American Conference Scores Content Points

Sometimes you can easily overlook how serious you must be to succeed at content marketing. 

Once you begin a conversation with clients, customers, citizens or fans it takes time, effort and energy to maintain the connection, keep things fresh, build audience and generate loyalty.

For example take the newly established American Athletics Conference which is staging its inaugural Women Basketball Tournament this weekend.  A dedicated digital team is communicating the match-ups between 12 teams who have traveled across the US to compete.  Located court side and venturing into locker rooms, the digital team opens up the tournament to fans beyond the arena through scores, updates, images, video and interviews.  And all done at sizzling pace.

Pre-game the Conference provides mountains of player, game and season stats that would satisfy the most passionate fans of women's basketball. 

During each of the tournament's nine games fans can follow the action live on social media through scores, video and images.  

Following each contest they can either commiserate or celebrate their team's performance with post game notes, video highlights or after action quotes from players and coaches. 

The digital team runs the Conference's 10 dedicated or personal work-related social media accounts supported court-side by a video cameraman with backpack technology and a  photographer.  Which means as fans in the stadium sip beer and enjoy the game, the team is splitting eyeballs between hoops and laptops to create a treasure trove for fans over the next four days.

Of course small business, not for profits and most government agencies will never be expected to work at such intensity.   But the American Conference offers up a content marketing lesson for each.  Get serious about engaging because you need skills, firm focus and an awful lot of stamina to succeed with the people who are most important to your organisation.

For the record the digital team at the American Conference  is @TaraPetrolino, @jamieleecorun and  @Mark_Hodgkin. They synchronize efforts with other PR and marketing staff managing traditional media arrangements including live TV coverage of each game.

Marketing By The Coffee Cup: A Tale Of Harvard And Yale

I collect coffee mugs of places I've been. 

Sometimes they measure the marketing experiences I have had.    

First impressions count in content marketing, just like they do in the rest of life.  That first encounter is the point from which a customer either grants or withholds permission for you to have a continuing conversation with her.  And those conversations can stall or blossom into a relationship that benefits you both.  

But do first impressions count in the academic world?  Absolutely and here's a small example.

Harvard and Yale are two of America's long standing and most prestigious schools.  Both have produced US presidents, esteemed diplomats, corporate leaders, pioneering researchers and generations of blue chip lawyers.  I recently toured both campuses to saw first hand how they introduce their brand to the world. 

Yale

 

Yale traces its roots back to the 1640s but its marketing is as fresh as anything corporate America  serves up today.

It is a bitterly cold New England morning when I arrive at the Yale Visitor Centre, a colonial building on busy Elm Street in New Haven. Straight away I feel welcome. I'm guided to the restrooms, shown where to park downtown and invited to inspect the highly visual displays throughout the Centre.  

Dead on time a welcome video comes on to tell me about student life.  Theater students at Yale have been assigned the task of turning what could be a dry topic into a music video. Blending facts and stats with great imagery and a dollop of fun, they create a video that just screams energy. A hat tip to whoever has produced this.  They obviously know something about communicating.

Then I am out in the cold for a one and half tour of Yale's historic buildings.  My guide, a student from Singapore, is informative, easy going and punctuates history with talk on current happenings and stories about student life. I like the guy.  His energy and enthusiasm leave the feeling he is excited about being at Yale ... and if he's excited then I am too even though I'm only visiting. 

When tour time ends, I return to the Visitor Centre, ask some follow-up questions and leave clutching campus newspapers and a bag of literature (which I read).  I have had a good experience and want a  Yale memory to take back home.  I buy a $6 branded cup for my coffee mug collection. I leave happy. I've been engaged and informed so if for some reason Yale should ever contact me ... hey I'm ready to listen.  

More importantly Yale has set up a positive platform for future conversations with the parents and high school grads on my tour looking at places for a college education.

Harvard

The coffee cup I don't have

A few days on and I'm at Harvard.  Again it's brutally cold if anything Boston is colder than New Haven. Harvard was established in 1636 and now has around 2,400 faculty members and 21 000 students. It's world famous.  Like Yale I sign up for the free campus tour.

I do so in a sparse, barren shopfront opposite the old campus. The staff are efficient but lack the warmth that attracts visitors and counters a cold day.  A corporate video grinds away to the side.  A continuous loop shows authority figures like deans and professors talking about how important they, their research or their courses are.  The acoustics are poor, the walls are bare and I'm not paying attention.

