In part two, Stephanie provides the statistical support to back Ryan’s argument for One Government. She breaks down the demographics of the web to show where people are spending their time online and the most effective ways to leverage these avenues of communication. To provide you with another good resource for current social media statistics, here is a link to a video we showed just after Stephanie’s presentation.

From among the sessions I attended, the keynotes that were presented and the intense intellectual debates I indulged in with colleagues after hours at the hotel pub, I was able to make three observations about the conference and the general state of business communications.

Engaging Employees
Now, what came as somewhat of a shock was to hear someone like Brad Whitworth speak to me of internal communications at Cisco Systems with employees in the tens of thousands. Coming from a company like zu with a staff of just under 60, be it large for a web agency, I realized I had to widen my scope of communication in order to realize the vastness of issues, policies and communication channels that multinational corporations must manage on a daily basis.

I took this into consideration and thought, “How do they do it? Better yet, how do they do it well?” Then I walked into a session called “Inside GM: Communicating Through the Crises” by Katie McBride, Executive Director for GM Global Product Operations/Environment and Energy Communications. I was blown away with how GM and Katie’s team of high-level communicators orchestrated their plan for communicating through their bankruptcy in 2009.

What struck me was the fact that she spent almost the entire presentation speaking about the importance of engaging GM employees to ensure their confidence in GM decision-making and its effect on the future. They developed Q&A forums, webcasts, podcasts, and eventually a program to have employees attend GM events and write press releases and blog articles for their peers to view. They gave the company back to the people who would now lead its recovery. They realized the power in having employees love the company and brand they worked to ensure.

Building Culture
One thing we preach here at zu is the quality of great company culture. It became apparent to me that in large corporations, a strong company culture is a huge undertaking that comes with a huge price tag. But there are many cost-effective ways to allow your employees to enjoy coming to work every day. Many sessions at this conference were on intranets and their utility.

Now, think of your company’s intranet as the easiest way to engage employees. How about putting the time and effort into making it an enjoyable user experience so that every morning when employees sign in they don’t feel like they’re plugging into the Matrix. Allow for status updates and a news feed, and work to create a social aspect to the intranet so that employees can see what their CEO or executives are up to as well as network internally with colleagues.

Remembering the Role of Social Media
So much was said about the power of social media. Social media is a great marketing and communication tool—in a supplementary role. You can have the coolest Facebook and Twitter pages, but without a usable interactive website, what’s the point? Before you dive into the social media world it’s important to have a strong foundation in a well built interactive website. You want to make the website a great personification of your brand and company outlook so that when people are pulled to it through your social media accounts it can educate, stimulate and ‘wow’. If there was one thing that I feel the conference lacked, besides Wi-Fi, it was emphasizing the importance of a good website to engage stakeholders. All too often, zu has clients wanting the bells and whistles when in fact we need to convince them of the utility in a well-designed, interactive website.

Overall the conference was great. I met an awesome group of people from all over Canada and the United States. I even met a group from Slovenia, but it shows that the issues we discussed at the conference are global communications issues. I am looking forward to IABC 2011 in San Diego, and with that I put an end to my experience at IABC 2010.

Good night Toronto!

In zu’s webcast Tuesday, Another Brick in the Interactive Wall, we discussed best online practices using a wide array of Canadian examples. But the interactive options – ranging from enhancing online services to incorporating social media – can be overwhelming. So where to start?

Here are some zu recommended engagement exercises your team can explore to build an interactive strategy to attract and support your students.

Complete application process with students: Walk through the online process with high school and current students. Are there any hiccups? Any reoccurring problem areas causing the students to quit? Do you have an online application or do you ask your potential customers to download a PDF, fill it out, then fax it back?

Encourage feedback through social media: Whether it’s setting up a Facebook Page or using a Twitter feed, open the discussion doors to allow student feedback. Ask students what they want you to deliver in an online presence. Then, when you launch a new initiative, you’ll already have buy-in from the same audience who provided you with the ideas.

Ask students to rank online services: This will help you leverage online assets that currently work and prioritize areas where there is opportunity for improvement. Again, this will help create early buy-in from valuing your students’ input.

