4 Years Ago Today: The Video Upload That Accidentally Launched an Agency

By John Furnari | Published: May 19, 2010

It always throws me for a loop when I meet someone for the first time and they tell me, “bigMETHOD, yes I’ve heard of you guys.”  Neither Greg nor I ever intended for this to happen.  We often stop and look at what we’ve done and shake our heads - the phenomenal clients we’ve had the opportunity to work with,  the brilliant team we’ve been fortunate enough to pull together, the unforeseen obstacles that should have sunk the ship, and the genius of what we know is right around the corner - it’s honestly difficult to comprehend that it all somehow came to be.

How it came to be, that’s the easy part. On May 19, 2006 - four years ago today - I uploaded this video to YouTube:

Eight months earlier I decided to head out of Boston and “leave internet marketing” altogether to jump into the music industry here in Los Angeles. That ironically landed me in the new media department at a major record label.

It was a short run that would never have worked out. I didn’t want to be a cog in the machine.  At the time I simply wanted to bring fresh ideas to the table and use them to support something I loved. So I cold-emailed their management (and now dear friends of mine) of a my favorite unknown band back east. The message included “at the moment, I don’t think there is another artist coming up that gets me more excited or that I have more confidence in the future success of. Which is why I’d love to discuss with you what I can do to lend a hand.”

GPN’s management and the band’s label, Hollywood Records, were gutsy enough to take me at my word and try what at the time was a completely out-of-the-box plan.  Seriously nobody was doing this at the time. I have no idea why they agreed to run with it, but I’m thankful every day they did.   The pitch: I’d research far and wide to find bloggers around the country that had written about similar artists like Lucinda Williams or Gov’t Mule, send them a CD and some free tickets, and see what happened from there.  A simple but unprecedented campaign.

After a few weeks of research and planning for the unknown I was ready to go. Originally the plan was to send just a link to a track and album review copy.  At the 11th hour I saw the Nothing But the Water clip above. It absolutely blew my mind, and I knew if there was going to be an introduction to this band that had to be it.  It wasn’t a marketing lesson you learn in school. It was a feeling. How could someone with an affinity for the style of music see this clip, hear that voice, and not want to pass the word along?

So I registered a YouTube account, uploaded the video, and led each email with that link.

The first person I reached out to was Tom from Twangville. An hour later this happened.  Second was Charles from Ashcan Rantings. A half hour later this happened.  That afternoon something dawned on me that to this day serves as the foundation for everything we do: if you create something great and put it in the hands of voices that matter it will sell itself from there. I didn’t have to say much. We just found the right folks and let Grace’s performance do all the talking.

*Side note: a year later I ran into a prominent music blogger down at SXSW that had regularly been covering the band and asked how he heard about them. He told me it was that Ashcan Rantings post. Lesson #2 - relevancy trumps readership…it’s a small world and you never know who’s reading who.

As the story goes, we just kept doing more of the same and it kept working. Writers around the country were covering a band that at the time had little reach outside of the state of Vermont.  And I couldn’t have been more proud or felt more lucky to be a part of it.

From there we took our first case study to other bands and labels and turned a one-off campaign into a full-time gig. Over time, blog outreach for artists turned into full blown strategic marketing plans for consumer brands and prominent organizations. That’s where we sit today, having stumbled into the launch of an agency with a strong history and a lot of promise for the future.

In 4 calendar years a lot has changed and a lot hasn’t. A quick breakdown:

What’s changed:

  • Grace Potter and the Nocturnals are weeks away from dropping their latest record, fresh off the recent Rolling Stone nod as “best new band of 2010.”  They just did the Ellen show, put out a show-stopping music video and are primed for the recognition they’ve always deserved.
  • We’ve taken the concepts we developed on the music side and applied them to an incredibly wide range of verticals.  Successfully.
  • The fledgling blog PR operation we started on accident is now a fully functioning strategic marketing agency with offices in Los Angeles, CA and Boston, MA.
  • Our clients are no longer taking a chance by turning to social media. They’re taking a chance if they’re not turning to social media.
  • The campaign executions we were pitching that were ahead of their time in 2006 are outdated in 2010.  Our thoughts on engaging the social web are at totally odds with the services many clients come to us expecting to implement.
  • MySpace is no longer everyone’s main priority.

