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TheBuzz
Erika Engle
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Kailua Web company’s online TV show goes viral
An episode of "Beach Walks with Rox," a locally produced Internet TV show, got more than 80,000 views on YouTube in about three days' time.
"Beach Walks" has its own site, but it is cross-posted on YouTube, where the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle tree-planting episode racked up views on its travel channel.
Rox is Roxanne Darling. She and partner Shane Robinson own Bare Feet Studios LLC, a Kailua company that does Web consulting and development and new media strategy and creation.
The show is not directly a money-maker for Bare Feet, but is a multi-faceted tool.
"We are very early adopters of Internet technology," Darling said. When something new comes along, "we try it before recommending it to a client."
"There's so much to learn and unless you have a truly geeky staff, it is easy to miss out on understanding what the Internet can do for you today."
So, "Beach Walks" is sort of a research and development outlet, but it has proven to be more than that.
"We started "Beach Walks" as an experiment, and in less than two weeks we had viewers in over 80 countries," she said.
The show-lettes netted invitations to join media networks and Darling and Robinson have continued production, "as it has a loyal, intelligent, sophisticated, savvy, educated audience" and because "the energy we get back is so fabulous."
One crisis management expert in Washington told Darling he is telling his colleagues about it because it is soothing and beneficial, and that in about five minutes time, "I can basically change my physiology."
It also promotes Hawaii at a community level, which many visitors don't experience. "We have tremendous liberty to tell the truth and to really present an authentic inside view of what it is like to be here."
"Beach Walks" has also driven clients to Bare Feet Studios, "but at the end of the day it takes time that we are not paid for. We are very judicious about the time we put into it. Client work has to come first," she said.
Darling is a member of the Outdoor Circle and the company built the nonprofit's Web site -- also persuading chief executive officer Mary Steiner to write a blog.
"You'll be hard-pressed to find a CEO who's blogging," Darling said. "There is a vacuum of thought leadership that's filled by having an influential person blog." Steiner got "instant feedback."
A blog conveys that "someone in the organization is willing to have a conversation with the public," said Darling. Time concerns are valid, "but if in fact my most important customers are out there ... it's worth my while to find 15 or 20 minutes once or twice a week to keep that conversation going."
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4747, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at:
eengle@starbulletin.com