In the oil and gas industry there are obviously a number of challenges. One of those is figuring out how to market and bring attention to an oil and gas company during a time when the industry is not the focus, even here in Calgary.

Videos today encourage people to engage with their content, and are highly valued by a number of different audiences due to their ability to present something that can be both highly visual and highly informative. With more than 10 million video ads being watched by North Americans each month, online video is now the most effective element in a marketing family; it is now the leading force of every marketing campaign. And with web video spending anticipated to increase from $3 billion this year to $8 billion in 2016, organizations in all sectors, including oil and gas, will need to constantly create online video content to sell, teach, train, educate, and entertain their target audience.

Here are a few examples of O+G videos, doing it right:

For a few years, British Petroleum has put out their reviews of the industry and outlook to the future in animated videos using excellent kinetic typography and bold colours. BP’s outlook for the world’s 2030 energy industry is presented through sliding and winding graphics done up in BP’s colours.

Chevron created an ad campaign in 2010 around the concept of “We Agree.” We Agree was a campaign that worked to display the values held by Chevron and show that they matched with the values of their various audiences. Through consistent imagery and a variety of people speaking about values either on behalf of Chevron or on behalf of themselves, Chevron created a collection of clips based on the We Agree concept. The crisp clip shown here focuses on Chevron and communities:

Suncor, like many other companies, often uses videos to display its ongoing projects, how its various projects were accomplished, and any successes it experiences. Suncor got lucky with the discovery of an Ankylosaur, and exhibited it similar to how they exhibited many of their ongoing projects. Through video, Suncor gave the situation’s background, presented the people involved and then brought the viewers through the important steps taken to complete the project (in this case, uncovering a dinosaur).

Figuring out what type of video to create – animated, live-action scripted or background – can be one of the most challenging steps in the production process. Let us help. With our rapid concept-to-delivery approach, our creative team works closely with you to develop scripts that not only provide your audience with relevant information, but do so in an engaging, story-driven manner that will resonate with and entertain your audience. Our production team then assembles the best animators or talent for the job to shoot your story in high definition. Finally, our post-production experts add their dazzle to the project and deliver your video online so that it can be viewed on any device, anywhere, anytime.

Whether you’re new to online video and would like to learn more about the process, or are already experiencing the benefits of videos on your website and would like to watch our reel, we would be grateful for an opportunity to meet with you to show you how video can work for you!

What are your goals with video?

Evocative title, no? Check out the cover, by Stephanie Hans.

The Girl Who Would Be King, cover by Stephanie Hans

Kelly Thompson is a notable free-lance writer, blogger and graphic novelist. Not to mention, Kelly has an enviable online following that added to the success of her debut novel The Girl Who Would Be King. She managed to self-publish her novel thanks to crowd funding. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, crowd funding is a collective effort of individuals who pool their money, usually online, to support the efforts of an initiated project. Kelly used the popular platform Kickstarter to raise money for her book. Here is a section of the summary, found on her Kickstarter page:

Separated by thousands of miles, two young women are about to realize their extraordinary powers which will bind their lives together in ways they can’t begin to understand.

…

One girl driven to rescue, save, and heal; the other driven to punish, destroy, and kill.

And now they’re about to meet.

On the same page, Thompson states that the book is for fans of superheroes, comics, feminism, young adult and crossover fiction, The Hunger Games or Battle Royale, character driven epics, or “strong but complicated female leads.” With all of those categories having fans already, while she may not necessarily be filling a void, she does have an audience, which is key for self-publishing.

Initially, an unnamed publisher rejected the book due to the difficulty of classifying it as Young Adult, Sci-Fi/Fantasy or something else entirely. How to market it was a huge challenge for the publisher and not one that they ultimately decided to undertake. Thompson turned to Kickstarter as a result, where her initial goal of $8,000 to publish the book was reached in less than 30 hours, according to two articles.

The book has been available for close to a year now, having raised at least $18,478 more than the initial goal by the time funding was stopped on July 25, 2012. The funding was used to pay for the production and distribution of the book, both print and digital copies, along with the limited edition signed and numbered hardcover, and additional merchandise such as prints, pins, magnets and stickers. The merchandise and limited editions were given to prominent backers of the book, as a part of the backing deals.

