November 23, 2024

Nikon and eBay Get Hip to Social Media

Are you wondering how large companies can tap into the popularity of social media, Web 2.0, and other contemporary trends in the online world? Well, they could just pay $50,000 and set up a commercial MySpace account (no kidding, that’s the base fee for a fancy professional profile) or they could actually be inspired and tap into the popularity of YouTube or Flickr and do something really cool…

That’s exactly what auction giant eBay did when it created an admittedly cheesy 75 second introductory movie promoting an upcoming course they’re offering to the eBay seller community. They filmed the movie then simply uploaded it to YouTube and mentioned it on the eBay Chatter weblog to help drive more customers to the training course: check it out. Cool!

Nikon did something even more cool, though: it picked out a group of existing Nikon digital SLR photographers from popular photo sharing site Flickr and sent them brand new Nikon D80 camera setups. Their assignments? Take pictures, send us your best. The result? Stunning Nikon. A very savvy marketing effort!

I applaud both companies for experimenting – and succeeding – with social media and look forward to more companies tapping into the wisdom, enthusiasm and verve of popular social media.

An extended version of this article, with samples from Stunning Nikon and the eBay YouTube video, can be found at eBay and Nikon: Examples of New Media Marketing.

2 comments for Nikon and eBay Get Hip to Social Media

  1. Close, but not cigar/d80 from nikon.
    They didn’t give the cameras out, merely collect photos from d80 users, like they did with the previous nikonstunninggallery w/ kate moss.

    Comment by dan — October 7, 2006 @ 4:20 am


  2. […] From business blog consulting: eBay did when it created an admittedly cheesy 75 second introductory movie promoting an upcoming course they’re offering to the eBay seller community. They filmed the movie then simply uploaded it to YouTube and mentioned it on the eBay Chatter weblog to help drive more customers to the training course: check it out. Cool! […]

    Pingback by Social Media Optimization » Nikion and eBay Get Social Media — October 8, 2006 @ 6:10 pm


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