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And now it’s time to get deep at Internet Week. Breath deep. Relax. Close you eyes. Cross your legs. Ready? Good. It’s time for Deepak Chopra! You know, that guy that’s all one with the world and thinks a perfect life is as simple as willing it to be so. OK, so that’s greatly oversimplifying it but still, Deepak Chopra at Internet Week? We suppose it was an excuse to get the very beautiful, brilliant and loquacious Shira Lazar onstage with her What’s Trending live internet show.
During the show, she interviewed Chopra, Tumblr Founder David Karp, Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian and YouTube stars My Drunk Kitchen’s Hannah Hart, What the Buck’s Michael Buckley and Daily Grace’s Grace Helbig.
Of technology, Chopra says it neither evil or good, It’s neutral. It’s what we, as humans, do with it that gives it positive or negative power, the ability to find world peace or the ability to erase an entire country off the map. When Lazar asked Chopra why he would bother associating with the likes of Jersey Shore stars, Chopra responded by saying we need to get rid of the belief that spirituality is strictly religious. There are other kinds he claims and he says it’s all about an individual obtaining a collective awareness.
What this has to do with marketing or advertising we know not but it was an excuse to see Lazar do her thing.
More up the alley of marketing, advertiaing and social media was her segment with Tumblr’s David Karp and Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian, both of whom know full well the value and purpose of social media. When asked whether or not such social media channels are a replacement to mainstream media, both responded they are complimentary to one another. In fact, Ohanian pointed out the primary purpose of Reddit is to point back to back to mainstream media.
And Karp recently embraced advertising with the announcement Tumblr would offer content marketing packages through its Radar and Spotlight products.
In answer to Lazar’s query as to what wins on Reddit – and on most social media sites – Ohanian said a human approach. Much like we have seen in the broader social media space, smart marketers have adopt a more human tone when communicating with consumers. And it’s this approach, claims Ohanian, that resonates with social media participants.
Of the session with the YouTube stars, it was pure entertainment. No need to go into here (you can watch here) other than to say again it’s the human approach that works in social spaces. In fact when Buckley noted another YouTube star Jenna Marbles upgraded her camera and lighting to make her videos look more professionals, her audience rebelled causing her to slip back a bit to a more amateurish look.
We have seen this scenario play out in a different way in the viral video space when marketers try to pass something off as unbranded and home grown yet they would forget to “amateurize” their videos. Or worse, they’d go too far in the other direction making them look intentionally crappy and shaky. It’s a fine like but seriously, branded is branded and organic is organic. Rarely can the two be the same.
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