Social Media Feeds Winter Olympics Addict
I admit it. I’m a self-confessed Winter Olympics addict and always have been. This year NBC has been feeding this voracious habit across their networks sufficiently enough that I actually know the channel numbers for MSNBC and CNBC on my cable box. I’m DVRing the daytime events, staying up late to watch the extended coverage. And if that’s not enough, my iPhone has yet to leave my side; NBC has created one of the best iPhone apps I own.
Though they have been able to simplistically organize all the info you would expect on a deep website into an app easily negotiated on a mobile device, they have also put us in the same room to eavesdrop on the star-studded athletes thoughts and for fans to respond with encouragement and accolades. Continue reading
My Virtual Superbowl Party
What a great day for the New Orleans Saints and social media. And I had a blast. I was pretty pumped for this great match-up I had predicted early in the season – New Orleans Saints versus Indianapolis Colts. A few thousand people were at my party, some I knew, most I didn’t until yesterday. And it didn’t cost me more than a few beers and pretzels. My party was online and it was better than sitting in a bar next to some obnoxious over-served Vikings fan with a grudge. It was me, a roaring fire in the fireplace, a laptop, the aforementioned beverage and snacks, an amused wife, and a few thousand acquaintances from #SB44.
Insights from 2009’s Top Search Terms
It’s quite interesting to see what’s on the minds of Americans. Actually, it’s quite interesting to have readily accessible and inexpensive (free) tools, such as Google Trends, to see what’s on the minds of Americans. Why should we care? Trend spotting and observing the mindset of our fellow human beings helps us gauge the mood of the country which can affect the tonality of our advertising messaging.
We can develop better campaigns, products and services addressing those things that are deemed ‘hot’ and drop those that are ‘not.’ From a personal standpoint, viewing these search trends help us gauge our own sense of priorities in relation to others’. So what were these search terms that shaped our behavior in 2009? Read on and help me project the top searches for 2010. Continue reading
We absolutely know what you were thinking about this past year?
What do the Iran election, Michael Jackson, Google Wave, Harry Potter, American Idol, the Superbowl and #musicmonday have in common?
First Place CASE: LFGSM’s Key Market Initiative Campaign
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management (LFGSM) and CBD recently received top honors from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), District V, in its most prestigious “best practice” category for higher education communications and marketing.
For LFGSM, highly-targeted translates to highly effective. In late spring, we launched Key Market Initiative (KMI), a campaign focused on a tightly defined geographic area producing a higher-than-average number of enrollment inquiries. Integrated media drove our campaign’s performance; strategic innovative placement “made it seem like LFGSM was everywhere,” according to a prospective student.
“In the end, we saw a doubling of the number of inquiries we typically receive from those target zip codes during the spring,” said Kate Colbert, Director of Marketing at LFGSM. “The KMI project helped us demonstrate that once you know where your best customers live and work, ‘reach’ is no longer the issue. We focused on frequency of messaging and the results speak for themselves.” Understanding the media consumption to behavioral characteristics of the Lake Forest MBA prospect was key in defining the appropriate media channels and localized messaging clearly resonated within the targeted community. Once residents realized that there was a premier MBA program “in their own back yard,” they quickly moved from awareness to active engagement.
No More Textbooks in Schools?
Quite possibly, Yes! And why not? The latest personal technology rage is Amazon’s Kindle, a portable electronic reader that replaces the typical hardcover or paperback book by wirelessly downloading books and select newspapers. Currently a consumer product, the Kindle’s surface area is similar to the standard hardcover book yet the depth is no larger than a pencil. It provides a great alternative for someone who doesn’t want to lug a heavy book through the airport; needs to conserve on space during their morning commute; or to download a new book on a whim no matter where they are. And the current cost of downloads is cheaper than the real book itself.
Now think about the significance of distributing a single Kindle – a digital textbook – to each student throughout an entire school or school district instead of stacks of hardcover textbooks. The benefits are huge and the applications are limitless.