What hasn’t changed:

  • Grace Potter and the Nocturnals are still our client and a priority for us every day.  We’re still uploading videos, sending information out to influential voices, implementing out-of-the-box campaigns, and completely blown away by the music they’re putting out there.
  • While our programs have become diverse, we still clearly have a passion for music, and still see it as the laboratory for new ideas and implementations.
  • The core team that put the first campaign together is still conferencing daily - still brimming with excitement for the latest and greatest initiatives.
  • Where social media as a whole has hit the mainstream, we’re still battling daily to break ground and push the envelope of creativity in the space.
  • Although the campaign executions are a little outdated, the methodology and philosophy behind what we do remains. Listen to what your audience is saying, creating something worthwhile, and connect directly to them to deliver the message.
  • Working on MySpace layouts still confuses and frustrates us regularly.

It’s been quite a whirlwind. Couldn’t have written it any better, or asked for it to happen any other way.  All I can say is wow.

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“You can checkout any time you like…”

By Greg Cargill | Published: April 28, 2010

I was already a little worked up earlier this week about Facebook with my thoughts on the new Like button.  Then I logged into my Facebook (yeah, there is something hypocritical about everything I am about to write because I will login again tomorrow too) and this is what popped up:

Innocent enough, I like notifications when new functionalities are added to the network.  But look at the options:

  1. Add all of these Pages to my Pages
  2. Be reminded to add all of these Pages to my Pages later
  3. Choose Pages to add individually

What if I don’t want to add any of these Pages now or later?

I didn’t like this.  Facebook is too focused on getting users to expand their network so that they can show the value of their community to advertisers.

This made me think about the Like button more.  I wondered how easy it would be to remove myself from Open Graph.  I already knew that you don’t delete your profile you just deactivate it and because of this you need to delete all of your personal information before deleting.  What I didn’t realize was how many steps Facebook would put me through to even deactivate my profile:

1. In your Account you click on the link clearly marked “deactivate”

So the next thing I expected to see was at most to have to click on a confirmation message and I would be home free…

2. No.  Facebook takes you to a page to make sure you want to deactivate your account.  On this page they make sure to put pictures of 5 of your friends saying that they will miss you, to hopefully keep you as a registered member (cheap ploy).

But that is not all, they require you to tell them why you are leaving.  There is no “I don’t feel like saying” option.  This is getting to be an annoying process to do something so simple, but I think I finally am out of here.

3. No.  Now I have to enter my password…

Finally, can I get on with my life?

4. No!  I have to enter a CAPTCHA?

Did my password not take care of any kind of confirmation that needed to happen?

All of that to just deactivate an account?  Facebook really wants to keep us on the needle.

Anyway, I have already logged back in to make sure this whole little test didn’t delete my account.  I am such a junkie.

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Facebook Like: give up control and we will give up privacy concerns

By Greg Cargill | Published: April 26, 2010

There has been a great deal of chatter over the past week about F8 and the revolution that is coming with the “Like” button.  As Pete Cashmere of Mashable said, “Rather than aiming to be the coolest bar in town — and losing its clientele when they leave for a hipper spot — Facebook plans to become the Starbucks of the web, with a Like button on every corner.”

If you look back over my older blog posts about Facebook you will see that in general I have praised the network for choosing the right path more often than not.  Their actions have reshaped the social web.  The introduction of this use of the Like button might be the wind that changed the course of this support ship.

What is Facebook’s goal for the Like button?

