A camera.
If you already have a float, this can be a valuable add-on.
If you don’t yet have a parade float, you can do this quickly and on-the-cheap.
Play it right, and your web stats will go through the roof.
This is easier for me to demonstrate than to describe, but I’ll try to do both.
I live on an island, 12 miles out in the Atlantic, off the rugged New England coast, Block Island RI.
Off-season, my thousand hearty neighbors and I enjoy the quiet, and stunning scenery.
Then, for 3 months, the place morphs into Margaritaville, “Bermuda-of-the-North” as T-shirts say.
On The Fourth, about 20,000 funsters pile off the ferries to yuk-it-up.
Our parade is pure kitsch, “an-imitation-of-a-parade,” as one friend put it.
In addition to being The Dang Consultant, I am your virtual Block Island tour guide, via podcasts/videos/etc., at www.BlockIsland.TV.
Click “SEE YOURSELF in the crowd on July 4” to see-and-hear my entry in last year’s parade:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbpYtoQd8lg
No matter how zany what’s-IN-the-parade-is –- and, here, IT IS –- the crowd itself is a great show.
So I use the Internet to hold-a-mirror-up-to the parade crowd, as you’ll see in the video.
It was pure Radio Promotion 101, and it really clicked.
I ordered some of those big magnetic signs that you slap-on-the-side-of-the-car.
On each side of the SUV, there were two signs.
One was a large BlockIsland.TV logo.
The other sign pointed-to-that-logo said “SMILE! YOU’RE ON THE INTERNET!”
We wore BlockIsland.TV T-shirts, of course.
As our comely Promotions Assistant drove, I poked-out-of the sun roof and shot the crowd.
Until that moment they had never-heard-of BlockIsland.TV.
Watch and listen to their reaction.
You would have thought we were putting them live on CNN.
Notice too that many of THEM were videoing and taking-pictures-of US.
I shot the video with a garden-variety Mini-DV cam, and produced it on Windows MovieMaker, which probably came on your computer.
Other than seeing-how-pretty-this-place-is, YOU might not get much out of watching all 8:47.
After all, it’s mostly people waving and hollering “WOOO” at the camera.
But you will also hear them shout-back “the call letters.”
And, after all, YOU aren’t the audience.
The whole point was to tell THEM “come to our web site to see yourself later.”
My humble example is small potatoes, compared to what you –- with a cume I don’t have -– can do with something like this.
Fundamental calculus for Internet NTR: sponsorable User-Generated Content.
Hold-a-mirror-up-to the audience; then charge them, or advertisers, to look into the mirror.
Simply-being-a-jukebox is no longer a successful radio business model.
Turn listeners into programming.
That’s always been the on-air success formula for Talk Radio.
Ditto online.
Have a coooooooooool Fourth,
HC
www.HollandCooke.com
If you already have a float, this can be a valuable add-on.
If you don’t yet have a parade float, you can do this quickly and on-the-cheap.
Play it right, and your web stats will go through the roof.
This is easier for me to demonstrate than to describe, but I’ll try to do both.
I live on an island, 12 miles out in the Atlantic, off the rugged New England coast, Block Island RI.
Off-season, my thousand hearty neighbors and I enjoy the quiet, and stunning scenery.
Then, for 3 months, the place morphs into Margaritaville, “Bermuda-of-the-North” as T-shirts say.
On The Fourth, about 20,000 funsters pile off the ferries to yuk-it-up.
Our parade is pure kitsch, “an-imitation-of-a-parade,” as one friend put it.
In addition to being The Dang Consultant, I am your virtual Block Island tour guide, via podcasts/videos/etc., at www.BlockIsland.TV.
Click “SEE YOURSELF in the crowd on July 4” to see-and-hear my entry in last year’s parade:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbpYtoQd8lg
No matter how zany what’s-IN-the-parade-is –- and, here, IT IS –- the crowd itself is a great show.
So I use the Internet to hold-a-mirror-up-to the parade crowd, as you’ll see in the video.
It was pure Radio Promotion 101, and it really clicked.
I ordered some of those big magnetic signs that you slap-on-the-side-of-the-car.
On each side of the SUV, there were two signs.
One was a large BlockIsland.TV logo.
The other sign pointed-to-that-logo said “SMILE! YOU’RE ON THE INTERNET!”
We wore BlockIsland.TV T-shirts, of course.
As our comely Promotions Assistant drove, I poked-out-of the sun roof and shot the crowd.
Until that moment they had never-heard-of BlockIsland.TV.
Watch and listen to their reaction.
You would have thought we were putting them live on CNN.
Notice too that many of THEM were videoing and taking-pictures-of US.
I shot the video with a garden-variety Mini-DV cam, and produced it on Windows MovieMaker, which probably came on your computer.
Other than seeing-how-pretty-this-place-is, YOU might not get much out of watching all 8:47.
After all, it’s mostly people waving and hollering “WOOO” at the camera.
But you will also hear them shout-back “the call letters.”
And, after all, YOU aren’t the audience.
The whole point was to tell THEM “come to our web site to see yourself later.”
My humble example is small potatoes, compared to what you –- with a cume I don’t have -– can do with something like this.
Fundamental calculus for Internet NTR: sponsorable User-Generated Content.
Hold-a-mirror-up-to the audience; then charge them, or advertisers, to look into the mirror.
Simply-being-a-jukebox is no longer a successful radio business model.
Turn listeners into programming.
That’s always been the on-air success formula for Talk Radio.
Ditto online.
Have a coooooooooool Fourth,
HC
www.HollandCooke.com