chasingBOLT was recognized in the “Media Creation - Corporate” category. The award citation mentioned the three primary goals that Puma sought to achieve through its video campaign on Facebook:

“[The]…program had to 1) create great web PR for Usain Bolt and his PUMA sponsorship, generating an increased level of online chatter about PUMA, 2) drive traffic to specific flash-based PUMA Running properties, and 3) lay the groundwork for future social media outreach by identifying PUMA Running fans and loyalists.”

By all accounts, Puma’s Involver-powered video campaign was a considerable success, generating over 1.25 video views — that’s over a million brand exposures — as well as attracting over 5,000 enthusiastic influencers who shared videos, uploaded photos and submitted messages of support on Facebook.

Congrats to Puma! We’re grateful to have worked closely with this great and forward-thinking brand!

We’ve reposted the AllFacebook article below. We hope you enjoy it! Also, don’t miss the great responses to the article: Tyler’s points generated a lot of thoughtful commentary on the current state and ideal future of video campaigns on social networks.

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“The Social Graph’s Effect on Video Marketing”
AllFacebook.com - November 4, 2008

When looking for the best way to make videos go viral, too many marketers just upload their videos to YouTube and cross their fingers, hoping viewers like the content enough to forward it on to their friends. Some try “guerrilla” tactics by repurposing social tools like Digg or Stumbleupon, marshalling a small army of friends and co-workers to drive up traffic, and hoping the effort makes a big enough splash to build momentum for their “video campaign.” Unfortunately these rudimentary practices are outdated and far from effective, so their video campaign is much more likely to flounder along with everyone else’s unwatched videos.

Rather than forcing social behavior into a publishing platform and putting all their eggs in the YouTube basket, forward-thinking marketers are weaving video into truly social platforms like Facebook because they can take immediate advantage of existing behaviors and tools that are built into these networks. For example, Facebook users are already accustomed to sharing links with their friends: they comment, send invites, post items to public places and talk about what they see -– it’s a much more engaging experience for the audience than watching a video on YouTube. This behavior has a monumental impact on video campaigns, and from my experience, savvy marketers are excited about the early results they’re seeing.

Beyond traffic and word-of-mouth perks, using Facebook has other benefits for running a successful video campaign. It lets you better control, target and measure your campaign with an incredible level of detail, and has the openness as a platform to build custom functionality that cannot be built into a YouTube campaign. Things like custom players can have interactive options, deeper analytics or data collection features, and rich immersive user experiences. With the Facebook news feed, you also gain visibility and exposure to the entire network when users interact with your content. It’s also easier: you only have to learn one system, instead of learning how to stitch together multiple solutions to fit your needs.

No matter how you slice it, the experience on Facebook is inherently more social purely because of the users’ intentions when they are there, and that’s why savvy marketers are migrating their campaigns to these sites. If you have wondered how to improve your campaigns and generate virality for an engaged, participative, and targeted audience, it might be time to think about using social networks.

While Involver is used by big brands like Puma and Reader’s Digest, we’re also eager to use our video campaign platform to help organizations and individuals that are passionate about social issues — including social development issues and business growth throughout the African continent. If you fit this profile, please get in touch so we can explore the possibilities! Email us at nikki [at] involver.com.

More info: BarCamp Africa website

Now, we’re guessing that many of you are familiar with Kiva’s inspiring story, but it bears repeating that Kiva is THE standard-bearer in the world of technology-for-social-good. Its revolutionary person-to-person micro-lending platform has enabled countless people to help entrepreneurs across the developing world. And the organization continues to scale at an amazing rate.

Over the past six months, Involver has had the opportunity to work very closely with Kiva and its marketing team: together and through our video campaign platform, we’ve been able to establish a strong beachhead for Kiva on social networks. Its Involver-powered video campaign on Facebook, for example, has alone generated over 160,000 video views so far; in addition, this campaign’s 1,400+ influencers have shared Kiva’s campaign video an average of 12.7 times.

We’re thrilled to help Kiva in its homestretch Members Project run. A few weeks ago, Kiva unveiled the following video as part of a larger effort to reach a Top 5 spot. If you are an American Express cardmember, please vote for Kiva today by clicking the “VOTE NOW!” button below! And tell your friends to do the same!

If you haven’t applied yet for access to our turnkey video campaign platform, please do! Just complete this simple form and we’ll get in touch!

We’re happy to announce that our co-founders Rahim Fazal and Noah Horton were both selected for this feature spread! You can read their joint profile here. Noah and Rahim were chosen alongside some great young entrepreneurs, including the visionary folks behind Wordpress, Mint.com, and Box.net.