“Make no mistake, this is a power grab. Facebook is making a play to become the single-sign-on and social-sharing engine for every major site on the Net. Call it the FaceWeb.”  - Dan Tynan from PC World: Why I, Like, Really Dislike Facebook’s ‘Like’ Button

Facebook is trying to win and they are looking to unseat the current king above all others, Google.  The difference between the two is that Google lets users search for keywords and then makes suggestions based on the information it has gathered from other users doing the same thing (basically).  With the Like button and the “Open Graph” it produces Facebook wants to make suggestions based on your profile even when you are not searching for anything based on the information it is constantly gathering from your friends in comparison to their network as a whole.  It really is a pretty great idea, but if you have seen the movie The Minority Report and how advertisements were fed to people in the movie (annoying), that is the direction Facebook is headed.

Reading around the various news blogs relevant to all things social web it seems that most people have been wow’ed by this new strategy.  Dan (read the whole post, he is on point) along with a few other writers and many Facebook users are not loving this new use of personal information.

Below are some more article excerpts from Mashable so you can better see what the Like button does and how people are talking about this change (I stuck with one resource because there is just so much out there about the Like button and I don’t feel like spending days combing through the same opinion on 10 sites to prove that they are similar, deal with it!).  When reading these continue to think about this being your information that you felt comfortable posting because when you signed up for Facebook there was a sense of privacy and control that you now associate with the site by default and not just as an evolution for the provider of your favorite past-time (innocently stalking your friends):

Facebook’s Open Graph Personalizes the Web

“Facebook has created a platform that allows sites and apps to share information about users in order to tailor offers, features and services to each one’s interests and tastes — even if that individual has never visited the site before.”

“users are connected to people they know, as well as public figures, services and products they like; Facebook’s new platform will allow websites and apps to share this information with each other.”

“When you connect to sites like Yelp via your Facebook profile, Yelp will have access to any information you’ve made publicly available about your favorite foods or favorite bands, and will be able to take that into account when giving you information about restaurants or music venues. For example, Yelp could pull information about your favorite music from data that Pandora added to the graph when you favorited a song on its site.”

Pandora Partners with Facebook for Social Music

“The combination of Open Graph and the new, wide-reaching “Facebook Like” button around the web means that “liking” a band on a third-party site will register with your Facebook profile, which can in turn inform your Pandora profile even while you’re discovering music at other points around the web. It also tightly hooks your Pandora profile with your “real” social graph of friends on Facebook. In the words of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, all of this allows the social networking juggernaut to build “instantly social and personalized experiences” thanks to this underlying level of social graph integration.”

Facebook Open Graph: What it Means for Privacy

“Nevertheless, it is imperative that users who have concerns about privacy make sure they read and understand what information they are making available to applications before using them. Users need to be aware that when they “Like” an article on CNN, that “Like” may show up on a customized view that their friends see.”"Be aware of your privacy settings.”

I love all of the tech / social media blogs that I read regularly and Mashable is easily in the Top 2 when it comes to these sites.  They provide amazing information and great value.  But let’s be clear, we are not at the end of the evolution of this Internet epoch.  All of these great blogs and blog writers can miss the real potential impact from time to time and right now many of them are not recognizing how major this change could be to user loyalty, and in turn the future of Facebook.

Why is this change so important?

Facebook beat MySpace because there was some sense of order, the network made users feel safe and in control of their content.  The Open Graph associated with the Like button is a change made to be useful to businesses and services while providing enough value to users to keep them mindlessly engaging within Facebook.  This change of use for the Like button abandons Facebook’s policy of considering the user first.  Instead it caters to those with money - businesses and advertisers, and not the reason they are appealing to people with money - the size and engagement level of their devoted network.

Users are not looking for businesses to be able to more easliy find them because they or their friends are interested in something similar - they are looking for their friends to individually recommend products directly to them because they know what their friends will like and may need.  Every user on the web is a personal filter for every other user in their network.  When a user is first exposed to a product or message that engagement is the gateway to evaluate if this product is good enough and if it should be a brand that should expands - if “yes” we share, if “no” we do not.

