Crime, Comedy, Creativity & Commercialism – Run and Tell That!

by Sue Rostvold on 2011/09/03

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Even if you have heard this story, chances are you haven’t seen many of the related videos. I have included six of the best musical performances below.

Antoine Dodson is known to millions, but there are still many that aren’t aware of this unusual YouTube star and the series of events that he inspired. (Be sure to watch the first video in this post. It’s the video that started it all; the original news footage from NBS affiliate WAFF-48)

Just a little over a year ago, Antoine was on the news after a horrible event where his sister had been attacked when a man climbed in her bedroom window and tried to assault her. Antoine thwarted the criminal and kept his sister from harm, but was very upset over the entire ordeal. A news crew came to his house and interviewed him and within hours of the event his video rant was uploaded to YouTube.

Seriously, it doesn’t get anymore authentic than this.

Antoine was protecting his sister, sending a message to the criminal and warning others of what was going on in the projects. (FYI: One of the reason’s Antoine was so emotional about this was because he had been interviewed earlier by another television station who he said didn’t take him seriously. )

A few days after the video landed on YouTube it had been viewed over 4 million times. Memes were popping up everywhere, but one mashup in particular stood out.

Schmoyoho - Famous for Auto-Tune The News on YouTube

Enter Schmoyoho. What or who is that? The Gregory Brothers, a.k.a. Schmoyoho, are an uber talented group of musicians, comedians, performers and movie editing masters. They saw Antoine’s viral video, contacted him and then let their creative and musical juices flow in their own “Auto-Tune The News” multi-media style. The results?

As of September 1, 2011 Schmoyoho’s Bed Intruder Song video has over 88 million views. It was YouTube’s most popular song video of 2010. And it even beat out Lady Gaga on the iTunes chart for several weeks.

I find this story fascinating, and I especially love the variety of performances inspired by Antoine. I’ve included some of my personal favorites below. I’ve also included additional links pertaining to this phenomenon; Ringtones, Sex Offender Tracker iPhone app, T-shirts and more. The marketing potential of this new form of expression is really unlimited. An no matter what the marketing gurus say, I say it’s impossible to make a video go viral, it just happens sometimes.

Yes, The original news clip video went viral, but Dodson had no way of monetizing it until the Gregory Brothers created their unique musical mashup. Hundreds of thousands of copies of The Bed Intruder song have been sold on iTunes and The Gregory Brothers and Dodson split the profits 50/50. Dodson was able to move his family out of the projects and into a much better living situation as a result of his YouTube fame.

When a song and/or a story ( and in this case both ) touches people it’s easier than ever in our digital age for people to connect with others and express themselves. The need to communicate and be heard is one of the most basic human desires. Dodson couldn’t have been more authentic, he wanted to tell his side of the story. He wanted someone to listen.

WATCH THE ORIGINAL NEWS FOOTAGE:

WATCH THE ORIGINAL BED INTRUDER SONG:

I haven’t been following Dodson, but I am truly amazed by the music that has transpired since this event. It’s all thanks to the awesome Gregory Brothers for their Auto-Tune The News creativity. I love the shamizen and the school band performances the best. Hope you enjoy them too.

Remember, this is just a sampling, there are thousands more on YouTube with similar content. Just do a search for “the bed intruder song” and you’ll find over 6,000 video results.

Links to articles:
Antoine to star in YouTube Meme Movie
Antoine Dodson’s online store featuring clothes and merch
Antoine performed at the 2010 BET Hip-Hop Awards
The Bed Intruder song was on Billboards top 100 list
YouTube listed Bed Intruder as their most popular song of 2010

Antoine’s links:
Antoine’s world
Antoine’s main website
Antoine on Facebook
Antoine on Twitter
Antoine on YouTube
Antoine Ringtone
The original Bed Intruder song on iTunes
Sex Offender App on iTunes
Antoine’s wikipedia entry

MORE links:
Various artists remixes of Bed Intruder available on iTunes

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SEO Best Practices should involve Happy Trails

by Sue Rostvold on 2011/01/09

Black Hat Marketing: Make sure your website isn't using unethical SEO tactics

Search Engine Optimization; if you have a website you should know this phrase well. Everyone wants to get found. In fact, that’s one of the main reason’s that we are online. Before we can start relationships, build clientele and market our product or service we need to be found. If you are in business and you have a website, you more than likely are taking part in some type of SEO. But would your site fall under the category of Soul Man and the Blues Brothers, or Roy Rogers and Happy Trails? Perhaps the lines aren’t so black and white and your website falls in the Johnny Depp category below.

The following seven user generated definitions are compliments of Wikipedia. All the hyperlinks connect to further Wikipedia definitions.

SEO:

Search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for.

SMO:

Social Media Optimization or Social SEO is the methodization of social media activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors to website content. SMO is one of two online methods of website optimization; the other method is search engine optimization or SEO.

SERP:

A search engine results page is the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of web pages with titles, a link to the page, and a short description showing where the Keywords have matched content within the page. A SERP may refer to a single page of links returned, or to the set of all links returned for a search query.

SEM:

Search engine marketing is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of search engine optimization, paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. So, to use them all in a sentence you could say, “SEM uses SEO and SMO to get the best SERP.” Don’t you just love acronyms? Regardless, it’s a good idea to revisit these terms and make sure you understand the differences, but the real question is, what color is your hat? What type of SEO is prevalent on YOUR website? [click to continue…]

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