Through the new crowd funding platforms available online, Thompson was able to successfully fund the publishing of her book, generate a ton of buzz around the book – partly thanks to her prominence in the comics community – and make the book available both in digital and in print. Happiness abounded all-around! It’s clear that self-publishing, in particular through crowd funding, can find success provided the work put forward appeals to the right audience at the right time and in the right way.

Ready to give crowd funding a try?

Guerrilla marketing has become increasingly popular as an effective and affordable form of unconventional advertisement. Guerrilla marketing requires some serious imagination, time and energy rather than the big budgets of traditional methods.

Experiential marketing is one of many forms of guerrilla marketing, a way of breaking through the clutter of traditional marketing to meet your customers face-to-face and build their interest in your brand. It is based on the idea of engaging all five senses of the audience and giving them the opportunity to physically experience the product, something that simply can’t be achieved online.

Coca-Cola Zero recently partnered up with SKYFALL and ran an experiential marketing campaign for the latest 007 movie, SKYFALL. The campaign was aimed at train passengers at a train station in Belgium where a passerby would attempt to use a vending machine and be given 70 seconds to reach a different platform. The participant would then have to run through the station dodging various obstacles in a way that would be seen in a Bond movie. Once the participant reaches the destination they are asked to sing the classic 007 theme song to win tickets to see the new movie.

This sort of campaign demonstrates how experiential marketing can build a brand while pairing it with another brand; in this case it was the Bond franchise and Coca-Cola Zero. It gave the audience or participant the opportunity to engage with the product and interact with both brands. Not to mention, I’m sure it caused some buzz in the train station and with their co-workers once the new ‘James Bond’ arrived at work!  It’s definitely worth a watch:

Unlock the 007 in you. You have 70 seconds!

Experiential marketing can have various positive effects on audiences. It creates brand awareness where people can see the brand in a familiar way, it engages the audience and allows them to feel involved in a way that keeps the brand fresh in their minds, inspiring a feeling of ‘ownership’.

We can see this on a smaller scale at car dealerships. When you look for a new car, you go to a showroom and if you’re anything like me, you press all of the buttons. The salesman hands you a brochure, but does this move you to buy the car? No, you need to take it for a test drive to see how it handles and how comfortable you feel in it before you decide to buy it. This may not be a direct relation to experiential marketing but it does show how giving a customer the opportunity to engage with a product can open doors to potential sales, as opposed to just giving them information and sending them on their way.

What are some examples of experiential marketing you have come across?

Screaming from the rooftops, while certainly attention-grabbing, is not a good long-term tactic to get people to buy your book. Getting people aware of your book and wanting to buy it is one part of self-publishing which can trip some authors up. After all, it involves such things as “marketing” and “public relations” and few people really know what either of those things is.

Here’s the situation:

Your book is awesome. Your book is amazing. You love your book and you want everyone else to love it too. At the very least, you want them to buy it so you can eat something other than $0.99 ramen every day of the week. (You love ramen, but this is just getting excessive.)

You have your book all ready to go. It’s going to be available digitally on Amazon, for Kobo users and those on the Nook within the month, and you’ve decided to opt out of print and audio. You have Twitter, you have Facebook, you have Instagram, though you still don’t understand the point of it, and you’ve been tweeting and posting nonstop about the fact that your book is now on the market.

“This is so exciting!” you tweet for the sixth time in the past week, because it is. You also Instagram a photo of you holding up a package of chicken breasts because they are distinctly not ramen and soon you will be able to afford them. You repeatedly deny that you are planning your speech for when the film version of your book wins an Oscar for Best Picture. (You’re on the second draft.)

However, your book will only be available at the end of the month, which is a few weeks away. Your excitement isn’t premature, but channeling that excitement into a strategic plan to boost awareness of and interest in your book will be more helpful.

Hugh Howey, author of the widely successful Wool series, did this very effectively.