Create blog-based student employment / projects: Hire students part-time to administer your social media accounts, such as a Facebook Page. Your students are already deeply involved in social media – why not use their online experience to promote your school? Also, consider substituting student blogs for required course reports? How can you transform course requirements into engaging, online assets that can be used to attract other students to your school?

Provide cameras for student lifestyle stories: Have students depict their personal school experience through photos or video. Post the photos on Flickr, the videos on a YouTube channel, and tag each asset with your school name. Through engaging students, you’ll create trusted and credible assets for your school’s online presence.

Conduct a website or online presence audit: Consider where your school’s online experience currently is and where you want it to be. Look at competitor schools and best online practices. zu can help you with this engagement exercise as we can provide a complimentary website audit for your school.

The school industry is increasingly competitive, considering the program, location and overall experience options students can choose from. Your main audience is online – that’s where you need to both reach and serve them. What can your school start exploring today to attract and support your targeted students?

What made the webcast unique was the first-hand experience of both speakers in dealing with universities. Both Stephanie and David recalled their own university encounters as a student while also highlighting their experience in dealing with university bodies and colleges during their careers.

Throughout the webcast the message for educational institutions was clear: If your students are online, explore the various ways to easily engage them through a dynamic interactive strategy.

Is it good enough to have our content stored in PDF’s on our school website?

It’s important to have PDF’s but it isn’t enough to engage your students or potential students. Audiences want to experience as close to the real thing as possible. A PDF, which is a traditional print piece, will not foster that emotional connection that students look for in a school. With that being said, you shouldn’t disregard PDFs because you want to give your audience file format options: video, photos, interactive maps, and even PDFs.

How do you prioritize all of the projects and initiatives you would like to undertake? Where do you start? It seems very overwhelming.

Well, if you are feeling overwhelmed with all of these online initiatives it would be best to consult with a web agency to help you prioritize your needs. It is important to also look at other initiatives going on throughout the school and use that as your driving force behind the online outlet. We see a lot of online projects fail because schools jump into social media with no meaning behind it. It generates a small buzz, but then fades quickly. There always needs to be strategy for the initial and maintenance stages.

How important is it to have professional photography instead of stock photography?

It is vital. Potential students will want to be apart of something real. Viewing and experiencing what life will be like on campus will come across more authentically with professional photos than with templated photos. You can’t fool students as they are online and live the fast paced visual experience every day.

Everyone talks about social media, what if someone says something bad to us?

The truth is that people are going to say it anyways. Don’t be scared. It is better to be there and be involved.  Not all comments deserve an answer, but most students will want to provide valuable feedback and be heard. The worst scenario would be if no one was saying anything at all.

How do you get buy-in from Senior Admin to move forward with these online best strategies if they don’t understand how valuable they are?

David mentioned that he had been lucky to have Senior Admin who bought in immediately and worked to develop their online strategy. However, if your admin do not understand the value of a web strategy, it is important to educate them. There are so many statistics highlighting the web as a powerful medium for engaging any audience and it will take some time to showcase this to your staff. The important thing is to move slowly having them buy in a small amount at a time.

Actor Genie has been specifically designed for actors, but it can be a powerful tool for anyone working, or interested in the film and television industry. It’s the best way to know what’s casting, who’s casting it and where to find representation.

The app is the brainchild of Hollywood casting director Heidi Levitt, perhaps best known for her work on such films as JFK, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, The Rock, Joy Luck Club, Lakeview Terrace and numerous independent films.

As for zu, though we all considered auditioning for the new Conan movie, we’re just as happy to be on the development side of things.

For a closer look or to download it, check out the Actor Genie Website.

]]> http://www.zu.com/live/2010/02/news-events/news/new-iphoneipod-app-for-actors/feed/ 0 http://www.zu.com/live/2010/01/ideas/business/dominos-sucked-and-did-something-about-it/ http://www.zu.com/live/2010/01/ideas/business/dominos-sucked-and-did-something-about-it/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:06:00 +0000 Albert Jame http://www.zu.com/live/?p=4313 I find it hard to really like things. Especially being in this industry of critics. It’s hard to get excited over new brands or campaigns because we’re always trying to reverse-engineer the process and creative.

