As an entrepreneur, small business person, or artist/musician looking to get themselves or their business more exposure, there’s no single tool greater than YouTube. I’m sure that you’re already familiar with YouTube for funny and silly videos, as well as other things, you’ve seen here or there, but the hidden benefit to YouTube is making your own video, and using it to bring a greater awareness to your work or business.

For instance, let’s say you own a dry cleaners. You might think that nobody could have any possible interest in the business of a dry cleaners on YouTube; you’d be wrong. The Web is filled with just this kind of stuff, these minor curiosities that folks would love to spend a few minutes watching while they’re eating their lunch.

Take this video, for example, with almost 76,000 views… what if you made this video, and promoted your company simply by including a small logo in the bottom corner, or having the people in the video wear shirts with your logo, boo-yaa! I guarantee business would increase:

Then there’s this one, which, Paula Berg from Southwest Airlines talked about at the Digital PR Next Summit I recently attended, and it made me laugh out loud. This is a video of a jet engine being washed, basically, three minutes of water being blown through a jet engine, almost 97,000 views:

Anyway, I think you get the point. YouTube can bring great awareness to your work whether you’re an entrepreneur, small business owner, artist or musician. Surf around YouTube, and look at folks in your business are using it. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll find.

For entrepreneur’s, small business owners, and self-starters of any kind I would say that you should get started using social media. In fact, this should have been the first post in the Social Media Take Away series, but hey I’m improvising and making things up as I go here…

What is social media?

Social media is any web tools that allows groups to generate content and engage in peer-to-peer conversations and exchange of content (examples are YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc…)

Social media is particularly valuable for entrepreneur’s, small business owners, and self-starters in-general, I’m thinking artists – painters, musicians and the like, because it gives them low cost, high value, far reaching exposure for whatever they’re doing. As I write more about the social media value, I’ll cover some of these. For starters, I would say see this post on Twitter or items tagged with social media on this blog. Though, I’ll be covering stuff more in-depth, and high level, alike as I develop this feature of the blog.

This post was one that was originally posted here, but kind of got lost in the mix, and I wanted to repost it for two reasons. First, this is a great example of using the Web to create and be creative. I was surfing Flickr, a free picture sharing site, and I found this great series by Indy Kethdy, he had them marked with a Creative Commons license, so I downloaded them, created a video, and then composed a soundtrack to the photostream. Then I posted the video on YouTube to share. This sort of the full-circle of open sharing, social media and creativity on the Web. My second reason is less profound, I know the site has some new readers, and I thought that they might enjoy checking out this video montage. Enjoy.

Indy Kethdy Video Montage with Matt Borghi Soundtrack

Surfing Flickr, as I so often do, I find images that inspire me. Last Friday night, though, I found the fantastic work of Indy Kethdy. I spent hours, and hours pouring over his pictures of Lake Michigan from around Wisconsin. I started to hear music in my ears, and imagined putting these images to sound. I was in luck, because Indy had set his pictures with a Creative Commons license that allowed me to make a video of his photos, put them to music, and then post it here for you to view. I highly recommend visiting Indy’s Flickr page – http://www.flickr.com/people/indykethdy/ and getting a taste of his excellent artistry first-hand. First, though, check out the video homage and the music that I created from the inspiration of his gorgeous still images:

A lot is being said about “free” these days, especially with the release of Chris Anderson’s book on the subject, but ever since I came online I’ve been interested in the economics of free, whether it was freeware, free music, or free information.

Story: I ran a series of free Mp3 downloads back in 2003 at mattborghi.com, and those downloads brought in more hits to my Web site than being featured on the nationally-syndicated space music program, Hearts of Space. To be fair, the program didn’t feature my music, exclusively, and no link was included to my site, but I thought that it would at least have generated some inquiries, and it did. However, I didn’t see nearly the response that I thought I would from that exposure compared to the interest generated by the free monthly download series.

It’s with that experience in mind that I released a variety of my long-form ambient music tracks to be freely available (some of which are from that monthly download series). Here’s the official announcement from my homepage at mattborghi.com:

Freely available Mp3s of long-form ambient works

I have freely released several hours worth of my long form works in mp3 form here, approximately a dozen tracks. Most of these tracks haven’t been available in quite a long time. Some go back as far as ten years and my early Mp3.com page, some were out-takes from records, and the 2003 series was a monthly download series that I did throughout 2003 during a particularly prolific period. I hope to add other long form works over started adding these tracks.

My reasons for doing this are two-fold. First, these tracks haven’t been available in a long time, and to me it makes more sense to put them out into the universe, where people can enjoy them, than let them take up space on my hard drive .

The second reason has to do with my how I measure the success of social media. Social media metrics and measurements are something that many folks talk about, and ponder but I think that good social media metrics aren’t in hit rankings or page views, but rather in how many people you are getting your ideas out to. The more people that download you free ambient music tracks, watch your videos, read your blog, etc… and comment on, think about, bring up in discussion, include in status updates or generally take an interest in your ideas is the best way to measure the success of social media.