Inc.’s intro article to the “30 Under 30″ starts out with a reminder:

“While there’s no magic formula for success in business, it never hurts to be quick on your feet, able to brush aside fears, and come armed with a fresh perspective. It’s no wonder we’re seeing more and more young entrepreneurs these days.”

In addition to describing the values that make our co-founders tick, the statement above also incidentally describes some of the guiding principles that are driving the Involver platform forward. We’re motivated by a fresh perspective on video — one that focuses on the need and opportunity for real video engagement. And we’re convinced that the “magic formula” for effective video marketing is a matter of challenging the assumptions of flat and passive video display.

Thank you to Inc. Magazine for featuring Involver!

The annual Online Media, Marketing and Advertising Awards celebrates the most innovative brand marketers, agencies, content providers and their pioneering creative work. Our end-to-end video campaign platform for social networks was recognized in particular as a powerful and easy-to-use marketing tool for brands: Involver recently built and ran a Facebook video syndication campaign for Serena Software, a leading enterprise software company that serves 96 of the Fortune 100.

Our congrats go out to Serena and creative firm Brief Attention Span Communications. And thank you to OMMA — we’re absolutely honored to have shared the nominee stage with Coca-Cola, Oglivy, Paramount, Digitas, Walt Disney, Nike, and all of the other 2008 nominees and winners that are pushing the creative envelope.

A great crowd came out to learn more about our end-to-end, self-serve platform. More than 60 leaders from various nonprofits (like the American Cancer Society and the Craigslist Foundation), startups, and other tech companies engaged in a lively and thoughtful discussion about how video campaigns can help organizations meet their “bottom lines for social good.” Using a case-study approach, Nikki described how Involver’s powerful syndication features allowed Kiva to create a community of real enthusiasts on Facebook. Kiva’s campaign stats speak for themselves:

- Over 160,000 video views
- Over 1,400 people have posted Kiva’s campaign video to their FB profiles
- On average, each campaign member has invited their FB friends to watch the video 12.7 times

Chirag Shah, Special Projects Manager at Kiva, also spoke at NetTuesday. Chirag gave a wonderful presentation, emphasizing the high level of viewer engagement that Kiva was able to generate via its branded Facebook application.

Involver is extremely happy to help nonprofits achieve their unique marketing goals. Our Pilot Program for using our video campaign platform is accepting applications until the end of September, and we invite all cause-oriented organizations — both large and small — to sign up!

Thank you again to NetSquared, and special thanks to Britt Bravo for inviting us to speak!

Winners will be announced at a ceremony at the Marriot Marquis in New York City on September 18th. Read this press release for more info.

We’re really grateful to be recognized by the OMMA Awards, an annual celebration that honors top-shelf brand marketers, agencies, and content providers and their visionary work. A quick look at the past years’ winners reveals a definite Who’s Who from the Marketing and Creative worlds: Involver joins agencies and other OMMA-nominated organizations that have built breakthrough rich media campaigns for Visa, Warner Brothers, HBO, Discovery Channel, and Nissan, among others.

We look forward to the awards ceremony! Also — congrats to our partner Brief Attention Span Productions, which created the video commercial for Serena’s Involver-powered campaign. (Click here to view the video if you haven’t already.)

The case study examines our recent “@#$%” video campaign for Serena Software, a company that serves 96 of the Fortune 100. It describes how the Involver platform helped Serena “beat the odds” with effective Facebook marketing.

MarketingProfs’ Kimberly Smith does a great job explaining some key learnings from the campaign:

“Facebook can be a viable B2B marketing channel. Since it already used Facebook as its company intranet, Serena was confident that there were other business professionals networking on the site, and it found a fun way to connect with them. The company took a risk in advertising the video solely on Facebook, given the site’s notoriously low response rates, but it found success by creating an interactive application experience that mirrored regular Facebook activity, as opposed to advertising with banners. The bleeping video sparked intrigue, and the succinct calls to action and follow-on content were effective elements for guiding users through to the Serena Web site.”

Stories like Serena’s prove that there is much more to video marketing than video display. Increasingly, we’ve been talking to companies and organizations that are searching for an effective alternative to traditional video-sharing sites like YouTube. Which is to say — they’re actively looking for something beyond a simple “click-to-view” solution, and they’re looking for something that provides measurable ROI.

We believe this is where Involver comes in. Our end-to-end platform is the easiest way to syndicate videos to Facebook and other social networks. And our robust set of features and services — MarketingProfs focused on our rich video plugins — gives marketers the tools they need to create immediate and long-term viewer engagement via video.

Thank you to MarketingProfs for featuring the Involver platform! Click here to read the full write-up (subscription required).