So that’s why I find the new Domino’s Pizza campaign so good. It was genuine enough to pass through my B.S. filter, yet the message was bold enough to make me curious about what they were selling. In short, they said “you hated our old pizza – our bad. We took it personally, now try this”. I agree wholeheartedly. Having gone through four years of being a starving student, like many others I detested yet still depended on Domino’s Pizza for their cheap and stale pies.

Their new Pizza Turnaround campaign is backed with a simple but effective web strategy, complete with the extended commercial and refreshingly unfiltered tweets. Another thing I like about this campaign is that it’s not funny, proving that you don’t always have to use humour to make your point in advertising.

What’s the risk of admitting your old pizza was comparable to chewing on a used Band-Aid? Not as much as there is to gain. People love when companies admit their mistakes and will only look forward to better pizza in the future. It’s quite a bit different than Ford pseudo-admitting they made bad cars – there are still millions of people who own those ‘mistakes’. I’m curious to see how this campaign is received, but more importantly I’m interested to see if we can get the new recipe in Canada. I’ll keep you posted.

StampsConnect is a unique social media aggregator site that uses familiar platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. The Calgary Stampeders have successfully enhanced fan engagement by permitting their audience to participate and contribute to the content. Connect is a real-time aggregator of fan-generated photos, comments, blogs and videos that allows them to interact and share with others around the world.

The 2009 Grey Cup Festival also adopted the Connect concept to build anticipation and engagement around their event with Grey Cup Festival Connect. The potential for Connect sites spreads beyond sports, with opportunity for political parties, artists, actors, musicians and many others to enhance stakeholder engagement.

The Interactive Media Awards™ recognize the highest standards of excellence in website design and development, and honour individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement. The Outstanding Achievement award is the second highest honour bestowed by the IMA and is an extremely challenging award to win.

twitpitch: StampsConnect takes IMA outstanding achievement award in sports for social media site. #calstampeders http://twurl.nl/ihc88p

Then I recently came across a short but great blog post from Chas Grundy that discusses how this can effect your culture. “If people want to do something great but don’t have the tools, support, processes, or resources, that’s an infrastructure problem. If people don’t want to do anything great, or change at all for that matter, that’s a culture problem.” This employee had what normal organizations wished upon all their staff: pride – which is a side effect of culture. He wanted to do great, but couldn’t.

How should something like this be handled? I don’t have a definite answer, but for starters I think everyone can agree that it’s wrong. I can understand enforcing policy to reduce corporate misbehaviour or abuse, but cases like this should be reviewed separately as it effects culture and client satisfaction. Don’t expect to get it right the first time. Social media and its uses are always changing, so expect your policy to adapt while you actively monitor the costs and benefits of social media in your organization.

After the session, one manager from an unnamed government department came up and admitted that he just “does it” and deals with the wrath of breaching policy (or the non-existence of policy) later. I like his style.

So how can we support the green team if we’re not going to the game? I say, do it online. Take something like Grey Cup Festival Connect that we built. It pulls everything to do with the Grey Cup and the two teams playing in from YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. So basically, any video you upload to YouTube, any photo you upload to Flickr, or any Rider tweet tagged ’sskroughriders’ or ‘greycup2009′, will make it onto the Grey Cup fan site. It’s a one stop shop for everything Grey Cup, generated by the fans. So it’s imperative for you Riders fans to take part. Here are some suggestions on how all you at home can participate.

YouTube

• Discuss your predictions or outcomes
• Wish the team well with a personal or group video message
• Send your ‘regards’ to the opposing team

Flickr

• Upload your ideal Rider Grey Cup outfit
• Give some inspiration for fan signs
• Upload custom ‘Photoshopped’ images of the opposing team

Twitter

• Lend Coach Miller some play suggestions (*ahem* Armstead option play)
• ‘Greet’ Allouette fans with a warm message
• Give recipes ideas for what to do with all that leftover watermelon

Don’t forget to join Grey Cup Festival Connect through Facebook. (See top right corner the Grey Cup Festival Connect site.) In addition to joining the fan page, log in and comment on Grey Cup Festival Connect using your Facebook account. Your comments will be shared to your Facebook profile.

And . . . don’t forget to follow live game stats by downloading the Rider mobile app to your iPhone or BlackBerry.

