30Nov

Part 8: Social Media’s Secret Weapon

 

This is Part 8 in a 10 part series discussing Social Media and video production. For some, this will be remedial. For others, a good refresher. For others still, a whole new world.  If you missed Part 1, start here.

We sometimes forget the most valuable and effective social media tool ever developed. It’s often overlooked under the avalanche of new technologies and trying to keep up. It’s a tool that doesn’t have a new version coming out, or that requires a password, or needs to be friended. It’s something we all inherently know, and is both the easiest and the hardest tactic to execute against.

That tool? The handshake.

Social media is a great way to bring people in. But it’s also an excuse against making real connections. An excuse against doing real business and making what could be life-long relationships. Because if all your efforts aren’t leading to the handshake, a real moment of connection and touch, then it’s really not social at all. It’s a wall of noise.

Think about that in the context of your all your efforts. It’s what we try to do whenever we embark on a video production: get people to take the next step and reach out. To move them deeper into a relationship. To learn more and create something genuine.

So keep up the good fight against wasted time, which is exactly what social media can become if you let it. Reach instead for the handshake.

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28Nov

Opening a New Video Production Office in a Strange City – SCARY!

Opening a New Video Production Office in a Strange City – SCARY!

About 4 months ago – or was it 5? – we opened our new Seattle office. Why? We had to. We are headquarted in here in Bellingham, and while we love Bellingham, as a town it is sort of like the anti-business vortex. Difficult to explain, but for some reason I think people actually have a harder time making a buck in this town than any other. Consider that many places refuse to take credit cards – cool yes, business friendly, not-so-much. Yes, you can have lots of fun, but god help you if you’re trying to raise a family and eek out a living! We’ve done pretty well here, overall, thanks in a large part to the fact that a bunch of our biz comes from outside of the ‘ham, but we needed more opportunity right around us. Actually, there are a lot of reasons why we opened another office, and I’ll get into those more later, but for now, suffice to say, we opened one.

Anyhow, Seattle (we’ve heard) is somewhat better business-wise. Also, there are ALOT more companies there with the budgets to be able to afford to hire us to do what we love to do – tell beautiful, albeit sometimes expensive stories about them.

But, surprise!, there are also ALOT of video and film production companies down there. Just go on Google and type Seattle Video Production. I did, and to my personal horror I found pages, and pages, and pages of them – with us ranked on like the 13th page or something. Of course, I just did this search now – 5 months after we opened our office.

Okay, so sometimes we jump first and then look. Doesn’t matter, I’m still (and I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone at the Crank) ridiculously stoked we’ve got a place down there. We have our work seriously cut out for us, though, to get noticed.

I hope you’ll stick around for the ride as we try to crack the emerald city. Should be interesting. So far, we have one new client thanks to the move. No one is actually working full-time down there, but there is a lot of expensive commuting going on that paying for is a bummer (can’t you people carpool??) Koser is supposed to move down there soon, but Bellingham has a tractor beam that no old man could get out of commission (can you name that?). In the meantime, I’m working my ass off trying to learn Search Engine Optimization to get our web-rankings hire so at least people there think we exist.

Also, I should say, Seattle is really cool to hang out in. I need to do it more. We did get a fold-out bed down there…

More to come…

Max

25Nov

Part 7: YouTube and 5 Ways to Own a TV Network

Part 7: YouTube and 5 Ways to Own a TV Network

 

This is Part 7 in a 10 part series discussing Social Media and video. For some, this will be remedial. For others, a good refresher. For others still, a whole new world.  If you missed Part 1, start here.

A few years ago I was listening to the always impressive ‘This American Life’ with Ira Glass about a guy who wanted to start a TV channel that showed nothing but puppy dogs. Puppy dogs eating. Puppy dogs running. Puppy dogs wrestling. Puppy dogs being puppy dogs. The idea so obsessed this poor guy that he wrote business plan after business plan, made pitch after pitch, but with no luck. The studio execs, the gatekeepers, the pencil pushers, just didn’t think an idea like this would sell. Puppy dogs 24/7? You’ve got to be kidding me.

