UC Irvine hosted a budget write-in this week and I can’t imagine why we’re still putting pen to paper.
While delivering letters in bulk to our state legislators is much more civil and respectful than the protests and disobedience that have been observed around UC campuses this past month, aren’t there more innovative, collaborative and effective ways in which to communicate our dismay with the state of the State and University?
After all, isn’t the University of California the top public institution in the world? Don’t we produce Nobel Prize winners and Fulbright Scholars, life-saving research and game-changing technology?
Advice to UC students. Take what you know best — Facebook, YouTube, Twitter — and turn it into a campaign that legislators can’t ignore, toss aside, or hand to an aide to craft a scripted response.
The write-in would have been a good opportunity for student leaders to flip out their mobile phones and interview each other about the personal impact the fee hike will have on them come the new academic year. It was a chance for students to plead their hardships, share their personal stories, and talk about their needs… and to tell their stories through a new medium to legislators and public citizens alike.
If just a 1,000 students from each campus joined a Facebook fan page or custom website that integrates Facebook Connect (or the like) and allow students to voice their concerns online – that would be a collective power of 10,000 voices telling their story to the public. The public and media can then help pay it forward and tell tens of thousands of other people how devastating the fee hikes are.
A letter only goes to one person, and your voice may or may not ever be heard. But new media content can be shared, redistributed, repackaged, emailed, linked, tweeted… The same effort put into a letter can be put into a message that has the potential to be heard across the world.
And all it takes it the one story that becomes viral. The one story that tugs at the hearts of the voters of California, the philanthropist across the globe, and the legislator who votes on the UC budget.
How about a video profile of how much it costs to be a bio major: How much are your textbooks? What additional lab fees do you pay? And how are you able to afford the expensive rent around Westwood, Irvine, Santa Barbara?
Letter-writing campaigns didn’t even work in my time as a UCSA Legislative Affairs member or ASUCD External Affairs Chair. What worked were the face-to-face meetings with the educational committee members, staffers for the legislators or better yet the legislators themselves.
Today, students have the best tools at their fingertips: new media and social networks. Whether it’s a student, parent, professor or staff member speaking, why aren’t we using these innovative communication mediums, which are either no-cost or low-cost, to effectively lobby the State and its citizens?
A collective voice is a powerful thing when used the right way.
Protesting and rioting may have worked in the 1970s. But times are different. Technology is different.
The UC’s budget is an obvious mess, and I have strong personal opinions about it. What it boils down to though, is there’s plenty of blame to spread. But I don’t think it’s too late to make a new media move — the right move — to influence change from the ground up.
Picket signs, the wood sticks and magic markers to poster board is so last millennium, and so un-ecofriendly. If you want to be heard, to be green, to be innovative with your message, take a lesson from the 2008 Presidential elections. That wasn’t that long ago…
Read moreTHEN
Marketing and branding were about pushing your message to consumers. You sold them what they never knew they wanted.
Marketing used to be all about the product or service. What made your product unique from anything else on the market? What was the value-add in your version versus a competitor? Did you have the best price or experience for the money?
Branding was all about the image of that product or service. What perception did you want your customers to have about your company? What did customers feel about consuming what you had to offer?
NOW
Marketing and branding are responses to real-time customer demands and needs. Customers are telling you what they want. You are listening – more than ever – to the consumer, instead of dictating to them what they can or cannot live without.
Marketing is now much more than the product or service. While people still connect with an object such as a particular coffee brand or airline, it’s not enough to sell how tasteful your peppermint latte is or the extra 6-inches of legroom compared to a competitor.
Likewise, branding is now about customer interaction (not to be confused with customer service), corporate social responsibility, online culture and community, and much more.
Making this shift to social media isn’t an easy move. Wait too long to get on the bandwagon, and you’ve lost your first-mover advantage. Act too fast, and you may not have a well thought-out strategy.
So how do you know whether to jump into the next new web trend? How do you evaluate your presence in that landscape? How do you use the new media tool in such a way that no one else is using it? Thinking outside the box and being innovative with the new media tools will help in setting your company, brand and product apart.
