Web Ink Now

New Zealand All Blacks: Experimenting with social media to reach global fans

Early today I had an opportunity to visit the Wellington headquarters of the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU), at the invitation of David Barton-Ginger who serves as the online manager. The New Zealand Rugby Union is the governing body of rugby in New Zealand, administering all parts of the game in NZ from grass roots, Air New Zealand Cup, Rebel Sport Super 14 and the All Blacks (the national team).

David has a challenge and he would like your help.

While he has gotten started with social media (see below for details), David is in the middle of a process to convince the managers of NZRU to "lose control" and jump feet first into the swirling waters of social media.

His goals are to inform existing fans from around the world and to bring new fans to the All Blacks who may purchase shirts, caps and other items and may buy tickets to attend games.

David has a big meeting coming up in a few days and he needs to know, from you, why a sports team with fans all over the world should pay close attention to social media.

What in particular should David be doing? Please leave a comment here if you can help.

All Blacks and social media

During the season when the All Blacks are playing, the site gets more than a half million unique visitors per month. Interestingly, 80% of web visitors are from overseas.

David knows that he needs to use social media to reach fans. Several weeks ago he started a Twitter feed @NZRU and an All Blacks Facebook page and he also has a YouTube channel. These are all new initiatives.

David also administers The Direct Line on the All Blacks site. Each month NZRU selects five questions submitted by fans and put them to NZRU CEO Steve Tew to answer via video (which David films). For example, in a recent video Tew gives a brief explanation why players tend to not swap their jerseys on the field after a game anymore.

David has been with the team for five years. Like many people who gravitate to building content-rich Web sites and experimenting with social media, he came to his work by accident. "I was a foreign exchange trader with Westpac and then went to live in London for a few years and worked in banking there too. But I was looking for something more creative. I came back to New Zealand and on a whim attended a Web design course. I really enjoyed it so I started doing some Web project management in the banking industry."

Then the opportunity with the New Zealand Rugby Union came up and David grabbed it. "It was a three-month temporary assignment, but I'm still here after five years," he says.

David says while he is a big All Blacks fan, he tries to put his role first and look at things from a web perspective. He thinks that if he were much more passionate about the team, it would sometimes be more difficult to do his job.

OK, David here’s my idea.

I really think you need to play up the Haka more on the site and in social media. I suggest you consider creating a microsite with photos and video of the All Blacks and the Haka. For many new rugby fans, the Haka is the first thing that separates the All Blacks from other teams.

FYI, in case you don't know, the Haka is a traditional war dance of the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. New Zealand's national rugby team, the All Blacks, perform a Haka war chant prior to each match. In the rugby world, the All Blacks performing the Haka is definitely a World Wide Rave. I've seen this at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens and can confirm that it intimidates the other teams.

Check out the All Blacks version of the Haka here.

How about you?

What would you suggest David does to promote the All Blacks via social media?

Riding the Rave #3: In Search of the Fifth P

Here is the third installment of my three part video series Riding the Rave.

My friends Tim Washer, Scott Teems, and I put together the three part video series to show the absurdity of working with others.

Have you ever been in a discussion where the idea becomes more important than the goal? The conversation goes down a rat hole very quickly.

If you haven't seen parts one and two, you may want to check them out first.

Riding the Rave #1: David's New Manager

Riding the Rave #2: Brainstorming

Direct link to part three here.

Many thanks to the team who helped me with these videos.

Tim Washer, who plays my manager in the video, is all of the following: Host. Comedian. Writer. Presbyterian.

Scott Teems is a filmmaker. His latest film That Evening Sun, which he wrote and directed, stars Hal Holbrook and is winning awards at film festivals including South-by-Southwest where I attended the world premiere.

Is the Best Job in the World the best marketing in the world?

I'm often asked: "How do I market a commodity." My answer is predictable to those of you who read this blog: Create a world wide rave and people will share your ideas and tell your stories. Yes, even if you market a commodity.

