There’s no mistaking it: We’re big fans of Flickr around here. We’re such fans that we’ve used Flickr a lot on Hammock.com to help power the site. And we’re constantly looking for new ways to use our account on Flickr to help us present and display our work — and share our company’s story.
So it’s no surprise we’re extremely impressed that the Library of Congress announced today (fittingly, on their blog) that they’re doing their own experimentation with Flickr on their page.
According to Librarian/Blogger Matt Raymond, “if all goes according to plan, the project will help address at least two major challenges: how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity.”
One of the interesting things about the project is that the photos posted have no copyright restrictions and, most importantly, the Library is allowing “people to tag, comment and make notes on the images, just like any other Flickr photo, which will benefit not only the community but also the collections themselves.”
So what does this mean for marketers who want to utilize new forms of online media?
We believe this is a great model for any library or archives — even those within corporations or associations — who have lots of old images gathering dust in files. Scan and post them on Flickr and let your community help you discover what treasures can be found on them.
“The Internet is an increasingly effective weapon in your arsenal of communication tools,” said public relations guru Molly Cate at a recent Nashville American Marketing Association meeting on the topic of e-Campaigns. Cate and Kristen Hayner shared tips on how to maximize Web publicity and navigate communication plans online, especially if your business is ever faced with a crisis. Here’s a list of their online communications Do’s and Don’ts:
Do:
Don’t:
We at Hammock don’t specialize in crisis communication, but we do have expertise in the social media tools—or ammunition—that the speakers endorsed. We share the same thought: Whether you are an association who wants to communicate more directly with your members, or a company who wants to engage their customers, it’s time to hop online, get connected and join the conversation.
> 8 mediacasting ideas for 2008
The goal of most corporate and association marketers is to use digital and online content to generate actions, not to attract eyeballs. The content doesn’t need to be on your website — the content needs to be in the hands, and ears, and eyes, and heads of your members or customers.
Unless your business model is advertising, page views are not the correct metric to measure your online strategy. Action, engagement, sales, enrollment, loyalty, retention, increased contributions, advocacy and education are business goals that require you to get content in your audience’s hands, eyes and heads — in any way they want to receive it. In 2008, let your content extend beyond your website. Cast it out in any way you can.
It’s no secret that Hammock founder/CEO Rex Hammock is quick to volunteer as a lab rat when it comes to experimenting with any shiny new digital media.
So it surprised no one around here yesterday when the Nashville Tennessean ran a story about his use of Twitter.com during Tuesday night’s New Hampshire election returns. The story was based on his post about the topic that appeared on his shiny new People page — as well as on his vintage weblog, Rexblog.com, which he started nearly eight years ago.
I was privileged to speak today (Jan. 10) to the Old Glory DAR Chapter in Franklin, Tenn., which had invited me to talk about American Spirit Magazine, which we produce for the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.
Although it’s been over 3 years since I was the editor, they invited me because the chapter’s program chair is the sister of a DAR member in my hometown, who had asked me to speak to her chapter a couple years ago. Small world, small towns.
Membership dues for DAR don’t include a subscription to the magazine, so the Society exhorts its chapters to encourage members to subscribe. Circulation is climbing, and, we discovered after my first speech, making a presentation to a chapter can spur members to sign up.
Part of my presentation appears in our case study on American Spirit. I also gave considerable props to the Hammock design and production folks who work magic turning words into images, and naturally to American Spirit’s editor, Jamie Roberts, for making each issue a jewel.
About 35 members and several prospective members attended the meeting at the Williamson County Public Library’s main branch. It was a stormy day – rain and thunderstorms punctuated my talk. Then, just as I was about to leave, sirens started to wail. The librarians announced there was a tornado warning—a funnel cloud in the area—and herded us all into a hallway away from windows and outside doors. So we had a chance to chat for about 20 minutes until the all-clear sounded. There wasn’t any panic, but everyone was subdued – we know tornados can hit any time of the year. (In fact. Clarksville, Tenn., got slammed almost exactly 9 years ago.