That poor guy was ahead of his time. Here’s a cute puppy dog video that’s received over 10 million hits. Not a bad place to promote a pet store. Or dog toys. And keyboard cats? Now there’s something that really connects.

You don’t have to get permission anymore. You can start your own TV show about anything you want. Distribution platforms like YouTube are waiting for you and so are millions of people. So if you’re engineering the next revolution in footwear, like one of our clients, then why not start a TV show on healthy feet? Why not become the veritable Walter Cronkite about posture, podiatry, and happiness from the ground up?

Here’s 5 ideas on how might start your own TV Network:

  1. Start a YouTube account: YouTube is a great hub for your video content, especially since its the second largest search engine in the world. Here’s a good article about starting a YouTube Channel from Duct Tape Marketing. (Always a good resource.)
  2. Define the Goal: Think about your video objectives in the context of your overall brand strategy. Do you want to attract customers, provide customer support, or build your network? It helps to have a plan in place before you hit the ‘upload’ button. Create content that matches goal.
  3. Build the Schedule: Create an editorial calendar. This is one of the great secrets to creating content:  planning the next week, month, and quarter of content to meet your objectives. Maybe you want to do a video a week or a video a month – you still need to know where you want to go and what you want to say. So write down 50 topics you’d like to talk about and drop them into a calendar.
  4. Be Social: Do you know what people want? If you haven’t been listening to your customers, reading Twitter, and making comments on blogs in your space, then chances are you don’t know what the topic of the day is. Do the research, engage with people, and then create content based on what you learn. Be relevant.
  5. Embed, Embed, Embed. Both Max and I are going to be talking a lot about this in the next few weeks. But think about creating video content that you can share/embed across all your channels, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and your site. If you want to know more about this today, email me.
  6. Bonus Tip – Shake the Test Tube: Be suspect of anyone who calls themselves a ‘Social Media Expert’. There are a few out there for sure (and I’ve got my favorites). Instead, don’t be afraid to take chances, experiment, and throw things out there to see what works. You’ll soon become the expert at what works for you and what doesn’t, regardless of what the ‘gurus’ say.

We get it: doing all this takes a lot of work. We know you’re time starved. So find other people to help lighten the load. Most of all, make it fun – an extension of the passion and joy of why you’re doing the work in the first place. That way, you can create great content that fulfills your audience, makes a connection, and improves business. And make every good studio executive jealous of your success.

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23Nov

10 Reasons Why SCARLET-X Will Beat Canon C300 to a Pulp

Over here at the Crank, we love all things RED.

Don’t even ask us why, they are just a very cool company, making excellent cameras far outside of the Sony/Panasonic/Canon stranglehold.

But, we all love our DSLR’s, yes? And, we were all waiting for the new DSLR from Canon that was going to knock our socks off, and bury RED.

Well, Canon finally came out with their C300 and RED came out with SCARLET and by and large all of the blogosphere (who usually HATE RED for whatever reason) are coming saying Canon is the winner. The price point is about the same at $16k or so complete.

They are saying that the Canon comes with everything you need, whereas with RED you have to put your package together and eventually the price would be a bit more than the Canon.

They are saying that people like shooting the DSLR format and don’t like shooting RED because it takes a lot of computing power.

They are saying that RED “lures” its customers into spending more and more money on “parts” for their cameras.

They are saying that the C300 will become the new standard.

THEY ARE DEAD WRONG.

These people must not be shooters themselves, or they must never have shot on a RED.

1) The #1 best thing about shooting RED, the most professional aspect, is being able to shoot all of your footage RAW and then process it however you want. This is a HUGE deal – Canon don’t do that. They shoot in 422, which locks you out of a lot of colorspace in post. This is a format of the past. (By the way, anyone who shoots DSLR know that the format stinks and is a pain.) SCARLET shoots in 444 RAW 4K.  Check out the data rates: SCARLET – 440MBS, CANON 50MBS. That’s a lot of data you’re not getting with Canon.