Sandy beaches in warm and sunny locations are a commodity product.

This may come as a complete shock to people in tourism marketing, but it's true. The traditional approach of showing white beach sand with footprints near lovely blue water and a bikini or two just doesn’t cut it. But how can you stand out?

I've been following the Tourism Queensland fantastic world wide rave The Best Job in the World. Maybe you have too.

It's a contest to be chosen as Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The position has a few minor tasks, but the main thing is to use social media to talk up the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The job of blogging and posting videos pays A$150,000 for a six-month gig.

The application process required posting a one-minute video application explaining why you should be chosen as caretaker of Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Over 30,000 people applied and today the 16 shortlisted finalists were announced.

Check out the videos from the 16 finalists. They rock. And the diversity is like a lesson in great one-minute video production.

Tourism Queensland created a phenomenon.

For the past two months I've asked, by a show of hands, the groups I speak in front of if they have heard of The Best Job in the World. In Washington D.C 20% of the room had (the lowest percentage). And in Tartu, Estonia a whopping 60% had (the highest). The average over several thousand people in 6 countries was over 30%.

HOLY COW. Imagine if 30% of the world had heard of your product via a world wide rave you created?

How did Queensland, Australia get so much attention? I've been to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef twice. Yes, it is beautiful. But so are many other sandy, beachy, sparkly, bikini-clad places I've been: Koh Samui, Santorini, Barbados, Puerto Vallarta, and on and on.

Queensland found a way to get people to share their ideas and tell their stories.

Tens of thousands of bloggers and tweeters have talked up the best job in the world.

Thousands of stories have appeared in mainstream media.

I asked John Frazier and Melissa Braverman, who worked on the Best Job in the World. John and Melissa are at Quinn & Co., a New York Public Relations firm that is part of the Tourism Queensland Best Job in the World team together with Brisbane based CumminsNitro.

Frazier says that the job announcement broke in Australia on Jan. 12, 2009 and by breakfast time in London, AP was interviewing Tourism Queensland's UK director for a broadcast package which turned up later that day on the morning shows in the U.S. Within two days, there were thousands of media pickups.

Tourism Queensland set a goal to get 400,000 new visitors to their Web site over the course of the one-year campaign. They blew past that in about 30 hours and had a million hits on the second day.

DMS: What did you learn about reaching people on this project?

"We learned that if you hit the sweet-spot of the right story at the right time, it will travel like a tsunami all the way around the globe," says Melissa Braverman. "Traditional media (a Reuters exclusive) broke the story, which immediately went viral because it was a chance to have the coolest job in the world at a time when everyone else was getting laid off."

"It was a glimmer of hope at a particularly gloomy time," says John Frazier. "We've talked about this amazing success a lot internally, and we believe it was a strong idea that would have worked no matter what. However, had it come six months earlier it might not have captured the world’s imagination in quite the same way. Timing is everything!"

DMS: What advice would you have for others who want to create something that will become a World Wide Rave?

"You can't re-heat a soufflé," says Frazier. "There were quickly a number of copycat campaigns that didn't quite take off in as big a way. Best advice is to try to develop an idea that resonates authentically in the lives of real people and then find a way to mount it across as many platforms (traditional media, YouTube, ning, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) as possible."

An amazing story. Thanks to John and Melissa for sharing.

Your challenge: How will YOU create a World Wide Rave?

Riding the Rave #2: Brainstorming

Here is the second installment of my three part video series Riding the Rave. My friends Tim Washer, Scott Teems, and I put together the three part video series to show the absurdity of working with others.

You know how sometimes plans get in the way of action? The discussions become circular very quickly.

If you haven't seen part one, check it out here.

Direct link to part two on YouTube here.

Watch this blog for part three in two weeks.

Tim Washer, who plays my manager in the video, is all of the following: Host. Comedian. Writer. Presbyterian.