Follow zutweets and catch some of us at the game. Hope to see you there. If not, you know what to do.

twitpitch: Rider fans it’s time to shine. Tips to keep Rider Pride alive online. #greycup2009 #sskroughriders. http://twurl.nl/7yw1y7

Similar to the StampsConnect platform, fans can access Grey Cup and Festival content uploaded to YouTube, Flickr and Twitter all in one convenient site. It also pulls in Grey Cup and Festival news from the main website, and allows users to log in via Facebook Connect.

This has become an unofficial CFL social media hub as it currently pulls in content tagged under all CFL team names. Which is great if you just can’t get enough CFL content from your traditional sources. Overall, the festival committee was great to work with—they shared the same passion for this project as they do the game.

“To date, this site is truly the first social media aggregator dedicated to Grey Cup and Festival content we know of. The goal of the site was to have it live on to every Grey Cup Festival host city in future years, and we believe we succeeded in that with the 2010 Edmonton Festival taking on the Connect site next year. Reaching out to the fan base is important because you get so many people returning every year to the Grey Cup; and if we can provide them with a portal to interact with each other and the Festival events that are planned every year, this can only grow our great game of ours for future Grey Cups,” said Sheldon Lachambre, Director of Marketing and Media.

With the Grey Cup and Festival only a few weeks away, action on the site should heat up as we draw closer to the big game. So make sure to tag your Flickr photos and YouTube videos with GreyCup2009 and include #greycup2009 in your tweets to be a part of the fun.

twitpitch: Join the #greycup2009 party and share your videos, photos and tweets at Grey Cup Festival Connect http://bit.ly/2MjGPB

Read our Q&A transcript summary from the Social Media for Sports Webcast to learn how the strategic use of social media tools in professional sports can boost your brand, expand your marketing reach, engage your fan base and create new sources of online revenue.

Q: Are teams scaling back on social media or are they adding social media to their existing programs and how does social media cost compared to traditional media?

A: Kathleen
The cost of using social media is miniscule and applying user-generated content to marketing programs is growing rapidly. But applying social media to programs should not be a standalone initiative. It needs to be an integrated effort.

A: Mike
I agree. Social media and traditional marketing needs to be put together—it is a joint effort. However, there is a time investment in applying social media to your programs; it takes time to upload your pics into Flickr and videos into YouTube but if you are already engaged you’ll find there is little cost if any. Social media should drive traffic to your existing programs and vice versa.

A: Trevor
If you apply social media to your programs you can extract trackable data from your campaigns, just like traditional media programs. You can monitor traffic to and from your site just like zu has done with StampsConnect. A lot of people ask me about ROI using social media; it is difficult to measure ROI but you can measure ROE [return on engagement].

Q: Aside from the social media tools discussed today, what other technology should teams and executives be aware of?

A: Trevor
Mobile technology, most definitely. Today, smart phones are outselling computers these days. The applications for iPhone and Blackberry phones are becoming more interactive. All the social media tools we have implemented into StampsConnect can be done on iPhones—it’s something we’re currently discussing with the Calgary Stampeders. Mobile technology allows for additional advertising revenue, too.

A: Kathleen
I’d like to add that our Buzz Manager application is another technology that teams and corporate executives can use to monitor your reputation and social media activity online. Widgets are another tool that showcase twitter feeds and customizable data. Our new website will be widgetized in the near future.

Q: I’ve created an animated character called ‘Mike’ and it will appear on jumbotrons in stadiums. Is it ok to ghost twitter as this fictional character ‘Mike’?

A: Kathleen
I will go on record as saying I am against ghost tweeting. At 140 characters anyone can do it. However, if ‘Mike’ is a mascot or sports character it does make a lot of sense for ‘Mike’ to tweet.

Q: What are the revenue opportunities for StampsConnect website and are there any challenges to get sponsorship because your website is powered by user-generated content?

A: Mike
There are lots of opportunities for revenue in StampsConnect. You could sponsor the entire site and gain even more exposure with our other traditional media [including our GameDay marketing]. You can also sell individual elements of the site; source out a camera brand name to sponsor our Flickr feed, for example. There are a lot of possibilities, and user-generated content has never been an objection I’ve had to deal with from sponsors. I would suggest integrating sponsorship opportunities into your online and offline marketing.

