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Shaquille O’Neal

What You See is What You Believe

July 15, 2011

By: Britnee Johnson

Sight is the most-highly developed and dominant sense for human beings. It is human nature to trust and believe in things we can visualize, because they feel more familiar. In the virtual world, the trust that comes with visualization can lead to loyalty and even conversion.

Just a few years ago, storage was the online photo and video service of choice and the folks at Yahoo! Photos, Flickr and SmugMug did a pretty good job laying the world’s nostalgia-driven, digital foundation.

Today, the photo sharing technology circuit has evolved from simply storing memories to stylizing, sharing and promoting them through apps like Instagram, TwitPic and PicPlz. In less than two years, Instagram reportedly gained more than 4.5 million users  (even with being only iPhone compatible).

And photography isn’t the only visual trend that’s in vogue in the world’s social experience. Social video tools such as Tout are gracing the digital devices of users from celebrities to reporters, while plenty of other social-media enthusiasts are finding their daily moments are best shared live. When Shaquille O’Neal shared his retirement announcement via a Tout video, he bypassed traditional media outlets and became the media, sharing a personal message with those he valued the most: his fans. Simple, short and quintessentially Shaquille, the visual announcement evoked emotions no press release or news story could.

Tout creators explain, visual sharing is about ‘Life as It Happens’ instead of ‘Life as It’s Written.’

As social sharing moves from textual to visual at a rapid pace (more than 11 billion phone photos were shared via social media last year alone), brands should step into Shaquille’s shoes (you could probably get both feet in one) and begin acclimating to the evolving exchanges and establish your presence accordingly.

So how can you use photo/video sharing to increase your brand awareness?

1) Visual Optimization: This may not be photo “sharing,” but its arguably the most valuable visual property a brand owns online. Many brands don’t optimize avatars to be as eye-catching and effective as possible. On Facebook, avatars can be up to 180 pixels wide and 540 pixels long. The avatar acts as premium branding space, so take advantage of the valuable property.

Twitter is no exception. Even though avatars are limited to squares (48×48 pixels is optimal) more advanced customization is popular and encouraged for instant personalization and branding consistency.

2) Vlogging: There is no better way to establish your brand as an expert or thought leader than through blogging. With the web being inundated with blogs, a great way to stand out is with video blogging and image-rich text. Whether it’s leaving 15 second tips via Tout or creating visual tutorials, your blog should have plenty for readers to look at, in case they don’t have enough time to read an entire post.

3) Search Engine Optimization: Photos and videos are great for increasing your page’s rank in search. By naming and tagging your images appropriately (don’t try to fool Google), you increase your relevance and credibility to search engines. In addition, videos encourage longer stays on pages and the probability of other pages linking to yours (both factors in Google’s search ranking algorithm).

In addition, you can increase your EdgeRank score (Facebook’s algorithm for deciding if news stories should appear in a user’s newsfeed) by sharing posts with visual content.

4) Humanizing the Brand: Whether your brand is in the sports, hospitality, entertainment, service or other industry, social media should be about humanizing your brand and creating deep, loyal connections with users. One of the best ways to do this is sharing behind-the-scenes moments with the brand. From UFC Fighter Joe Lauzon sharing his pre-fight preparation via Tout to DoubleTree by Hilton sharing “cookie confessionals” along their CAREavan cookie tour on YouTube, these brands are showing the human behind the brand and creating a community in which fans feel included.

To ensure fans come back again and again, be sure to tag your videos and photos for SEO purposes and infuse value into every post.

To learn more tips and tricks about leveraging your online presence, contact info@thedigitalroyalty.com to learn more about Digital Royalty University.

Shaquille O’Neal Retires… Social Style

June 3, 2011

Digital Royalty has worked closely with Shaquille O’Neal for more than two years to develop his online brand and media network comprised of 6 million friends. Over the course of Shaquille’s historic career in the NBA spanning nearly two decades, he’s had plenty of BIG nicknames:  Big Diesel, The Big Shaqtus and The Big Shamrock. But like many of his fans, Digital Royalty has always seen him as The Big Social Media Center.