Scott Teems is a filmmaker. His latest film That Evening Sun, which he wrote and directed, stars Hal Holbrook. Congratulations to Scott as That Evening Sun won several awards at the South-by-Southwest festival last week. I was at the world premiere and it is terrific.

The U.S. Air Force and social media: A discussion with Colonel Michael Caldwell

On Wednesday I delivered a presentation at the United States Air Force World Wide Public Affairs Professional Development Conference. The Worldwide as they call it, is a chance for everyone who works in public affairs (PA) to get together to share ideas and learn what others have been doing by discussing communication techniques that run from traditional media relations, to partnerships, to Combat Camera and Defense Visual Information.

A big focus this year was New Media Tactics and you can see some of the discussions on Twitter.

Prior to my gig, I had a chance to sit down with Colonel Michael G. Caldwell, acting director of public affairs for the United States Air Force to discuss social media. Colonel Caldwell blogs at From an Air Force Colonel.

I was impressed with how deeply the smart people at the Air Force have thought about social media and how quickly they have jumped in. I hope that people from all organizations, particularly executives in large corporations who are often fearful and dismissive of social media, can learn from Colonel Caldwell and the examples here.

Colonel Michael G. Caldwell, David Meerman Scott, Capt. David Faggard

"We want 330,000 people to be in Public Affairs," says Colonel Caldwell. "Everyone has friends and peers and family and they are communicating with them online. But it is a major cultural change for the U.S. Air Force and I don't want us to get left behind. The game is changing."

Colonel Caldwell says that two years ago they weren't thinking about social media. Now social media is very much on the minds of all 350 or so public affairs officers in the Air Force.

"So far, this is much of a fact-finding exercise," Colonel Caldwell says. "We know these are a valid communication tools, but how do break in? We want to learn and understand the culture before we can really propagate."

The Air Force faces communications challenges that the vast majority of organizations don't have to think about. National security for example. And life and death. The Air Force has 15,000 networks and seven million IT devices (such as computers) and all need to be protected because national security is at stake.

Interestingly, Colonel Caldwell shared that some of the most efficient sensitive communication is in secure Twitter-like chatrooms with short messages on private channels. "You can't communicate with a fighter pilot using lots of wordy language," he says. "Airmen are already used to the sort of short communications popular in social media."

Some interesting data:
70% of Airmen use YouTube
50% of Airmen use Facebook
75% of Airmen use MySpace

What I find particularly interesting about the Air Force is the amazing possibilities for creating valuable information online. Hey, we’re talking about fast jets here! A good example is BlueTube.

Colonel Caldwell agrees: "We want to inspire leadership at all levels to embrace change and be a part of the solution," he says. "I want our guys going out there and talking about how their day went, either bad or good. The fact that young people in the Air Force are involved in multi-million dollar equipment is mind-blowing to people outside of the Air Force. And when people talk about what they are involved in on places like Facebook, it is more effective than a slick over-produced video."

Thank you Colonel Caldwell

I also had an opportunity to spend time with my friend Capt. David Faggard, Chief of Emerging Technology. Alert readers of this blog may recall that I interviewed Capt. Faggard late last year on this blog. I popped into Capt. Faggard's New Media Tactics and Assessment session, which was held in the "Twitter and Blogging Zone."

At his session, Capt. Faggard released a new book and video his team created, both entitled New Media and the Air Force.

The book's introduction reads: "This guide changes the way the Air Force employs social media and Web 2.0 technology, and positions the Air Force well to communicate transparently with online audiences. PA professionals can help change the way the Air Force uses these quickly developing, and evolving, trends."

A personal note:
I have been volunteering my time to work with the United States Air Force. I did not serve in the military when I was younger but have always admired those who do serve.

I am thrilled that my specialized knowledge can be put to use to help the Air Force and our country and I have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to work with such talented and enthusiastic communicators and consider this opportunity to be an important highlight of my social media work.

Riding the Rave #1: David's New Manager

You know when your marketing agency or business partner just doesn't get it? It's frustrating as hell.

friends Tim Washer, Scott Teems, and I put together a three part video series to show the absurdity of working with others.

