Moving. Convincing. Real. This video captures the power of words in a stunning visual wordplay. It was posted as part of a recent Radiolab episode on NPR.

As I think about the strength a single word, with its potential to calm or incite, unite or divide, inspire or dissuade, I’m grateful and humbled to be a wordsmith.

The place was pretty depressing overall: death, destruction and tragedy everywhere. They sure could use a few content strategists to bring a little bit of balance to the Newseum. At its best, news also inspires, enlightens and entertains.

The best thing I saw was this Pony Expess recruitment poster, which made me chuckle. Tough job. Would anyone (who was sane) apply after reading this pitch?

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from jlegon’s posterous

Coca-Cola embraces the 5,000 or so conversations it estimates people have daily about the company on social media channels.

That’s why their Online Social Media Principles provide a solid framework any company could use to help employees determine what’s allowed and what isn’t in online conversations.

The most important part of the guidelines is the distinction Coca-Cola makes between employees speaking “on behalf of the company” and employees speaking “about” the company.

Here are five principles Coca-Cola urges employees to follow in personal or unofficial online activities where they might speak “about” Coca-Cola.

1. Adhere to the Code of Business Conduct and other applicable policies.

2. We do encourage you to participate in the online social media space, but urge you to do so properly, exercising sound judgment and common sense.

3. If you come across positive or negative remarks about the Company or its brands online that you believe are important, consider sharing them by forwarding them to the internal email address that you have been provided.

4. Let the subject matter experts respond to negative posts. … Avoid the temptation to react yourself.

5. Remember NEVER to disclose non-public information of the Company (including confidential information), and be aware that taking public positions online that are counter to the company’s interests might cause conflict.

Coca-Cola has more expectations of official online spokespeople speaking “on behalf of the company.”

1. Be certified in the Social Media Certification Program.

2. Follow our Code of Business Conduct and all other Company policies.

3. Be mindful that you are representing the company. As a Company representative, it is important that your posts convey the same positive, optimistic spirit that the company instills in all of its communications.

4. Fully disclose your affiliation with the company.

5. Keep records. It is critical that we keep records of our interactions in the online social media space and monitor the activities of those with whom we engage.

6. When in doubt, do not post. Associates are personally responsible for their words and actions, wherever they are.

7. Give credit where credit is due and don’t violate others’ rights. DO NOT claim authorship of something that is not yours.

8. Be responsible to your work. The company encourages all associates to exercise sound judgment and common sense to prevent online social media sites from becoming a distraction at work.

9. Remember that your local posts can have global significance. Keep that “world view” in mind when you are participating in online conversations.

10. Know that the Internet is permanent. Once information is published online, it is essentially part of a permanent record.

What do you think of the guidelines? Does your company have a social media policy?

But these catchy films also let people see the humanity of your brand. Video content can make people feel good about you, your company and your products. And those positive vibes are priceless.

Here are some examples I like.

Dancing Inmates Promote Michael Jackson’s ‘This Is It’
Sony is banking on hundreds of prison inmates performing a dance routine inspired by the Michael Jackson documentary “This Is It” to sell copies of the film’s DVD.

156 Countries Sing Together for the Starbucks Love Project
On Dec. 7, Starbucks posted this feel good video of people around the world singing “All You Need Is Love.” They also launched Starbucksloveproject.com, where visitors can upload webcam videos of themselves belting out the song. Brew up some good feelings and, hopefully, lattes will sell.

Coca-Cola Smiles Thanks to ‘Happiness Machine’
This video captures the unscripted reactions of college students as a Coke machine doles out free soda, pizza, flowers, balloon animals and more. You can’t help but feel good watching this.

Piano Stairs Take Volkswagen to the Top
The Fun Theory inspires the audience, encouraging people to come up with fun ways to do the right thing. Watch all the videos at TheFunTheory.com, and you’ll learn how the amusing campaign earned Volkswagen a fun new ethos.

Sony Celebrates JK Wedding Dance
Sony could have laid down the law, demanding that this couple strip out Chris Brown’s song “Forever” from their wedding video. Instead, Sony saw the millions of viral views as a chance to sell more Chris Brown music. Smart move, Sony.

Share Your Favorite
Which one of these do you like best? Do you have other examples of viral videos that are helping brands? Leave me a comment and share your thoughts.

Kristina Halvorson talks content strategy from Andy Santamaria on Vimeo.

If you want to create usable, relevant content for your Web site, then Kristina Halvorson has a book for you.

