Social Media Technology

Reality Digital Launches Spotlight Online Video Platform

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

Welcome to the Family!
Last week, we introduced a new member to our family of social media and online video products, Reality Digital Spotlight™. As an online video management and distribution platform, Spotlight enables businesses to manage, publish, monetize, analyze and socialize a library of digital media and deliver high quality video to any website or blog within minutes.

We're Proud of You
Our core development team is extremely proud of the capabilities they've built into this corporate video platform and they've put a lot of thought into making video management and distribution as easy as possible. We think you'll love how intuitive the user interface is and how quickly you can publish video in custom branded video players.

Socializing Video Distribution

As a social media technology company, Spotlight's socialization features are particularly dear to us and we think you'll appreciate them too. With built-in ratings, deep tag commenting and user generated content capabilities, you can socialize the video content you distribute and build micro video communities and mini viral campaigns right in your distributed players. It's an easy way to encourage viewers to engage in conversation and create community around your brand and content. And, you can quickly enable these features without the need for a developer.

Learn more about the Spotlight online video platform and register for a free 30-day unlimited trial today.

Reality Digital Spotlight in the News
Over the past week and a half, Spotlight was featured in several technology media outlets with favorable reviews. Thank you to the following blogs and publications who spent time with us learning more about Spotlight and for sharing their valuable perspectives on this addition to the white label online video market.

Reality Digital Jumps Into The Online Video Platform Pool With Spotlight
Reality Digital, a provider of white-label social media platforms for brands, is introducing a new spin-off service today called Spotlight. With the new offering, the company makes its entry into the market of online video management and distribution...

Reality Digital's Spotlight Points Way to Social Video
As the world of online video grows, we're seeing more full-service solutions that make distributing video simple, customizable, and scalable. Online media veteran Reality Digital launches Spotlight today, a platform that lets enterprises with existing...

Reality Digital’s Spotlights Video Hosting
It goes without saying that an online presence is essential for the success of almost any modern media company, whether it's a local institution like a radio or television station or a national brand...

Reality Digital Shines Its Spotlight on Video Distribution
Offering a white-label service to video content publishers, now any business can get on-board the online video train thanks to Reality Digital's Spotlight.

Simplifying the Management of Online Video
Digital asset management has proven to be a significant challenge for any organization. There can be lot of different versions of the same video, storage costs can be substantial, and there isn’t always an easy way to search for the right video based on the content.

Reality Digital the Latest to Go White-Label
Reality Digital, the former digital asset management company and consulting firm that became an interactive agency building video communities for brands, is now revisiting its software side. The San Francisco-based company is launching today a white-label video publishing and distribution platform called Spotlight.

Reality Digital's New Broadband Video Platform Lets Businesses "Socialize" Their Video Assets
San Francisco-based Reality Digital on Tuesday launched Reality Digital Spotlight, a white-label broadband video management and distribution platform. According to the company, Spotlight is an SaaS-based platform that eliminates the need for technical or video expertise and that makes it easy for businesses to...

Try Spotlight out for yourself. Register for a free 30-day unlimited trial.

Pepsi and Reality Digital Launch UGC Video Contest for Pepsi 500 Racing Fans

Wednesday, September 2, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

Pepsi 500 Hendrick Motorsports UGC Contest

Starting today, NASCAR fans will get the opportunity to recount their favorite moments and memories from one of the sport’s premier stock car racing teams, Hendricks Motosports, through www.refresheverything.com/refresh/racing, a UGC (user generated content) video contest sponsored by Pepsi, designed by TBWAChiatDay and powered by social media platform provider, Reality Digital.

Home to eight NASCAR Sprint Cup championships and celebrity drivers Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Hendricks Motorsports celebrates its 25th anniversary this year with more than 200 victories, broken records and history-defining races under its belt. In anticipation of the Pepsi 500 race on October 11th, Pepsi is giving fans the chance to join the celebration by grabbing a camera and telling Hendricks why they love the organization and its contributions to the sport over the years.

Fans have until September 18th to upload their videos, and once uploaded they can share them with Facebook and other social networks while checking out other entries. One or more winners will see their videos broadcast on TV in the ABC documentary, “TOGETHER: The Hendrick Motorsports Story,” airing right before the Pepsi 500 race.