Wool by Hugh Howey

He used a serial format for publishing his books. He published a new book every few months as a part of the series, which helped to keep the anticipation and interest up. He sent free copies of the books to book bloggers and critics, while encouraging the creation of fan works for his series and giving early drafts of the future books to select fans to edit.

He generated that illustrious word: buzz.

Once that buzz was established, the series held up on its own. It was of the dystopia genre, which is popular right now thanks partially to the prevalence of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Plus, the writing was something that people enjoyed. The buzz, the online following Howey had established, a following which recommended his work to others, encouraged people to buy the digital book and earn him over $1 million before Simon & Schuster even considered contacting him about print publishing rights.

Yeah, screaming from the rooftops is great. Even better is talking with your prospective readers, honing your craft, encouraging feedback and making it easy for people to get your book.

Gonna read Wool?

YouTube is the largest video-sharing site in the world. With over four billion hours of video watched each month, YouTube sounds like the place to be. We all love watching videos of pandas sneezing or kittens running around in a bathtub, but at some point you might want to indulge in some more unique content and ask yourself, “Can I market my content in a better environment?”

YouTube isn’t the only fish in the sea. Vimeo is a similar website, but it features more unique and innovative content. If you want to display your content to the masses, YouTube might be the place to go, but uploading to other sites like Vimeo might just broaden your viewer base. The only question is which one best suits your needs?

When we take a look at Vimeo we can see that it isn’t quite as popular as Youtube, but the user interface is cleaner and if you want to embed it to your blog or website, it displays in a better style. If you are trying to market your content virally, the viewer base is not large enough to do so.

The production quality of most of the videos on Vimeo is much higher than YouTube. It features a plethora of original content by artists, musicians and businesses. With no limitation on video length your options to express yourself are limitless. YouTube only has a default maximum of 15 minutes with the option to increase length by request.

YouTube is in the lead when it comes to allowing you to reach a massive audience. The viewer base alone can allow your video to soar from a few views to several million in no time; you just need the right theme for your content. However, a disadvantage of YouTube is the possibility that your audience might get distracted with a million other things going on around your video, such as the suggested videos bar.

Vimeo seems like a comfortable site where you aren’t overwhelmed by other videos or advertisements. The layout is simple and clean, which may be preferred if you are sharing a video in a business setting.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to choose which site to use. Whether it’s for viral purposes or presentations, the choice is yours.

From your experience, which video sharing site do you prefer and why?

Excellent. There are a few things you should keep in mind before you get to the ‘happy dance’ stage when your book is finally published.

Full disclosure, I’ve never actually self-published anything (my novel will be finished eventually). From my research though, there are a few necessities.

First, and this is very important, if you have had a publisher before double- and triple-check that you have the publication rights for whatever publication avenue you are taking (digital, print, audio etc.). If you do not, self-publishing is not an option. If you do, then go on ahead with the self-publishing route but do keep an eye on the contract you have with the publisher.

If you have never had a publisher before then the above point is moot. You have all of the publication rights. You are all-mighty.

Second, editing. Has your book been edited ruthlessly by someone, multiple someone’s even, other than yourself?  Editing allows for the essence of thoughts to be clearly conveyed, it isn’t just the “to/too/two” variety that you have to worry about. The editing process can only improve the book in the end and it’s not worth skipping this stage.

Third, make sure that you understand what copyright is (Can, US), what an ISBN is and how to get one (and then, of course, get one: Can, US. You can then use the ISBN to get CIP data so that libraries can catalogue your book (Can, US). Imagine, your book in a library…

Lastly in the self-publishing preparation, does your book have an amazing cover? (Yes, you are allowed to hire someone else to do the cover for you. I promise that doing so does not make you any less of a self-publisher.) Because really, who doesn’t judge a book by the cover?

There is tons of excellent information (with links to even more information) on self-publishing at these articles/sites, which I’d highly recommend checking out:

• The 4 Best Strategies for Savvy Self-Publishers
• Self-Publish.ca
• How To Publish Your Book
• How To Publish A Book 101

Do you have any tips for self-publishers?