A brisk read, Halvorson’s “Content Strategy for the Web” lays out:

- The business value of a content strategy.
- How to audit and analyze your content.
- How to make smarter decisions about content.
- How to keep your content current.
- How to structure your content team.

Content creation can be messy. But in 172 pages, Halvorson shows you why content strategy’s time has come.

You’ll learn the ins-and-outs of making informed, achievable content decisions. And why “creating useful, usable content requires… people. With experience. And insights. And judgment. It requires planning. And input. And time. And money.”

So, go ahead, download the free sample chapter, buy the book and you’ll soon see why you need to hire one of us.

After all, isn’t content your brand’s biggest asset?

The folks who market the sports drink Gatorade duped my friends and me on Facebook this week.

We were dazzled by a year-old clip showing a ball girl making Spider-Man-like moves up an outfield wall to catch a foul ball during a minor league game. We shared the video with our friends, celebrating the ball girl’s amazing feat and making comments such as “that rocks” and “great video.”

Then, a couple of days later someone pointed out we had been hoodwinked. The video is an ad to promote Gatorade. It was shot using a stunt woman attached to wires. The campaign, according to Snopes.com, was created by Element 79, a Chicago ad agency that also makes commercials for Amway.

Gatorade told the media it had shelved the ad and has no idea how it got posted on the Web. But with more than 2 million views on YouTube and many more on sites such as Facebook, the company is not complaining.

“This has all been a pleasant surprise, so why not let it happen?” Gatorade spokeswoman Jill Kinney is quoted as saying.

Unless you’re in the business of selling lies, you should be worried, Gatorade. There is no mention of your product during the video and, near the end of the clip, a bottle of Gatorade briefly appears next to the chair where the ball girl is sitting. We missed the subtle product placement.

Authenticity matters in the social media world, and the Gatorade brand just took a hit. There’s nothing wrong with making a viral video that uses digital wizardry to get people buzzing about your product. But be up front about what you were doing, and get noticed for being clever, not for being misleading.

Have you seen any other examples of misleading corporate viral videos? What are the best examples of companies using viral videos to reach the public?

Freedom is the greatest gift. And the Internet and relevant content – in this case, a powerful concert for peace – have the ability to spread that gift to places closed off from the rest of the world.

Despite weeks of bickering and protests from Cuban-American groups with plenty of reasons to despise the Castro regime, Colombian singer Juanes and a few famous friends held a concert in my native Cuba today. They called the show: “Paz Sin Fronteras” (Peace Without Borders).

Thanks to the Internet the concert lived up to its name.

People from the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Uruguay and more were watching the concert live on the Web alongside more than 1 million Cubans packed into Havana’s “Plaza de la Revolución” (Revolution Plaza).

Univision.com, which webcast the concert along with a live chat, created its own community online where people lauded peace, unity, music and freedom.

“All the young people in the region, from Miami in the United States and in all the cities … should understand the importance of turning hate into love,” Juanes yelled in Spanish to the throng of people watching in person and on the Web.

“We’re all brothers. And we all have to be connected. …The future is in your hands, guys. Let’s bring change for good!”

Then Juanes sang “Sueño Libertad” (Dream of Freedom).

He finished his portion of the concert alongside Spanish singer Miguel Bosé with this song: “Es Tiempo de Cambiar” (It’s Time to Change).

Following that performce, Juanes and Bosé sang “Nada Particular” (Nothing in Particular) about an “island in the middle of the sea whose name is liberty.”

“Don’t stop singing about everything you believe in, brothers,” Bosé urged the crowd in Spanish.

“¡Cuba libre!” Juanes yelled out at the end of the concert. Free Cuba.

And with that, freedom scored another small win.

Chaos sometimes can be inspiring. And I definitely feel inspired after reading Bob Garfield’s new book The Chaos Scenario.

Garfield, an Advertising Age columnist and co-host of NPR’s On the Media, lays out the hastening death march of old media and the Brave New World of possibilities unleashed by bloggers, tweeps and the wisdom of crowds.

I’ve been on the front lines of this revolution since 1996. While covering San Francisco’s emerging “Multimedia Gulch” for the San Jose Mercury News, I got an early glimpse of technology’s potential to disrupt traditional media and marketing. I asked – okay, I begged — then Managing Editor David Yarnold to let me go work in the digital arm of Knight Ridder. I’m grateful he let me do it.

It’s been painful to watch the layoffs, the plunging profits, the acquisitions and general tumult as my former media employers grapple with a new way of doing business because advertising can’t foot the bill for the vast amounts of free content available online.

Garfield’s book lays out the reasons why anyone who’s in the business of marketing, media, government or religion must listen to the digital conversations or perish.

