e-Newsletters and Your Company

Very recently, we launched our company newsletter, Applecore Interactions, with three issues to date and many more to come. And really, what better time to bring it up: the e-newsletter is a subject that needs a little love.

First of all, it’s a great way to keep in touch with your customers. An e-newsletter keeps the connection you’ve built with your customers lively, and will hopefully give them a valuable taste of your expertise that leaves a favorable impression in their minds.

Plenty of readers still prefer e-Newsletters over the headlines-only approach of RSS feeds. A newsletter allows you a lot of creative freedom, and with formats that are often are a lot easier to digest.

Many businesses have struggled with the real purpose of a newsletter, both in current email format and its older paper cousin. What kind of information should it contain? How much are you writing for you…and how much for your company?

Of any good newsletter, 20-30% is promotion and news about the company. Beyond that, the most important thing is to always keep the reader in mind! It should be informative, entertaining and most importantly, worth their time! Offer articles that tie closely in with your line of business and suggest your company’s expertise in your field.

Newsletters give great feedback: you can keep track of the open rate, giving you exact numbers of how many people your newsletter is reaching. Make sure you give credit where credit’s due, linking to the full text of any article you mention or allude to—including your own blog or website!

Why not sign up for Applecore Interactions, our exclusive company newsletter? It’s full of great tips and tricks, as well all the things we stumble across in the interactive world.

The Degrees of Social Media

by J. Butler, Content Development Specialist

As of this year, Birmingham City University will be offering a one-year Master's program priced at about £4,400 ($7838.87 in Canadian dollars).

The subject matter? Social Media.

It's no joke. Students will be able to perfect their netiquette in exchange for university credits. Arguably, most students spend a generous portion of time they should be studying on Facebook or YouTube, so it seems like a time-saver to simply surf the web for the sake of academics (ha ha). Students enlisted in the program will be taught the ins and outs of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo, as well as how to maintain a blog and produce podcasts and other media projects.

Course convener Jon Hickman calls the courseload "very relevant and very scholarly," exploring "the techniques of social media, consider the development and direction of social media as a creative industry, and will contribute new research and knowledge to the field."Social media will be studied through an intensely academic eye, with a focus on scholarly research and critical analysis. Hickman feels the course holds a great deal of appeal for students, particularly those intent on entering fields like journalism or PR.

While many already in the industry have lauded the course for focusing on the scholarly aspects of social media (without any limited focus on results or metrics), the question remains: is it worth putting in that much time, money and effort for the program, especially when you consider the practical experience you lose by being in school? As Dan Thornton from Way of the Web so succinctly points out:

Certainly anyone already established in a social media role at a managerial level should be able to tick pretty much all the boxes the MA aims to deliver - and are those roles going to be offered to those graduating the course, or people more like myself who spent time in journalism and publishing, gaining additional experience in marketing and social media, before making the switch?

In addition, some students have complained the coursework is too basic, as many of those enrolled have been self-taught for years. Some critics derisively call the programs a "Master's in Facebook." But, I've heard of plenty of new, experimental college courses in my time, and enrolled in even more of them (including one on comic books, one on the philosophy of modern horror films and a course in circus stunts) and more often than not, they get off to a wobbly start. Usually all these wobbly starts levels out and the course either works, or it doesn't. If the course is truly a worthwhile "academic exploration of communication," as Hickman says, then it will surely survive the criticism once it finds its stride.

See It Here: The Birmingham City University MA in Social Media

The Inauguration in Real Time

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

The whole world—or at least, Western  media—is abuzz covering the first 100 days of Obama’s Presidency. But what was really neat was the seamless integration of the same kinds of technology that helped put him in the White House into the coverage of his first day on the job.  

CNN.com and Facebook teamed up to bring a live feed of the inauguration coverage into the homes of people around the world. The real hook, though, came in the presentation: while watching the proceedings of the inauguration, the video was spliced with a Facebook feed of status updates from users logged in around the world, updated in real time.

The linking of the two worked so well, providing a real-time reaction to what was going on and most importantly, capturing the zeitgeist of the day. Reading the joyful, almost giddy reaction of people who have never met but share a fantastic, powerful bond showcases the awesome heights that social media can reach---when done correctly. 

Who knows in what kind of direction this rapid-fire interactivity could take in the future? And what a perfect way to punctuate the first truly interactive election. 

