A Virtual Week at Summer Camp
So many of us benefitted from a camp in the summer—whether it was in the woods or in a science lab or in a gym, the events during those camps helped shape who we are today. One of my particular favorites is Camp Ondessonk, a rustic, outdoor Catholic youth camp in Southern Illinois.
So how could you possibly recreate such an experience in the “off season”, if you will, perhaps not exactly but as close as you can get using virtual tools? Camp Ondessonk and Elasticity are making it happen. I am currently participating in Ondessonk Online this week. While I think it is a brilliant idea, I certainly was skeptical of how to transform as much of the experience as possible into virtual activities.
From the Camper Guide we received:
This program takes place entirely within the normal activities of Facebook and Twitter. Campers will only need a basic knowledge of those two channels, as well as the basic ability to navigate the web, to participate.
So far, this has been absolutely true! I am particularly interested in how to effectively utilize social media to energize your passionate base, as well as pull a few folks into the brand experience who would not otherwise have the opportunity to meet and experience camp Ondessonk. More interesting though is how you can invoke visceral emotional reactions in the “guests” to this virtual event—so much so that they continue their engagement with Camp after virtual camp is over. Whether volunteering for work days, contributing money for campership and general operating funds, or helping recruit by talking about their great experiences, I truly hope this is one more way to keep our constituents engaged and attract more.
For now, you can watch the event unfold by following @OndessonkGA and the #ondessonk hashtag on Twitter, and the chatter on the Camp Facebook page, facebook.com/CampOndessonk. As with all things, the participants have to put effort forth in order to reap benefits after. I’ll report back the success when the week is finished.
What other events or experiences are successfully conducted online and utilizing social media? What was effective? What wasn’t?
University Branding Takes to the Air
I know this is not “new” news, but the recent addition to the fleet of Horizon Airlines airplanes to don public university branding caught my attention again. The Montana State University Bobcat theme brings the total to eight planes in the airline’s fleet promoting public universities in the northwest.
How do you measure success of that brand advertising initiative?? More importantly, how do you justify the cost? I have no clue what the price tag was for those branded planes, nor am I aware of the budget situation in these states. I do however know about the state of Illinois budget situation and the resulting pinch the public universities are facing. (And pinch is an understatement!) I would find it very hard to justify the cost without being able to prove a direct link to enrolling more students or raising more money for the foundation.
I do also recognize that each of us in the marketing field is trying to be more creative than our competition in getting our message out to our audience. This latest advertising space is certainly creative; I am just not sure how effective it is. Thoughts?
If you are really bored, you can watch the video of the Washington State University plane being painted with the school’s fight song in the background. 
Speaking of LinkedIn…
Since my last post was about LinkedIn, I thought I would share the groups to which I belong on LinkedIn. I have only included the marketing groups I find useful.
MarketingProfs– Group Profile: MarketingProfs is a community of marketers centered around smart, quick, and actionable know-how and discussion. More than 360,000 subscribers read our newsletters and blog, attend our events and seminars (both live and virtual), and participate in the MP discussion forum. (interesting note: their group profile page has a spelling error! A result of fast fingers on the keyboard I suspect. I did not repeat the mistake here.)
Inbound Marketers– Group Profile: Online group for marketing professionals. A community those looking to reach their best customers online through techniques like inbound marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) and social media. I do feel that it tends to be an engine to drive traffic to their seminars, but you can often find interesting conversations and smart people to follow here.
Southern Illinois Marketing & Communications– Group Profile: When you leave the large market, marketing and communications professionals begin to wear more hats in their career. The group is dedicated to those marketing, PR and Communications professionals who are juggling all three expertises (if not more). Since I happen to be located in Southern IL, I like this group to connect with other folks located or doing business in the area. It’s nice to stay abreast of issues specifically occurring in your region.
Are we connected yet? My profile: linkedin.com/in/bethkeserauskis
Any other groups we should know about? What do you learn from them?
How *NOT* to Ruin Your Reputation Online
I work with the student athletes here on campus to improve their skills in working with the media, but also to help them develop their reputation online. Or more immediately- how not to ruin their reputation online. I am always looking for articles, stories and examples of how social media can negatively impact a career, education or reputation to pass on to them. These are the most recent ones I have added to the list.
- 10 Ways to Get Fired For Building Your Personal Brand
- Nursing Home Employee Fired Over Facebook Photos
- How to Ungoogle Yourself
- Digital pictures are the tattoos of the Internet: You wear them forever
- Facebook Addicted Goldman Sachs Trader Is Fired
- Ottawa employees fired because of Facebook
- ‘Facebook ruined my life after web hijackers stole my ID and branded me as a prostitute’
- Twitter gets you fired in 140 characters or less
- Fisher College expels student over website entries
- 5 Ways Twitter Can Get You Fired
- Teacher Fired Over MySpace Photo
Do you have any articles that would be good for me to share with our students?
It’s Hard to Find Great Training…But I DID!
Great training/trainers are HARD to find. We have all sat through useless boring training sessions that were great cures for insomnia. Since all can relate I’m sure, I have to share an experience that was fantastic.
Yesterday, we hosted blog development, content development and marketing strategy training for a few groups here on campus. We are working with them to create a strategic communications plan. I brought in social media and blogging expert, Marijean Jaggers, vice president at Standing Partnership.
All I can say is that she was fantastic. In addition to being extremely knowledgeable on the topics, she was able to balance technical detail with the content for the non-technical folks in the group. She is just plain likable and funny to boot!
She is worth following:
And Standing Partnership is one awesome strategic communications firm to work with too!
Who’s Behind the Curtain??