2) RED is about 1000 times cooler company to work with than Canon. When did you ever see Canon give a 75% discount to customers who upgraded their old cameras? NEVER. RED does this. I guess because Jannard is rich, or crazy – doesn’t matter – you benefit. Either way, so much for the “predatory” RED company.

3) SCARLET cameras can be Canon OR PL mount with interchangeable parts. Canon – you have to buy one or the other – this is 100% limiting and would be the end of it for most. Having the option allows you all sorts of different weights, lens expenses, etc.

4) SCARLET interchangeable parts are the BEST grade. There are no parts for the Canon – so you can’t grow the camera.

5) RED is considered PRO, no matter what they make. Coming on a big set with the Cx300 isn’t going to have the same catchet. Perhaps a minor point, but appearances matter.

6) RED is being constantly upgraded. I’m not talking about a once a year firmware upgrade like Canon might do. I’m talking about game-changing upgrades nearly every two weeks from RED. They had an upgrade at one point that increased the cameras sensor from 4k to 4.5k with R1 – I’d like to see that from Canon.

7) RED allows you in as a company. Last Spring I went to RED studios in LA with Koser and was able to hang out with the owner himself. By the end of it, we were exchanging posts on their extremely popular bulletin board that Jannard post to nearly every day (sometimes many, many times a day).

8) The Canon only outputs 1080p. A link to more on this here. I’m not totally a stickler on this stuff, but from reports, it appears that in output resolution the RED trumps.

9) RED is a little guy – just like me, just like you. I love working with the underdog. I get enough of the big guys in my banking, thank you. Visiting them, you get the sense they are cowboys, just making this up as they go along – seeing how big they can dream. Sound familiar?

10) My final proof. In the end to predict sales, etc., look around you. I know of two other people just here in little old Bellingham ALREADY that have put their money down on a SCARLET – I know of no one that is impressed enoug with what Canon is offering to put down cash. These guys were both DSLR guys. There are going to be 2 EPICS and 2 SCARLETs here in Bellingham, and lots more in Seattle. RED is starting to build a real, dedicated user base. Great things will happen with additions, etc. People who shoot WANT a RED because they are awesome work with, to handle, and the proof is in the pudding.

In the end, we’ll all keep our DSLRs for those midnight shoot under the radar in Bangladesh and India, but when we have the choice (and the budget) we’ll go for the RED.

Max

21Nov

Part 6: Linked in and the Theory of Indispensability

Part 6: Linked in and the Theory of Indispensability

This is Part 6 in a 10 part series discussing Social Media and video. For some, this will be remedial. For others, a good refresher. For others still, a whole new world.  If you missed Part 1, start here.

In this challenging market, the only bar you have to clear is indispensability. Indispensability has to be the hallmark of your product or service, something people choose not to live without. It has to provide answers, make life simpler or richer, and become one with your customer. Something perceived to be paramount.

Starbucks has done it with coffee. Zappos with shoes. You with something new and completely different. This blog has to be indispensable or it won’t last long. It will become vanity rather than purpose. And purpose is the name of the game.

Therein lies the beauty of LinkedIn. People think that LinkedIn as a way to build great business networks (and it is), but it’s also a great Share Engine. Think about your network in the context of how it can help other people, how it can help you share your social graph, and you’re suddenly a resource that people love. A friend needs a photographer? Let me check my digital Rolodex. A business associate needs some video produced? I’ve got a few people for you to consider. It’s a great place to share content and ideas to build relevancy.

If you think less about your network as something you own and more about it as something you share. then you’ll take a huge leap towards indispensability. People see you in a new light. Good business gets done.

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18Nov

Amazing TV Ad: British Airways Flys High With New Spot

Ad is here: a4JdQi60an0
Occasionally I see an ad that just gets me so pumped up for the business that we are in. Witness this new ad from British Airways.

What’s to love? Well, it looks GREAT to begin with. Lots of wonderful old planes, nostalgic scenes, and beautiful VFX.

Also, this ad is a great example of leading with something amazing, and then following up with smaller, less-expensive corollary advertising parts – more on this in posts to come.

