The Common Craft Way, In Plain English

Posted by AcktiveMedia on Mar 23, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments

I’m a big fan of Common Craft and have mentioned the company at various business meetings, conferences, and blog posts from time to time. An amazing simplistic approach to explaining the most complicated concepts. If you never heard of them or their “In Plain English” videos, do yourself a big favor and go to their website at http://commoncraft.com. I had a chance to communicate with Lee LeFever about their company and how they got started. Here’s the Q&A.

Q: When did you start actively using the internet to build your business?
A: 2003, when I founded the company.

Q: How have you seen your company grow using the power of community building?
A: We make videos and we’ve been able to use our blog and YouTube to create fan community. Our videos have been viewed over 10 million times, partially because of links being shared in the social media world.

Q: What specific “social media” tool do you think best contributes to your
success? i.e. blogs, videos, comments,etc
A: Our blog, YouTube and Twitter.

Q: Why do you think digital media and the internet contribute to your
success?
A: Free distribution, marketing and communication. We’re in the business of selling digital downloads of our videos and thanks to web based tools – we have no middlemen. We create, edit, market, sell, distribute and support all from a small home-based business run by 2 people.

Q: What would be your recommendation to businesses wanting to go online with
a product or service?
A: Small is beautiful. Always look for ways to simplify, streamline and reduce. Stay agile and be ready to change some of the ideas you’ve held for years.

Q: What is your average number of comments and commentors?
A: 20 comments on a blog post maybe?

Q: What is the average traffic to your site? Pageviews/visitors
A: Pageviews: 300k per month; Uniques: 125k

Q: What changes have you seen since going online?
A: We’ve always been online, there was no offline Common Craft. Lately we’ve seen a lot of demand from organizations who are very serious about communicating differently (internally and externally). Like consumers, they are tired of all the jargon and buzz words. They want and need people who can help them get across big ideas and concepts.

Great insight from a company that never existed before the internet but yet is making a huge impact in the world through the use of digital media. My thanks to Lee LeFever for taking the time to answer my questions.

Commoncraft Videos

Understanding Social Media

Posted by AcktiveMedia on Mar 5, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments

So what is this stuff called social media and why should I care?” is a question I get asked quite frequently. Now, I’m pretty good with analogies, so inevitably I start replacing social media with every other form of communication we’ve had in history like email, cable, tv, radio, mail, phone, newspaper, stone tablet, well you get the idea but then I say imagine doing all of that, instantly, sitting in front of your computer. Sharing with people who are interested in the same things you are and want to share with you. That’s social media. Sometimes, some of my clients need a visual and more often than not, I refer them to Lee and Sachi LeFever at CommonCraft.com. Take a look at the video below if you’re still grappling with the concept of social media. These guys do a phenom job when it comes to explaining things. So what do you think, did they do a good job or what?

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