Brands are going to have to accept this as the way of life and death moving forward; they are going to actually need to make something that is good and needed to be successful, marketing will no longer allow them to slip by into the mainstream.  They will have to give your product to real people and have those real people tell others about it because they really found it worth talking about.  Not every product was meant to be, in fact we have far to many “things”.

What is the next evolution for the Internet?

Here it is… Web 3.0 (ew) will be the organization of the Web 2.0 mess.

Then what is the problem with “Like”?

Redundancy.  As a global society we are all working more than past generations to produce less, and the same is true here of Facebook.

What (in my opinion) is the solution?

Be the mall, not the store.

One thing that people overlook time and time again is that unlike the real world the Internet is not restricted by geographical location.  Because of this there is really only the need for The One.  One personally customizable central organizational area that allows us to begin to control the overwhelming amount of information being broadcast by businesses and brands, interesting content found throughout our lives, and stay connected with our friends.

This is what Faceabook should be focused on perfecting.  Trust me, there is plenty of money in being the mall.

Conclusions?

Feel free to call me an unrealistic idealist, but this battle to be The One should not exist.  The Internet is new, it is global, and even though money can be and should be made by individuals who make great things happen within the space, the injection of companies looking to reap massive profits from the technologies associated with these means of communication instead of being satisfied with it simply as a more cost effective medium to sell their consumer products has turned us all against each other and against true progress as we fight over the minority portion of the booty.  When someone develops a new tool to use the Internet in a new way they should be rewarded based on the value it brings.  Once they have been compensated in a way that is deemed fair by the mass, those new systems should become a part of the general toolbox for all to use so that our collective resources are not being used to repeatedly reinvent the wheel.

Here is a great example of what companies keep doing wrong: Twitter is about to launch its own official application for Blackberry users.  There are already numerous applications that have already been created for people to use Twitter more effectively, but this is Twitters attempt to enter that same space so that they can make some money off of their service just like these other companies.  That sounds sensible but the real question is, why wasn’t Twitter doing this already?  Why were they allowing others to make money off of their invention?  Why were those other companies not compensating Twitter since they were built on top of its shoulders?

The truth is Twitter will probably fail with this application, and in turn the monetization that would have come through it, because the tools that have already existed allow for communication within a greater number of networks beyond Twitter.  The one thing Twitter holds of value then that no other company built on their shoulders does is your personal information… Crap, they have painted themselves into a corner again.

My favorite quote is from Mahatma Gandhi, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Facebook is not wrong in their belief that there is immense monetary potential in controlling the single-sign-on and social-sharing engine categories.  The Like button will most likely mean a great deal of money and success for the network over the next short period of time.  But by not being the “bigger man” and working to bring together all of the single-sign-on protocols and social-sharing tools to provide order to these aspects of the Internet Facebook is ignoring the larger potential for greatness that could allow for the company to beat their noble enemy Google and become Connor MacLeod of the Internet.

Facebook could adjust and become this.  Google could invest in this as well and continue to win.  There are other titans out there as well but these two are going to be fighting the battle and one will be The One (for now).  The third option is both of these brands stick to the tracks they have begun to lay and a third contender makes this, what the consumer will want, and will win.  This third entry into the battle for the future of the Internet could be the greater Open community online, but can they get organized to complete the task before Mr. Moneybags waves too much money in front of too many faces and kills the possibiltiy?

So what then?

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Enough About the Rockstars of Social Media. I’m Learning From a Soul Singer.

By John Furnari | Published: March 30, 2010

If you’re late to the game, the 2.0 community has been known to refer to industry luminaries like Chris Brogan and Brian Solis as the Rockstars of Social Media. For the record I find  most of the folks referred to in that way to be brilliant. I highly recommend reading their blogs and following their tweets for a wealth of knowledge on the social web.  But that’s not what we’re discussing right now.  Today we’re talking Erykah Badu.