But most of all, the story is wonderful. The idea of linking all of those pilots of the past to those of today is just wonderful. Sure, they took 1:30 to get to it (haven’t seen the :30 of this yet, but I’m sure it exists in some bastardized form), but it puts a lump in your throat and makes you think – man, flying is fun, and I want get on BA someday because they really have a history in this stuff.

The opening 90-second advert, which features serving BA cabin crew and pilots, debuted on Facebook at 11am on September 21.

BA managing director of brands and customer experience Frank van der Post, who joined the airline eight months ago following a career in luxury hotels, said: “This campaign marks out territory that other airlines can’t claim.

“BA is a world-renowned airline. We do not need to reinvent ourselves, but it’s time to turn up the volume. ‘To fly, To serve’ is not a slogan. It is not the invention of an advertising copy writer. It is on the uniform of our crew. It’s what we do.”

Van der Post added: “The ad puts a stake in the ground. It will be shown many times and supported by print and online campaigns.”

BA declined to reveal how much the TV ad had cost, but said it was paid for out of BA’s £400-million-a-year marketing budget. “It was a small part of that, but it cost enough,” he said. Ten members of cabin crew and three pilots appear in the advert.

Enjoy!

16Nov

Part 5: Twitter and Why You Should Care

Part 5: Twitter and Why You Should Care


This is Part 5 in a 10 part series discussing Social Media and video. For some, this will be remedial. For others, a good refresher. For others still, a whole new world.  If you missed Part 1, start here.

In Monday’s Post, Max discussed the surge in online video viewing, with over a 50% increase for marketers. Why? Because video is simply the best way to connect with viewers – especially given all the great platforms like Facebook, Google/YouTube and Twitter.

I can guess your first question: do I really need to care about Twitter?

Let’s answer it this way: if you could interact in real time with potential customers at practically zero cost, would you want to?

The answer is most likely ‘yes’. So if you take nothing else away from this post, remember this: Twitter is a search engine for potential customers. For people who want to connect.  For people who share the same interests you do.

Try this simple experiment:

  1. Go to the Twitter search page: http://twitter.com/search
  2. In the search bar, enter your profession. Let’s say ‘Certified Public Accountant’.
  3. A list of search results appear – all the people talking about CPA’s. Some of these posts have links to interesting content, some are trash, some are people looking help. You can even narrow these conversations down to your specific area.
  4. Now imagine signing up to Twitter and striking up a conversation with these people. Not necessarily selling them, but helping them. Providing value. Becoming relevant. Credible. A resource.
  5. Before you know it, you might even be engaging people and creating leads. Bingo.

Not bad. But don’t be fooled into thinking this sort of sales cycle happens over night. It takes time and commitment. Giving. Then giving some more. Then giving again. And if you’re smart and generally helpful, you become a person/company that people trust and find useful. People will call if you’re the one giving the best advice about 401K’s. And as you become credible, you might want to point people to content on your blog, website or Facebook page. You may want to start a video series on best accounting strategies for small businesses, or talk about a hot issue of the moment that is relevant to your audience. Pushing content to your waiting users is a great way of developing rapport, even if it is in 140 characters or less.

But for now, just stick your foot in the stream and listen to what people are talking about. The water is warm, and I bet you’ll find something worth the trip.

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14Nov

Recent Reports on Online Viewing Growth

Online Video Watching Way Up, People on Mobile Devices Watch on Android, People Don’t Watch for that Long

Recent reports from Reel SEO – a great site updated daily covering online video marketing – show that there are some interesting trends afoot with regards to online video watching behavior. Here are some findings from the Q1, Q2 2011 reports from Brightcove and TubeMogul entitled Online Video & The Media Industry.

Online Video Way Up

For “Discovery” of online video – no one touches Google with over 80% of that referrer market tied up. Far off second with 8% is Facebook. However, people watched videos longer on Facebook. Why would this be? Think about it – you look up a video on Google and watch it on someone else’s site. With Facebook, people have to upload the video into Facebook’s app, so you’re actually watching it on Facebook.

Overall, the piece reports that online video usage is on the gain in BIG ways. Magazines saw growth of over 50% in online video delivery, brand marketers 10%, and stream starts for online media overall grew 355%.