It was a memorable ending to this American Spirit road trip. Pictured here with me are Susan Walker, Old Glory Chapter Regent; Dee Smothers, Old Glory Chapter Program Chairman; and Ann Blevins, Old Glory Chapter Magazine Chairman..
Every time I’ve heard a StoryCorps segment on NPR, I’ve thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to be a part of this?” If you aren’t familiar with the program, StoryCorps is a national nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate each other’s lives through listening. The initiative has inspired thousands of Americans to travel to sound booths across the county to interview a special person in their life and record that person’s story. StoryCorps was founded in 2003 by radio documentarian David Isay, whose vision has been honored with a Peabody Award as well as by the Daughters of the American Revolution, one of Hammock’s clients.
Last fall, I was thrilled to hear that a StoryCorps booth—the fourth in the nation—was coming to the Nashville Public Library. I told my dad that he had to let me interview him, no arguments allowed.
As our interview drew near, I prepped him with questions, and he prepared a few notes to prompt his memories during our 40-minute session. When we finally found ourselves in the booth, the huge microphones and soundproof environment were a little daunting, but it didn’t take Dad long to warm up and make me laugh at stories about his youth in rural Georgia in the 1940s, his early career with the Norfolk-Southern Railroad and his courtship of my mother. Some of the stories were old favorites about the double features—usually Westerns and old serials—he and his friends watched every Saturday in his hometown, but there were a few gems I had never heard before, like the time his pet mule escaped!
We left the booth with a CD of the interview. Another CD and our photos will be sent to the Library of Congress. (Yes, one day we’ll be in the card catalog of the future!) I love listening to the recording—an amazing time capsule of some significant experiences in my dad’s life.
If you’re interested in learning more about StoryCorps, listen to weekly broadcasts on NPR or download podcasts here. And if there’s ever a booth in your area, take my advice and sign up. Don’t miss your chance to preserve a loved one’s memories.
One great thing about our seventh-floor offices are the big windows and the views we have of changing weather. I took this photo a few minutes ago — it was around 2:00 P.M. in the afternoon, but it looks like night due to the severe weather moving through Nashville. For those familiar with Nashville, this is (looking west) the junction of I-440 and West End Avenue:
Our new People pages are quickly becoming a very popular part of Hammock.com — and certainly the most history-making. Today, for example, editorial director Jamie Roberts posted a fascinating item about how she interviewed her father recently at the award-winning family-history recording project StoryCorps, which now has a booth at the Nashville Public Library. Hammock editor Bill Hudgins wrote about his speech today regarding American Spirit magazine at a Franklin, Tenn., chapter of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution. And speaking of historic events, Hammock president/coo John Lavey posted his first post ever — as in anywhere. Will wonders never cease?
> See: 2008 Custom Media Preview:
The Year of Mediacasting
As we discussed in the accompanying post, The Year of Mediacasting, the goal of most corporate and association marketers should be to use digital and online content to generate actions and build loyalty. The goal is rarely about converting page views into advertising revenue. Your content doesn’t need to be on your website — it needs to be in the hands, and ears, and eyes, and heads of your members or customers. Here are ways to “cast” your content in the ways your customers and members already want to “catch” it.
1. Podcasting: Perhaps one of the best known of the new casting models, podcasting is simply the idea of distributing MP3 (audio) files in a way that listeners can subscribe to and “catch” them when you distribute a new one. There are lots of options on how to distribute such content, but iTunes, email or attaching a file to a blog post can provide most everyone in your audience a way to receive such content in the way they choose. Links: Our favorite Podcast tool, and What is Podcasting? by Make Magazine’s Phillip Torrone.
2. Videocasting: Sometimes, called video podcasting, the idea is the same. A video file can be distributed through various channels (email, iTunes, attaching to blog posts, posting on video hosting services or social networking sites) so that your audience can receive them when you release them, not just when they land on your website.
3. IMcasting: Do you have customers, members, students, fans, employees who communicate via instant messaging? A simple way to cast to these in your audience is through the microblogging service Twitter. Link: Twitter.com FAQ: How to Twitter via IM (scroll down).
