Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/491542
www.postmagazine.com 38 POST APRIL 2015 SOCIAL MEDIA ocial networks have catalyzed new digital avenues for content distribution, making social media an integral part of brand marketing and the best way to reach the digitally-native (18-34) millennial demographic. We're just beginning to see the impact of this social media epoch, which is becoming a disruption for traditional media and quickly impacting how content is created and consumed. This is largely attributed to the democratization of distribution across a global marketplace that social networks make accessible. Snapchat's "Discover" feature has been making waves since its launch in January, adding curated news, images and video content for select publishers. Content stays up for 24 hours and then disappears, emphasizing the importance of tuning in daily. Cinemagraphs have been gaining more traction across Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook; still images with subtle looping motion of minor elements that catch the eye and bring a sense of life to static images and banner ads. "Second Screen" mobile apps to major tentpole events and movie releases are becoming more commonplace on bigger budget productions and advertising campaigns; from the Coachella 2015 Of- ficial app to The Mockingjay augmented reality app, second screen experiences are frequently being developed for big events and continue to get better. Apple TV is making a big come-back and this time they look to be position- ing themselves to leap ahead of the streaming player competition. The tech giant is currently in talks with major stu- dios and networks to partner with their Web-based TV service, which up until now, is what the product lacked to truly compete with traditional broadcast. I predict that we're going to see major growth in live-streaming in the near fu- ture; with Amazon acquiring Twitch. tv last year, they introduced a music category in addition to their core gaming focus, indicating that they are branching out to reach a bigger audience. Aside from the $970M Twitch purchase, Jeff Bezos has been aggressively pursuing stock in the online video space with the launch of Amazon Fire TV and investing over $100M for original video content. With two recent Golden Globe wins, I think there's more ahead for Amazon. Former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar officially announced Vessel, his new video platform last year. While rolling out the mobile-focused beta and bulking up with high-quality, short-form content from top online influencers and celebrities, Vessel could become a serious competitor for YouTube. It's primarily a premium model with a $3 monthly subscription. The question is: will people be willing to pay a small fee for short-form content when competitors are offering similar content for free? I believe it's possible with enough exclusive content good enough to make you feel left out if you're not a subscriber. 've worked in advertising for over 15 years, but as far as my compa- ny goes, I never did any for Don't Panik! I mean, yes, I handed out shirts embla- zoned with my logo that people could proudly wear at their gym, so my New Year's Resolution was to actively pro- mote my own company using everything I've learned in social media. SE-OHHHHHHHH SEO is the abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. Basically, what it means is getting your Website into game-shape so that all the search engines can easily point people's search queries to the correct place on your site. Spend the time, money and effort, and invest in SEO before starting any online advertising campaign. Once we learned that Google AdWords uses a bidding system to give lower pricing to Websites that are optimized to work best with its algorithm, we figured the best way to spend our money was to start with optimizing the site overall and its individual articles. Once that was done, then we started building AdWords cam- paigns based on the keywords for each article and got cheaper pricing for each ad placement. SOCIAL MEDIA Being successful in social media means creating media that people want to Like, Share, and Comment on. Yes, it's really as simple as that. The more work you put into creating engaging content, the less work you have to do on the backend to get people to share it. Text-only status updates are great, but images capture attention, and videos are more engaging. NICE GROUP-ING These images were created just for fun for entertainment-specific Facebook Groups, which are great resources to learn about your clients and customers. Unfortunately, Facebook wanted to min- imize spamming people, so a business page can't directly post to groups. The workaround is to create a post as the business, and then switch back to your individual profile and share that post by selecting "Share In a Group" (Take that, Facebook!) But beware — some groups will ban you if you violate their rules. BOOST IT! Facebook has a feature called Boost Post. Using a budget that you choose, it will put your post higher in the News Feed. It's one of the main differences between Latest Posts and Top Stories, because it basically gets your post in front of more of your audience. It's a lot quicker than placing an ad, but it's post-specific and only gets shown to people who've liked your page. Beginning in 2015, we started running AdWords campaigns and listing the company locally with physical address, phone number, Website and URL. For years, we almost never received inquiries from our contact form. But since we've established a local presence online, the contact form has been sending requests from people in the area. CONCLUSION These tips are just a starting point on how to use social media for your business. Target your audience so that what you're posting is always relevant to them. If you do, your audience will grow and so will your business. PLATFORMS AND NONLINEAR CONTENT DISTRIBUTION WHAT I'VE LEARNED BY MARK PANIK PRINCIPAL DON'T PANIK! LOS ANGELES WWW.DONTPANIK.TV S I BY BRYAN ROBBINS DIRECTOR/PRODUCER SPOTLESS FILMS LOS ANGELES WWW.SPOTLESSFILMS.COM