As the most-followed American athlete and first verified celebrity on Twitter, Shaquille has used social media to deliver value directly to his fans when, where and how they wanted to receive the value. He did this before it was the popular thing to do. Few celebrities “got it” early on. From performing Random Acts of Shaqness and bantering with fans to posting hilarious videos and inspirational quotes, he has an innate ability to make his millions of Facebook fans and Twitter followers feel like close friends. He has allowed his friends to see the person behind the personality.

Shaquille naturally wanted to deliver the biggest announcement of his career  – his retirement – directly to his fans, the people who have made the past 19 years possible. Digital Royalty Founder and CEO, Amy Jo Martin, was with Shaquille to help him activate the announcement and engage with fans afterward. In case you missed it, view Shaquille’s retirement announcement is here.

A letter written in 1993 from Shaquille’s long time mentor, Coach Dale Brown, was posted to Shaquille’s Facebook fan page for his fans to read along with his retirement announcement. Digital Royalty is launching Shaquille’s Social Media Museum and allowing fans to take a trip down memory lane in the coming days. He will be touring his fans around his home via www.Tout.com/shaq videos and sharing memories, memorabilia and Shaqisms.

Within five minutes of the announcement, #ShaqRetires was the number one worldwide trending topic on Twitter. With more than 175 million users on Twitter who send 150 million+ tweets per day, that speaks for itself. The world was watching and helping him celebrate virtually. Digital Royalty’s Founder and CEO, Amy Jo Martin, was quoted on SportsCenter, ”Shaquille is the media. He didn’t need a press release so the media could tell the world he’s retiring in their words. He told his millions of friends directly, in his own words. The social influence he has built has given him the freedom to leapfrog the middleman.”

So what’s next for Shaquille? A hunt for a new nickname and maybe Kazaam 2? A rejuvenated rap career? Backup dancing for his buddy Justin Bieber or another stint with the Jabbawockeez? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: Shaquille’s fans will be the first to know.

It’s been an honor to work with someone who truly understands the power of being human and rising above a brand to deliver value how, when and where fans want it. Digital Royalty is excited to play a part in the next chapter of Shaquille’s career. “I’ve had the honor to join Shaquille in his journey over the past few years. His number one goal is to make people smile and laugh. Lucky for us, he will now have even more time to entertain all of his friends.” says AmyJo Martin.

You can follow all of the retirement announcement Shaqtion here: #ShaqRetires

Post image for When I Grow Up, I Want to be Mayor of the Picnic Table

When I Grow Up, I Want to be Mayor of the Picnic Table

March 31, 2010

Picture this. Six months ago I’m sitting in a crowd of several hundred people as I work on my laptop during an athlete Q&A session with fans. All of a sudden I receive a public message on Twitter with a photo attached, asking if it was @DigitalRoyalty (me) in the photo.  It was. The photo had been taken from about five feet away. Right there, right then. But I couldn’t locate the person who snapped the photo. The photog had seemingly disappeared. And before I could process the situation or have the chance to respond, my followers did for me. Having watched from afar, they voiced their concern for my well-being in lue of the incident, which they believed to be slightly creepy. Oddly enough, I wasn’t too affected or ever felt truly threatened by the tweet, so I responded.

Why? Well, “wait a minute,” I thought to myself. I choose to play this game and everything that comes along with it. Transparency has led to openness, which has lead to access. The virtual world and physical world have collided. It’s a beautiful thing for consumers and brands.

Should we be scared? No. See below. Should we be smart? Yes. See above.

Let’s break it down. Nearly two years ago, pre-Foursquare and Gowalla days, Shaquille O’Neal stood on a street corner and tweeted his exact whereabouts. We called it Twitter Tag. Nowadays we consider that type of geo-tagging cavemen-like, yet still very effective.

Today, your consumers and friends can become a local celebrity, “the mayor” of their hometown pub, grocer, or the Atlantic Ocean for that matter. They can even develop connections all over the map with just a mobile phone and a bar code.

Now that’s fancy. But, just because there’s a new abracadabra app in the store doesn’t mean you need to force it into your marketing strategy and “app drop” (the equivalent to name drop) at the latest and greatest social media conference. The technology needs to compliment your strategy in effort to meet your objectives. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still important to experiment and understand capabilities. Period.

But in the interim, I’ll continue to arrive to work early and stay late just to steal the mayorship of the picnic table in the dR office backyard from @ChadM. Work smarter. Not harder.

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