As NASCAR’s audience demographic and consumption patterns evolve, major brand sponsors like Pepsi are increasingly adopting social media technology to reach the 75 million NASCAR aficionados who are consuming the NASCAR brand more and more online. Here at Reality Digital, we’re seeing more of these major brands use their presence on public social networks like Facebook to drive massive traffic to branded social media contests and online community destinations where fans can more deeply engage with a niche fan base and content.

We’re excited to work so closely with the Pepsi brand and provide the stable and scalable platform it needs to handle the massive traffic that can be generated by a brand like Pepsi and NASCAR’s loyal fan base.

Congratulations, Pepsi, on the launch and congratulations, Hendricks Motorsports, for your outstanding contributions to NASCAR legacy!

HP You On You Project - Dissecting a great social media campaign

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

HP (Hewlett Packard) launched the You On You Project last Friday, an innovative social media branding campaign that challenges people to express themselves creatively through video for a chance to win $300,000 in prizes. HP's social media campaign is a great example of social media contests, combining a branded online community, user generated content and interactive video remixing technology, with the lure of big prizes and a shot at Internet fame.

YouTube Channel Sponsorship
The campaign resides on HP's sponsored YouTube channel and taps into YouTube's huge consumer reach and network. Smart move on both ends - HP working one of the largest social networks and YouTube acting as agency, providing sponsored channel promotions. Could this be the highly sought and viable monetization strategy for YouTube? Only time will tell.

Dissecting the Campaign
In the meantime, I think this is one cool social media promotion. One that I would actually consider entering myself. It's got the big name, big prizes and the cache of 15 seconds of Internet fame. Let's quickly dissect what's cool from a social media geek's standpoint (yes that's us):

The HP YouTube channel acts as a contest microsite, housing a fully-branded online community where users have access to popular social networking features like view entries, vote for favorites, subscribe, rate, comment, and share videos with friends.
The format of the promotion - UGC video contest - is highly relevant and accessible to the YouTube audience and gives users an incentive to participate. In other words, the contest makes total sense for the people it's trying to target.
The contest site directly ties into HP's consumer ad campaign for PCs and notebooks, per their press release, with broadcast ad buys and other supporting media.
It dabbles into eCommerce by pitching HP products in several areas of the site and giving you immediate purchase options through direct links to HP and Best Buy. That's potential direct revenue right there.
Barriers to entry are decreased by giving users three different, easy ways to participate:
1) Get fully creative with your own video recording device (camcorder, iPhone, editing tools, whatever)
2) Show off your remixing skills using the integrated Adobe Premiere Express online video editor
3) Go low-tech and easy by capturing yourself on webcam
It's truly a global contest with translation options into 11 different languages.
The site encourages viral distribution of content and increases contest awareness by making it easy to self-promote your submission through a "Promote Your Video" link or through YouTube's built-in sharing functions in the video player.
Cool "HP laptop" site design ensures you never forget who the contest sponsor is.

So How's It Doing?
Momentum looks positive so far. According to the channel, over 300 entries have been submitted in the last 3 days. There are over 2,300 subscribers and the channel's gotten over 430,00 page views. The 300 comments posted are overall positive and approving of the contest and HP.

I don't know what HP's goals or success metrics are, but given the momentum above, the You On You Project looks like it could be a huge success in driving branding and product marketing. It's also interesting to note how HP is (and isn't) marketing the social media contest itself and what the ambient noise is on the Web. Here's what I found at a glance:

TV commercials and celebrities help drive awareness and traffic to the site
YouTube's Facebook Page announced the contest. There's 3.1 million touches right there. Free.
I just checked HP's Facebook Page. No mention there. With over 15,000 Facebook fans, you'd think it'd be an easy way to spread word about the contest to loyal customers.
Twitter is showing way over 500 tweets (I stopped counting) already on the contest, with a lot of users promoting their own video entries. Interestingly, the HP News Twitter handle doesn't mention the contest at all.
Viral traffic, courtesy of users and fans spreading word about the contest and promoting their own entries, is doing the rest.

Conclusions
Congratulations HP! From what I can see, I think you've done your homework and created a great social media campaign overall. The promotion is relevant to your target audience, uses the latest interactive social media technology, is well-branded, and it's captured a bit of cool factor. Bravo.

Questions
What do you think of HP's You On You Project?

Is this type of branded contest/promotion replicable for other brands?

What other brands have been successful with social media campaigns and why?

If you're interested in a branded social media campaign or a video remix contest, Reality Digital provides the Adobe Premiere Express online video editor as a service. Contact us for more information.

