Last night, I spoke at the National Professional Videographers Association of New England (NPVA/NE) meeting in Dedham, MA.
My presentation followed one on social media by Tom and Reiko Beach of TRB Design, Inc., who talked about how they doubled sales of gymnastics training videos and DVDs on their Gym Smarts website by creating a GymSmarts Community blog, a GymSmarts Community – Gymnastics page on Facebook, Thomas Beach and Reiko Beach profiles on LinkedIn, a GymSmart’s Channel and a The Gymnastic Minute’s Channel on YouTube, and a GymSmarts account on Twitter.

After their presentation, I presented a case study on NACA’s Save the Dream event in Cleveland, Ohio. You can watch the documentary video produced by Mont Fennel and Michael Kolowich of DigiNovations that was featured in my presentation below.

Documentary: NACA’s “Save the Dream” – Mortgage Restructuring and Renegotiation Rescues Homeowners

I also talked about my new paperback book, YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day, which goes on sale August 17, 2009. To download a PDF of my PowerPoint presentation, click on NPVA/NE.

During the Q&A that followed my presentation, I was asked about a number of issues that I’ll also be addressing at both the SES San Jose conference August 10-14, 2009, and the Social Media & Video Strategies forum, which will run concurrently on August 11. These issues include:
(1) How to Optimize for Search & Engage the Community on Tuesday morning, August 11;
(2) What Works: Best Practices / Case Studies for Online Video on Tuesday afternoon, August 11;
(3) News Search SEO on Thursday, August 13; and
(4) YouTube and Video Marketing Workshop on Friday, August 14.

Now, it doesn’t take a whole lot of complex market trend analysis to see the parallels between the NPVA/NE meeting on the East Coast in July and SES San Jose and Social Media & Video Strategies on the West Coast in August. Professional videographers are just as interested in learning more about social media and search engine optimization as search engine optizers are in learning more about social media and video marketing. Why? As last night’s audience learned from Tom and Reiko, you can double your business by combining all of these digital marketing tactics into an integrated marketing strategy.

But, there’s another reason why it’s important to get out of your comfort zone and explore new categories.

Recently, Scott Kirsner of The Boston Globe wrote an article entited, “Where the jobs are in anxious times.” He talked with some local recruiters who focus on the innovation economyu, specializing in sectors like technology, life sciences, and energy. He asked them about specific jobs and industry clusters where they’ve been seeing demand lately — as well as jobs and industry clusters where demand has died off.

Clark Waterfall of the Boston Search Group told Kirsner, “engineers and salespeople are always perceived as must-have team members, but marketers and PR and business development can tend to be nice-to-haves in times like these.”

Kirsner also heard that a new role being created at many companies is a social media expert, who can help the company communicate with customers and prospects using new channels like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

“Sometimes that job is called ‘community manager’ or ‘community rep,’” Tom Summit of Catalyst Recruiting Corp. told Kirsner, adding, “But the people who can get hired are the ones who can relate online activities to quantifiable metrics. What are you doing for the company, aside from just starting a blog?”

What Kirsner didn’t address in his article is where this new community manager’s position fits in the org chart. In other words, does this new position report to the marketing director, the public relations director, or the digital media director? And is this new community manager position being created in addition to or instead of more search engine optimization jobs?

If the community manager is helping a company to communicate with customers and prospects using Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, who is responsible for using YouTube, Flickr and Digg? If the community manager is supposed to relate online activities to quantifiable metrics, will he or she have access to the company’s web site analytics?

Oh, and don’t even ask who the professional videographer reports to in the org chart. As Michael Kolowich, the President and Executive Producer of DigiNovations, said during the Q&A part of last night’s meeting, corporate videography is generally assigned to the marcom manager, who sees it as an isolated marketing tactic and not part of a broader integrated marketing strategy.

As I observe in my book, “I still don’t have all the answers, but I’m beginning to ask the right questions.” And these are the strategic questions that the Chief Marketing Officer of your organization needs to be asking, too.