Local Company Wins Big Thanks to YouTube Videos

I first came across OraBrush, a local Utah company, and their amazing story a few months ago when I was looking into the different advertising opportunities available through Google (who happens to own YouTube). I was extremely impressed not only by their story, but by their unique marketing strategy. Basically, the owner of the company invented his tongue cleaning product years ago and was never able to sell it with much success in stores or through infomercials. So he took his dilemma down to BYU and one student suggested using YouTube. They spent a few hundred dollars making a video that now has over 14 million views! Watch the videos below - you won't regret it.

Here's the first video I saw. It's featured as one of Google's "success stories":



Here's the original video that put OraBrush on the map. This video alone has over 14 million views. Their channel has over 35 million views and is the second most subscribed-to channel on YouTube. I personally was convinced I needed an OraBrush after the first time I watched this video. Enjoy.



Now they put out hilarious YouTube videos, like the one below,  once a week for their loyal fans. People love the product so much, they post videos of themselves using it on OraBrush's channel. There are hundreds of them! Talk about viral marketing. But it's not enough to have awesome videos that people love - you want them to actually buy your stuff. So OraBrush uses incentives like "order your free OraBrush" and heavily features links back to their website, all of which they can analyze and track. Their marketing strategy has led to millions in sales and tons of accolades and awards from the business world.

"YouTube levels the playing field...YouTube enable normal people to take an idea and put it in front of everybody...We can play on the same terms as these huge companies" -Austin Craig, The OraBrush Guy.

One last video. It's a hilarious parody of iPad commercials. You'll never look at Apple quite the same way again!

Facebook Fan For Life!

A few weeks ago, I saw Mark Zuckerburg speak at BYU. He was brought there to discuss public policy and technology with Senator Orrin Hatch. I was impressed by the fact that Zuckerburg was poised and eloquent, and definitely not the same Mark portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg. He appeared sincere when he explained that Facebook never has and never will sell user’s information to advertisers. And he genuinely is passionate about the social good Facebook can facilitate especially in the areas of democracy and education. His $100 million donation to Newark’s public school system was more than just a PR stunt; he genuinely wants to help improve this country’s public education. Everyone knows about all the media coverage the site is getting for its role in the revolutions in Egypt and other places in the Arab world. But I’m a Facebook fanatic and even I didn’t know this: they are mapping the friendships between people in countries that are historically not friendly. Increased cross-border connection means increased understanding and peaceful relations. Check out http://peace.facebook.com/. It’s pretty awesome.

“Facebook is proud to play a part in promoting peace by building technology that helps people better understand each other. By enabling people from diverse backgrounds to easily connect and share their ideas, we can decrease world conflict in the short and long term.”

I was also impressed with one other thing he said: Facebook wants to enable and inspire innovation and change, not be the only source of it. I got to thinking that there’s not a whole lot of companies in the history of the world who want to share the wealth like that. Maybe Apple and Google, with their respective app building platforms.

Most impressive to me as of late is the money-making aspect of Facebook, which you cannot help but be awe-struck by. Think of all the people who have become very, very rich thanks to Zuckerburg:

• Thousands of jobs have been created by social media savvy entrepreneurs and many companies eager to capitalize on the social network have hired people like me as social media managers and marketers. 
• Developers and Programers. For example: Zynga - social gaming company that created Farmville (which on a side note, is completely absurd to me; seems like an utter waste of time) is now valued at somewhere between $7-10 billion.
• Investors and early adopters. For example: Ad group Interpublic committed to spending $10 million of its clients money in 2006 and in return got a .4%, $5 million stake in the company. It is now worth a whopping $200-300 million! Now there is a return on your investment!
• And the most amazing: According to Forbes, Facebook has created 6 billionaires - Mark Zuckerburg, Eduardo Saverin, Sean Parker, Dustin Moskovitz, and investors Peter Thiel and Yuri Milner. Wow! Not only that, but Mark and Dustin and the world’s youngest billionaires!

My mind is seriously boggled by how quickly this site has grown into a once-in-a-generation, world-changing phenomenon. I couldn’t help but be a little star-struck when I saw Zuckerburg speak. In terms of net worth, that was the most money I had ever seen in one room. And here’s some proof I was there. Low-res, but proof nonetheless. Long story short, for these reasons and many more I am a Facebook fan for life!

The Battle for the Internets!

In recent years, many politicians have taken advantage of the many tools available online to communicate and spread their message. It wasn’t too long ago when W. was saying “the Internets” and GOP tech savvy was the butt of many jokes. So for a long time it seemed as if the Democrats had a monopoly on being internet savvy, but have Republicans caught up? When it comes to politics, which party dominates the internet?

The 2008 Presidential election was a wake up call from the GOP. While Obama built a huge following on the internet and on various social networks, John McCain admitted openly that he didn’t even know how to use a computer!

This was in a recent CNN article:

“from what we have observed from the short life of the web, opening one's site to the capricious innovations of grass-roots users can be enormously beneficial but hard to control. Conservatives may one day embrace the participatory web en masse. However, the very structure of the internet as a decentralized grouping of communities may never appeal to the large portion of right-wingers who prefer military-style hierarchies and commanding leaders. And, as years go by without a conservative social-media pioneer or a top-ranked website, it looks as though the internet has already chosen a side.”

So liberals seem to think that they have won the Battle, but have they really? When it comes to Social Media, Republicans seem to have learned very quickly. Former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney now has over 350,000 people who like him on Facebook. And as a side-by-side comparison House Minority Leader John Boehner has about 75,000 fans vs Majority Leader Pelosi’s 20,000. And the “Impeach Pelosi” page is liked by over 80,000.

And this is from Mother Jones, an independent, non-profit magazine:

Status Update: The GOP Became a Fan of Social Media

…as of January 2010, only 34 percent of Democratic House members were on Facebook and only 20 percent had hit Twitter. Meanwhile, since January 2009, the percentage of House Republicans using Facebook has jumped from 37 percent to 79 percent (as of early April). Sixty-four percent of these GOPers are on Twitter, compared with 28 percent in January last year. And 89 percent now have a YouTube channel, compared with 56 percent last year. “We’re getting to the point where we’ve leapfrogged the majority party." With 2010 shaping up as a potentially tough year for the Democrats, they can ill afford to be out-tweeted.

So who do you think has won the battle, and will it make a difference? I think it will!

Twitter's Gettin' Some Government Love

I came across this article on CNN.com and thought it was pretty cool and kinda funny! Click on the link for the full article, but basically the Library of Congress has created a massive Twitter archive...apparently random, self-obsessed tweets have become important historical documents.

Library of Congress to archive your tweets

Twitter and the Library of Congress announced Wednesday that every public tweet posted since Twitter started in 2006 will be archived digitally by the federal library.

The purpose, according to a blog post by Library of Congress communications director Matt Raymond, is to document "important tweets" as well as gather information about the way we live through the sheer masses of tweets on the site.

"I'm no Ph.D., but it boggles my mind to think what we might be able to learn about ourselves and the world around us from this wealth of data," Raymond said in the post. And I'm certain we'll learn things that none of us now can even possibly conceive."