Since I wrote my last post, I dug deep into the Google wasteland to find the formula for “success” on Youtube. I read so many blogs that my eyes watered…I  watched over 40 videos and….. I actually skimmed some e-books. Coupled with my own experience as a New Media Specialist, I figure it’s time to start laying down the groundwork for so-called internetz fame.

One of the most concise blog articles written on the topic of Youtube success was authored by Freddie Wong, of freediew fame on Youtube. I’ll use his article on facerocker.com as a starting point…and obviously stray when I please. (This is, after all, my experiment)

1. Define what “successful” means to you.

I hate borderline rhetorical questions. Of course, I tackled this one, since I refuse to wussy out after the first question.

In this case, success means i) having a channel that encourages other Middle Eastern bloggers to show their talent and create content that pushes creative boundaries; ii) being able to use the channel development experience as a case study for my career and iii) get free stuff to review….don’t pretend like you don’t like free stuff.

2. Do you want Youtube Partnership?

Finally, my law degree is put to good use. I read through all the documentation and scoped out the liability scene and some great youtubers have actually made videos on their choice to accept or decline partnership. The general misconception is that if you get YT partnership, you can quit your job and just make videos for a living. There’s a lot more to it than that. I’ll elaborate at another time.

For now, I’ll say that when (or if) I’m offered partnership…. I’ll agree to it, but I’ll disable the ads.

3. Consistent content = consistent audience.

The philosophy behind this is best articulated by Freddie, who said:

“Simply put, you cannot expect someone to become a consistent member of your audience, let alone remember you, if you are not giving them consistent content in return.”

So, I’ll need a production schedule and times when my potential viewers can expect to receive my content. Luckily, I work at a production company…..and I love free stuff.

4. Content is King.

I have to create content about things that I love. It’s actually a great life philosophy as well. I don’t want my channel to have 20,000,000 subscribers who do not care. I want my channel to be a hub for a community that is engaged and supportive. As with anything on the social web, content-centric work will most often trump viewer-centric work. Substance and longevity is what the goal is here….and this exercise helped me define that.

With this in mind, I now have the basic framework for my channel. Instead of building a new one, I’m going to bring life back into my old (never really got anywhere one).

I’m going to make a channel about Digital Marketing Trends in the Middle East. Starting with Dubai.

Next  Wed/ Thurs, I’ll launch it. Again…wish me luck

All of this said, I encourage you to consider creating content that reflects you and the things you love…

Click. Click. Click…

Reem.

Put simply, it gives you a range of google product searches in one page. I fiddled around with it and it did entertain me for a while.

The site is simple to use, well-designed…and if you’re one for previews and beta-testing, I suggest you give it a spin.

What do you love: www.wdyl.com

TechCrunch Article: http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/27/google-wdyl/

Kodak’s current social media strategy entails engaging in valuable conversations with clients and users. Not only do they listen to what social media platforms say to them, but Kodak actually engages and interacts with the intent to improve their products and services.

We caught up with their Social Media Manager, who gave us a brief overview of how you can be a part of the Kodak social media strategy.

This week, I was at the Marcus Evans Middle East Social Media and Marketing Event as part of team InteractiveMe.com.   The event was enjoyable, the speakers were well-informed and the attendees were wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Stay tuned to the site, as we’ll be posting highlights, video and commentary on the use of Social Media as a tool for Brand Awareness and marketing. As a Digital Consultant, one of my jobs is to provide Digital Marketers and Managers with information that helps support their jobs and campaigns. Research Associate, Racha  Mourtada introduced the Arab Social Media Report – the first report provide data on Facebook users in all 22 Arab Countries, in addition to Iran and Israel.  This is part of an initiative that focuses on social engagement through ICT for better policy in Arab states, which explores the use of social networking services in governance, entrepreneurship promotion and social inclusion.(1)

Here’s Racha Mourtada bringing us some details on the second Arab Social Media Report, to be released shortly.