Have you ever gotten excited by a technological advance on a website where you are trying to do business, only to have your hopes dashed by the fact that it is fake?? You nearly had to peel me off the ceiling this morning when I was paying a credit card bill online. I was irritated by the fact that they were charging me a $10 fee to make a same day payment, whereas two days later it was free. I fully understand that the credit card companies need ways to monetize their products, but irritating nonetheless.
They almost redeemed themselves when they had a live chat window to confirm the amount of your same day payment–here was my chance to complain about the fees to a customer service rep! The minute I strayed from the “script” they expected from me, I got the “please call this number and we will answer your questions.” Aaaah! There was NO real live person behind this chat! They even made up names, because I got a different name the second time I went through it! I would far rather they just don’t give the appearance of a live chat option than to bait and switch me! A lower tech site would have impressed me more, because they would not promise me anything they could not deliver.
So what does this mean for a business and marketing? A lot! Bottom line- don’t pretend you are something you are not, and don’t promise things that you cannot deliver!
Getting back to Marketing 101- hopefully you have defined a brand promise and value proposition for your customers. But can you deliver on that promise? The fastest way to destroy your brand is to have your customers lose faith in you. Shall we talk about Toyota? BP?
Your brand platform/promise is not only driving your external marketing, but it also serves as an internal compass driving the operations of your organization. If your employees do not understand your brand promise, how can they possibly be delivering on your promise to your customers? Thoughts?
The Importance of Doing the Right Thing
I know, it sounds like a lesson you learned in kindergarten. Unfortunately, many companies still don’t understand it though.
I’ve had several conversations lately about the PR implications of negative actions taken or substantial errors made by companies or employees. And inevitably, there is always a suggestion that we figure out how to “cover this up”. I shake my head, and my response is typically the same: has anyone thought about perhaps admitting an error, issuing a heartfelt apology, and outlining the steps you are taking to fix the problem and safeguard against repeating history?
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Wouldn’t you find it easier to forgive a company for a wrongdoing if they apologized and fixed it, versus tried to cover it up? How about Toyota’s recent mechanical problems–they were slow to speak in the public and apologize, but once they did, it focused the conversation away from trying to catch them to talking about how the problem is going to be fixed.
Yes, there will be a time when their brand will suffer. However, they have worked very hard in the past to build relationships with their customers, to the tune of significant brand loyalty. It will take some time, but it will be easier for them to rebuild trust than if they had not built that relationship foundation.
Sorry for the brand loyalty digression, but the message is the same. If you do the right thing to fulfill your mission and satisfy your customers, handling times of crisis becomes so much easier. So when we ask ourselves what we are going to do about a particular situation, the answer to me is easy: what is the right thing to do for our employees, our customers, and our other publics?
Building Your Personal Brand
I saw a segment with Steadman Graham this morning on FOX 2 News, talking about how you have to know who you are before you can get out in the business world and trying to sell yourself as an employee to a company or as a resourcing company. It seems very appropriate to talk about how, as an individual, you need to also manage your reputation, in addition to your company or organization that you’re working for.
As I help someone near and dear to me work on her resume after 35 years at the same company, I’m reminding myself that we need to not only to fill the resume, we also need to discover what are her core strengths and how can we package that into a proposition for a company, a set of resources for a company that’s going to hire versus just an individual with a great resume. My challenge today is to think about how you can invent yourself as an individual with a value proposition–this is ironic because I spend so much time helping companies and figure out who they are and how to fill the need of their customers. My next challenge is going to be how to bring that down to the individual level, and help this person near and dear to my heart package and present themselves to companies as a valuable resource.
LinkedIn is a great tool I strongly advocate. I have several examples of success using LinkedIn as a networking tool, including as a way for companies to find candidates for their marketing positions. Now my challenge is going to become having a real example or case study of helping individuals create their strengths and package them as a resource for businesses in the area as they look to start phase two of their career.
Ed-Glen Chamber Presentation
Today I spoke with the members of the Edwardsville-Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce. They invited me to speak with them about incorporating social media tools in their marketing strategy. If you missed the event, or are just plain curious, you can download my slide deck on SlideShare, along with several recent presentations I have made on web user behavior (specifically millenials) and more (http://www.slideshare.net/bethkeserauskis).
The Immeasurable Success Measurements
I often wonder how you can determine whether your brand has become successful, and whether your current customers, or in our case, our current students, have truly embraced what we are trying to establish as the brand of our organization.
One example that I found recently is that students are clamoring to become part of our advertising campaign. We do feature real students and faculty in our advertising, prints, billboard, radio, and their stories – their actual stories of success, or the path that they have taken to get to SIUE. And recently, I have heard that there are students that are asking how they can get involved and be on a billboard, or be one of our student testimonials on our website.
I understand that part of that is their vanity and wanting to see their face on a billboard, but it does tell me that they are extremely proud to represent SIUE. No matter how vain you are, if you don’t believe in what you are representing, it becomes very difficult to slap on a logo and associate it with your face. So, it made me quite happy to find out that there are students who are truly interested in becoming the face and voice of SIUE. That is just one very intangible way that I measure whether what we are trying to do with our brand is being successful. In a series of later posts, I will talk about some specific measurable returns on investments that you can take a look at to see if you are being successful with your brand advertising campaign.
About Me
I am currently the president and general manager at Access Marketing Company. You can read my full resume on my LinkedIn profile. Some of my favorite accomplishments include canning and preserving much of my summer vegetable and fruit garden, being part of the St. Louis Business Journal Class of 2007 Top 40 under 40, and continuing to play beach doubles volleyball – even placing in an EVP doubles tournament.
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Beth Keserauskis 