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Background For Context

In the past I’ve had a lot of people ask me a question along the lines of, “Why call your company ‘Leechon’? Won’t people associate negative emotions to it?”

When I was in high school I had this idea of starting a subscription online service like Napster. However, instead of downloading music, you’d be able to download movies and other like entertainment. The idea was that it would be an online system where I as the service provider enabled people to download full movies for a nominal token fee which they could watch to their enjoyment and fulfillment and the file itself would disable or self-destruct within a given time.

The service would be called “Leechon.”

On the Internet, a “leech” is someone who benefits, usually deliberately, from other people’s information or effort but doesn’t offer anything in return, or they make only token offerings in an attempt to avoid being called a leech.

- Wikipedia

The idea behind the name “Leechon” is that it’s a command. Meaning, go ahead and benefit without the concern of whether or not you’re sharing as well. There’s plenty of bandwidth for me to share, you don’t have to worry about having to share yours.

I went ahead got the company registered, but I soon found out that my idea was well ahead of its time and the technology available wasn’t going to be able to make it happen. Its only recently that companies have been able to offer such entertainment on demand via multiple channels of distribution through services such as iTunes, amazon.com, Netflicks, Blockbuster, etc.

The concept however still remained in my mind.

Most people are consumers. I am someone who wants to benefit people by understanding what they want or need and be able to say to them, “Leechon! There’s plenty more where that came from!” (marketing simplified). Similarly I want to enable other like-minded people to stand up and say the same to their people and deliver.

From the perspective of being a marketing services company, I’m working with companies and organizations that have a lot of offer society on a local, national and even global level. They want help in getting their target market to leechon to what they have to offer and that is where my company comes in!

Evolution of Leechon

Back when I registered the company in and realized that I wouldn’t be able to achieve what I wanted to achieve at the time, the corporate entity sat around for a little bit.

I started doing other creative projects ranging from online marketing to graphic design and video production. When I started making money from it, that’s when I decided to dust off the old corporate entity and start doing my work professionally.

Initially since most of my commissioned marketing worked was in the form of video, I naturally opted to name the company “Leechon Films.” However as time progressed and more and more of my work was focused less on video and more on digital marketing in general. I realized that I’d need to adjust the way I’m presenting Leechon.

Re-branding Thought Process

I needed to understand where I am and where I want to go and define my branding as such. The question for me was, which one of the below represented Leechon most accurately?

• “Independent” production studio - ie: NewsCorp -
  Self financing, producing and distributing my own content through multiple established channels of delivery. Past projects that could possibly fall under this category are: The Strangers, Darkness2Light, Browntourage, Free Parking (fail), Love Noted (never produced), Tufaan (incomplete), MessageMastery.com

• “Dependent” Production Studio - ie: Warner Bros. -
  Either producing and distributing your own content and brands with the help of financiers such as Relativity Media or Summit Entertainment — or — Producing distributing content/media commissioned by other entities such as Walden Media. I haven’t done any projects that fall under the first part. However, past projects that could possible fall under the second part are: The Opener (Faraz Khan), Abdullah Puppet (Minbar Media), Back2School Giveaway (ICNA NY).

• Private Equity Fund – ie: Relativity Media or The Carlyle Group -
  Financing projects via private equity with your own risk and business analysis systems in place. I wish I had this.

• Advertising Agency - ie: WPP or MediaCom -
  Producing video and print media for advertising purposes — and/or — Having digital ad services in place that can be digitally monitored and accurately measure reach and impact. When it comes to adsoftware and systems, I don’t have any of my own propitiatory stuff. However, I have leveraged Google Ad words and Social ads for clients on several occasions. Regarding production design material in the form of print, digital and video for the purposes of advertising – projects that can fall under that category are: AlMaghrib Trailers and other graphic work I’ve done for them, DawahCorps and AlMishkat.
• Public Relations Firm - ie: Edelman Digital or Fleishman & Hillard -
  Levering contacts in traditional and/or social media to bring forth positive publicity and third party trust for a project over an extended period of time to in the process of building and establishing a brand. I personally haven’t done much in terms of leveraging traditional media. However client projects that I’ve helped in leveraging social media are: AlMaghrib Institute with the use of GemReel.com and IlmCast.com coupled with activism and social networking. iAmAmmar.com and Bayyinah with the initial launch of the Divine Speech seminar.

Having gone through the above I realized that the work I do would be better categorized under “digital marketing” as opposed to “films.”

I’m considering starting a web video series that would start off covering some of the content taught in the seminar in video form over the coming weeks on MessageMastery.com. To make this interesting, in the comments below, go ahead post what you’d like me to cover specifically.

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“I guess extremest have rights too.”

- Seminar Attendee

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This statement explains why its not that easy combating “recruitment” from extremists.

About a month ago Farhad Chowdhury from M100 Foundation sent me an invite to attend a seminar organized by New America Foundation in Washington D.C. hosted at Google’s office

The intent of the seminar was to train leading Muslim non-profits in the tools and processes of online marketing, covering tools provided by Google, YouTube and Facebook as a means of combating increased extremist online activity.

A big part of being effective in marketing online and building a loyal following has to do with continuously giving value to the community you’re targeting.

The challenge with combating content posted/uploaded by post-prison Anwar Alawlaki fans is that they have the same rights and privileges and access that we all have.

Anwar Alawlaki is one of those individuals who has plenty of beneficial content from his pre-prison days that continuously builds social capital. So if someone were to post a video of him saying attack certain people and how its an obligation for all Muslims, it has potential of pulling some people in the wrong direction.

Muslims here in the west have the interesting challenge of not only having to combat religious extremists, but also combat extremists on the other side of the spectrum too. The likes such as Robert Spencer, Asra Nomani, Irshad Manji, Daniel Pipes, Newt Gingrich, Pamela Geller and others.

