Social media sites present a variety of marketing opportunities that are growing in popularity. “It is the Wild West with a new generation of marketers testing the waters and their limits,” said Joe Laratro, chief technology officer for MoreVisibility/Boca Raton, FL, which released the Social Media Marketing white paper last week.
The white paper lists a wide range of social media sites where marketing occurs, far beyond the leading social networking sites MySpace and Facebook. Also included are video sharing sites YouTube and Google Video, picture sharing sites like Flickr, news aggregators like Digg, forum sites like TripAdvisor, social book marking sites like del.icio.us and other social sites, including Second Life and Twitter.
The white paper says, “If you meet someone on a vacation in Disney World, you may keep in touch with them on MySpace or Facebook. That same relationship could be continued by sharing pictures on Flickr. You may even write about your meeting in a trip review on a forum.”
Among the ample marketing opportunities on the social media sites are videos that play at YouTube. “Social media sites can embed videos on YouTube and do it for free,” Laratro said. “It’s easy to customize social media sites for video.”
Marketers can also take advantage of video targeting solutions that will enable their sites to be found through search. Speech recognition technology can be used by social marketing sites to find their viral videos, Laratro said.
First-Time Feature Directors Make Major Splash At AFI Fest, Generate Oscar Buzz
Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More