Android is Big

According to the report, presently over half of all mobile video views are on Android phones.

Also, the length of views was by far the longest on Android. In most cases, Ipad came in a direct second.

The low showing of the Ipad and Iphone (our personal favorites) was attributed to the fact that much of the content displayed today still has some variant of flash involved that makes it impossible for flash stuff to play. This of course will be changing greatly as we now see that Flash for mobile is officially over.

People Don’t Watch for Long

How long are people watching on average? 1:26 minutes.

 

 

11Nov

Part 4: Facebook and the One Eyed King

Part 4: Facebook and the One Eyed King

This is Part 4 in a 10 part series discussing Social Media and video. For some, this will be remedial. For others, a good refresher. For others still, a whole new world.  If you missed Part 1, start here.

With over 800 million Facebook users worldwide, there’s no mistake that you should be using this important platform to reach customers. It’s a perfect way to generate customer engagement and interest in your product and services. And, it gets easier and more fun to use every day.

With one caveat: Facebook should only be a supplement to your Website and other activities. FB is so powerful that many people are tempted to use it as a primary place of business online. But that’s similar to building a beautiful house on someone else’s property. Or trying to catch a ball with one eye closed. You may think you’re king but you’re missing a lot of opportunity.

Facebook is a like good cocktail party. When you show up and start talking to people, you don’t start by selling them your services. Instead you chit chat. Talk about the kids. Share stories. And if you hit it off, you might exchange business cards.

That’s what Facebook is good for: a great place to let people know who you are without instantly jumping in and trying to sell them something. You might post funny stories, videos, pictures of employees doing Stupid Pet Tricks, things that reveal your company’s personality. There’s very little selling. But potentially lots of connecting. A few quick tips:

  1. If you can, get the Vanity URL www.facebook.com/yournamehere. This isn’t always easy, but it is an important real estate grab. Here’s a great article. This site is a great reference as well for how to set-up FB in general.
  2. Post content about once or twice a day. More than that, and people might turn you off.
  3. Keep it pithy, relevant, and fun. Promotional posts about your company (Buy Today!) should only be about 25% of your content, if that.
  4. Use FaceBook Ads to help you build your Fan Base initially. We’ll talk more about FB ads later in this series.
How does film and video fit into all this? Many of our clients have had great success posting video content on FB with a Call to Action (CTA) at the end that says something like ‘Learn more about this at our site’. Or showing tutorials that say “See the rest of the series here’. Content should be a leader to get people to engage, like you, learn from you, and ultimately go to your site and buy from you.
Again, good video drives traffic. That, and keyboard cats.

 
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09Nov

One AMAZING Example of how to Get Viral Video


We get asked ALL THE TIME  - “HEY, I want a viral video – you know, something that gets over 100K hits.”

First of all – this is a really tall order. The sad thing is, if you have Miley Cyrus getting out of a car you can have 1M hits in no time, but without celebrity, and without something disgustingly funny, you probably don’t have a very good chance – unless you are very clever and actually build your video, and a campaign around the video, to be viral.

Check out this wonderful diabetes video that got over 100k hits…Take the BIG Blue Test

How did they get all those hits?

1) They had a great looking video – absolutely essential.

2) They had a soft sell on their product.

3) They had a way to easily get their people to “pass on” the video.

1, and 2 go without saying. 3 is the one I’d like to dig in on.

Just a because a video is great doesn’t mean anyone is going to see it. There is simply too much going on in our lives to watch everything on YouTube.

So, you’ve got to get people within the niche of your product to be the people to pass on your video. In this case, they got the maker of the video to agree to pay $1 for every time someone clicks on this video and watches it. They advertised this fact in the video, and got people to feel good about passing it along.

What’s your message and how do you want to get it seen? We’ll be looking out for more of these  great examples as we go.

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07Nov

Part 3: 4 Ways to Make Google Pay

Part 3: 4 Ways to Make Google Pay

 

This is Part 3 in a 10 part series discussing Social Media and video. For some, this will be remedial. For others, a good refresher. For others still, a whole new world.  If you missed Part 1, start here.