Social media is a new term for a concept as old as the Web itself. As long as the Web, as a network of connected users has existed, it’s been a social medium. So when you have folks sharing things in a variety of formats (i.e. still images, audio, video, etc.) somehow it becomes social media. That’s it. It’s really that simple. There’s no mystery or secret to what marketers and communicators are calling social media; it’s what the Web has always been from YouTube and Facebook, today, to pimply-faced teens swigging soda on Dungeons and Dragons BBS’ (Bulletin Board Systems) all through the late 70′s, 80′s and early 90′s.

Social media has evolved, the technologies have changed, and the user-interfaces have gotten better, but the core of what the Web is, has changed very little. In recent years, particularly since the Web 2.0 hype began, marketers have tried to frame social media as something else, some kind of communications or awareness panacea whereby you herd your fans/customers into some kind of digital stable, and get a direct, captive audience. This has worked to a very limited extent because as soon as there’s somebody building a fence or stable, there are ten other people building wide open pastures where users can roam free. I’m not sure a model that promotes captivity over freedom will ever exist, online or elsewhere.

That’s the gist of a post I read on Twitter this morning. I laughed out loud when I read that, because social media can be a real time suck, and I know I’ve used those words myself before.

The fact is social media is time and labor-intensive, worse still is if you don’t have any idea where you’re going, or what you’re trying to achieve. You can post on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, write a daily blog, etc… but that’s hours of work, that needs to be done on a daily basis or at least a couple times a week. Without a plan or a goal there’s also no way to measure if the work is a success, and should be continued.

The fact that tools like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are free and blogs can be added to any Web site with little work, and no cost combined with the potential of these tools (to say nothing of the hype factor) has a lot of organizations eager to utilize them. However, because there’s no capital investment organizations aren’t prone to developing a plan or strategy for implementation. Often, I hear of communications managers, web designers, or copy writers inheriting the “social media” piece because organizationally they seem to be the best fit for it… equally often this inheritance comes with no plan, strategy or awareness of how much time the implementation, but more importantly the upkeep of social media takes.

I highly recommend that anybody getting into social media ask themselves what success would look like, then survey the time involved, and most importantly figure out whether there are resources to support it. Once you’ve got these in place then you start thinking about a plan/strategy.

I just read a very thought-provoking post over at Seth Godin’s Blog. He posted a video, which I’ve posted below, that shows one crazy guy dancing at a music festival, which quickly turns into a dance mob.

This is profound, to be sure… Anyone can join the mob and the rush to do what everyone else is doing, but it takes guts to get out there and be the first, second and third person doing something… To quote Seth ” Guy #49 is irrelevant. No bravery points for being part of the mob. We need more guy #3s.” Very profound. Thanks Seth!

This is a fun TV news excerpt from 1981 (1981!!!!) that talks about the end of the newspaper and how it will be replaced by the computer. Techcrunch posted this earlier this month, but I just found it again, and thought it would be neat to post. I stole the title of this post from typographer David Carson’s book of the same name, kind of as a tongue in cheek move (because print will never die, though, many folks are sounding the death knell for print communications). However, as a graphic/Web designer turned developer turned strategist and also a letterpress printer, I know all too well the argument for Web over print, though I haven’t had much opinion with regard to the demise of newspapers. It’s sad, because I’m sentimental, but outmoded things make way for the new in our society; such is the cycle of progress. Anyhow,this is a fun and interesting video that shows just how far things have come.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, as author Robert Pirsig put it, had little to do with Zen Buddhism, and in the early 1970s, when the book was published that might have been true. However, in the nearly four decades that have passed a new definition of Zen emerged. While Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was a discussion of what quality means, the sub-text of the book pointed at a non-controlling, and mindful approach to life and the universe where things were allowed to unfold without resistance. This is what makes me think of the title for this post, Zen and the Art of Web Strategy.

In my mind, the egalitarian nature of the Web and Web strategy has always been closely linked to Zen. With the Web, like Zen, anybody can get started any time. The barriers, if any, are few, so everyone has an equal opportunity to become a Zen or Web master. The Web, like Zen, encourages openness, because sharing isn’t a means to an end, it is the end itself, and that’s what has always driven the Web. The Web, like Zen, is allusive; when you think you’ve got it, either the next great business idea or the riddle of the universe, that’s precisely the problem and serves to illustrate that you don’t.

This is an unorthodox perspective when viewed from the traditional business paradigm because it seems as though everything is out of control, and just out of reach. To some extent it is, but that’s what makes the strategy fun, challenging, and quite a bit like a Zen koan.

I’ll use the concept of viral marketing to illustrate this point. Viral marketing is a relatively new spin on a concept that’s surely as old as time itself. Marketing 101 would say that anything that gets passed on by word-of-mouth, through email forwarding, or other comparable means of person-to-person dissemination qualifies as having gone “viral”. Viral marketing, on the other hand, is the attempt by marketers to manufacture this kind of response through the use of a variety of media, media platforms and sometimes unethical means. Sometimes it works, but mostly it’s hard to replicate.

