"It's Not Digital, It Just Is"

Even though a lot of the videos that I post here are long, they don't have to be in order to give you some good things to think about. For example, this three minute video features a compilation of marketing experts from the recent Association of Online Publishers Summit in London who weigh in on what they believe to be the key shifts and trends in the marketing world. It's an interesting overview of opinions, with a couple that really jumped out at me.

Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, points out that "Trying small things at a large scale works much better than trying large things at a small scale," while Procter & Gamble's Head of Interactive Marketing Emma Jenkins adds, "We're talking a lot about digital, but there are generations out there where, it's not digital, it just is."

Well said.

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How To Make Your Ideas Stick

Do you ever wonder what makes some ideas "stick" better than others? If so, then you should definitely check out this video featuring author Chip Heath discussing his latest book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. I've read Heath's book and it's a great breakdown of how to effectively communicate your ideas, particularly for marketers whose entire campaigns can hinge on their ability to express a basic core idea.

In his talk, Heath explains how the most effective ideas are simple, the importance of "finding the lead" for your idea, and how to truly make your ideas (whatever they may be) stick with your audience.

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5 Things Worth The Time It Takes To Read Them

Here's some things that recently caught my eye...

1. The web's Top 10 Breakout Video Stars of 2008. (NewTeeVee)

2. New business models look weird, act weird, and are weird because they're new. (Twist Image)

3. An interesting profile of Tim Cook, the man most likely to replace Steve Jobs at Apple one of these days. (Fortune)

4. Demand Media's new business model - curated social content - seems pretty smart to me. (Web Strategy by Jeremiah)

5. Do you know why you're using Twitter? You should. (TwiTip)

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Seth Godin Explains Why The Riskiest Thing You Can Do Is Be Safe

Today's video clip features popular marketing speaker and author Seth Godin explaining why "ideas that spread, win." This presentation, taped at the 2003 TED conference, revolves around Godin's belief that in a world where people are faced with more choices and less time than ever before it's important to create and market products that are "worth making a remark about." And, as an added kicker, it doesn't really matter whether that remark is good or bad.

Specifically, Godin uses real world examples ranging from sliced bread to Aeron chairs to demonstrate why the riskiest thing any company can do now is be safe. Instead of the traditional process of pushing average goods to average people, he urges marketers to target the smaller market of people who are obsessed about something. Also interesting is Godin's explanation that no matter what business you're in, we're all now in the fashion business. Who knew?

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The Secret Behind The Success Of "Stuff White People Like"

It may already seem like old news, but it was less than a year ago that the blog Stuff White People Like magically appeared on the Internet and became a huge web sensation. The site, which launched in February and landed its author Christian Lander a book deal a couple months later, was a true viral web phenomenon...but how did that actually happen?

This video clip features Lander at an appearance he made at Google to discuss the origin of his site, how it found such a huge audience ("it was completely word of mouth"), and what happened after he got his book deal ("Suddenly, a legion of people hated me").

NOTE: The video is 48 minutes long, but Lander's speech really only lasts about 20 minutes - the rest is a reading from his book and Q&A with the Googlers in attendance.

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The History Of YouTube

This anthropological introduction to Youtube video made its way around the Internet several months ago and for good reason. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it. The video features a presentation that was made at the Library of Congress in June 2008 and explains the rise of YouTube from an anthropological perspective and what it means for society, media, and culture.

To put it simply, it explains why YouTube works, how it became so big so fast, why you should care, and from a marketing perspective should give you a better idea about its audience and how to reach them. Plus, it's packed with all kinds of interesting statistics about YouTube such as the fact that YouTube has produced more programming in the last six months than the three major TV networks have done since 1948 combined.

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Bounce Rate: The Most Important Metric On Your Site

In case you've never heard of him, Avinash Kaushik is basically the king of web analytics. As Google's official Analytics Evangelist, it's safe to say that there's probably nobody out there that knows more about how to analyze data on your website than Avinash.

Luckily for the rest of us, Avinash and Google have been kind enough to release a bunch of videos of him speaking about all kinds of different web analytics tips and strategies. I'll be posting several of them on this site eventually, but I figured a great starting point would be this video in which Avinash explains why your site's bounce rate is the most important metric you can consider when evaluating what's working and what's not on your site.

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Gary Vaynerchuck's Blogworld Keynote Speech

Gary Vaynerchuck may be my favorite Web 2.0 speaker...even though I've never actually seen him speak in person. That's because Gary, who is the charismatic guy behind Wine Library TV, is one of the most energetic and entertaining speakers I've seen in any internet marketing video I've ever come across online.

Let's be honest, even if you're into Internet marketing, a lot of speakers on the subject can be a little on the boring side. But Gary, with plenty of profanity to spare, is a true entertainer who also happens to have a ton of very smart things to say about personal branding, marketing, content, and how to effectively use the massive amounts of technology available to us today.

This video features Gary's keynote speech at this year's Blogworld Expo and it is well worth 36 minutes of your time.

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Steve Jobs Introduces The iPod

"A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
- Steve Jobs, 1998

When it comes to marketing, you'd be hard pressed to find anybody that's better at it on a macro level than Steve Jobs. Over the course of the past few decades, Jobs has consistently come up with products that have pushed the envelope and literally changed history in the tech world, but you could argue that his greatest accomplishments are as a marketer because without his ability to sell these products to the public, they never would have caught on.

With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to share this video I came across of Jobs when he introduced the first iPod to the public in 2001. It's interesting to see how Jobs boils down a new product and new technology into the simplest of terms and how he shows not only what the product is, but why people are going to need it.

I've always believed that the best marketing messages are the simplest ones, and this presentation is a great example of that theory. What's an iPod? It's a thousand songs in your pocket. It's just that simple.

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About Internet Marketing Vids

Hello and welcome to InternetMarketingVids.com!

This site came about because in my day job, as Director of Content for Comedy.com and founder of FWD Media, a marketing and corporate communications consulting company, I come across a lot of great videos about internet marketing and new media.

So, I've started this video blog to share some of the best internet marketing related videos I find with the rest of the world. There's lots to be learned from these videos and I thought that it would be helpful to compile them on one site.

The videos I feature on this site will cover a wide range of topics including internet marketing, branding, social media, SEO, public relations, content creation and promotion, and much more. There will even be the occasional video about offline marketing (imagine that!), and I'm sure I'll wind up including the occasional written post or two in addition to all the videos.

I hope that this site will also become a hub for discussion about internet marketing as well, and I encourage you to contribute videos, links, comments, suggestions, and even complaints as the site gets going.

I can be reached at josh@internetmarketingvids.com.

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