When Larry Page took over the reins as CEO of Google earlier this year, the very company he co-founded, he reportedly got a call from Steve Jobs, who told him in so many words  ‘to stop making so many things’. The advice was that focus and success is as much deciding what not to do, as what to do. And Google, in Jobs’ opinion, was all over the place.

So Page took the advice, and discontinued many of the ‘experiments’ the company was working on to focus instead on it’s core products:

  1. The Search Engine (the Granddaddy of them all)
  2. Google Adwords
  3. Google Analytics
  4. Google Ad Sense

Entire books have been written about each one of the above – and there are tons of people that know more about this stuff then we do. But since the launch of our new site, we’ve been figuring out ways to use each of these tools to help us drive awareness. Here’s what we’ve come up with:

  • The Search Engine is the single best and most economical way to drive traffic to your site. In a perfect world, people would enter “video production company” into Google, and Hand Crank Films would pop-up first. The reality is, there’s a lot of competition even to get listed on the first 20 pages, much less the first position. That’s where SEO comes in (Search Engine Optimization), which helps sites get listed higher in the rankings. Check out this great podcast (courtesy of CopyBlogger) that discusses this in a language you can understand. The bottom line: what drives SEO these days is good content, like blogs and video.
  • Google Adwords: Every month, a good portion of our marketing budget goes into Google Adwords, those ads that appear on the right hand side of the search results. These are paid placements. You write the ad, you decide where the ad will go, how much you want to spend, your key words, your location, and more. Within a matter of minutes, you can be driving traffic to a landing page on your site with special offers, a video you want people to see, etc.
  • Google Analytics: This is where we live everyday. This free service tells you how many people are visiting your site, what pages they’re visiting, and how long they’re spending looking at your stuff. A must-have if you want to understand how your ecosystem is really working.
  • Google AdSense: Want to have other people’s ads on your site, and get paid for that? This is the place.

There’s a ton of information out there on all this stuff (here’s another good link). But if you want to succeed online, it’s a business imperative for you or someone within your organization to have at least a working knowledge of these all-important tools. That way, you can watch your traffic and business grow. And if you need some help or just want to talk about strategy on how this all might apply to you, leave a comment or drop us an email.

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04Nov

Part 2: Paint Your Website Purple

Part 2: Paint Your Website Purple

This is Part 2 in a 10 part series discussing Social Media and video. For some, this will be remedial. For others, a good refresher. For others still, a whole new world.  If you missed Part 1, start here.

There’s been an interesting discussion in the marketing world lately that questions the necessity of having a Website for your business. With well over 700 million users on Facebook, many people are deciding to make this their primary online destination rather than wasting time, energy and money building a website. Though on the surface this looks attractive, the approach is sort of like moving into a building you don’t own and doing massive capital improvements. The result? You make the owner happy but see very little actual return in your back pocket.

Your website is very much like your house. It’s the center of everything you do online. The focal point around which everything revolves. You own it (and a good URL if you’re lucky), and if you grow it right it can increase in value. You can flip it, hang on to it for years, or let it lie fallow. It can be flat like a brochure, or interactive with continually updated content, media, new ideas and approaches. It’s the one place where you can shape your vision, your mission, your reason to be. The first place you should refine and use to communicate with your audience. The place where you blog. Where you share your best video content. Where you convert customers into believers.

So though Facebook is a critical piece, it’s not the center. It’s not the gravitational pull. It’s not exactly you.The you is reserved for something you can own. And change. And paint the walls purple when you want to.

Ask yourself this:

  1. Is your website dynamic? Can it be easily updated? (Look up a good Content Management System. We use WordPress).
  2. Is your Website something your audience wants to come back to frequently, as an expert resource filled with informative new content?
  3. Is your website the best representation of what you do?
  4. Most importantly – is your site driving relationships and sales?  Google Analytics, which we discuss later in the series, is the linchpin for this.

It might be time for a new approach. And we know the feeling. We sat on our website for years before making any changes. Now that we made the move, the feeling is pretty powerful. And much more fun than an occasional status update.

