Jennifer Cabala

Jay Grandin and Leah Nelson have established themselves as accomplished New Media producers with web content that has seen audiences of over 35 million. The success of their short films, comedy and documentary work has led to contracts for original series with companies such as Myspace.

I interviewed them in a lead up to the Gnomedex Tech Conference.

When did you first start using social media and why?
Leah: Jay was living in Michigan, designing furniture and making silly videos on the weekend and had built up a surprising following on Myspace, which at the time, was hot like fire. So, when Jay and I joined video-making forces, there was this hungry audience there to watch our stuff and comment and pass it around. It was really used as a place to show our work, but we also worked really hard to connect with that audience, writing them back and making sure we were connecting on a human level. Note: this was before your Myspace inbox became completely laden with spam, so there were actually real people writing to us.

Jay: It was an accident. In 2006 I was designing office furniture at Steelcase in Michigan, and was mandated to join YouTube and MySpace as part of a project about technology and collaborative office work. It began as an odd phone call from my boss talking about LonelyGirl15 on YouTube. “You what? Lonely who?” I didn’t have a home computer.

Which tools do you use most and why?
Leah: Facebook has become kinda like one of those leather-bound day timers that we all used to have. It would house my phone numbers and addresses, and events in my social life, birthdays etc. This is what Facebook is for me. Youtube and Twitter, aside from being places that we post our work, have become these amazing search engines more than anything else. I find I go there multiple times a day just to show people stuff I’m talking about.

Jay: What’s funny is that since we, as a company, began using SocMed tools to build other people’s/brands’ online presence, my own use of the tools as plummeted. Isn’t there a saying about not buying a mechanics call? Don’t read a marketer’s wall? I still consider myself an analog expat in many ways and find that I oscillate between deep social media dives and pretty infrequent transmission.

How do you successfully combine video and social media campaigns?
Jay: Videos are inherently social; they’re social objects that can be digested and shared easily and enjoyably. Some great videos are social media campaigns unto themselves — they’re so much a part of the sharing tools already. But the bigger the space gets, and the further it fragments, we’ve really noticed the need to hold a video’s hand and guide it to its audience. So much of the equation is incredibly simple… on paper at least: 1— make something worth sharing. 2— position it in the tools so that it’s easy to share. 3— know who the influencers are in your market, and tell them about it. If you’ve done #1 correctly, it works!

Leah: What Jay said.

For those on a shoestring budget what are some easy ways to incorporate video into a social media campaign?
Jay: Our friend Boris Mann always reminds us that his phone shoots video. He’s right. And it’s cheap. We’ve been conditioned to digest content, not fidelity, online… so the barrier is very low where the tools are concerned. Even high quality video, depending on the size of your shoestring of course, is doable—the days of PAs and grips and gaffers being a necessary component of a shoot aren’t really there any more. If you look at some of the most memorable campaigns lately—the “Best Job in the World” for example by the Australian Tourism board—hours and hours of content are being created for free by crowdsourcing the contents of the campaign. That’s pretty cool; you can’t you THAT on TV!

How does a web series differ from a television series?
Leah: I get impatient watching TV. There are a few shows that I really like, but I prefer to rent the whole season at the video store and have mini marathons watching them all in a row. This how you can watch a web series so I think they appeal to people who stay attentive can voraciously digest the content one episode at a time. On the flip side, they also appeal to people who like to tune in, watch 10min on a break, and then check out a few more a couple days later. Entertainment a la Carte.

Jay: Web series have no rules. The expectations around duration, frequency, consistency of content don’t really apply. For a long time we had what we’d call a web series (JayVideo) that was only really tied together through us; it was a silly variety show devoid of theme that only gave the promise of regular content. We were the web series.

How do web video ads differ from tv ads?
Leah: I think it depends where you are watching them. The line between TV and web viewing is nearing non-existent and when we watch traditional TV programing online, we ARE watching TV ads that are interspersed throughout the program and they are often the same ads that are running in traditional broadcast. But when the ad you’re watching lives on the companies website or on a video portal or social networking site, there really aren’t very many constraints (aside from the obvious one: don’t make it too long unless its really compelling. But I think this applies to anything, books, films, articles) so you have freedom to tell your message in more creative ways with less parameters.

Jay: Sometimes they differ vastly, sometimes not at all. Like I mentioned above, the expectations around duration and content don’t apply in the same way but, the BIGGEST difference, is that the audience isn’t captive. They have to CHOOSE to watch an online ad and, for it be successful, they have to CHOOSE to send it to their friends. When’s the last time you called a friend and told them they really needed to tune into channel 10 to catch the next commercial break? I think it requires more thought into who your audience is and how to connect with them in a way that’s memorable and mentionable.

What do you think makes a video go viral?
Leah: I’d love to know. I think timing is a huge factor. If something is already “hot” and being discussed online, the chances that the video will be passed around will increase. Aside from timing, its important that it be something that people relate to. Our shower video, How to Shower: Men vs Women, was something that made people laugh because it was true. Most of the comments on the video were “My husband totally does that!” or “I totally do that!” The Man/Woman dichotomy in the video had little to do with age or nationality or era so it was accessible to a lot of people.

Jay: Oh man… I wish i knew. The potential of seeing a nipple?

Any lessons you can share as people make the leap into web video?
Leah: Just start making stuff. Then put it out there and listen to what your viewers think of it. Of course you must have thick skin because will get comments like “this sucks” and “I just wasted 2 minutes of my life I’ll never get back” because people are cruel, but you’ll also have people write what they genuinely think so its instant feedback.

Jay: Just make stuff. We started making stuff… and then people started watching it. It was a complete surprise and, frankly, embarrassing. But then we thought to ourselves, “Hey, this is fun. Maybe we could charge money for this.” Anyone can have their own channel now and the best/funniest/most interesting content always rises to the top.

You can see Leah and Jay at Gnomedex on August 22th. Online, you can find them at their company giantantmedia.com. You can also find Leah on twitter or working on www.bongothefilm.com. Jay is also on twitter, or on his website.

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