Not sure if you all heard of Double Fine Products, but here is a brief description from the company:
“Founded in 2000 by industry veteran Tim Schafer (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango), the San Francisco-based company has established itself as a unique creative force with critically-acclaimed titles such as Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, Costume Quest, Stacking, Iron Brigade, Once Upon a Monster, and Double Fine Happy Action Theater.”

But what makes this company so interesting is their marketing tactic. Tim, the founder, asked its customers to pay for its production fee. The more funding the customers provide the better the game will be.The game produced will be based on what customers want. Initially they asked for $400,000, which is actually very cheap. But what happened was:

They got over 3 million dollars of funding. The success became an instant hit on the internet and the gaming community. A lot of game developers these day suffer bashing from its customers. A good example is Mass Effect 3. The game series was known for “the choices you make will have an effect on the ending”. But the last title disappointed a lot of fans.

A lot of business can learn from Tim. Marketing is all about understanding customer needs. Once you understand – satisfy them. This post is intended to point out how powerful customer engagement can be. Online marketing has so much potential in the business world.

First off, Facebook is probably the most recognized social media on the planet. Other than most of northern and eastern Asia, Facebook is the #1 social network.

But the power of Facebook is not derived from its over whelming number of users. The value of a network is based on the number of connections. A look on the following picture published by Facebook, you can understand why Facebook is worth so much. The Friendship map of Facebook is over whelming indeed.

So why should we join this network and make Facebook a super power of the world? Well to leverage off the value of the network of course.

Facebook is not only on the internet, it is accessible by mobile device as well – so is basically right in our palms. Not only that, everything in the world is taking on a global scale. This includes humans. Online branding is becoming very important and it will be more important in the future. The connections you make overseas adds value to you as a human being. The more connections you have the more value you are worth – education and experience are not the only things that matters. So take advantage of Facebook’s capabilities and keep adding friends.

Do you know how many tweets are sent per day? What is the average time people spend on Facebook per month? How many page views on YouTube per month? If you don’t know, watch the following animated info graph:

Over whelming right?

I mentioned in my past two posts the importance of keeping your blogs short with pictures and videos.

So here is an info graph ^^

As you can see, the virtual world is very interactive. More interactive than the real maybe? No wonder the online marketing world is so famous. Hope you’re glad you took this course.

So I just posted something regarding information taking on a graphical form. This reminded me of a recent Youtube video that I watched. It is about coffee, so I hope you enjoy it.

Is basically a narration and animation of graphics. Similar to what I have stated in my blog regarding info graphics – simplifying information. It is important for bloggers and online marketing pros to understand this. So for those who sees this blog – please make your next blog easier to read with pictures and videos. So my tips for a good marketing/info video on YouTube:

1) Strike a balance between animation and static graphics – videos does not need to have amazing animation. pictures and appropriate transitions work wonders.

2) Use background music – always good to set the mood

3) KISS – aka keep it short and simple. time is important, that’s why there are simplified infographics and videos. too much information just scares the audience away or makes it harder to keep them interested

4) use tones when there are narrations – whenever I hear monotones, my first reaction is to turn away.

These are my personal thoughts on youtube videos. Add to this if you’re up for it ^^

here is a good example:

I think humans are becoming more lazy by simplifying everything.

For example: Have you noticed that info graphics are taking over? Many studies now publish info graphics instead of the full report or article. I think this is mainly due to how human lives have changed. Time is more important to us. It is essential for us to quickly get the information and then get out of here. We have no time to read a full report. We don’t even have time to read the summary!

I think understandability is also important. Imagine if you took out a textbook and all you see are words with font size 8. My first reaction to this: 

*yes I have spent way too many nights on 9gag…

I guess my main point of this post is to let you know – don’t blog with an essay. Keep things simple and people will take the time to read it. More graphics than words preferably. And this not only applies to blogs, but also presentations.

“a picture is worth a thousand words.”