Maintaining a well-branded web presence seems to be the largest enigma of the past few years. If you have video on the internet and have the incessant need to establish a strong brand without selling your soul to Oprah like Dr. Phil did, then you too realize that there must be another option!

Many will deny, often with exceptional conviction, that they need help in creating a brand for their business. The business of online video. No, you don’t need people to truly know what the name of your show is. Surely, you would never want to monetize off your content. Nor, would you, want to sell accompanying merchandise. Those simple ideas of business are for someone more traditional, pretentious, stuffy and downright uptight! Never would “new media” types want to profit, they’re pioneers of the future! Oh, wait! Yeah, they do, they call me every week wanting me to pay, exorbitantly mind you, for their self-absorbed, egomaniacal, and wholly thoughtless show. Many new media amateurs aren’t wanting to be fairly compensated for their hard work of creative arts, they want to extort you, for everything you’re worth.

Amongst my rant though, let me clarify, there are many new media types who produce quality content that are worthy of making large, ridiculously, risible amounts of money, hopefully in Euro rather than the weakening US Dollar.

Having a destination, a place to call home, where it is all about you and your brand is so vitally important. It seems so distant of a business practice; to create strong brands. Many consider their business model to “just be viral” and money will roll through the door eventually. A business model as such, would be so eerily ridiculous if it didn’t work for a select few of talented, creative and just plain lucky individuals. But as this industry wanes on, the possibility for daft, fatuous programming to succeed closes rapidly. Many say the industry is sick, fatally ill from a lack of traction in the market. Traction has been achieved no doubt, strong branding has yet to be so lucky.

Having all media viral or social seems to create a problem while solving another. Everyone knows, or should know by now, that you should have a social strategy/plan for your company and most definitely for you video/brand. The problem begins when you tell people where to go to consume your brand. What address do you give them? YouTube, WordPress, Ning, Shopify, Revver, Flickr, FeedBurner, etc.? Many think their brand is truly only their video, however, branding is so much more than just a “video.” For instance, if you have an off-road video show you produce, don’t you really have an off-road brand? Isn’t there more to your business than just a video? There are blogs, articles, community, syndications, advertisements, photos and e-commerce. There are probably some I missed here as well. How do you execute each of those effortlessly, without failure, while maintaining your social presence? Without failure may be difficult but let’s try all of the above mentioned with embarrassing, disappointing failure mixed in. How do you manage it all?

Sure you could use Content Management Systems (CMS) that are popular and even modify a blog engine but what about those not technically savvy, those who haven’t embraced technology, you know those who don’t know how to send a simple text message. They are continually, thoroughly confused as to why you would want to type a message on such a small keyboard to someone rather than just call them. How do these people thrive in this industry? The are talented, creative, experts in their field who are branching out, exploring, pioneering into this seemingly ‘Gold Rush’ times of online video. Don’t they deserve the same opportunity as the perverted, pimply-faced thirteen year old who films his friends kicking each other in the ‘below the belt’ zone? As the industry matures I believe it will be harder for geeks to become creative content creators as technology begins to consolidate in order to help content creators to have the same power as the geeks but without the lonely nights and flats of Mountain Dew.

Now, some might want to point out to me, many pompously, pontifically haughty, how important social media/interaction is in our world today. My feeble mind, in all of its simplicities, have not overlooked the importance of social media. Hell, everything should be social these days! If you don’t interact with your audience today, you won’t have them tomorrow. But there is a colossal need for some sort of “point of origin,” what did we all call them a few years ago while describing web sties before “Web 2.0” became the oh, so tiresome cliche, ah, I remember now, “destination sites.” There must be a home for your audience, scratch that, audience is so corporate, your die-hard fans, those who live for your new release every waking moment. You remember them, you know, those who make those grueling hours of veritable horrors we call art, worth every moment. What is that called again? That’s right, validation. It’s our fans, those who love us at our best time and at our most embarrassing times. Where is their home? Why should they live on twelve different networks just to embrace your creative prowess? Don’t you owe them something more? Sure they love scouring YouTube for your video, hitting up Ning, posting bulletins on MySpace and even moderating a group on Facebook but how is that a sustainable business?

