are building an experience and need to think about their brand and the perception they want to create.  For individual hobby podcasters, production values don’t matter as much, but keep in mind that low quality content can be painful for an audience to sit through.

Third Key To Success: Promote Your Podcast. Leo already had a good start because he had an audience on the radio and he already had a machine for publishing quality content – two important points – but you can also build a sizable audience without these advantages.  Having produced many podcasts on a variety of subjects for the last five years, I find that just by being on iTunes, a podcast will get 50 – 100 downloads per month on its first episode.  If the content hits a niche head-on, or the content is music or entertainment-oriented, I’ve seen podcasts get thousands of downloads on the first episode.   Every subsequent episode brings new listeners and helps to build a long-term audience.

Audiences are built by regularly releasing quality content and this can be accelerated through promotion.  You are not limited to promoting via new media.  For example, Leo promoted his podcast on his radio show (traditional media).  How you promote depends on your audience and the media they consume.  Banner ads, tweeting, Facebook, direct mail, posters, and cross-promoting at events are all great ideas.

While there is a lot to producing a podcast program, for those who like the medium and have a program topic that lends itself to podcasting, it can be a great way to build personal and/or brand influence.  Podcasters who understand their audiences, publish on a schedule, and promote their podcasts are likely to find success and build their own podcasting empires.

1. Know your audience. What are their interests? What do they want to learn about? What can you offer them? Create programming that caters to their interests. Education and entertainment work best for social media.
2. Start an interview program. Pick a topic and don’t deviate from it. The interview format is easy because it requires less preparation of content and can be done nearly anywhere. See our post below where I shot an interview with a leading author at a restaurant.
3. Use a multiple distribution channel strategy. Different audiences can be found in different places; some overlap and that’s fine. Facebook pages and groups, YouTube, Vemio, your personal or corporate site, iTunes, syndicate through your blog, or create an iPhone/iPad video app.
4. Think through the name of your program. Check copyrights, reserve the URL and make a web site to go along with it. Keep publishing simple by using a blogging application such as WordPress (as we are using here).
5. Be a thought leader. Create a best practices talk show or make a series of tutorials.
6. Create a mini-documentary. Documentaries are great for educating and people love to watch them. Shoot interviews, b-roll (cut away shots), and have a narrator speak over shots that illustrate the ideas. We created a series of mini-documentaries for San Francisco Opera which got a lot of eye balls.
7. Put effort into it. Some of the most consumed content has been content we worked the hardest on. I spent months making a program on the history of media trends, and almost five years later, it is still one of our biggest hits. We were cited and quoted a number of times for our original research. The effort pays off in views, branding and inbound links.
8. Don’t promote your products/services. It takes people a long time to learn this one, but don’t even put subtle plugs in for your products. Give away useful information and become a subject matter expert. People like to buy from subject matter experts. The larger audience switches off your video when your plug starts, then they’ll question the validity of your information. The exception is your corporate site, where you explain your products and services – put promo material there. Learning from experience, you’ll sell more if you put your energy into educating, entertaining, and informing with video. If you have money left over, you can then create product/service videos. Promotional videos might help your sales, but not as much as a series of well marketed educational videos.
9. Use Stock Assets. Nobody said you have to shoot it all yourself. Save time and money by using stock video and graphics. Look at Digital Juice, iStockphoto for stock video and Sound Dogs for stock sounds.
10. Be regular. If you want to build a large following, you need to keep them coming back. They will return for a weekly episode.

With these ten tips fueling your social media program, you’ll be on your way to building awareness with a stronger and more interactive brand.

David talks about the old ways in which selling has taken place through television commercials and sales reps calling in and beating up their buyers until they get meetings.  The new model entails creating lots of little pieces of content that are found through search engines, with different pieces of content for each step of the sales cycle.  In addition, sending such useful content to prospects on a regular basis and thereby educating them through the sales process is called “lead nurturing.”   On New Media Currents, I talk to the CTO of Eloqua about lead nurturing best practices.

TRANSCRIPT

JH:  Then how do you turn that into sales?  Let’s say you have a limited budget, a lot of companies have limited budgets for this and that’s why they do end up pitching their products because they want a really quick return, how would you sort of loop that around into a quicker ROI?

DS:  I think when you’re creating the sorts of information that are valuable, not just with video, but with every kind of online content.  You’re driving people into your company, into your ideas.  You’re driving people into your thoughts.  When they do that, some percentage of them will say, “wow, this person, or this organization, or this group, seems like they’re interesting and they’ve got some ideas that I find valuable.   What else do they have, what else do they provide?  Oh look, they’ve got a product.   Maybe I should check that out.   I think we’ve been living in a world where television commercials and B2B sales where sales people are cold calling and beating up people until they get a meeting and then beating them up until they get another meeting.  You know, this idea that you have to coerce people, both on the B2B side and the B2C side, is a model that really isn’t as appropriate for the online world as the model of creating tons of little pieces of content – each one serves as a magnet to drive a number of people into you.  They find more of your content.  And if you are a B2B company, and if you have a sales funnel, you can create content at every step of that sales funnel.  So some content serves to drive people in.  Other content serves to educate, other content serves to drive them into the sales process.  Then the salespeople take over, driving them through to the point where they’re ready to buy something.

JH:  Like lead nurturing all throughout the process.  What kind of content do you think is more relevant at the beginning of the process versus the middle of the process?