Fee or free: which social media strategy is right for your business?

Thursday, July 2, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

Social media technology has made it very easy for people to share their opinions, rate favorite products, and communicate with others. This activity is happening every day, everywhere, and for practically every product that exists. No matter how big or small your company is, if you have customers, you can bet they're talking about your brand or product somewhere. So what are you doing to influence that conversation?

If you're a small business, you probably have limited budget and resources and you need to be sure any investment you make in social media is worthwhile. Does it make sense to pay for a branded online social networking site or can free public social sites deliver the same benefits? Where do you start? What do you need to know?

Before you start any social networking marketing, it’s important to identify your goals. Why should your business take part in social media? There are many reasons for small businesses to adopt a social networking marketing strategy, including:

Increase brand awareness for your company
Drive improved customer relationships and better corporate reputation
Gain a better understanding of emerging issues and trends
Enhance product development and improvement efforts
Generate increased sales and incremental revenue

In addition to your budget, it’s also important to think about your internal resources for creating content and maintaining the site; what kind of content you want; how much control you want to have over the content on your site; and whether monetization is important to you. The answers to these questions will help you determine your level of investment and which strategy is best for you.

In our next two posts, we will explore how businesses can use free and branded online communities to their advantage, but we would love to hear and incorporate your thoughts. Tell us, do you think it make sense to pay for a branded online community or can free public social sites, like Facebook and Twitter, deliver the same benefits?

Seven factors to consider before building your social media community

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

One of the most important things we stress to customers looking to build a social media community is the benefits of thorough planning. Today I was rereading Nielsen's March 2009 report on global social networking trends, Global Faces and Networked Places, and found the section on "Factors contributing to Facebook's rapid growth" to be quite applicable to any marketer looking to launch a social media campaign or startup developing their custom online community site.

Consider these seven factors when developing your initial plan to avoid headaches down the line when your target audience changes, or scope creeps up, or any number of other obstacles, and you've already built over 50% of your site:

1) Design
Appealing design and logical ease-of-use are crucial to attracting and retaining visitors and users. We're all drawn to good design. When was the last time you used an ugly site that had no logical navigation? Consider contracting a designer or hiring a design agency, if you have the budget, to develop a look and feel that can be replicated across the entire site. Avoid cumbersome or resource-intensive user interfaces that make it hard for users to navigate and find information. Most importantly, design to your audience, your community. Flash-intensive UIs are great for entertainment or gaming sites where people have the time to peruse. They're not for information-heavy sites where you need to find info quickly like publishing.

2) Appeal
Consider the audience you are targeting and customize your social media software and features accordingly. Not all demographics share the same preferred communication methods, technology savvy or concern over privacy. Think carefully of what tools your audience needs to achieve the type of communication and interaction desired in your community.

3) Focus
What do you want members to do on your site? Network with colleagues and friends? Submit product feedback? Enter a video remix contest? Share videos and photos from their last trip? Blog about their concert experiences? The type of activity you and your community desire to engage in will dictate what social media technology will need to be present on your site. The wrong mix can send your users packing for sites that better engage their attention.

4) Architecture
What makes your community unique from a technology standpoint and why would that attract visitors and encourage repeat traffic? A flexible and extensible social media or social networking platform can keep you current with the latest digital media and social networking features. One of the hot web 2.0 tools for engagement out today is online video remixing which allows users to remix professional and/or user generated content and create their own music videos, commercials and personal endorsements. These lead to deeper engagement with your content, more time spent on your site and viral traffic.

5) Privacy
Different audiences or demographics demand different privacy controls. Determine if a public social network works for your audience or if a closed or "invite only" community makes more sense, or somewhere in between. The type of implementation also has an effect. A contest site will probably be more public than a niche community. On a more granular level, flexible privacy controls allow moderators and users to set their own privacy levels and a social media platform should provide these options.

6) Marketing & PR
"Build it and they will come" rarely works these days on the Web. How will you drive traffic to your social media community and how will you build your brand? A solid marketing plan can include any number of the following activities: Advertising, press releases and media outreach, guerrilla tactics, networking, partnerships, search engine optimization (SEO), viral content, other social media outlets. We've seen customers enjoy immense campaign success when cross-platform or cross-media initiatives were employed. Mass-aggregate social networks like Facebook or MySpace can drive significant traffic back to your custom online community, as can content aggregate sites like Twitter and Digg. It all depends on what is relevant to your audience so take some time really think this through. After all, what use is the site if no one is using it? No content is being contributed; no community is being built.

