Reading a recent article on Mediapost, I found myself silently cheering because I loved what I was reading; and, know that what I was reading is truth.
Yet, if you read the one comment, the person who commented, did not understand what the article was saying. And that is the truth as well.
Marketing has changed so dramatically with the widespread use of social media. A few years ago, most people wouldn’t have thought to use short videos on a YouTube branded channel to find interested prospects who would turn a book launch from easily forgotten to wildly successful. But the article referenced above and the YouTube Channel I’ll post here as well, shows that a series of short, branded and focused videos can sell books (excerpt below from the Mediapost article):
“Bender’s first idea to market the book prompted the grandparents to shoot an iChat video and become spokespeople. So he talked them through recording it. In the first video they would explain how to pre-order the book. He got back the video and realized grandma had never disconnected the sound and camera after shooting the prepared remarks.
“It was perfect because in that extra footage, my grandma looks in the camera, talks on the phone, and my grandfather dances in the background,” Bender says. “We uploaded the video to YouTube and it got a really big reaction.”
That “big reaction” sent pre-orders for book sales rocking. The video got picked up by AOL and Huffington Post and Random House had the second most successful prelaunch for a book behind “The Girl With The Red Dragon Tattoo,” according to Bender.
The grandparents became the spokespeople in the marketing campaign. They’re family. It’s real. It made the campaign ambitious and natural. Random House ran ads for the book based on the videos of the grandparents. Awkward Family Photos has been on The New York Times bestsellers list for more than 16 weeks.”
Take a look for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/user/AwkwardFamilyPhotos
Or watch this one which has had over 130,000 views to date:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOpx28pv9oM[/youtube]
About Susan Gilbert
Susan loves being an entrepreneur, online marketing, yorkshire terriers and historical fiction! New here? Like Susan Gilbert on Facebook to stay up to date with new posts and win prizes in our fun, games, competitions and giveaways.
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