Yes, I read the report and I find it to be a valuable contribution to those who wish to bring forward credible analysis to justify the force and potential of social media. I will definitely be referencing this report in next month’s conferences and presentations.   Some interesting points (all from www.arabsocialmediareport.com)

• Countries with high Facebook penetration rates also have high Human Development Indices, although not all countries with a high HDI necessarily have high Facebook penetration rates (e.g., Saudi Arabia and Libya).
• The average percentage of female Facebook users in the Arab region (roughly 30%) is well below the world average of 54%. This is in line with the low levels of political and economic participation, and varying access to healthcare and education in the Arab world, as reflected in the relatively low rankings of the Arab countries in the 2010 Global Gender Gap report.
• Although there are variations in the percentages of youth in different Arab countries, young Facebook users (between the ages of 15 and 29) consistently dominate across the board in all Arab countries, exceeding the percentage of youth population. This indicates that they are main driving force behind the growing Facebook penetration rate.
• Internet freedom does not seem to affect Facebook penetration in the Arab region. Some countries with lower scores (i.e., more pervasive filtering) have relatively high Facebook penetration. This could be due to the creativity of the youth population in finding ways to bypass filters and censors.

Stay tuned to this space for more coverage of the Marcus Evans Social Media and Marketing event 2011 in Dubai.

Through the Students Ambassador Program, you become a liaison between Google and your university. Ambassadors plan and host several events during the school year, introduce students to new Google products and features and act as a campus contact for Google teams.

The registration is open until the end of April to apply to become a Google Ambassador on your campus.

Google stated in their blog that selected ambassadors will receive an intensive and fun training about how to be a super-star ambassador, learn about Google technologies and latest products to start off a great academic year prepared and ready to rock the campus.

Register here

Nokia and Etisalat are looking forward to start a collaboration where users can download applications from the Nokia Ovi Store and get billed directly from through their mobile phone accounts. This collaboration will be available in all countries that Etisalat operates in i.e. UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt by this year.

The good thing is that any Etisalat customer can use this service post and/or prepaid accounts. However I’m not sure how Nokia users with contracts or mobile accounts from other operators will take react to this. I guess Nokia doesn’t really care at this point they just want to push people to download their apps by any means and pray that it will generate more sales, especially with the success of the iTunes and soon to be contenders Blackberry App world as well as the Android Market. Nokia thinks that non-Etisalat users can still carry on buying the apps through the credit cards as they do now.

The Ovi Store currently has over 35,000 items that are available for download by consumers, with over 4 million downloads a day globally. I’m not so sure this collaboration will add any significant changes to any of the involved parties, but lets wait and see.

Please let us know your comments or feedback.

Wamda is a newly established Entrepreneurial Support platform by Abraaj Capital and its subsidiary Riyada Enterprise Development, aims at inspiring, empowering and connecting the entrepreneurial ecosystem across the MENA region –the platform was launched in a mega “Celebration of Entrepreneurship” event in November 2010.

You can watch the video here since they didn’t upload it as yet to Youtube.

While the article published by Inside Facebook Gold discusses more the politics in the region and whether or not Facebook may be blocked in the future by the religious folks or an upset government (which is an important point for Facebook to consider if they would like to continue expanding in the region) however I would like to discuss the competition that Facebook will be facing in the region.

Other than the big social media sites I have been hearing a lot about local social media sites popping up in the region, for example  you have:

Madina.com which has a very familiar homepage, its a clear copy of Facebook’s homepage except in green instead of the blue. Although it doesn’t quite have the same number of users as Facebook, but it can do some damage in the region if they capatolize in capturing the religious crowd of Egypt, Saudi and the east such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore (8% of the site’s traffic comes from Singapore).

Friendawy which is also big in Egypt and the MENA region, in fact it has almost more than twice the traffic that Madina.com has, even though the interface isn’t as neat as madina’s but the fact that it is in Arabic might have something to do with it. Unlike Madina which has the initial interface in English.

Let us know below if you use any other social media sites from the MENA region.

Sources at Dubizzle have confirmed that they are just beginning to scratch the surface with this mobile app and that they are always  working hard on evolving their products and services to benefit their users.

Kaiak, the best selling men’s fragrance in Brazil decided to carry out an online marketing campaign and with the help of TBWA Brazil they came up with an ingenious new concept: a scented online banner! Yes a real scented online banner. The main reason behind this was that they didn’t just want to show the bottle they wanted consumers to get a real smell of the fragrance.

You can watch the video below:

SCENTED BANNER NATURA KAIAK from Black Mamba on Vimeo.

The results were staggering, 17.2% click through rate (43 times the global average) and 10,000 scented banners were distributed over a weekend. Although the idea needed extra hardware to be custom built, the end result was genius. This goes to show how digital marketing is evolving and new ideas are being generated that could one day fuse online and old traditional media in a complete new way.

Image: Pixomar / FreeDigitalPhotos.net