Alec

McNayr

[I just posted this to Historical Tweets, but since so much of my lack of writing here can be directly attributed to my work on the forthcoming book, I figured I'd share the news here as well!]

We just sent the book off to the printers, and we couldn’t be more excited. It’s destined to be the year’s #1 best-seller in the crowded history/Twitter/humor category, hands down.

SO, now that the book is done, we bring you:

10 Little-Known But Totally Inspiring True Facts About
Historical Tweets:The Completely Unabridged and Ridiculously Brief History of the World

1. The book has 144 full-color pages.
2. For all you spatial thinkers, it measures 8-1/8 inches wide by 5-1/2 inches tall.
3. The cover art was created by artist Barry Blitt, whose work is often seen on the cover of The New Yorker.
4. The book features 50 of the best tweets from the Historical Tweets site from 2008 to now.
5. The book contains over 8o brand new, never-before-seen tweets.
6. New tweets from the likes of T-Rex, Socrates, Merlin the Magician, The Vikings, Napoleon, and Gorbachev.
7. The book also features all-new types of Twitter-esque humor like conversation stacks, tag clouds, and hate tweets.
8. Besides @historicaltweet, you can follow our whole team on Twitter: authors @alecmcnayr and @abeard, our humor and fact checker @dbrisco, our editor @ryandoh, and our agent @kate_mckean (she’s popular).
9. Of the new tweets in the book, our personal favorites are Agamemnon (Alan) and Isaac Newton (Alec).
10. The book is on sale for pre-order for as low as $9.45 right now.

We hope you’re as excited for the book as we are. As always, thanks for your support.

- Alan & Alec

Two quick links, both forwarded to me by Alan Beard in the last 24 hours:

How to Create Product Demo Videos that Get Social Media Attention: 6 Strategies to Increase Sales
via Marketing Sherpa

“Aaron Miller, President, ProGuitarShop.com, sees online video as the perfect medium for selling the retailer’s boutique electric guitar effects pedals.

In late 2007, ProGuitarShop.com was primarily an eBay retailer struggling to build traffic to their website. Miller’s team created a new strategy that avoided focusing on search engines. Instead, they built traffic through social networks, mostly by video marketing through YouTube.

Two years and more than 550 videos later, the team captures about 45,000 unique video views daily on YouTube and between 15,000 and 20,000 on their website — all from a niche audience. Sales have doubled each year since the effort began.”

Stella Artois Ditches Old-Time Campaigns, Creates Retro “TV” Station
via Fast Company

“How long is it until companies begin sponsoring full-on TV shows of their own and publishing them on the Web? That doesn’t sound too much different from television entertainment in the 1950s and the rise of soap operas. And now, the economics make tremendous sense: Why bother creating TV ads if you can get a few million views with no distribution costs while simultaneously creating and having final cut control over far more ambitious content?”

How long indeed?  It’s happening already.  One by one, brands are realizing the power of creating a constant flow of interesting, inexpensive media — forgoing the overhead-rich worlds of TV and traditional advertising.

The Fast Company asks how long it will be until a brand asks the creators of a show like Gossip Girl to create extended storylines with brands in center stage.  Not too long, I feel. But the question for aspiring and independent creators is — if I don’t work for a network and I don’t make a TV show, what career path can I take to get better cred with brands?

It’s something I’m wrestling with myself.

The answer is that you have to have proof of your work.  And, following the logic trail, you have to have work to get results!

If you’ve followed my career — and I know all six of you reading this have — you’ll see Pepperdine University (recognizable brand), Mann Theatres (regionally known brand), my own project Flipper Nation (350,000 views + awards), deals with ABC (again, a brand), Historical Tweets (4.7 million page views this year), and only now do I have an opportunity to step in front of brands.

The shackles are off.  Make something.  Put it online.  Do it again.  Brands don’t want a one-time hit, they want someone who can deliver results.  So don’t be the one-timer.  Keep working, keep crafting.  Keep getting better.  In time, the results will come.  And so will the brands.

Got an email with the subject line “Will the beautiful women of the world please stand up” the other day. It was from the innovate non-profit charity:water and thought it was an excellent use of storytelling.

View the story here.

I work with the non-profit Generosity Water (we’re friendly with charity:water), and we often talk about the value of turning negative causes into positive proclamations.  I just think this is a great step in creating media that brings value and dignity to a situation, and doesn’t ask us to dwell deeply on the ugly issue.

Now, if I were in charge of social media at charity:water, I’d make a parody video of Single Ladies
called “Beautiful Women,” but that’s just me….

On the heels of the all the Mad Men twittering business of a few months back, I created a new web site called HistoricalTweets.com.

The simple concept was to capture the twitter messages of historical figures, and in doing so, create a funny and compelling new type of content.

Together with Alan Beard of Wave Strategies, we wanted to combine a hot new technology (Twitter) with the boring old history books to showcase how content can create a new conversation (and hopefully generate some laughs along the way).

On the heels of the all the Mad Men twittering business of a few months back, I created a new web site called HistoricalTweets.com.

The simple concept was to capture the twitter messages of historical figures, and in doing so, create a funny and compelling new type of content.

Together with Alan Beard of Wave Strategies, we wanted to combine a hot new technology (Twitter) with the boring old history books to showcase how content can create a new conversation (and hopefully generate some laughs along the way).

Some messages are benign, some are lame puns, some push the envelope, and some will likely offend. But the goal was to create something of interest out of something common — history and pop culture.

The Early results: in three weeks, after 20 posts, with nothing more than a Twitter account, and submissions to both Digg and StumbleUpon, the site has generated 2400 unique visitors and 12,000 page views. Not bad for little to no marketing work.

As the site grows in interest, we will enact a more active marketing campaign, but, so far, this content experiment has yielded great results.

Do you have “common content?” Every organization has its own, boring content — history, milestones, stories, and more. How can you use this content to your advantage in an engaging way?

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