What’s a marketer, an agency, or a content producer do? Discuss maximizing the production before the cameras roll or even the script is finished. A small investment in a longer shoot day or an extra shoot day can yield a campaign that works on four screens instead of one. On a television, YouTube, iPad, mobile device. One that works on a homepage and not just as a 30 second spot.

Making great content for an iPad isn’t just encoding an mp4 of your TV spot. Consideration should be given to the media in the creative process.

Things to keep in mind:

Wide shots feel epic on a 50 inch plasma but just small on a mobile screen. Get lots of footage at various focal lengths and consider using multiple cameras to maximize your production time.

You often have longer to tell a story online, so make sure you get longer takes and give your actors time to breathe. It’s often more convincing in the end too.

Your brand’s engagement most likely isn’t an interruption if it’s on YouTube or your home page. Treat your audience with respect and make sure the content is actually entertaining.

The online environment has so many different platforms it can confuse even the oldest hats. Make sure you work with people who know a codec for a file container.

These kinds of emotions are often felt in the client agency relationships too. The old story goes – people change, grow and become disconnected.  They  begin to take each other for granted. Sooner or later they just don’t understand each other any more.

What’s a marketer to do? You’re landscape is changing on you daily. Money is tighter. Stress has never been higher. Doesn’t my “partner” understand what I’m going through? Maybe. Maybe not. Have you explained it to them lately?

Marketer, believe me. This one is a two way street and I’m not blaming you. And frankly, you’re the one with hand in the relationship. Agencies need to do more to nurture the love and keep the spark alive. If that means more face time, a trip to a conference, a happy hour on you or a trip to a ball game do it, weekly.

Maintaining chemistry long term isn’t something that’s easy even when true love is involved. Sooner or later you’re going to have a spat about billable hours. And if you don’t have a rock solid foundation and open lines of communication it could get ugly.

That’s why you’ve got to take a few moments to remember why you guys got together in the first place. To recall what it was like when you went stag to party. And never forget what it was like in that old relationship where you had irreconcilable differences.

Maybe talk this through with your partner every now and then. Remind them how happy you were when she helped you with that amazing presentation and about the day you got to tell your boss about the awards and the amazing ROI numbers. Good luck and please don’t forget.

Being a copywriter, you may think I’m going “yeah, it’s funny to see an AE struggle with the blank page.” (It’s not, because that means we’re going to miss a deadline if they don’t come up with something quickly.) Actually, what I love is that our internal dialog is reversed, spread out, and more democratic while blogging.

The way things usually work is with process. And process is great and  great process can create great work at an agency. But when that process is flipped on it’s head, with employees evaluating  the execution and content of articles written by people not with in our departments or that are higher up the pyramid, it forces everyone to engage in a thoughtful internal dialog. Here are a couple examples:

One of our senior account executives wrote a piece about a campaign we had both worked on. I had some very specific feedback on some of his content. It seems both of us had come away with different leanings from a significant job. And we may have never had that discussion with social media.

In another post, our Director of Account Service, describes the importance of monitoring and how it’s structured for our clients. Social Media is something I’m involved with on a daily basis but business end is something I’m not.

Working on articles with our agency president has been the most interesting. Not only am I learning a different perspective on the industry but I get to collaborate and learn from someone I rarely get to work with. This helps me to see the business through her eyes and hopefully she’s able to gain a wee bit of prospective from me.

If you don’t have an blog for your business, I encourage you to start one. It’s a great way for clients to learn about your business but it can also be a great tool for internal learning too.

Just because you’re not ready for social media marketing doesn’t mean you can put off establishing a social media policy for your business. Your employees and customers are already active on social networks, sooner or later they’ll engage. Article continues on the Kilgannon Says Blog.