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02Nov

Tear the Lid Off Your Logo: The Selling of Corporate Culture

Tear the Lid Off Your Logo: The Selling of Corporate Culture

One of the things that Steve Jobs left us with was the realization that corporate culture sells. More and more, people want to know what kind of company they are doing business with. They buy based not necessarily just on the product, but on the feeling they get from the company that makes the product. They want to be able to look inside the logo and see the company within.

Apple, who makes even the insides of their computers look beautiful, understands this. Apple never hesitates to use video to sell their products. Apple understands that better than any other medium, video can get across ALL aspects of how a product works for a person, while at the same time sharing the kind of person who might want to use something like this. The videos are always very clean, very highly produced – although they LOOK very simple. What the person intuitively understands is “this product will work just like the video looks” and “this company is just like the video, and just like product.” In short, they trust the product.

Watch this video for the iPhone 4s. Notice how cool they make the product look, but also how cool they make the people who make the product look. It is all part of the same sell.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/#video-4s

Never lose the opportunity to make your company and product look great. Never just “put it out there.”

Max

31Oct

Part 1: The Center of Your Universe

Part 1: The Center of Your Universe

 

This is Part 1 in a 10 part series discussing Social Media and video marketing. For some, this will all be remedial. For others, a good refresher. For others still, a whole new world.  

If you’re in business and don’t have a presence on the web, then you’re missing out on the greatest single distribution channel ever invented – bar none. Television, though it still moves the needle on huge scales, bows down to the Internet’s ability to tell your story, do business, and sell your product and services. Nothing else comes close.

Your Online Ecosystem

Here are the major channels you should be considering for better business – and we’ll discuss each in more detail in the next few weeks:

  1. Your Website: The most critical part of your online strategy. You need a place where customers can go, learn about you, and make contact. And no, it shouldn’t just be a brochure you throw up online.
  2. Google: Sure, Google has gotten taken down a few notches by Facebook over the last year or so. But it’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Adwords, and Analytics are still the cornerstones of good online marketing. Google+? Not so sure.
  3. Facebook: It’s not just for connecting with best forgotten high school mates anymore. With over 700 million users, it is a powerful place to meet people and customers – and let everyone know how you roll.
  4. Twitter: It’s been mocked, ridiculed, called the ugly red headed stepchild of the Web. But all you really need to know is this often ignored fact: it’s one of the best search engines out there.
  5. LinkedIn: Over a million business people and companies can’t be wrong.  Start connecting.
  6. YouTube: A critical part of your strategy – and the second largest search engine on the planet. And only getting bigger as video drives the Web.
  7. The Handshake: Nothing, but nothing, replaces the personal touch in business. It’s the best social media platform out there – and everything else you do is a complement to this most important function. Handshakes = happy customers.

That’s a big elephant to chew on. And nobody chews on it all at once, especially when you have a business to run. But if you take it one bite at a time, you’ll make progress. That’s what we’re going to explore over the course of the next few weeks, with an emphasis on creating engaging content that tells your story and drives business. Do we have all the answers? Hardly. We’re learning as we go along just like everybody else.

Take the journey with us.

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28Oct

The Things That Keep You Up at Night

The Things That Keep You Up at Night

 Photo Courtesy of Director Caleb Young’s Film “Keep it Cinematic”

There are those moments at three AM where you lay wide awake listening to the whisper of unanswered emails, the to do list, the goals you haven’t reached, the people you haven’t spoken to, the things that were better left unsaid. That place where shadows grow.

When you’re running a business or pushing a thousand and one initiatives, things get nuts. We’ve all been there. Running from thing to thing and losing sight of the Big Picture and forgetting the passion that got you started in the first place.

 

Part of this blog’s purpose is to help provide clarity. We want to help understand how to leverage film and video across your marketing efforts so that you’re heard. So that a better connection is made with your audiences. So that you make a bigger difference.

And though we consider ourselves skilled when it comes to helping you with video marketing in particular, we know things change fast. We know we’ll be learning from you just as much as you learn from us, if not more. Because nobody knows your business as well as you do.