*UPDATE!* Stats from psfk (emphasis mine): 

The inauguration prompted more than one million status updates during the event, averaging over 4,000 status updates per hour Tuesday morning and peaking at 8,500 updates every minute while President Obama was giving his speech. As of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, CNN had served 13.9 million live video streams globally since 6 a.m., according to Mashable.

Watching The Future of TV

by J. Butler, Applecore Content Development Specialist

The days of appointment TV are looking like a thing of the past.

In recent years, viewers have found themselves with more choice than ever when it comes to television, with even basic cable clocking in at nearly 75 channels. More specialty channels crop up every year, with interests so finely tuned that you have to wonder who exactly tunes in (are there really enough viewers to justify WealthTV?). But something else has changed about TV: it's not just what we watch, it's also become a choice of how we watch it. 

The writing on the wall came when Tivo first appeared on the horizon. It eclipsed the sometimes unreliable, unwieldy technology of VCR, replacing tapes with a hard drive and human forgetfulness with automatic recording (which meant that viewers would never miss an episode of their favorite shows). A pioneer in digital video recording, Tivo allowed viewers the freedom to watch their favorite shows whenever they had the time, instead of making the time.

That, it turns out, was the first wave.

Now, the internet has taken it one step further, bypassing the need for a subscription or even a special device. With the advent of YouTube, Hulu and other online resources, the only thing many viewers need to catch up on their favorite shows is a speedy internet connection. In just one year, the percentage of Americans watching some prime time TV on their computer screens instead of their TV sets went from 6% in 2007 to over 20% in 2008.

The effects of this shift aren’t hard to see. Saturday Night Live made history this year with Tina Fey’s infamous impersonation of Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin; by the following Wednesday, NBC.com reported the skit had become their most-watched viral video ever, with 5.7 million views. 

So the times began a'changing. No longer would you need to rely on external sources—such as the daily newscast or commentary programs—to catch all the highlights of the day. Miss Obama’s inaugural speech? No problem; just catch it later on YouTube. With that, history has been broken down into democratic snippets, letting everyone catch up in their own time. With the explosion of these easily uploaded, accessible video clips, the viewer is allowed to create their own highlights. 

Other networks have figured out ways to profit from this shift. New episodes of CW favorite Gossip Girl are available for purchase on iTunes the next day for $1.99, and the show’s popularity has exploded as a result—but only online, as the broadcast version consistently under-performs. The explosive online success of Gossip Girl has been called a preview of TV 3.0, and the larger networks have gradually followed suit, as ABC made popular shows Lost and Desperate Housewives into downloads for iPods, as well as streaming select episodes for free on their website. Rival powerhouses NBC and CBS quickly did the same.

This hasn't proven a huge moneymaker yet (at least not compared to the usual revenue from advertising sponsors, TV stations and cable channels) but the networks seem determined to stay on board this potentially lucrative bandwagon. It's a wise move indeed, especially as the Information Generation (that is, those born from 1980-2000 who grew up using computers) become the overwhelming majority. This kind of instantaneous delivery system is poised to only increase. 

What might be the next step in television's horizon? Telling stories in a way that lets everyone play along. A Finnish network has developed Accidental Lovers, a new romantic drama. The twist? Its concept puts the viewer in a pivotal storytelling position, encouraging text messages to influence the outcome of the story:

On the screen, viewers will see their text messages and will hear the characters respond to their messages. A glowing heart will show whether their messages are warming or cooling the hearts of the romantic couple, and viewers will see the relationship develop according to their wishes. 

If the romance doesn't progress as viewers wish, they can try again later as four runs of the programme will be broadcast showing 12 different evolutions of the love affair. Each one will be different, with each reacting to the viewers' wishes. 

Such a concept could mean the revival of appointment television once and for all—and a whole new meaning to how we see interactive media. 

How tough times will boost online marketing

Kelsey Group, a search and directory research firm, is predicting a boom in online marketing by home- and trade-services businesses. Today, just 33% of these businesses have Web sites, but Kelsey says that will nearly double by 2010. "Web sites will be viewed as a cost-effective alternative; a channel that didn't make sense in a booming market will fast become a necessity," the firm said in a news release. It suggests home-services businesses pay attention to consumer referral and community sites like Angie's List and ServiceMagic.

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