7) Monetization & ROI
This factor wasn't listed on Nielsen's report, but I feel it is an important one. Your social media community isn't free. Someone has to pay for building it, hosting it on a monthly basis, upgrades, and so on. How will you monetize your site, if that is important to you, and what metrics will you use to measure success and return on investment? Monetization can take many forms, including advertising on your site with display or video ads, major sponsorships, membership models, eCommerce integrations, or contests. Metrics should be determined based on what your initiatives original goals are. Increased traffic? Increased revenue? More customer and product feedback? Improved brand awareness? And once those are determined you should have some way of gleaning reports and analytics to see if you are meeting those metrics.

Developing a social media community takes time and careful planning. With so many other social networks competing for your audience's Internet time, your site needs to be relevant, engaging and interesting. A white label social media platform provider like Reality Digital can be an excellent technology partner, alleviating you of the headaches that can come with developing and hosting a social media site yourself, leaving you free to focus on the business aspects of your social media project. For more information, go to www.realitydigital.com.

Explain what this social media technology is all about...

Friday, April 10, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

We often get asked, "What is social media?" and "Why would social media technology matter to me?" We have our answers, and if you asked these same questions to another social media company you'd possibly get a similar answer. But if you were to ask a dozen other players in the industry, you'd probably get 12 pretty different answers. What gives?

The issue with defining this current "it" word is that the term "social media" describes an industry that is too new and changing too quickly to make a concrete definition possible, just yet anyway. A search on Google displays results for social media technology, social media agency, social media communities, social media widgets, and so on. Anyone unfamiliar with the lingo would be hard-pressed to uncover a singular, simple definition for social media.

The market confusion doesn't really help the consumer understand what social media is, nor does it help the brand manager or business owner understand how to use it to the advantage of their bottom line.

For those who are still struggling to define "social media", here's a simple and creative explanation. A colleague of mine recently came across a popular video that does a great job of explaining the concept of social media that is at once both accessible and endearing. Check out the video, "Social Media in Plain English" created by the folks at Common Craft:

Affordable Business Social Networking Platform Now Available

Thursday, April 9, 2009 by Lawrence Mak

If you're a small business or startup looking to jump onto the social media bandwagon to increase your online presence, you probably have limited budget and resources to do so and have plenty of questions in mind. How do you jump into social media smartly? How deep do you go into social media technology? Is social media even worth it?

There are many reasons for small businesses to adopt a social media advertising strategy:

Increase brand awareness for your company
Drive improved customer relationships and better corporate reputation
Gain a better understanding of emerging issues and trends
Enhance product development and improvement efforts
Generate increased sales and incremental revenue

While businesses have pratically forever recognized that these goals are essential to the success of any company, the advent of social media marketing has made achieving these goals more accessible and potentially less expensive.

Social networking technology has made it easy for people to share their opinions, rate favorite products, research the dirt and communicate easily with others. That's happening for practically every product out there. No matter how big or small your company is, if you have customers, you can bet they're talking about your brand somewhere. So what are you doing to influence that conversation?

You could tap into online social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to build a fan base for your brand and communicate directly with "friends" to glean the data you need to the business goals above. Many companies do, to mixed results, but ultimately that network doesn't belong to you and you have no control over the conversation around your brand. It's Facebook and other mass aggregate social networks that own these assets and even monetize them. You don't get a dime.

So what's the alternative? How about launching your own branded destination where the users are yours? What about being able to offer the mix of social networking features that is appropriate for your community? And what if you could make money via advertising, sponsorships, or other means?

Reality Digital recently introduced an affordable business social networking platform, Harmony, that enables you to quickly build your own online social networking sites and start developing a community around your brand. It's easy to set up a site using preset themes and it includes over 30 configurable social media widgets to customize the site with online video and photo galleries, mobile uploads, blogs, forums, ratings, comments and other popular social networking features. And it includes a host of business administrative features to monitor critical metrics about your community and site traffic for return on investment.

Harmony is a smart choice for you if you want to create your own branded online community for whatever reason:

Fan site for your product or brand
User generated video contest
Interactive customer community for product feedback

It's also priced affordably for businesses who are serious about social media. And while the possibilities are endless, the important thing is to map your ideas back to your business goals (like the ones above) and with a little planning, you'll find social media can be a very lucrative program for your marketing efforts.