So we’ll be exploring new ways to make things happen. For starters, we have a 10 part series starting on Monday that discusses Internet marketing and how video fits into that. We start with the basics and then begin drilling down into detail. Check it out and let us know what you think.

And maybe, just maybe, we can both get a few extra Z’s at night. Thanks for reading.

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26Oct

Simply Beautiful. What it Means.

Simply Beautiful. What it Means.

I searched around for something to sort of sum up what we want Hand Crank Films to be all about. All the marketing stuff says you should have something like this, but I wasn’t so sure. Was it just an unnecessary appendage to our name? Isn’t it all about simplifying just down to the brand logo/name these days?

At one point, though, the idea of “Simply Beautiful” came to me. It summed up what I’ve always wanted our company to be about. First and foremost, we are simple. We want to be simple to work with. Simple to price. Simple to execute a project in conjunction with. Furthermore, we want the feel of each of our productions to be simple. We don’t want complicated storylines, or to allow powerpoint-type information pieces in the door. People are too busy for that, we want simple, direct stories that people can digest quickly and pleasantly.

And now for the beautiful. Pretty much, this explains itself. Every shot, every text treatment, every decision needs to lead us to a more beautiful product. The more beautiful we can make our product for the customer, the more people will connect with their simple story. People like beauty – they are attracted to it, and they will watch it. Also, it is more fun and fulfilling to make beautiful things.

After it ran around in my head a bit, I shared it with a few people here at the Crank. Initially, people were skeptical, Caleb said – “I think it is somewhat arrogant.” The more I thought about this, it made me like it even more. Suddenly I realized Simply Beautiful wasn’t just a slogan to tell people about us in two words, it was something to live up to for all of us. It was a standard for each of our directors and editors and visual fx designers to live up to with every bit of work they do. Every time they are framing a shot – “is it Simply Beautiful”? Every time we put a product together for a customer – “is it simple? Will it make a beautiful production”?

A very good photographer friend of mine once told me that “Genius is doing one thing well.” I’d like us to make the very best films in the world. I’d like them to be Simple and Beautiful because I think that will get us there. So that is what this all about. To see more on this, visit Who We Are.

Max

25Oct

Hi there.

Hi there.

Photo by HCF Director Chris Koser. From Superfeet Copper film.

Welcome to our new website.

As most of you know, creating a new website is a lot of work. It forces you to redefine who you are. To consolidate what you know about yourself. And to try to figure out where you want to be headed. In many ways, a new website – if done properly – is a watershed for a company. We hope this website is that for Hand Crank Films.

We’ve been here now for 6 years. We were nearly battered to extinction 3 years ago, and have managed to get a very tenuous grip on actually having a future as a company. We shall see what happens.

In the meantime…

The website is really just the capstone of things that are new here at HCF. Here’s a list:

  1. New Production Systems
  2. New Seattle office
  3. New camera
  4. New rental site
  5. New pricing packages
  6. New tag line
  7. New blog

…..and more.

We’ll be diving into each one of these in posts in the next two weeks because each one is REALLY exciting (at least to us).

As for this: the blog.

We’re doing a blog here that we hope will give people in the industry some honest insight about being a small production company, in a small town, that is trying to a) survive, and b) thrive. We think that the content of this blog, if done honestly and truly, will be somewhat helpful to other starting production companies, others working in the industry in various capacities who are not big times in hollywood (most of us), and to agencies and other companies that use services of companies like ours. I really only want to do this if I feel it is truly constructive to the industry. We will give it a shot. If it turns out we don’t feel like we have much to say, or it’s not starting off any good conversations for us and our community (both in Bellingham/Seattle and worldwide) than we will turn it off. The last thing the world needs is more blather! I also hope that the blog will serve internally for us a place to vet ideas with the public, to share people’s work whom we admire, and to help us in continually redefining ourselves and our objectives.

So enjoy the site. There is some really great new material from us here. Some great stories about the shoots we’ve produced over the last couple of years. And, somewhere in here is Donaldson’s Easter Egg – good luck!

Max