Q: Do you have any advice for young sports professionals that want to integrate social media into an organization?

A: Trevor
First of all, a person needs to set up Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and start joining groups and joining the conversation. This is how I initially connected with Sports Media Challenge; I was tweeting with Ryan Stephens, an employee at SMC a few months ago. One word of advice: instead of asking for things of value on Twitter, start giving and you’ll see how easy it is to become recognized and generate value from social media.

A: Kathleen
We are always looking for interns at Sports Media Challenge. Feel free to contact us if you would like more information. One word of advice is that you need to showcase what you know; just because you are on Twitter or Facebook it doesn’t mean you are an expert.

Q: If a sports organization had to choose between Facebook and Twitter, is there one you would recommend over the other?

A: Kathleen
In order to answer that, let me say this: remember who it is you are trying to engage—are you trying to deepen your relationship with fans you already have or are you trying to generate new fans? Facebook = people you already know, although this is a different age group than Twitter [34 years and younger]. Twitter = people you don’t know. At some point, your older fans will eventually drop off so you need to continuously generate new fans and keep getting younger people engaged.

A: Mike
I would add that there is value in teams using Facebook and for players to use Twitter. I find that Twitter is a more intimate exchange of information between players and fans. For example, a player can be on the bus arriving at a game and will tweet spontaneously. With Facebook, by the time you log in to your computer and start sharing your thoughts, that emotion or idea could have already changed. Twitter is immediate and spontaneous and the message can be shared with hundreds or thousands of followers.

A: Kathleen
Remember that using Facebook you have to invite people—this is a one-to-one relationship; with Twitter it could be a one-to-a-million relationship.

Q: What is more important: the number of fans following you or the quality of engagement?

A: Kathleen
In my opinion, quality of engagement is by far most important. This is what zu has built into StampsConnect. When fans share their passion online, their participation is more important than being a team that claims to have tens of thousands of fans that don’t participate in the conversation.

Ryan Lejbak will engage in a brief discussion on utilizing social media to augment your current communications plan without costs and with limited time investment.

Register for the  webcast replay.

Join us for an exclusive LIVE Webcast:
Wednesday July 22
12:00pm PT | 1:00pm MT | 2:00pm CT | 3:00pm ET

zu social media experts Ryan Lejbak and Trevor Turnbull will explore how strategic use of social media tools can help you monitor and engage your audience. They will take you across the key social media platforms, providing tips and tools you can use to develop a successful strategy. In addition, this webcast will provide current examples of how companies are integrating social media tools into their online marketing strategy.

This webcast will provide you with social media tools you can apply immediately to enhance your communications strategy. A must for beginners in any industry!

Register for replay.

What’s all the buzz about SMPR?
You could say that the SMPR began as a mere glimmer in the eye of content sharing and voting websites, social media networks, podcasts, and blogs. In layman’s terms, SMPRs are designed to drive news stories to online conversation forums and get the conversation going; they provide readers with the ability to disseminate information and multimedia along with bookmark and sharing tools. They are multimedia press releases that function more like a webpage than a static text document. SMPRs often contain images, video, links, and have distribution through online networks outside the traditional press wire.

Making a case for SMPR
Until recently, our marketing department channeled PR efforts through the traditional media streams of newspapers, magazines and radio—and like most organizations, we’ve garnered positive attention to our business developments by posting news releases on our website. From the outside looking in, there really wasn’t anything lacking in our existing marketing strategy that would give cause to jump on the SMPR bandwagon—except that my marketing DNA would win the battle and have me try anything bright, shiny and trendy.

Baiting the hook
I decided to bait the hook with the recent success and recognition of zuLabs TimmyMe and BucksMe iPhone apps. My involvement with production of the actual Marketwire SMPR was minimal; I crafted a text-based, traditional news release and sent it off to Jay, our Account Executive at Marketwire. I had to package up a few other details in order to build the SMPR, including creation of the following:
• keyword cloud
• video clip
• images
• Technorati tags
After a few emails back and forth, I proofed the document and it was distributed through Marketwire’s traditional and online networks. Access to the online networks is really the strongest benefit the Marketwire SMPR service provides.