Overly manly man internet meme from overlymanlyman.com

Starting a blog can be really easy once you get the ball rolling. The key is to keep your readers up to date with your latest and greatest offerings. But what happens when your site experiences increased traffic and you find yourself putting your blood, sweat and tears into developing new content? It’s time to make some moola by taking your blog to a new frontier, monetization.

In 2008, Brett McKay and his wife Kate started a blog called The Art of Manliness. In an interview with The Rise To The Top, McKay said he originally intended to be completely supported by ads. The website steps back from the GQ style of what a man should look like, and focuses on the grass roots of what it is to be an honourable man. This idea soon gained popularity and took off.

“I started off with Google AdSense, that was in the very beginning,” McKay said. As time progressed and site traffic grew, McKay said he was able to bring in larger advertising networks, which gave him more lucrative deals.

Since then, The Art of Manliness has published a book, created posters and even made t-shirts all of which are for sale on the site; but McKay says that advertising is still the top earner for his site, accounting for about 60% of their income.

Bringing in advertisements to your blog can generate a lot of money if you maintain it. The trick is to always keep the content fresh and interesting. If visitors grow tired of the content, your hits will drop and ultimately your ad revenue will decrease. Some things you can do to keep your readers reading are:

• Stay current, you don’t want to keep writing the same old thing
• Keep your posts relevant to your blog’s focus
• Write shorter posts, most people skim through online content
• Let your readers interact with your stories, give them links to relevant content and let them start discussions on the topic at hand

Google AdSense is a great place to start with blog monetization. All you have to do is have a blog, sign up and copy the Google provided HTML code into your page. Visitors of your page can click the ads thus depositing a certain amount of money into your account with each click. Next thing you know you’ll be stinking rich. Well maybe not stinking rich, but you’ll be making money doing something you enjoy.

Once you begin generating revenue that way, there are more advanced techniques you can explore. Do you have any unique ways of generating money for your blog?

Mobility is what today is all about. Of those adults (American, but I’m assuming that Canadians are similar) who own cell phones, 17 per cent of them use their phone more than any other device – laptop, tablet, desktop – to browse the Internet. Additionally, 57 per cent of smartphone owners and 66 per cent of tablet owners research on their respective mobile devices before purchasing a product on their mobile device.

Organizations that offer products or services want to attract and keep customers. One way to do that is to be where the customers are. The customers are online, thus, the organization requires an online presence, preferably through a website. The customers are on mobile devices, thus, the organization requires a mobile presence.

For the ‘non-techy’ people out there, this mobile presence can be built in 2 ways, through an app or a mobile-friendly website. The app must be created to work on multiple systems and available in multiple app stores, so may require more resources to produce. It should be made to cater to an individual’s use, not a group’s. The mobile-friendly website is quicker and simpler to produce, but the organization may be unable to offer something unique through it simply because its focus is more on groups rather than on individuals.

Cinemas, for example, often offer a streamlined interface through which to look up show times and purchase tickets. Banks often offer a similar interface through which to conduct online banking. In addition, social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook often use their mobile site to bounce individuals to their app, which uses a scrolling grid system (like your Twitter feed or Facebook News Feed) to bring some order to the page.

There are many options out there for organizations to consider when developing a mobile strategy, ranging from a single app, to a site that bounces users to an app, to simply a mobile-friendly site.

As a user, what’s your favourite option?

While you muse on that, here’s a video from app developer Kony that highlights the importance of building your mobile strategy to last:

How social media can help your music rise from the underground

Have you ever played a show where only eight people show up? Where those eight people consist of your mom, cousin, brother/sister and their friend that has never heard your music but comes along just because? Well maybe you aren’t getting your name out there as much as you’d like to.

Those posters you put up to promote your concert on every light post have since been covered by about 30 different posters, intended to promote some kind of weird traveling circus nobody’s ever heard of. Well, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Well what can I do?” The solution is quite simple, so simple that those eight people could become 16 and maybe even grow to 1,000! And the answer to that question is none other that the big old Internet, that thing you used yesterday to find out Betty White’s real age.

Do I have your attention now? Good, because I’m going to show you some pretty useful tools and techniques you can use to take your music to the next level.