DS:  Anything that will be valuable for the search engines to find, keyword strong content.   Higher level in the beginning, more educational in the beginning, driving down to more specific is generally the way to go.  It’s hard to sort of generalize.  The more there is the better.  With search engines, it’s unlike the offline world, it’s really hard to say, well, this piece of content drives people in the sales process, but this piece of content drives them to close.   You really can’t say what’s going to drive in and what’ s going to drive to close because all of it is search engine optimized.  People will find any piece of that content depending of what they search on.

Production Notes: Conversation with best-selling author, David Meerman Scott, brought to you by New Media Currents, with John Houghton.  Produced by MobileCast Media.

Finally, David talks about customer testimonial videos, which he calls silly but sometimes useful.  When it comes to creating a following, I agree to a point.  I think the audience development techniques he discusses won’t work if they consist of testimonials.  I do think that testimonials are effective when used in certain cases, especially for smaller brands or unestablished products.  Credible testimonials can be very useful, but for audience development, best to stick to the their needs and interests.

TRANSCRIPT

JH: A lot of people say “How To” videos are very valuable, but then you’re also talking about the Snowboarding company, kind of doing fun things. Which works best, do you have a preference, or does it depend on the company for the kind of things you recommend?

DS: You know in terms of video, I’m a big fan of video. There’s a number of different formats, like right now we’re doing an interview format. Great way to do video. It’s easy, doesn’t need a whole lot of setup, you can do it almost anywhere, you can find interesting people to interview all over the place. I’m also a big fan of the mini-documentary. I just did one myself for the grateful dead book. I interviewed members of the band, we talked to some fans of the band, I have b-roll from the concerts themselves, I have one of the songs going through the whole thing, so this idea of a mini-documentary is a really good way to do a video, and then a lot of people use humor for videos. This is the idea that people will create things that other people will share and go viral. Often humor can be used. So there’s never any real one technique that’s best. Partly your organizational personality, partly your skill set and partly what you’re able to accomplish.

JH: So there are a lot of “dos” and a lot of really good ideas. Any don’ts?

DS: We’ve sort of covered it, but the biggest don’t for me, is don’t talk about your stupid product. You know, here I am, talking about my book. Right, so I’m violating that rule a little bit, but really the idea is, nobody cares about your product, what they care about is themselves and solving their problems and having some fun. So any time you can relate back everything you’re doing in your company, particularly within social media, to the people you’re trying to reach, and not your own products, the better it becomes. What I see again and again are people who do customer testimonials. So they’re trying to get their customer to say good things about their product. That’s silly. Why not do something that’s educational. Ask your customers something interesting that they do that has nothing do to with your product and then put that out and that will attract other people who are like them. This idea of talking about your products isn’t interesting to me.

JH: That’s very good, educational is good. I’ve seen people put out educational videos, you see that a lot on TV, but you’re saying it’s not that valuable, it’s better to educate.

DS: You know, sometimes it can be helpful, but I think it’s better to educate and inform and entertain, than it is to hype.

Production Notes: Conversation with best-selling author, David Meerman Scott, brought to you by New Media Currents, with John Houghton.  Produced by MobileCast Media.

TRANSCRIPT

JH: Say you’re the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for an enterprise software company, what would you do, what would be some of the first steps and priorities for establishing this following?

DS: Take for example some of the companies that provide free software and then have an upgrade path.  So that’s an interesting model.  Salesforce.com comes to mind as a company that’s done that.  Or how about complete changing a model.  So, for example, a company called Rue La La, they do women’s fashion.  Instead of having a humongous storefront with a  bunch of different things that you can buy, they put one thing on sale a day.  It goes on sale in the morning, and the window of opportunity to buy that thing for  a short period of time.  You have to be a member to join.  So what they did, the Grateful Dead, started the band on a new business model.  When they started, there were country bands, rock bands, blues bands and jazz bands; they combined all of those elements, so they created their own category of products; just like this company created a brand new category of women’s fashion retailer, where there’s only on product for sale each day, you have to be a member, and it’s a huge business.  It does tons of business – millions of dollars of business in sales.

JH:  What are some of the techniques they use in Social Media to get the word out about their one item per day on sale?

DS:  Well in their case, its’ membership model, so you have to nominated by another member to join.  So it’s an exclusivity model.

JH: Kind of like Google Wave.

DS: Yes, exactly.  And you know, the Grateful Dead followers are a little bit like that.  It’s a little bit exclusive to be part of the club of people who follow the band from city to city.  Creating that mystique.  If you’re in the club, you’re out having this great time.  If you’re not, you might be missing something.

JH: In social media, you have any recommendations as far as specific vehicles?  There’s Twitter, Facebook, there’s blogging.

DS:  All of the above, or choices of the above.  It’s really not so much about the tools.  I look at those different types of social media as tools.  What’s it’s more about is understanding who you’re trying to reach and then creating the sort of information that’s going to be valuable to them, and not something for your own ego.  What I see again and again are companies that just stroke their ego by creating something that’s for them, rather than something for their fans.  I think bringing it back to the dead, they created music, yes, but it was for themselves and for their fans.  What I mean by that is the Grateful Dead concert was a celebration that everybody was a part of.  The fans were as important a part of the show as the band was.  So again, for social media, don’t just pitch your product, don’t just talk about yourself, don’t just think about what’s important to you, but rather think about what’s important for the people you’re trying to reach.  These are your customers and your potential customers.

Production Notes: Conversation with best-selling author, David Meerman Scott, brought to you by New Media Currents, with John Houghton.  Produced by MobileCast Media.