Social Media Questions For Dan and Jennifer
Dan and Jennifer run the extremely popular askdanandjennifer web site. They have been featured in magazines, newspapers and radio programs, and have appeared and/or consulted with the Television programs like Dr. Phil and CNN Headline News
Dan and Jennifer, your site has really taken off over the last twelve months Can you tell me about your decision to launch a relationship advice web site?
We ran an online dating web site for over 3 years and in that time saw that so many people are having deep issues not only finding someone, but in their real life relationships.
Over the years, we became more and more involved in helping our users and answering dating and relationships questions, so that eventually an advice column was the only logical choice. ?
One of the main features of your site is strong use of video. Tell me about your decision do to so many video posts?
It’s always interesting to look back and see the unlikely twists and turns that are so fateful in retrospect.
We initially hoped that doing a few videos would drive a lot of traffic to our advice column. At the time we didn’t own a camera or video editing software, and didn’t know ANYTHING about filming, lighting, video editing, choreography, sound effects, video transitions, anything related. That’s all a major field (or several fields) in and of itself.
Well, after a major learning curve (about 2 frustrating months) we put out our first video - which looks laughably horrible in comparison to what we’re doing today. Yet it looked better than most of the stuff you see on YouTube.
Funny thing… after doing a few videos, we didn’t see much traffic FROM YouTube. But we tried framing those videos in our advice articles to see what our readers would think.
The reader response was overwhelming - people LOVED the videos. So after a few more weeks we decided to convert our advice column to a video blog, where all our answers are on video. After all, we do actually answer all these questions together, why not get it all on film - and make it more fun!
And here’s another bonus… those YouTube videos with their ever-increasing views got us a significant amount of media attention, including various TV and radio appearances and print media features.
Check out our first national TV appearance: http://www.askdanandjennifer.com/media/
You have created your own channel on YouTube. Does video search actually generate qualified traffic for you?
Absolutely, it generates some web traffic, but it’s only a fraction of the traffic we get. So that’s not why we’re doing it.
We do video because it’s a much better, more dynamic, more real way to get your message out to your audience. It’s more personal, and you’re more “real” when people see you. They can really connect with you and see that you believe in what you’re telling them. Also the bulk of human communication is NOT verbal (or written for that matter).
In addition, having all those videos out there generates traffic to the videos themselves, getting our message out there to millions and millions of people. And those results can’t be quantified, but they’re quite significant.
Also video is a hot new medium with a significant entry barrier. So if you use this medium proficiently, you immediately get ahead of most of your competition. Of course there’s a term used by some Internet marketers that we’re quite fond of: “co-opetition”.
YouTube Results:
In addition to mainstream media attention and appearances…
As of this writing, we have 78 videos on YouTube. These videos get over 300,000 YouTube video views per month - growing by roughly 50% per month on average.
Here’s our weekly growth trend since we started doing YouTube videos: It’s not linear!
You have built up a sizeable reader and subscriber base in a relatively short period of time. What tactics have you used to being visitors to your site?
Produce very solid content, be honest and up front with your readers, don’t be afraid to talk about the hard issues that others won’t touch, and get your content out there in front of as many people as possible!
Basically - be yourself and do what you do best without worrying about what others might say.
You web site has felt the impact of successful social media campaigns. What social media tools or tactics have you used? What works? What doesn’t work?
Social media is wonderful for not only driving traffic, but for getting your message (and yourself) out there in front of an incredibly large audience.
What works…
- write great content and get it out there
- participate in the major social media sites, really. Don’t just lurk and hope people will like your stuff. Be part of the community.
What doesn’t work:
- stuff people consider “spam”, a word that’s taken on a very broad meaning of late, encompassing pretty much anything people may not want to see.
- submitting only your own stuff to social media sites. You have to truly add value to each community that you participate in.
- Some of our favorite tools are listed in a recent blog post on BlogSuccessJournal.com.
What are some of the opportunities in social media that you see that marketers are not taking advantage of?
Taking the time to actually put out great, helpful content that people actually WANT to read. Most marketers just want to put out the equivalent of press releases. People don’t want to read those. Do you? No!
Also, make use of the many automation tools out there to help you submit to and participate on these sights more efficiently.
What new social media tactics do you see trying in next 12 months?
The sky’s the limit… whenever something new and hot comes out, we’re on it!
We joined Netscape the VERY DAY it became a social news site back in mid 2006, and are still hanging in strong even after the very rocky Propeller migration. And when another giant like Netscape is launched, we’ll be there in force.
Also, our goal is to be a recognized expert on these sites - that means researching and submitting quality content in our niche that’s not from our website.
Which social media techniques that you think are wastes of time?
Putting out a lot of garbage hoping that people will click on it and link to it. It never works, yet people do it day after day, hoping for a different result.
Do not spam the big social media sites, it simply doesn’t work and it gives you a bad reputation on these sites. Be a true contributor!
Tell me about your most successful social media campaign?
Thankfully we’ve had many successful social media campaigns, so it’s hard to isolate just one. We believe very strongly in developing and fine tuning a REPEATABLE process, regardless of what you’re doing.
So each of our successes is usually followed by a larger one, and then a larger one, and so on. That’s how we went from 10,000 page views in January 2007 to over 300,000 page views in September 2007.
Our biggest success was a Digg homepage story that brought us over 100,000 page views over a three day period. The key to being successful on Digg and other sites is creating a strong network of like minded friends. And then supporting one another!
Here’s an illustration of two of our more successful social media promotions, in sequence. We won’t go into details, but the results speak for themselves.
Filed under Interviews, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (8) : Oct 8th, 2007
October 8th, 2007 at 7:28 am
[...] admin wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptOver the years, we became more and more involved in helping our users and answering dating and relationships questions, so that eventually an advice column was the only logical choice. ?. One of the main features of your site is strong … [...]
October 8th, 2007 at 8:11 am
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptDan and Jennifer run the extremely popular askdanandjennifer web site. They have been featured in magazines, newspapers and radio programs, and have appeared and/or consulted with the Television programs like … [...]
October 8th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Very interesting interview….it’s great to see some stats such as the youtube #s, good stuff!
October 8th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Yes, but what is the revenue model?
October 8th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
“Yes, but what is the revenue model?” - that’s a VERY broad question! What specifically are you asking?
October 9th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt [...]
October 12th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Oh, so that’s how you get so many votes on Propeller (other than having quality content, of course).
October 15th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
[...] David Wilson wrote an interesting post today on Social Media Questions For Dan and JenniferHere’s a quick excerptWe ran an online dating web site for over 3 years and in that time saw that so many people are having deep issues not only finding someone, but in their real life relationships. Over the years, we became more and more involved in … [...]