Archive for the ‘video contest’ tag
Is This the Worst Old Spice Parody Ad Ever?
You may remember Dr. Michael Salzhauer—aka "Dr. Schnoz," aka the "Nose King of Miami"—from his video contest in which he offered a free nose job to the winner. Well, the Schnozmeister (not a sanctioned nickname) is back with a spectacularly poor new video—possibly the worst parody of the Old Spice campaign yet. It's two years too late. The audio is out of sync. And that's just for starters. As a sign-off line, "Random shoe" isn't quite on par with "Silver fish hand catch" or even "I'm on a horse." Salzhauer may argue that it's so bad, it's good. Hopefully that doesn't apply to his rhinoplasties.
Plastic Surgeon Holds Video Contest, Offers Free Nose Job to Winner
Plastic surgeons aren't known for their innovating marketing. But then, Michael Salzhauer isn't your ordinary plastic surgeon. He's "Dr. Schnoz," the self-described "Nose King of Miami," and he's got an unorthodox offer for would-be patients—a free nose job to the winner of a just-announced video contest. The background on this is a bit convoluted, but bear with us: First, Salzhauer gave the lead singer of Jewish punk-rock band the Groggers a free nose job in exchange for the band writing a song about nose jobs ("Nose Job Love Song") and giving Salzhauer a starring role in the music video. (The video, posted below, in part documented the procedure—that's L.E. Staiman of the Groggers and Salzhauer in a still from the video above.) Now, Salzhauer is taking things a step further, challenging people to make their own videos for the song. Contestants should upload their submissions to YouTube, then tweet a link to @DrSalzhauer. Whoever gets the most views on YouTube wins a free rhinoplasty, along with free airfare to Miami and lodging. "I wanted to create something no other plastic surgeon has done before," Salzhauer says. "Rhinoplasty is my favorite and most desired procedure. I found a way to incorporate my work into a fun and creative way to attract more patients." Read more about Dr. Schnoz over at BalHarbourSurgery.com. Judging from the site's main image up top, rhinoplasty isn't their only specialty.
3 Ways To Inspire Your Employees With Social Media
As the full swing of the summer is starting up, if you are in any sort of retail business – chances are you have had to hire or release some of your employees to manage the seasonal flow of business. In other industries, keeping your employees motivated through the summer vacation and daydreaming season will likely become a new priority (if it hasn’t already).
While the summer might bring these thoughts to the forefront of a small business owner’s mind, the real question of how to continually inspire your employees to show up for work happy and committed to the job you are asking them to do is one that you should be asking yourself every day. Though there is plenty of conversation on using social media as a sales tool to help you bring in new customers – how effectively are you using it to inspire the employees that you already have?
Here are a few ideas for how you might effectively use social media to inspire your employees on a more consistent basis – to get the best effort, thinking and performance from them, even during the season of distraction :
- Share inspiring content. Whether you find a great article or a powerful video online, creating a culture of sharing content which inspires you can help to do the same for your employees. Whether you use the tried and true method of email to share a link to a great piece of content, or you take the more “social” approach of creating some sort of destination (such as a private group on Facebook) where employees can watch or read inspiring content – both can be great ways of bringing more inspiration into the workplace.
- Use co-creation to seek new ideas. Sometimes the biggest barrier to sparking innovation is routine. When employees are challenged to think beyond their roles and share new ideas in some way, it can get new creative thinking to happen and inspire them to think bigger. So take a lesson from some consumer brands and sponsor your own employee video contest or blogging challenge and see what ideas and voices you get to participate. The upside is that some of these same people may make great voices for your business in social media when you do launch any marketing or external initiatives.
- Incentivize employees to attend relevant events. Social media doesn’t have to remain virtual and online. There are plenty of organizations and meetup-style events which are often primarily promoted through social media in your region. Encouraging and even incentivizing employees to find them and go can be a great way to have them learn something and make great connections in the process.
So You Wanna Do a Video Contest?
Video contests can be a great way to involve your fans, build exposure for a brand or event, or to gain ownable content for future use. While there are many vendors and in-house developers who can design and build these contests pretty turn-key, there are a number of other elements that go into planning and executing a video contest.
Having just worked on one, I wanted to share some lessons learned that I think others could benefit from.
2) Provide customers and employees with information to share with their circles. Draft a brief “elevator speech” with the key points about the contest as well as some pre-written Facebook/Twitter posts they can push out to their personal networks. This information should include how easy it is to enter.
3) Reach out to influential bloggers. Don’t neglect key influencers in your industry who can also help spread the word. Offer them an incentive to share the information with their readers.
4) Make it fun and easy for people to enter. Offer customers, prospects or employees a video contest “kit” that includes a flipcam, instructions to enter and different ways on how people can enter. For example, encourage a group of customers to hold a happy hour where people can meet up, network and record a short message to enter the contest.
5) Register your contest in online contest directories. Believe it or not, but since social contests have become increasingly popular, there are online directories where you can go and register your contest for free. Users online looking to win are often checking these lists daily.