People on both sides of the spectrum are using online marketing practices to get their message across quite effectively.

The thing with Muslims in the middle is that they have a lot of beneficial content to share but don’t understand technical tools or practices of getting their message out and its for that reason this seminar was held.

One of the prime examples that a Google instructor presented was MPAC. When you type “MPAC” into Google, you don’t find MPAC. Instead you find either a “performing arts center” in some city or you find content written by right wing extremists. If you’re going to search for your name on Google, YOU should come up. If you don’t then you’re not marketing yourself appropriately.

MPAC also has a decent YouTube page with over 100 videos, but due to bad SEO, no one gets to see it.

The following is an outline of what Google presented to the seminar attendees.

Some of these tools are quite powerful if you know how to use them. I was intrigued to find out that Google has a program called “Google Grants” where if you’re a tax excempt 501(c)3 while not being either a political party or a religious institution such as a church or mosque, then you can be eligible for free Ad Words credits between $100 – $10,000 a month.

In addition to Google, YouTube and Facebook were there presenting their systems too and how to effectively read the metrics they publish for their users to reach out to specific target audiences. Below is the YouTube insights view.

Personally, while most of the stuff was a refresher, some of the Google content was new.

I personally don’t like to get into the politics of extremeism. However, I do find that the content presented in the seminar can be useful in dawah and depolarization of views on Islam.

Success of a successful social media marketing campaign via the use of video – regardless of what metrics you’re measuring by – doesn’t come from a single viral video.

Rather, campaign success when using video comes from a systematic production of consistent SHAREABLE QUALITY content to a specific SOCIALLY ACTIVE target audience, how ever local or global they may be, over a set specific period of time, usually over a time span of 8-12 months. All the while ACTIVELY engaging the people you’re connecting with.

The other day I finished a GemReel in an effort to get some of the more socially active and technically savvy members of the AlMaghrib student community to slowly start getting involved in a new social marketing campaign.

In this this post feature the GemReel and a break down from a social marketing perspective.

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FOUNDATION

Regardless of how you want your brand to be perceived, the perception that people will have of you or your company will always be define by news and social media. People generally give trust and credibility to the third party. It’s for this reason, advertising – a message that comes for the organization – isn’t appropriate and publicity via news and social media will drive the marketing.

Understanding this principle, I decided to lay down a concept that would be socially viable and would allow for the students themselves to communicate how they felt about their experience with AlMaghrib attending Western Sunrise.

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CONCEPT

The presentation approach needed to be as technically and financially simple as possible so that even someone with no experience can knock out a similar video.

I used the following equipment:

• Two consumer HD cameras with mic input ($250 – $300 each – used via ebay)
• Two generic tripods ($30 each via BestBuy)
• Sennheiser Shotgun Mic ($150)
• Beachtek DSA-2S Audio adapter for levels control ($180)

Getting your hands on a couple cameras and tripods should by easy. The mic and adapter is where you may have to spend some money.

In addition to the visual concept, the idea was to get “local focus with global appeal”.

In an ideal setup, the people you capture on screen are diverse, emotionally engaging and socially connected. Although it’s a a great target to shoot for, it’s difficult to hit on the dot.

Everyone has a story to tell. Emotional engagement will be directly related to the questions asked. With that in mind, I focused on cultural and national diversity so a wide array of viewers can relate with the people on screen and to the stories told.

When it came to finalizing the concept, I didn’t want to have to spend more than an hour shooting and no more than a few hours editing.

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PRODUCTION

Part of your preparation has to do with making sure the people who will be on camera are prepared.

The idea of shooting a testimonial based GemReel with a documentary flare, the people themselves have to be very familiar with the content of what’s being presented. Since I filmed the GemReel on the Sunday of the first weekend of the seminar, the people being interviewed have to:

• Have attended the seminar from the beginning – Fri & Sat
• Give their permission to be interviewed on camera and for what reason
• Be given the questions before hand so they know exactly what will be asked of them and can formulate answers.

Spending the first couple of breaks in the morning is ideal to scout for subjects. By the time lunch rolls in, you’ll have about five to six people to interview. Some you’ll be able to interview before lunch, some during and some immediately after. Make sure you schedule accordingly.

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The strength of the emotional engagement you’ll get from your subjects will depend on the strength of your questions. The following six questions is what I asked:

• Were there any obstacles that would have prevented you from attending [seminar name]
• What did you find as a result of coming/attending?
• What specific feature did you like most about this class?
• What are three other benefits you’ve gotten out of this seminar?
• Would you recommend [seminar name] to others? If so, why?
• Is there anything you’d like to add?

I want to give a shout out to Sean D’Souza for Six Questions to Ask for Powerful Testimonials article on Copy Blogger.

These questions are inherently story driven. At the end you’ll get a simply yet unique character’s from each of the subjects you interview.

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REFLECTIONS

In the future, I’m thinking it would make sense to have sisters also give their interviews where they share gems and stories. Women do make up majority of the AlMaghrib community student base. Also, it would be a good idea to shorten the video to be under five mins.

For those who decide to make their own GemReels, it’s very important that there is a level audible ambiance. Not only does the speech have to be clear (captured via mic) but it’s a good idea to bring up the ambiance with some subtle audio in the background.

I accomplished this via some of my vocal beatboxing (yes that’s my rhythm in the background) and layering that with a softened humming which I ripped, cut and stitched together from the AlMaghrib WebTV promo video.

Does anyone know where I can find the original audio that was used in that video?

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FURTHER READING

I’ve written a blog post over at MessageMastery.com laying out a Facebook strategy for local social marketing titled “How @AlMaghribHQ Student Tribes Can Extend Their Community Influence“