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At about the time this post will appear on my blog I'll be speaking at the Hitwise/Australian Marketing Institute breakfast in Canberra on a topic related to Maximising engagement online whilst reducing costs.
My presentation will explore ways of identifying where audiences are going online to help organisations form appropriate strategies to target them with messages or for engagement.
This is an increasing issue for all communicators. Effectively media has fragmented, with tens of different media channels from traditional TV, newspapers and radio to a plethora of new channels such as Pay TV, console games, PC games, mobile devices and millions of websites.
Communicators have chosen several different paths to addressing this fragmentation challenge.
The first approach is the 'ostrich' - ignore all the new channels and focus on the 'traditional' mass media. This strategy continues to work - particularly for older demographics - although advertisers are paying more and more for smaller and smaller audiences.
The second is the 'spend more' approach - throw more dollars into communication in order to increase reach and frequency across different media channels. Unfortunately this also suffers from the cost curve - more money buys less media each year.
The third is the 'shout louder' approach - start spending on new media channels, but do so only to send out messages rather than encouraging conversations. Unfortunately this approach is often counter-productive. Just like shouting at someone who does not speak English, it neither improves message cut-through nor demonstrates respect for the medium or audience.
The final approach I'll discuss I call 'go with the flow'. It involves finding out where your key audiences choose to gather and then respectfully engaging them in appropriate ways. This approach requires more upfront planning and strategising than the other approaches (which may be why fewer organisations employ it), however it reaps much larger long-term benefits. Rather than simply serving as an advertising tactic it serves to create a communications and engagement platform through which organisations can interact with their key audiences on an ongoing basis.
There's no secret as to which approach I prefer as a communicator.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Reaching fragmenting audiences and maximising online engagement | Tweet |
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Free courseware for social media courses - beginning with 'Managing social media PR crisis communications' | Tweet |
Noted Australian social media expert, Laurel Papworth, is releasing a range of courseware to support people running social media courses under a Creative Commons License, allowing reuse for non-commercial or commercial purposes.
Representing a selection of the material Laurel has created over the last five years, this courseware provides individuals and organisations with materials useful in training staff to support social media initiatives.
The first courseware, Social Media PR Crisis Communications is now available for download. Physical colour versions can be published on demand for a small fee via Lulu.
Terms of use and information on further releases is available on Laurel's blog.
Laurel has also launched a Social Media Forum to support conversations around Social Media.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Excellence in e-Government Award finalists announced | Tweet |
The Department of Finance has announced the ten finalists for the 2009 Excellence on e-Government Award (e-Award).
Having followed this award for three years, I believe that this is the best set of finalists I've seen to-date and represents the gradual maturing of Australian Government online initiatives.
I've linked to more information on each of the finalists below to make it easier to locate and review the various initiatives.
- CDATA Online (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
- Pre-filling of Income Tax Returns (Australian Tax Office)
- Tax Office eLibrary (Australian Tax Office) - Intranet application only
- Child Support Estimator (Child Support Agency)
- Parliamentary Document Management System (Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations) - Intranet application only
- Visa Wizard and the Citizenship Wizard (Department of Immigration and Citizenship)
- eVisitor (Department of Immigration and Citizenship)
- AusPat (IP Australia)
- Northern Queensland Wildfire Mitigation Project (Tablelands Regional Council)
- youthcentral (Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development)
Friday, April 24, 2009
If this type of collaboration is possible, think what is possible for government online | Tweet |
As reported in Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media, the Youtube Symphony Orchestra recently performed at Carnegie Hall.
Per the post, How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall? Upload Upload Upload, the orchestra included over 90 musicians located in over 30 countries and while auditioned by professional musicians, the final players were selected by crowdsourcing.
If it is possible to bring together a symphony orchestra, and have it play a mash-up symphony online (and then together in Carnegie Hall), think of the music government agencies could make by collaborating online with each other, with other organisations and with the public.
Learn more about the symphony here.
And read about how new media is changing the entire media mix, from the perspective of the music industry in this ebook, Orchestras and New Media (PDF).
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Do you walk the talk? | Tweet |
I have been having a few conversations over the last two days with a variety of web managers regarding the level of commitment by their organisations to their online channel.
The response has been mixed. Some have a great deal of support and resourcing, others have interest but no resourcing and others have neither interest nor support.
One of the differentiators appears to be the level and range of online activity by the web managers themselves. Those that model the behaviour that they want their organisation to exhibit appear to be more effective at achieving their goals, obtaining the resources and support they need.
In other words, they are walking the talk.
This is not a new or radical approach. When teaching children it is important to model the behaviours you wish them to emulate. Equally in workplaces executives are expected to model the conduct and attitudes that staff are expected to follow.
When executives model poor behaviours it is more likely that staff will similarly behave inappropriately as, by example, the executives have given them a license to do so.
My questions to you are:
Do you use the tools and mediums you wish your organisation to adopt?
And have you worked to encourage senior executives and your Minister's office to model use of the online channel that you wish staff to emulate?