This is part one. Direct YouTube link here.

Watch this blog for parts two and three in the next several weeks.

Tim Washer is all of the following: Host. Comedian. Writer. Presbyterian.

Scott Teems is a filmmaker. His latest film is That Evening Sun, which he wrote and directed and stars Hal Holbrook. I'll be in the audience when That Evening Sun has a world premiere on March 16, 2009 at the South-by-Southwest festival.

How will YOU create a World Wide Rave? Video and ebook

In my new video, more than a year in the making, over 100 people from all seven continents contribute to show how people spread ideas and tell stories.

Here is a direct link to the video on YouTube.

How did you do THAT?

New free ebook about how the video was made.

As I was passing around the work-in-progress video that resulted in How will YOU create a World Wide Rave?, everyone had a question about some aspect of it. How did you come up with the name World Wide Rave? The music is cool—what is it? How did you get so many photos and videos from around the world? As I answered each question, I thought back on the more than one year that the video has been in the works and the more than 100 people from all seven continents who contributed to it.

I chronicle the making of the video in a new free ebook that you can download here How Will YOU Create a World Wide Rave? Making of the Video

What's so cool about ideas that spread is that people WANT to share.

Thanks to everybody who contributed. If you’d like to put a banner on your blog, please do! I'd be honored. You can point to this post.

Blog Badge

Video by Your Business Channel
Mark Sinclair, Features Editor, with James Kirk, George Laycock, Jeremy Decoursey, David Chandler, Melanie Sinclair, Georgie Johnson

Sound Branding and Original Music by Audiobrain
Audrey Arbeeny: Executive Producer/ Creative Director
Jason Rothman: Lead Composer
Curtis Macdonald, Mitchell Yoshida and Audrey Arbeeny: Composers

Book, Poster, Website, and E-book design by Eymer Design
Doug Eymer, chief designer & resident genius
Tim Conroy, Production Wizard

World Wide Rave published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Matt Holt, Publisher and Shannon Vargo Editor, with Christine Moore, Kim Dayman, Jessica Campilango, Cynthia Shannon, Peter Knapp, Rose Sullivan, Deborah Schindlar, P.J. Campbell, and Lori Sayde-Mehrtens.

Editorial advice for World Wide Rave Kyle Matthew Oliver

Thank you to the following for their generous support of this project: Mark Fortier, Matt Sitomer, Mark Levy, Phil Myers, and Michelle Manafy.

I would like to thank the more than 100 incredibly generous people from all over the world who took photos, shot video clips, or participated in the photos that are shared with you in the video.

Singapore Management University: Michael Nestley, Ephraim Loy. Teoh Pei Ying, Jonathan Huang, Anirban Datta Gupta, Dorothy Poon, Tina Nirmal, Michelle Kusuma, and Apurva Prasanna

Social Media Breakfast in Minneapolis: Ring leader Graeme Thickens. (The only disappointment was they did not serve chipotle breakfast burritos that day.)

New Media and Public Relations class at Boston University, College of Communication: Professor Steve Quigley.

Women in Business Connection: Shelly Berman-Rubera

Team HubSpot: Mike Volpe, Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah, and Ellie Mirman

GoWeb3D Experiences: Dave Elchoness and Rahul Dutta

Ranch Lions and Wild Things, Polokwane, South Africa: Nico Prinsloo, Viv Bristow, and Frank Kasakamula.

Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and the Apollo astronauts: Buzz Aldrin, Dave Scott, Tom Stafford, Charlie Duke, Alan Bean, Jim Lovell, Vance Brand, Ed Mitchell, Al Wordon, Walt Cunningham, and Fred Haise.

