I don’t often write about microblogging. I’m not a road warrior and I have a strong preference for my desktop with its big keyboard and monitor. The limitations of microblogging also don’t fit my concept for this blog.
Ok, so it’s not for me. In spite of that, I see the potential usefulness to some people or in some situations. So I was interested when a colleague brought this site to my attention. It had been sent to her by Dr. Paul Levy, the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, whose blog I know. His use of the site suggested it was worth checking out.
The first thing I found was that you can post to many other platforms from Utterli. If you can recognize the icons on the home page, they include all the major blogging services, Twitter, YouTube and others. You can also follow friends on Utterli as you can on other sites like Twitter.
When I looked a little further I found an interview with Dr. Levy himself. He’s talking with WBUR about everything from preventing medical errors to the impact on philanthropy of the Bernard Maddof financial scandal. As a radio station, WBUR is essentially producing podcasts, and they have posted many of them on Utterli. Interesting.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Robust Microblogging Tool
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Podcasting for Marketers
In recent weeks I’ve been talking to two people in very different situations about adding podcasts to their marketing communications offering. The situations are different, but the common theme is the desire to provide detailed information and various perspectives to identifiable niche markets. I’ve been looking at both the mechanics and best practices for those who wish to podcast. For marketers who don’t want to podcast themselves, podcasts that successfully reach their target audiences offer another advertising opportunity.
A 2005 post on the O’Reilly digital media blog outlines the basics. It all still applies except that the hardware changes quickly, so you’ll want to look for latest, well-reviewed pieces of equipment. The good news is that not much is necessary—a mic for your laptop and podcasting software will get you started. Active podcasters like to record in the field and there are many cool new devices for capturing live events. You’ll also notice that there is more software available for Apple systems than for Microsoft—surprise, surprise!—but whichever operating system you use, you can find what you need, and free software will meet most needs.
That said, it’s not the technology that’s the issue, it’s identifying the need for podcasts and integrating them into your overall marketing communications strategy. Christopher Penn, CIO of the Student Loan Network, is well known in the podcasting community for the success of his podcasts. He has a clear target audience—prospective and actual college students and their parents. They need the information in his podcasts and he makes it easy to subscribe, even pointing out that an iPod isn’t necessary. Most podcasters simply have a page on the main site. Chris has a well-organized microsite that is visually integrated with the main site while it focuses visitors on the podcasts. He podcasts on a consistent schedule and often brings in outside experts. His microsite is welcoming to parents who aren’t into the new media scene, while it encourages their children to do things like “add this to your Facebook page.” It also has other features that engage his high-school and college age audience such as links to “free stuff” and job search information. Brian Carroll offers good advice for beginning podcasters on Marketing Profs (free registration required).
Lesson #1: Producing your own podcasts must be an element of overall communications strategy. In developing a podcasting strategy, ask questions like “is this a customer acquisition or retention mechanism?” and “how am I going to attract listeners/subscribers to the podcasts?” Answering the second question will put the issue of integrated marketing communications squarely into focus.
It has been a couple of years since leading-edge marketers recognized that advertising on or sponsoring podcasts was a targeted advertising opportunity. One of the first to acquire sponsorship was MommyCast, still sponsored by Dixie. Since I was last on the site they have added a weekly Internet radio show to their product line. Young mothers rely heavily on the Internet for information and this successful podcast has turned out to be a great way to reach them. Ad networks Radio Tail and Wizzard Media help marketers reach the niche markets represented by podcasts and Podbridge/Volo Media offers metrics services. Here’s some advice for advertisers.
The conventional wisdom is that B2B marketers have been slow to adopt podcasts, which seem a natural for reaching customers with current developments. Current data about B2B podcasting is in short supply, but a directory called PodFeed lists over 600 podcasts that have the tag “business.”
Lesson #2: Marketers can sponsor individual podcasts or use ad networks to reach podcast audiences with their online advertising.
Podcasts probably aren’t for everyone (marketer or user!) but their ability to deliver information to customers and advertising to targeted audiences makes them worthy of consideration.
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Thursday, November 29, 2007
Savy Students and a Marketing Icon
The two go together, don’t they? A team of students from the Integrated Marketing Communications program at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University recently sent me the link. They had produced a podcast interview with Don Schultz, who has already been featured in this blog.
Don is a veteran advertiser and educator who has been a role model and mentor to many of us. That’s probably the reason he has a Wikipedia entry. It’s a delight to hear Don talk about the evolution of integrated marketing communications and speculate on the future. Do take a few minutes and listen to the podcast.
As you do, think about the students who are learning to use social media techniques and the academic programs that are fostering that kind of real world relevance. In my early explorations of DIY Marketing I required a class of MBA students to each “build” something using freely-available applications. They looked at me with dismay; they were marketing students and the idea of exploring the applications wasn’t what they expected. But they got over their initial shock and came up with some great ideas. A couple built wikis, one set up filters (in the days before Google Alerts) to monitor the web for mentions of his company, several did podcasts or blogs. No one bought any software; one did have to buy a microphone--$17 as I remember, but that was the extent of the entire class’s expenditure.
At least one project made it into the marketing communications repertoire of the student’s firm. None of the projects that featured their own academic program were picked up by the administration, but—true to my prediction—a student group soon started their own independent blog. Higher ed has a real problem with open communications about programs, courses, and faculty. It’s even worse when it’s undergraduates where parents may see what’s going on.
These students are the future of our discipline. They need to be grounded in business-relevant, business-appropriate use of social media tools. Otherwise they may meet the fate of the bank intern who was all over the web the week after Halloween. This could be an urban myth, but no one has yet exposed it as a hoax, and the pictures are great!
Academics need to make the extra effort and practitioners really need to support them with guest lectures, curriculum support, internship programs and more in order to make this happen. Then we’ll have more great creative products like this one from Medill. Thanks, gang!
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