Here are my top 10 “aha!” moments while reading The Chaos Scenario:

10 – Why people share: “It goes back to something primal,” says Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT. “There’s still a desire to have a shared cultural context. We hunger for things we can discuss.”

9 – “The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference. Apathy,” says Yakir Krichman, BuzzMetrics’ “Sentiment Master.”

8 – “Better yet, host the conversation.” Having dealt with the fallout from “Dell Hell” and other social media debacles, Dell now “embraces the crowd with the zeal of the converted.” Among other things, they host IdeaStorm, a place for customers to post complaints and product suggestions.

7 – “Practice Jujitsu,” turning “the energy of the aggressor into your own best weapon.” That’s the model used by National Express, the U.K.’s largest long-haul bus company. They ask customers to text or call a toll free number to file complaints. Those are immediately routed to employees on the ground, who do their best to take care of the messes, impressing their costumers and improving their business.

6 – “What’s in it for Us? Not You. Us.” “Do something nice for people and they will come to you,” says Jess Greenwood of London’s Contagious magazine.

5 – “Remember Siegfriend and Roy. Especially Roy. Just when you think you do have the tiger by the tail, do not ever forget, the tiger can turn against you. Word of mouth is a wild and dangerous beast.” Here’s some research to back that up: “A 2007 study by University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwartz demonstrated that attempts to correct misinformation not only tend to reinforce people’s false beliefs, but to attribute the baloney to the very authoritative source trying to clear things up.” So the old saying, “‘I don’t care what you say about me as long as you spell my name right?’ It isn’t true.”

4 – “Listenomics” is “the art and science of cultivating relationships with individuals in a connected, increasing open-source environment.”

3 – “In the Listenomics Age, never get in a dispute with someone with access to a computer.” Case in point, Garfield’s creation, ComcastMustDie.com, a site bent of having the cable goliath deal with the wrath of dissatisfied customers.

2 – “We now have [total-population] data, and that changes everything,” says Dave Morgan, founder of Tacoda, a behavioral-marketing firm that’s now part of AOL. “With [that] data, you can know essentially everything. You can find out all the things that are non-intuitive, or counter intuitive that as excellent predictors…. There’s a lot of power in that.”

1 – “Chaos. Someday it will end. …Nah. The very nature of Listenomics is such that there will always be some level of chaos in the scenario.”

Are Bob Garfield’s views of the media industry’s future too extreme or is he right on the money? Share your comments.

What makes a good content strategy?

• Content that is relevant.
• Content that is interesting.
• Content that uses the appropriate tools of the trade – text, pictures, videos, animations — to tell engaging stories.

But a good site has to do more than that:

• It lets users get to the information they want within a couple of clicks.
• It serves the needs of all of your target audiences.
• It offers clean design that doesn’t overwhelm site visitors and lets them evaluate their choices quickly and effectively.

With those criteria in mind, here are five of my favorite sites:

• Chevron.com – Okay, so you can’t fault me for starting with my baby, can you? When redesigning the site in 2008, we tried to follow all of the principles I’ve described. Check it out and let me know what you think. Where did we succeed? Where can we do better?
• MayoClinic.com – The site offers a lot of choices on their homepage, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming. You can get all the disease definitions your could ever want, make an appointment with their doctors or explore their research all within a couple of clicks. I just wish their blog, sharing.mayoclinic.org, was easier to find from the homepage. Other than that, great site.
• Paniko.cl – I discovered this Spanish-language site a couple of years ago during a visit to Chile. It was started by a group of college students who felt the mainstream media didn’t cover things that interested them. As a result, Paniko is edgy, provocative, a bit crazy and fun just like their audience.
• RoomAndBoard.com – Their site reflects their stores and merchandize. Clean lines. Classic design. Useful. It’s no wonder I’ve spent a bundle buying from them.
• Zappos.com – They’re the kings and queens of customer reviews. Amazon was smart to buy them. I particularly like the “Quick Shoe Search” and the “Popular Searches” features on the homepage.

Now it’s your turn. Which sites do you think do an outstanding job of presenting content? Share your thoughts here.

Why is content king? Because it’s the reason people come to your site: to get information.

But way too often, content is almost an afterthought in creating a Web site. The content creators are brought in after information architects, designers, developers and site owners create and approve a shell that needs to be filled.

By letting the content strategist be part of the team from the start, you ensure the site meets the needs of visitors and site owners. You’re also able to set editorial standards early on in the project, which allows your writers, producers and editors to create content that reflects your brand’s voice and tone.

Effective content strategy is simply good communication.