Marketing Over Coffee Podcast: With John Wall and Christopher Penn

Pragmatic Marketing: Steve Johnson, Adele Revella, and Graham Joyce

The New York Islanders: Josh Bailey

Fire Station 8, Charlotte, NC: Adrian Cornette and Jason Almond

Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group: Marie Dufresne, Mark Bootherstone, and Fredrik Savin

Erin Weed
Keri Nelson
Brenda Haines
Yuri Afanasov
Chris Brogan
Laura "Pistachio" Fitton
Gary Vaynerchuk
Dr. Helaine Smith
Dianna Huff
Bob Hoey
Tim Washer
Jackie Ann Patterson
Lisa Genova
Paul Teutul Sr.
John Hodgman
Phil Lesh & Friends
Steve Garfield
Seamus Walsh
Debbie Weil
Krishna De
Mark Gladding
Reitaro Watanabe
Sandy Jeschke
Bruno Jarry
John Tatusko
Steve Yastrow
Prakash Dogra (with Leisha and Prakarsh)
Patrick Prothe
Sérgio Bastos
Tobi Singer
Donna St. Jean Conti
Gustavo Alvarado
Dimitris Christofileas
Leo Wurschmidt
Paul Baiguerra
Margarida Godinho
Damian Taubaso
David Martin
Michael Ray Hopkin (and family)
Felix Alvarado
Eugenie Verney (and daughter)
Robert Landreth
Carl-Johan Savin
Jonathan Kranz
Andrew Peters
Ricardo Prieto
Jeff Barry
the Barefoot Hawaiian
Tracy Johnson

Apologies to those I’ve missed or whose names I have misspelled. My bad. I know I’m bound to screw up a few times. (Let me know if I missed your link and I can change).

A special thank you to our canine friends who posed for photos: Pukko & Bailey

Your challenge:
How will YOU create a World Wide Rave?

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CENTURY 21 moves TV ad spend to online: Bev Thorne, CMO, tell us why

Back in October, I posted several times about Real Estate giant CENTURY 21. Initially, Matt Gentile, Director Public Relations and Brand Communications for CENTURY 21 Real Estate LLC challenged me to provide my Top 10 ideas for CENTURY 21 Real Estate to implement The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Then, I posted Attention CENTURY 21 Real Estate: Proof new marketing works because just two days after I sent my Top Ten post, Google has indexed that blog post as the number six result for the phrase CENTURY 21 Real Estate out of 1,780,000 hits.

CENTURY 21 has just announced a significant move, pulling its national television advertising in 2009 and investing those resources into online marketing.

Wow! I’ve seen CENTURY 21 TV ads for years. This is a big deal.

I had an opportunity to learn more about this from Bev Thorne, Chief Marketing Officer at CENTURY 21 Real Estate LLC. Bev kindly took time over the weekend to answer some questions about this bold move.

WebInkNow: CENTURY 21 is pulling national television advertising in 2009 and investing those resources into online marketing. Why are you doing that?

"We are moving our advertising investments to the mediums that have the greatest relevance to our target buyers and sellers, and to where the return on our investment is most significant. In 2008, we found that our online investments provided a return that was substantively higher than our more traditional, TV media investments."

WebInkNow: What have you learned about how people use the Web to buy or sell real estate that prompted this move?

"We've learned that people who are in the market to buy or sell a home utilize the Internet heavily. And the closer they get to a real estate transaction, the more they use the Web. They often self-identify when they are on various real estate sites, and they clearly identify the geographic locations and properties that they are interested in. Our online initiatives will be focused on ensuring that our listings and sales professionals are positioned in as many online channels as possible to meet the consumers' needs and then enable the transaction via an advanced CRM platform."

WebInkNow: Will you be doing some of the work in-house? Or using agencies?

"We will predominantly, but not exclusively, rely upon professionals who specialize in this area. The greatest value that we as a marketing team can bring to the CENTURY 21 System is to provide the vision and direction to our vendors and business partners. By providing industry leadership online, we are creating a competitive advantage for our brokers and agents."

WebInkNow: What are you doing in the social media space? Will you be focusing efforts on media like YouTube videos, blogs, and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others?