4. SMScasting: What about those in your audience who communicate primarily via text messaging? Services like Twitter allow your customers and members to following you via text messaging as well as IM. Link: Twitter.com FAQ: How to Twitter via SMS (text-messaging) (scroll down).
5. PDFcasting: Did you know you could distribute a PDF or digital magazine via iTunes or RSS feed? Well, you do now. No longer do you have to limit your audience to subscribing to a digital publication via email or, worse, coming to your site to download it. The idea also works for PowerPoint presentations or Excel documents. Simply enclose (attach) a document with anything that generates an RSS feed (a blog post, for example) and you can start document-casting immediately.
6. Photocasting: Like with audio or video podcasting, you now have several ways to distribute photography in a way that fits into how your customers and members are experiencing photography online. And by photography, we mean any form of visual content that your customers or members may enjoy — or find important — to receive from you. Link: Share Business Images by Photocasting (Apple.com)
7. Screensaver-casting: While the idea has been around for a long time — some of the earliest forms of push media used the concept — we’re testing some early versions of such tools, including FlickrFan (now, Mac only) that distribute content in ways that will make it easy for members, customers or employees to view ever-changing content (headlines, photography, web links) while their computer monitor or Internet-connected HDTV is in a rest mode. Link: FlickrFan Turns Any Photostream Into a Mac Screen Saver
8. Linkcasting: One of those easy-to-overlook content ideas is the low-effort, high-reward service you provide when you share current links to content on the web that your audience will find engaging. In addition to emailing links, take advantage of the wide array of ways to feed links to your customer or member’s desktop. Link: Here’s a “feed” of links we maintain related to media industry news.
Last night’s post-primary coverage reminded me of something. Actually, it reminded me of many things. But, the first thing that came to mind was November 8, 1994. It was the mid-term election and for an association client of Hammock Inc., a group of us helped coordinate an online election-night forum on CompuServe — a quaint little online service that used to make buggy whips. A hundred or so participants from around the country — all watching TVs at home — were chatting away about the coverage they were viewing and their response to it.
That experience led me to appreciate the enjoyment individuals have in experiencing live events in a shared-way — even if it’s from the cheap seats way up in some dial-up text-only bleachers. That night, I realized that a news event — or any type of event, say a sporting contest — is no longer merely the topic of water-cooler talk the next morning, it’s a potential real-time community gathering. A giant couch filled with friends and foes who are witty or idiotic, but who all together give an additional dimension to the event.
Since 1994, I’ve participated — and hosted — many such online gatherings, primarily among a small group of friends or colleagues. Often the gathering is done via Instant Messaging or Internet Relay (IRC) if the group is comprised of tech-savvy participants. In the past, I’ve discussed on Rexblog.com, how live events can be experienced in a completely new way when such “back channels” are available so that friends — or even strangers — can interact with one another about what they are both observing or participating in.
Last night, I had an I-see-the-light moment on Twitter when I realized that it has become — for a small segment of the world, at least — a giant real-time peanut gallery for experiencing events. I’ll admit, my additions to the conversation were mostly goofy or rude comments about what was taking place — sorta like watching the State of the Union Address on Comedy Central, but not funny. Others, however, were providing insightful and informative data (@patrickrufinni, for example).
While I’ve occasionally used Twitter for comments about sporting events, this is the first time I’ve jumped into the deep end of posting tweets on Twitter at a blistering pace. (Which is something I often un-follow people for doing.) My tweets were not worth reposting here as they — this can be said about Twitter in general — lose their meaning out of context.
However, I do know this. Using Twitter sure beats screaming at the TV.
Sidenotes: Twitter sure could benefit from having a feature that allows the creation of “groups” for topic-specific tweets. Also, the folks at Politweets.com are using the Twitter API to isolate and display tweets that include the names of candidates. A little bit glitchy but a very creative example of how Twitter can be used for something other than a confusing stream of unrelated chatter.