We’re going to begin with social media. Facebook and Twitter are heavy players in the social media world. With and average of 665 million daily Facebook users for March 2013, there is no doubt that creating a presence for your music on Facebook or Twitter will broaden your fan base. A status update or a few tweets each day will keep people interested in what you’re doing and even attract some new fans. Engaging your audience is key in the music world. Having a Twitter or Facebook page for your music opens all sorts of doors into the online world. When you post something, everyone who follows you will know about it; if they like it, it will show up on their friend’s pages and so on. Another tip is to engage in conversation with your fans. Give them the opportunity to comment on your page or posts and let them know that you are hearing them.

Moving on, we are going to look at some music hosting options. Your music needs a place to live and there are plenty of music hosting sites on the web, for example, SoundCloud.

SoundCloud is a musician’s dream, it’s the myspace of music and it’s a great way to showcase your work. You can upload your tracks and let listeners download them, comment on them and even share them. Twitter recently introduced a new form of music news called #music, where users can see which songs are trending and even preview them.

But now you’re probably wondering how all of these things can come together. The beauty of social media is that you can now link everything together. Your Twitter can be synchronized with your Facebook, which allows you to only have to post once. With SoundCloud or whichever music-hosting site you wish to use you can link your music to your posts so everything is connected to you and your fans.

We can see this in action when we look hip-hop artist Macklemore. With his huge online following, he reached number one on the billboard charts, making him the first unsigned artist in 19 years to do so.

So take to the web and reach out to your fans and eventually, they’ll reach back.

Who do you think the next Macklemore will be?

What Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and blogs such as this one have done for mainstream media, eBooks are doing for traditional publishers. While numbers from Canada are difficult to come by, the Association of American Publishers reported that in 2011 eBooks were the #1 format for Adult Fiction. In the same report it was noted that the net sales of eBooks “more than doubled in 2011 vs 2010.” EBooks are launching forward into the public’s consciousness in ways unprecedented by many who continue to cling to their hardcovers (of which, I admit, I am one).

John Locke (the Donovan Creed series), Martin Crosbie (My Temporary Life), Hugh Howey (the Wool series), Rachel Schurig (the Three Girls and a Baby series and the Love Story series), Amanda Brice (the Dani Spevak Mystery Series) and Barbara Freethy (A Secret Wish) are all members of the rapidly expanding all-inclusive club of self-publishers and hybrid publishers. Over the past few years, authors have begun embracing their inner Johannes Gutenberg and marched forward in embracing a phenomenon F.R. Leavis documented years ago – that of the ‘uneducated’ public becoming the gatekeepers to works of – gasp – literature.

Self-publishing is one popular avenue authors use to get their work out into the world. Essentially, you – the author – get to write what you want, when you want, then distribute it however you want and readers can read it whenever they want. You, the author, are all-mighty.

Now get off your pedestal for a moment so that you can look with me at the money required for such a venture. The author does, after all, have to pay for it. As a result, most authors seem to choose to start with the cheaper-than-print eBooks. As I pointed out above, this has been happening for a few years now. Many make the choice to sell the eBook for $0.99, such as John Locke, while others opt for something closer to $3.99, such as Martin Crosbie. Some lucky few start with self-publishing and then their work becomes so supported and beloved by their readers that traditional publishers will approach the author in an attempt to make a deal for publishing traditionally, as happened with Howey’s Wool series. If you want that to happen with minimal work on your part, I’d suggest finding a four-leaf clover, along with a horseshoe and possibly a rabbit’s foot.

It tends to be a combination of luck, persistence and decent writing that results in the self-publishing success stories we find so often in the news. It relies nearly entirely upon the author, you, to write a good book and put in the hours necessary to get the book out there and into the rights hands of the right people at the right time. It is not a task for those who want to take it slow and easy. For control freaks (I have been told I am one) self-publishing is like angels descending from the sky singing in perfect harmony.

Write what you want. Send it out in digital form when you want. Tweet, blog or shout from the rooftops about it whenever you want. Then cross your fingers and hope that luck is with you!

Are you ready to embrace your inner Gutenberg?