"CENTURY 21 is just beginning our efforts in this area, and are beginning to embrace LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Active Rain, etc. You Tube is already a central component of our activities, and we seek to utilize it even more in 2009. I know through the efforts of our PR team the power of social networking with opinion leading bloggers like yourself. In addition to the social networks and content platforms, we are also focusing on creating an environment to drive organic messaging content through sites like WebInkNow. Media monitoring is an important part of any cogent marketing strategy and we understand how important it is to leverage content and opinion in this space. Thank you for taking the time to jot down your thoughts with regard to the Top 10 Things CENTURY 21 can do to utilize social media. I am always interested in reading the opinions of thought leaders who are successfully utilizing social media in their business."

WebInkNow: Anything else you'd like to add?

"The CENTURY 21 network spans the globe. With our existing global network of over 135,000 brokers and agents, I believe that we are only beginning to understand and leverage the business possibilities through the practical application of Web 2.0 tools and social networks. Many of real estate professionals are setting the trends for us with regard to social media and we are developing a social media platform to empower those not yet comfortable in this space. It is a very exciting time to be at the forefront of real estate marketing."

WebInkNow: Thank you for taking the time to tell us what you're up to, Bev.

Editorial comment:

This is an exciting move. Many companies that spend large amounts of money on television advertising are afraid to make even a partial move away from the comfort zones and into online marketing and social media.

But the evidence of how people actually research products overwhelmingly suggests that companies must tell their stories and spread their ideas online, at the precise moment that people are searching for answers.

It will be exciting to hear from Matt and Bev in the months to come as the online initiatives kick in and produce results.

I didn't think that marketing was like torture

OK, regular readers of this blog know that I've offered a bunch of suggestions in the past few months for how to convince your boss to let you reduce the traditional marketing & PR that doesn’t work so well in an online world.

The suggestions are ways to get them to allow you to adopt the new rules.
- A top ten list for implementing the new rules
- The one question to ask new marketing & PR detractors
- An answer to the ultimate question (measurement & ROI)
- And if all else fails, you can quit your job

Now from HubSpot comes an incredibly clever music video re-mix. You should show this to your bosses if they are still resistant. In Oughta Know Inbound Marketing the multi-talented Rebecca Corliss sings her heart with alternative words to You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette.

On the HubSpot blog, you can download components to remix your own version. The component pieces of the song and video are offered to use however you like. Nice. Maybe you can sing your own version for your bosses.

Oughta Know Inbound Marketing
By Rebecca Corliss from HubSpot

If I make one more call

I might go punch a wall.

No one understands

That this doesn't work.

They hang up cause I'm a creep.

The mail I send they don't read.

They always find a way to

Ignore me.

I'm interrupting their lives

So they threaten me with knives.

I didn't think that marketing was like torture.

Cause the calls, direct mail

TV ads, they all fail.

And they aren't getting me anywhere. They don't work.

No!

And every time I try to sell

'Didja know that I'm told I should go to hell?

Then I cry. Then I cry.

And you wonder why.

I want leads

To come to me.

Fix our SEO

Get some inbound links.

RSS

Let's get blogging.

Why don't we just use inbound marketing?

You. You. You. Oughta know.

Get my page rank up.

Tag my content.

Fix my landing page.

Let them come to me.

Now I can blog I can tweet

Publish things you will read.

Won't have to bug you in the middle of dinner.

Google me organically

Search results one two and three.

You need my products? Uh huh. Yeah you'll find me.

Cause the calls, direct mail

TV ads, they all failed.

And they weren't getting me anywhere. They don't work.

No!

And every time I tried to sell

'Didja know I was told I should go to hell.

Then I cried. Then I cried.

And you wondered why.

Now my leads

They come to me

Fixed our SEO

Got some inbound links

RSS

Now we're blogging

Thank god now we use inbound marketing.

You. You. You. Oughta know.

Disclosure: I am on the HubSpot board of advisors.