Just the numbers
I set up Google Alerts and watched our SMPR take effect: we generated two interviews [including CBC Radio] and 18 online news stories in only a few days. We also observed a 60% increase in TimmyMe downloads during the two weeks following distribution of the SMPR. Collaborating with our resident SEO experts, I initiated some statistical research surrounding the traffic that was generated to our website via the online SMPR during a specific time frame: one month after distribution our unique visitor traffic stats increased 75% compared to our monthly average.

At the finish line
I would have to say that the SMPR is the BMW of news release distribution—it looks sexy and it performs. If you’re anything like me I fuss constantly over brand presentation and lead generation results, and the Marketwire 2.0 SMPR gave me both, loaded with options like: text, audio, video, bookmarking and tagging tools, content voting and sharing portals, keyword-optimized text and images. With one click, the reader can submit the SMPR to Digg, Deli.cio.us, Technorati and other social media content portals. The list of social media aggregation features in the Marketwire SMPR is long and impressive, including a social media newsroom that receives visitor feedback directly from a comment box in your press release.

There are cheaper entry point SMPRs on the market like PRWeb and PitchEngine that package up nicely with all the social media bells and whistles [I will leave the cost analysis discussion for another time], but from a marketer’s perspective, I believe the SMPR has more reach, is more functional and makes it easier for media people, analysts, bloggers and consumers to compile information for the articles they research or want to write. The SMPR facilitates this functionality by breaking down the content into logical sections in a way it can be easily scanned and used.

In my mind, the SMPR is not going to replace or kill the traditional press release any time soon. The SMPR is a tool, not a trend. And it simply improves upon the traditional press release layout, evolving and adapting to the 2.0 revolution. More people are accessing their news and information through web channels, so it only makes sense to meet them there.

zu wanted to create a rich interactive experience to engage Stampeders fans; the site is a virtual real-time shrine that fans can explore, contribute to and share with friends around the world. Fan generated videos and photos are automatically pulled from personal YouTube and Flickr accounts into StampsConnect when tagged with ‘calstampeders’. New videos and photos uploaded by fans ensure that the content is always fresh and engaging.

Fans can log into StampsConnect using Facebook to comment on videos and photos; they can also post comments on their Facebook profile which ultimately acts as a self-promoting vehicle for the site. Fans can also use the ‘real-time chat’ feature on the Twitter page—among a number of other cool features including News, Blogs, Polls, Ticket Specials, and Promotions that link StampsConnect to the official Stampeders.com website.

“Sports fans are very passionate and love to show their loyalty to their favorite team,” says zu CEO, Ryan Lejbak. “Over the past year, social networking has become mainstream with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr leading the popularity contest for sports fans. Both deeply engaged and casual fans are using these sites to connect with other fans already. What StampsConnect does is collect all of that great fan generated content and displays it in one place, allowing fans to interact with each other and contribute to the growth and success of the website.”

Trevor Turnbull, zu Account Executive adds: “We wanted to create a site that embraced the fact that millions of people are already actively using these popular social websites. So, rather than creating another exclusive ‘social network’ that requires fans to create a profile and upload their content that already exists on their personal social accounts, we implemented a ‘pull’ strategy that brings in content from popular social sites people are already familiar with and actively using.”

“We are extremely excited about this social media initiative,” says Mike Petrie, Director of Communication for the Calgary Stampeders. “StampsConnect allows the Calgary Stampeders to increase fan engagement by integrating a variety of interactive social media strategies and techniques. zu has helped us give our fans a platform to express their passion and connect with the team, players and Outrider cheerleaders in a way not possible before. Although Stampeders.com will still be the main resource of exclusive Calgary Stampeder content, we will utilize StampsConnect to provide fans with unique, behind-the-scenes content that will make it a really fun place to see the lighter side of the team, players and Outrider cheerleaders. Our fans are a major part of our success—on and off the field. We value their opinion and believe StampsConnect will help us further engage with the best fans in the CFL.”

Join the fun here:
StampsConnect
Calgary Stampeders Official Website
Calgary Stampeders Official Twitter Page
Calgary Stampeders Official Facebook Fanpage
Calgary Stampeder Outriders Official Twitter Page
Calgary Stampeder Outriders Official Facebook Fanpage