The tour commences. An undergrad student takes us around.  While my Yale guide snakes me through alleyways and squares, my nice enough Harvard leader sticks to a tight script moving me quickly from site to site. I certainly don't get that special backstage feeling I get at Yale.  The weather is cold and the experience is marginally warmer.

When the walking ends I search out a Harvard coffee cup for my collection.  At Harvard's official shop I can't find one and the staff have not much interest in helping either.  Later I spy one in a nearby bookshop but it's expensive and still it's freezing so I need to move on.

So .... Harvard leaves an impression but not enough to register a coffee cup.  On the other hand every time I use my  Yale mug it will always bring back memories of communicators who put personality in their marketing.  

Harvard and Yale give me a free lesson.  Put personality into your content marketing and you're off to the best start possible in building a relationship.

   

Who Do Aussies Really Trust?

2014 Edelman Trust Barometer - Global Results from Edelman Insights

Trust is critical in content marketing or any other form of communications. The 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer shows who people around the globe trust. 

The Australian results are interesting.  Overall there has been an increase in the trust levels of Australians over the past 12 months. Specifically trust in:

• Not for profits is marginally up.
• Trust in media is up six points.
• Business has taken a 10 point leap in trust levels.
• There is a higher level of trust in government.

Interestingly Australians trust business slightly more than they do governments. 

Globally people want CEOs to communicate in a clear and transparent fashion, tell the truth regardless of the situation and regularly engage with employees.  For a clear majority these behaviours count more than CEOs being active in the media.

Mobile Phones More Important Than Sex?

Who would have thought mobile phones could be more important than sex.  

Obviously not the 9% of people who use their mobile phone during sex.
 
Infograph courtesy of Statistica

Why America Pioneered Marketing And Invented The IPAD

Ever wondered why the US leads the the way in PR, advertising and marketing? 

And why it is that Americans pioneered the great communications breakthroughs of the past 100 years?   Radio, TV, the Internet, smart devices, Google, Twitter, Facebook.  The list goes on goes on and on.

One simple but rarely mentioned reason could be that Americans love to chat, and two events this past week illustrate this. 

Jay Leno, the all American TV compere, retired last Thursday.   I did not know much about Jay.  His 22 years of TV never crossed the Pacific to Australia. Yet judging by the goodwill surrounding his farewell Jay was successful and popular. He could tell a joke and gently encourage his guests to share their stories with the rest of America. He made a career out of talking.  In a country which invented the talk show host Jay leaves as one of the best. 

A couple of days after Jay left TV, I met Jeff, someone else who enjoys a chat. 

On Saturday my wife Barbara and I were visiting historic Wethersfield in Connecticut.  We love the colonial architecture of New England which is so different from Australia. Walking down Wethersfield’s main street we ended at The Cove, a large frozen over section of the Connecticut River. Small groups huddled against the cold and were ice fishing.

I have never seen ice fishing so I ventured onto the ice to take a look. I came across Jeff who has fished The Cove for 30 years.  After a brief introduction he showed off his equipment, displayed his skills and explained why ice fishing is his preferred way to spend a Saturday in winter.  It was a free and easy (and for me an informative) exchange between two strangers.   

Americans love talking.  Whether it is watching Jay or talking to Jeff it is easy to be part of America's conversations.  The British are reserved, Parisians may demand you speak French and Australians often hold back until they know you better. By comparison Americans enthusiastically share their thoughts ... and conversations in America are easy to find. 

Wait in line at a grocery store and someone will start bantering about the weather, the price of eggs or why their team won or lost their last game. In a bar on any Main Street in America you stand beside a stranger and within minutes the two of you quickly work out your common connections through family, work or even going back to school days

Perhaps Americans are the most talkative when it comes to eating. Conversations start early and flow smoothly across the nation's restaurants, cafes and diners.  The waiter introduces himself or herself when you arrive and then patrols back and forth throughout the meal checking on your progress.  Patrons who overhear a snippet of your conversation will chip in, offering directions, advising what sights you should see or proclaiming who should win in the upcoming Oscars.  

We should all value that Americans love to chat.  Perhaps their love of talk is the real reason the great communications technologies and disciplines of the past century all bear the stamp made in the USA.