Learning From Mr Gadget

Last night I had the absolute pleasure of watching Mr Gadget in action on ustream as he did a vidcast reviewing various electrical gadgetry. Mr Gadget has the niche video thing down pat. Let’s break down what he is doing and you can equate it to your business, niche, show….

Authority

OK first Mr Gadget knows his stuff. He can talk authoritatively on his subject and answered questions on the fly about the product he was reviewing (even silly questions like “will that set my car airbags off” or “does it come in other colours”).

Passion

Mr Gadget obviously loves his subject matter (and who doesn’t love tech stuff?). Lots of handling of the product and holding up to the camera showing the various features. He knew what he was doing and had thoroughly checked out everything about the products before chatting about them.

Interaction

Mr Gadget interacted with his audience. He mentioned names… a lot. A very, very important thing to do when you are engaging with your market/audience.  People do not watch the new video medias and expect to be spoon-fed by a talking head. They want to be recognised and given importance as part of the production.

Everyone wants to feel special, and having your name mentioned is one way a communicator can achieve that. If you are using ustream then read your chat stream and answer directly to the person, thank them for a great question and then widen the reply to all in the room.

Great cross pollination too, with Mr Gadget offering prizes to his viewers if they posted a Haiku on his blog, and sneak peeks at some upcoming prizes he will be offering. This was done in a way that was not sale-sy or pushy, but fun and voluntary participation.

Humour

When asked if a bluetooth headset was comfortable to wear for long periods of time, Mr Gadget answered that wearing a bluetooth headset for long periods of time said negative things about ones self.  Don’t be afraid to have a bit of a laugh and joke about your product with your audience

Not a Professional

You do not need to be a professional at this thing, in fact I would think that the more professional you are, the more you distance yourself from your audience. You should cover the basics of course; good lighting, decent sound and a broadband connection good enough to upstream without issues with the quality you have chosen. Don’t go the pancake makeup and professional hairstyling…

Mr Gadget managed to forget to press record, so I can’t link you to his effort so you can do your own appraisal of his work.

Definitely catch him next week though and watch carefully what he does!