Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Jim Ackerman, Founder of Ackermania Creative (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: In principle I agree with you. But the point that you’re making is true, assuming that the people who come in through pay-per-click into the YouTube channel subscribe to the channel. If they don’t subscribe to the channel, then you have to bring them back over and over again.

Jim Ackerman: Correct. And the same thing is true with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You can get them there, but they have to decide to become fans or friend you or follow you or whatever. So, yes, you’re exactly right in every case. You have to get those conversions and what I call mini-conversions. The mini-conversion is get them to take the next step in the buying process. It may not be to actually buy. It may be to just subscribe to your channel or Like you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter.

SM: This is a question that is not related to the Orabrush campaign. I’m asking you more as an observer of the YouTube phenomenon. There’s a kind of activity on the pure entertainment side. There are a lot of talents who are using YouTube to get themselves out there, get themselves known. Can you speak to some of the techniques that the  entertainment world is using to break into the consumer market?

JA: The magic will happen when you go for the tear or the tickle. In other words, there has to be an emotional connection for this to work. And this has always been the strength of video and television advertising. Why is television advertising the most powerful way to advertise in the world? Because it combines visual and auditory elements in one, and it is the most powerful way to touch people’s emotions. So, whether that is through humor – you go for the tickle – or through dramatic, emotional appeal, which goes for the tear, if you can bring a tear to somebody’s eye or give her that little tickle in her tummy . . . for example, I have nine children. If you talk to me about kids, that’s going to get to me. So, if you can touch people emotionally, whether it’s through humor or a dramatic situation or it appeals to their need to love and be loved, to feel important, for variety or convenience, basic human needs. Then you dramatically increase your chance of getting somebody who wants to see more from you on a regular basis.

SM: One of the biggest communities YouTube is serving today is the musician community. That’s something. People touch you through their music.

JA: Absolutely. We all know the Justin Bieber story. He is who he is because of YouTube.

SM: Are you familiar with the mechanics of what some of these artists are doing to seed their virality? Of course, the content piece of their world is their music or their music videos. I don’t think they’re using PPC advertising to seed their channels.

JA: Well, now, see that is a very interesting point. We mentioned very early on that in the commercial world, there’s very little true virality. If you look at the Volkswagen ad with the little Darth Vader guy that has been a phenomenon, I don’t know if they expected that to go viral. I suspect that it was a promoted video, but it had a high level of virality to it. But again, it touched the emotions. That’s why it did so well. But that is an absolute anomaly in the commercial world. One of my sons is a comic, and he’s building a YouTube channel. He has more than 10,000 subscribers. That’s a very important piece of his promoting himself. He’s building that channel and having some good success with it. He has done it entirely on the basis of virality and combining with Facebook. I don’t think he’s been involved too much with Twitter. The point of the matter is yes, we’re using all the same mechanics, all the same tools.

Now, if you are an artist, a musician, for example, if you write and arrange a particularly stunning piece of music, it has a chance to go viral. And that could catapult you into the limelight and into an entire career. That would be great if it did. But again, that’s going to be the exception, not the rule.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Jim Ackerman, Founder of Ackermania Creative
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