I did some video this week. The people at VYou asked me to respond to questions and I did. A lot of them. Perhaps 30. All of this on Monday night. After each video response was posted, I shot it to Twitter.
That may have been a mistake.
A few peeps wrote me to tell me that my account had been hacked “by VYou” and that I was sending out awesome amounts of spam. Why did they think this? If they just clicked on the links it would have been obvious I was answering questions by video. Because. Because it’s not what I do. I don’t normally send out multiple tweets in a short amount of time. (Yesterday, for example, I only wrote one tweet.) I did and somehow I broke the compact I have with my followers.
It was off brand. If, you know, I have a brand. But it was off, like ham that’s been in the fridge too long. I was off not in the content but in the delivery. So, naturally, I lost hundreds of followers. I think it’s the first time, ever, that my follower count has gone down.
Lesson learned, again. Content is nothing without strategy.
But I also found this. A student at Red River College (which is in Winnipeg), a place where I have a lot of followers (all students in the Creative Communications department – can someone from RRC tell me why you’re all following me? Am I on the curriculum or something?). Anyhow, this guy, Kieran Moolchan, decided to post some dramatic readings of my Twisters to YouTube. I’m quite tickled by them.
Also, and this was weird. I was in Columbus this weekend (I was speaking at a conference called Content Marketing World – hence the “content is nothing without strategy” line earlier) and they brought in Rick Springfield. No really. He even has a new album coming out. He sang what may very well be the “single” (if they even have singles anymore). The title? I Hate Myself. (other song titles from the new album? Our Ship’s Sinking, Love Screws Me Up, Depravity – either he’s playing the tortured artist or someone really isn’t all that happy and there might be something there – he is Rick Springfield after all) I thought, well, that’s sad (though perhaps not sadder than this). But then he tried to get the crowd to sing the chorus out loud. The response was tepid. This was a crowd that understood irony for the most part. And so Rick gave up with the sing along thing. That was sadder still. I will say this, however. The guy looks pretty amazing for a 63-year old. Though his back up band had a strong Spinal Tap quality to them.
To end with the video angle. Jack Hanna of the Columbus Zoo spoke to the conference on the final evening. He brought out some exotic cats. He told stories about his life. He left. He’s a simple but passionate man who does what he loves and he left the stage to a standing ovation. It wasn’t hard to understand why. His brand is solid. And he’s true to it.