Case in point, with regard to the Grateful Dead; it was unprecedented, and nobody could have ever foreseen that thousands of people would be trading tapes of Grateful Dead shows. In the earliest of times, we’re talking about badly reproduced and noisy recordings that were nothing more than an allusion to the music being played; nevertheless, it took off. Eventually, many live shows were put up for sale and Grateful Dead tape traders have become Web file traders who use the Web rather than the outmoded media of tape, and surely that will evolve into something else, but nobody could have bet on that, nobody!

Another great example is YouTube. One of the things that has gotten YouTube off the ground is the proliferation of clumsy and silly videos, some well-intentioned, some not so much that have made their way around the Web. YouTube has created something special and greatly diminished the barriers for getting video (and yourself) on the Web. With the amount of video that has been posted to YouTube it makes sense that some of these have taken off and gone “viral”, whether it is because of foolishness, incredibility or just because of the hilarity factor; and with 10-65,000 videos per day being posted it only increases the likelihood that something is going to go “viral”. YouTube has grown because of these “viral” videos being passed around. However, YouTube’s growth (and probably existence) would have been doubtful if it wasn’t totally open; YouTube’s parent company, Google, really, really get this.

In the examples above neither could have happened if left to traditional business paradigm means. And, anybody who you have believed that they could would have been laughed out of the room. However, in an open environment that fosters quality, and is willing to be patient, and let things unfold, naturally, anything can happen… frequently nothing happens, but while nothing is happening something is growing out of the stillness… Truly, this is Zen and the art of Web strategy… I’ll be talking about this more…

I wanted to post a response to Simon Dumenco’s Advertising Age, Media Works article The Coming End of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook Socialism (read the article here).

Dumenco posits the question that with the growing costs of Web services like Twitter, You Tube and Facebook and the amount of venture capital that it takes to subsidize them, as non-money-making entities, how can they be anything but doomed. Admittedly, Dumenco has taken up a position that’s quite unpopular in the Web world right now. People want to believe that these services will make money and that they do provide value. I have videos on You Tube, and I have a (somewhat inactive @mattborghi) Twitter account, and for a time I was seduced by Facebook, but I’ve always come back to the value proposition.

I’m an early-adopter in the sense that if there’s something out there that brings value to and/or makes my life easier, I’m the first to get on-board, but if the value doesn’t continue, and/or the novelty wears off, then I’m moving on.

I’ll give some examples, YouTube when they first came online was pretty cool, and I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed that they were the first to make really wide use of the .FLV (Flash Video Compression format). However, after a while the content was just kind of so-so and I lost interest in general, daily usage. On the other hand, when I’ve needed to do home repairs, plumbing, electrical or otherwise, YouTube’s the first place I go, because they have some great tutorials. The service of being able to find home repair tutorials is awesome, but with sites with specific content of this kind like Expert Village, are YouTube’s days numbered? I don’t know. I guess I have a profound faith in Google’s ability to innovate and defy critics.

With Twitter it’s a little more complicated. I think that in certain situations Twitter is a great tool, and one that could also be very valuable. I think of the fact that much of the information that came out of the November 2008 Mumbai siege was done through Twitter, and many of the first reports of Scully’s skillful landing of US Airways 1549 on the Hudson River came from folks sending tweets via their blackberry’s and iPhones as they waited to board life rafts. As well, the Los Angeles Fire Department used Twitter to communicate during the October 2007 wildfires, and Twitter was also used to great success on the campaign trail during the 2008 elections by all parties for community organizing. However, with all of this said, I can’t think of a comparable model where a tool that you don’t pay for is used so freely. I could see Twitter being acquired into a mobile provider, or some kind of usage royalty being appended to a mobile bill, but as a stand-alone application, I just don’t see it yet.

With Facebook, there are many great aspects, but I just don’t see Facebook ever being monetized as a service. For instance, I like how I can send short message or just “poke” a friend to let them know I’m thinking about them, but don’t have anything to say to them. I like how you can publicize via your status your likes and dislikes. I like the in-window chat and the email functionality, but even with a very significant improvement on the MySpace model complete with Twitter-esque additions (in the redesigned Facebook), I just don’t see it making money. The subscription idea floats around, but I don’t see that ever taking off. There are other iTunes-esque ideas of tagging products and services with purchase options, but the logistic collaboration with more brick and mortar vendors and distributors would be a huge undertaking. Facebook has something, though; they’re different, and they just might be the Google of social networking, but that will remain to be seen.

Getting back to Dumenco’s article, I have to say that some of the best aspects of the Web are free. It’s always been challenging, and sometimes downright impossible, to monetize the Web. On Charlie Rose, a few months ago Marc Andreessen, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and board member for Facebook, said something that stuck with me, and I paraphrase ‘if you can get a million users, you have to be able to do something with them…’ Andreessen might be on to something, but it’s hard to know the future, and it’s even more difficult to know what people are willing to pay for on the Web. With a little luck one of these three organizations might just show us the way…