Case study: Vimeo social media marketing

For the past few days, this fun video has been spreading virally around the web. But there is one very important difference between this and other viral videos: This particular video is part of a carefully planned and brilliantly executed social media marketing campaign by the smart folks over at Connected Ventures (the company behind popular sites like BustedTees and CollegeHumor.)

At first glance it may look like just a fun day at the office, but upon careful inspection, you can see that this seemingly casual video serves various goals for its creators…

First and foremost, it is helping them to promote vimeo.com, their new online video sharing service.

Also, by starring CV’s founders and staff, the video is helping CV create a very strong image about their company: young, fun, dynamic and approachable. After watching it, any web designer, developer or IT professional would be thrilled to work in such a fun and relaxed environment. Just take a look:

Social media marketing brilliance.
In my opinion, the key factor that makes this one-ad social media marketing campaign stand out from the pack is the fact that they are not trying to hide that it is, in fact, a video made by CV. Honesty goes a long way in web 2.0, especially after watching high-profile campaigns bomb and outrage the entire blogosphere (like the Edelmal-Walmart fiasco or the CAA-LonelyGirl-YouTube debacle.)

Coming up with a good social media marketing campaign requires a lot of serious thought, but not only that, you also need to have intimate, first-hand knowledge of how the social web behaves, then you’ll require a brilliant execution of the idea and that magical viral factor that only a few seem to be able to decode and clone.

I’m sure that this video campaign will skyrocket vimeo’s popularity and drive thousands and thousands of hits and users to their website.

It will also be fun to watch just how many copycats start popping up all around the web trying to emulate CV’s successful campaign. Keep your eyes open for them and every time you catch one, smile and remember this post.

You’ve got to read it!
While we’re talking about using web 2.0 to promote your site, I’d like to recommend a special report that I just finished reading last week. It was written by a good friend (and brilliant marketer) called Jack Humphrey.

This report is cleverly titled “The Authority Black Book” and it shows you the exact steps you need to take if you want to drive massive amounts of traffic to your website using exclusively web 2.0 resources. Ohh, and best of all, the book is 100% FREE - Click here to grab it.

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