There is an obvious need for consolidation and management, a need to have your “home” and your social outreach. But where do you go to get this service needed? Very few companies provide this, at least for the smaller, growing companies. I feel with roughly three-quarters of United States broadband users consuming videos online I believe it is important for service to become available. A select few companies should rise who can do for online video what Salesforce.com did for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) by offering a platform as a service, something that can be built upon. This is an area we (Global Independent Media Productions, Inc. or GIMP) have been working on silently for the past two years. Now, I’m not into completely pimping out my company, however, I think you should know that we have been thinking about these issues. I know there are many seemingly, well-built platforms that can be built upon and modified but I’m not talking about complete adaption. I’m speaking more of a Salesforce.com model, they do CRM well, very well, probably the best, if you live in sales then this company is for you but every industry and sub-group of an industry is different. They made a platform for industries and sub-groups to build upon. There should be a platform for the entertainment industry to build upon and not the big studios, they already have them. Whether you like it or not you reside in the entertainment industry, you may be talking about the geekiest of things but you are still providing entertainment.

So, now you ask yourself, “Ok Justin, I get it, now what?”

Well, I didn’t get that far but here are some helpful hints to help your destination/social balance.

1. Setup a release schedule (Week 1 @ Destination, Week 2 @ YouTube, Week 3 @ everywhere)
2. Don’t wait for advertisers to come, format your show for free and premium models. (Your fans will gladly pay you for your talent, pimp the free content everywhere)
3. Sell accompanying merchandise (AskANinja does this well, sells DVDs)
4. Partner with a Network (I know, it sounds like I’m recanting my previous statements, continue to have a home but partnering with a network often enables you platform, structure and most importantly more fans.)
5. Talk to your fans constantly (If you don’t respond to every piece of communication, they will eventually move on, that is the downside to social media and the internet, more opportunity presents more choices for media.)
6. Stop changing your destination site or telling everyone to move over to the new social media site that just came live or is now passing out invites. (People get comfortable in one or two spots and as you move your focus to other places you will inevitably lose traction which you worked so hard to gain.)
7. Love what you do (Sounds simple but you need to love what you do in order to addictively keep up with every aspect of your business.)

How much product placement is too much?

I’m sure many of you saw the NBC remake “made-for-TV” movie of Knight Rider and I’m sure like me many of you were hoping and excited by the possibilities of KITT stopping international crime again and again. I watched with anticipation and baited breath. With the start of the show my love for the series was slowly shattered and I say it wasn’t because the new remake was cheesy (although it was a bit) it was because of the overt, loud, in-your-face advertisement for Ford.

For starters KITT is a Ford Mustang Shelby Edition, of which, I’m actually happy about, it looks good. But moving beyond that every vehicle is a Ford which wouldn’t be the first time Ford or any other advertiser overstayed their welcome in television or films. However, there were so many action shots of every vehicle it begins to make you sick, it began to look like a horrible, ugly, exasperating commercial that would never get to the story. The only non-Ford vehicle that was shown was a GMC Yukon (with all the signage removed) and it was only in the show for a few moments right before it was in a crash, which the Mustang (KITT) was not harmed.

The show is not miserable or unbearable but the bad tact used by Ford WOULD make me stop watching. I actually believe in embedded advertising as it can be effective and help move units if executed correctly.

Here’s a few ideas how not to be ridiculous in your embedded (product placement) advertising:

1. Don’t say the name of the product over and over
2. Don’t show the product out of place of the story or show
3. Don’t let your advertiser dictate to you what to do (Your audience loves you for a reason, don’t betray them)
4. Don’t always show the product features (Use it yourself, you know your audience, let them engage)
5. Consider practical use (In Knight Rider the bad guys drove a Ford Edge, nice car but highly unlikely for a goons vehicle)
6. Advertisers don’t care how your audience views you (You do, or should, treat them accordingly, they made you who you are)
7. Don’t be afraid to be daring with the product (The advertiser wants results, if you can bring it, they don’t care how you do it)