Leading up to the release of her new record Badu has been placing teaser videos on the web - each of which are preceded by a countdown she hypes to her 100k followers on Twitter. On Friday this meant the official video for “Window Seat”, which you can view here:
You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

A conversation piece to say the least; which is exactly how it was used.  After posting it to her site on Friday, Badu’s @fatbellybella account turned into a hub of a vibrant discussion on music, nudity in art, dealing with inhibitions, and the philosophy of groupthink.  As the conversation lit up my twitter feed I couldn’t help but smile at how one of my favorite soul singers unwittingly laid out a playbook for making an impact on the social web.   It reads like this:

  1. Go big or go home.
     badu11
     The “Window Seat” video is a stunt, and I mean that in an absolutely complimentary way.  There’s a lot of content out there littering our inboxes and social networking streams.  It takes big ideas and bold moves to break through the noise.  I commonly hear friends, colleagues, and clients point to the internet as the testing ground or secondary outlet for content and campaigns. “We’ll take all the b-roll and put it on the web at some point.”  Sound familiar?That line of thinking isn’t going to cut it in 2010.   If you want to get your audience talking you’ll need to give them something to talk about.  Stripping naked in the streets of Dallas worked for Erykah Badu.  What you got?

  2. Know that it doesn’t take much….money.
    badu1
    This video couldn’t have cost $1,000.  I’m betting even less. Perhaps there used to be a significant correlation between video shoot budgets and their eventual impact on the marketplace.  Those days are certainly behind us.  Not every low-budget shoot is going to go viral, but they have just as great a chance as their high-budget counterparts.Creativity has replaced financial flexibility.  Artists and brands alike must now more than ever focus on thinking outside the box. Great ideas mean something again, and the best ones can be executed without throwing all the dollars at it.

  3. Open up.
    badu2
    Putting yourself out there is one thing.  Putting the real you out there is another. Amidst the ongoing discussion of the video and its implications Badu has laid it on the line 140 characters at a time - the concepting, her initial fears, her expectations, the feelings she had in the moment, and what she hopes others can draw from the final product.  It has been transparency in its truest form.  I’ve sincerely appreciated it and I’m likely not the only one.  This is what we want from the individuals and organizations we friend, fan, or follow - the inside track and a human connection to make us feel even closer.   As real and unfiltered as possible.

  4. Open up…the conversation.
    badu3
    If this video dropped on Friday and Erykah Badu spent the past few days tweeting a monologue of her thoughts about it for us where would we be?  Who knows, but I’d say probably not discussing it here on the blog for starters.  The allure of the event for me…which led me to notice and click to see the video to begin with…has been the non-stop dialog between Badu and the Twitter community since Friday.  She has been consistently asking questions, answering comments, highlighting related tweets, and generally putting a direct emphasis on the importance of the overall conversation that has unfolded.  That’s the genius in it - understanding that the benefits of messaging control pale in comparison to the reach of the discussion.  Bringing us to another point:

  5. Don’t just accept the criticism, embrace it.badu5badu7
    There’s always so much concern with what an audience’s reaction will be in the social media space.  ”What if it’s bad?  What do we do then?”  Clearly Erykah Badu would say embrace it.   She’s right.  We stand to gain more by learning from the negative critiques than we do by suppressing them.  To put it bluntly, it’s the internet.  It only takes a few clicks to find out the other side to any story.  Addressing criticism head on establishes trust and adds credibility to the positive spin you want to put out there.

  6. Do it for a reason.
    badu12
    What good will 20 tweets about you every minute for 3 days do?  Potentially nothing - unless you’re looking for a way to raise awareness about the new record you’re releasing that week (or you have loftier goals of changing the way your audience thinks about the world).   Beyond a shadow of a doubt Erykah Badu has accomplished both of these goals.  There are thousands of tweets, articles on CNN, BET, All-HipHop, HuffPo, and a dozen major news sites, and countless bloggers like me covering this as we speak.     This is perhaps the most valuable takeaway.  The success of a campaign is only as good as its end purpose. A billion views add up to a whole lot of nothing if you’re not doing it for a reason.  So the next time you think about tearing off your clothes on a crowded city street, think about what you’re trying to achieve.  It’s the whole point.
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