Promoting Irises through YouTube.com

["K. Loberg" <iris.loberg@comcast.net>]

Hi Everyone,

   I wanted to share some information, an idea.

   Our Region 14 fall regional was this past weekend, where I talked with 
Eric Hansen of Sierra Foothills Iris Society.  This is his idea that I 
wanted to pass along.

   Eric got the information from some sort of seminar/program put on by a 
marketing consultant.  This consultant was informing businesses how to take 
advantage of YouTube on the internet for advertising, marketing and 
promotional purposes.   His point was that "if you want to reach the younger 
generations, you go to where the younger generation(s) frequent."    The 
idea is to put short videos on YouTube that are not obviously commercial 
advertising.   You don't want them to be a typical TV splashy advertising 
segment.   Instead, you want something people liking the video, and 
encourage the viewer to want to partiicpate.

    I will say that I find many of our iris friends and members are not at 
all familiar with YouTube.com.  I often talk with people  about YouTube, as 
those of us who use email frequently have groups of friends who share good 
jokes and videos and such, and many reference to phenomenal video clips 
point to YouTube.   ANYBODY can put a video on YouTube.   I will admit that 
there are many short videos on YouTube by the younger generation that are 
nothing short of being stupid and silly and immature, however, I agree with 
the concept that Eric passed to me about "to reach the younger crowd, you 
have to be like the younger crowd and go 'advertise' where they frequent."

     Eric suggest that "we" (local, regional, and national clubs), find 
people who can create short video segments (plan them ahead) of activities 
in the iris gardens or shows, youth doing things in the iris gardens or 
shows.   It could be youth or any member (hopefully younger) planting 
irises.  It could be anybody enjoying a garden tour.  It could be about 
hybridizing.  It could be flower arranging with irises.  But again, to reach 
the younger crowd, it needs to include the younger crowd.  Think, "lots of 
opportunity"!

     I will say, though, we're not the first to put iris videos on YouTube. 
If you go to YouTube, and do a search on "irises", you should find four.  A 
couple I found are kind of like a screen saver of iris photos, with a music 
background.. a soothing pictorial tour.  When you're viewing YouTube, you 
can click on the expand button and it will make the video full screen.

     I do thank Eric for bring out this idea. and hope it will encourage 
many of us to consider this avenue. I think a "planned" effort would be even 
more successful.   I can't be at the fall board meeting, but maybe one or 
more committees can consider the idea.

Cheers!

Kitty Loberg

Reg. 14

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to the AIS Secretary
Pat Randall <patannran@msn.com>
The archives for AISDiscuss are at:
http://www.aisboard.org/lists/aisdiscuss/