Whether it’s a mobile app, interactive website that has nothing to do with your product and everything about your consumers, there’s definitely a niche that you can create for yourself within your industry that will accomplish the original goals of branding and marketing.
Here are a few new media integration examples that are successful at tying together “new marketing” and “new branding” into the digital customer experience:
The Sonicare Facebook application keeps the user engaged over and over again by encouraging good dental hygiene through a “pet” tooth. Take better care of our “canine” and be privy to special gifts and promotions.
When someone takes action with their pet tooth, it can appear on their friends news feeds, and is always visible on the owner’s profile.
In today’s social network landscape where the popularity of social gaming such as Mafia Wars and Farmville are growing exponentially, it’s smart for a brand to jump into the arena with the right interactive app.
Coca-cola claims that Coke Zero has been one of the most successful product launches in its history. In the two years since its release, Coke Zero has sold nearly 450 million cases and is available in more than 100 countries. So why not take this success and broad reach to connect your fans online?
That’s exactly what cokezero.com does. The site says nothing about the product except for a wordmark that includes the tagline “Real Coke Taste. Zero Calories.” Instead, their site is home to the Facial Profiler application, which uses Facebook Connect to troll tagged images of you to help find your look-alike.
The premise? A social experiment: If millions of people like you enjoy Coke Zero, then there surely is another person that looks like you that enjoys Coke Zero.
Your new media presence doesn’t always have to be through a web browser. USAA takes personal finance management to a whole new level with their iPhone app. Unique features include:
How does the Internet see you?
That is the question that Personas, a project at MIT, asks. It’s a kind of Doppler Radar for your Web presence. Here’s what my Personas looks like.
It leaves me wondering… what’s so “illegal” about me?
I don’t think there’s anything you can decipher or definitively pull from the Personas analysis. But it is a great way to take an alternate look at your personal brand on the World Wide Web.
Here’s an analysis for Liz Pulliam Weston, a personal finance adviser, and contributor to MSN. Liz’s presence is much more diverse, colorful, and spans 29 dimensions (versus my three). If nothing else, it says that her brand touches a wide-spectrum of interest and very broadly on the Web.
And why not type in your corporate brand as well and see what comes up?
[Hat-tip to Sam Kaufman]
Read more@PadrePablo was home for 98 days this summer. And the last few days were a lot of fun as we relaxed and drove all over California with our pup, @Chibsters.
In homage to of one of the best movies we saw in theatres during these 98 days – (500) Days of Summer – we sought out Tom and Summer’s “bench” at Bunker Hill’s Angels Knoll Park. (But not before we grabbed lunch at our favorite Phillipe’s first…)
Here, @PadrePablo explains where we are:
Apparently we weren’t the only one’s with the idea as we saw other couples strolling… asking themselves “Is that the bench?” or declaring “That’s the spot!”
This is the 360° view of the park from Tom and Summer’s bench:
And here’s a 180° view of Los Angeles from the park:
If you’re so inclined to do the same, LA Times has an article and Google Maps tour of all the sites from the flick.
Read more“Journalism is the first rough draft of history.”
-Philip L Graham, Publisher, Washington Post
I had several conversations this week about how Communications Directors and other media relations folks can use Twitter to interact with the printed press. Interesting topic for a few reasons:
My colleagues and I stopped using news wires, primarily because of the cost associated with their services. The same effort that it takes to write a press release and submit it through news wires can easily be used to broadcast yourself by serving as your own news service.
Communications needs have changed, as well. I find more value in the interaction and feedback with our constituents on our blogs and social networks (primarily Facebook).
All this said, many journalists are adopting 2.0 tools in order to save their 1.0 business. Just this week, the New York Times appointed Jennifer Preston (@NYT_JenPreston) the New York Times’ first Social Media Editor. Both the Times and Washington Post are doing a great job using new media and multimedia tools, and creating unique content using free resources such as Google maps and API calls.
So how do you find the reporters/journalists that best fit your communications needs? Try these resources. (If you have other ones, let us know by leaving a comment!)
By the way, if you’re a major newspaper needing a Social Media Editor, tweet me @sherrymain. I’m interested… and interesting!
Read more