The Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) won the 2010 ACLEA’s Best Award for Professional Excellence for the Virtual Coffeehouse community built and managed by Peach New Media!

The Virtual Coffeehouse is a critical part of the ISBA’s efforts to reach lawyers who are new to the practice of law and demonstrate the powerful value of membership in the ISBA.  Coffeehouse sessions are approximately 5 weeks long and include weekly live webinars with seasoned attorneys, weekly assignments to watch on-demand videos, post to message boards and forums, and blog articles written by ISBA members.

Additionally, ISBA coffeehouse registrants are eligible to receive discounts on online CLE content specifically for new lawyers.

Peach New Media was proud to provide the platform, event management, and logistical support for the Virtual Coffeehouse program and congratulate the ISBA on this great accomplishment!

Somewhere between the living room and the kitchen I had a thought…  maybe the paint fumes played a big role in this, but I started to wonder where I could find a pure white semi-gloss that I can apply to my life with the same amazingly satisfying results.

You see, just one quick stroke of pure white semi-gloss paint on my baseboards covered up all of the smudges, wood putty and the bruises from the vacuum.   All it took me was about 90 minutes and now my baseboards are one solid shade of bright, white, goodness.

So what’s my point?  I think we all have quite a few versions of pure white semi-gloss at our fingertips just waiting for us to crack them open and apply to our lives.  Maybe you can find your’s at our upcoming Association New Media Summit, a Peach Knowledge Community webinar or maybe it’s just that “phenominal” book you bought 6 months ago…  Whatever it is for you – I encourage you to find it, crack open the can and get to painting!

You see, Karen is the ultimate Support Team manager. She is invincible. No person, place, or thing has ever ticked her off.  She is ROBOCOP of support. She is always polite, courteous, professional, and even cheery in the face of angry customers, frustrated users, crazy busy days, and massive loads of stress usually piled on in very short periods of time.

So the bet quickly grew and before long we had people joining in on the bet (Karen wasn’t included on the conversation, of course), and even our Apps team offering additional winnings if there could be video to prove any claims.

Within the hour, this video was distributed internally from Dave:

Of course, the video is totally staged and Dave didn’t win any money… except a few payments from those of us who were impressed by his efforts to fake and publish the video.

I’m certainly no HR expert, so I can’t tell you how to incorporate this trait into your recruiting processes, but I can simply pass along that I hope your organization can have the same internal joke about your support team. We should all be so lucky to have a Karen Troupe!

The 2010 New Media Summit will take place on June 8th in the Association of Fundraising  Professionals’ Training Center in Arlington, VA.  We’ll welcome in person attendees as well as live webcast attendees from all over the nation for this fun day of collaboration.  We’ve lined up some great presenters and contributors for the day including association executives just like you, Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation, Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer of SocialFish, and other association technology experts.

Our goal for the day is to foster a conversation – to allow us each to contribute and learn from each other about what works, what doesn’t, and what we can do tomorrow to lead our organizations to success.  Some of the topics we’ll cover throughout the day include:

• What’s hot now in online learning and what are the upcoming trends?
• How mobile and portable devices fit into the 21st century association.
• How does new media change our role from “educator” to “curator”?
• A “three is the magic number” framework and how to implement it in your association.
• What revenue generating opportunities are available via online learning programs?

To find out the answers to these questions and more, make plans to join us on June 8th.  I look forward to seeing you there… in person or online!

In recent posts by Ken Molay, of Webinar Success, and Tim Bourquin, they each discuss how challenging it is to sell webinar recordings and archives. Our clients who offer online continuing education programs know the same thing!  We even have seen this trend developing with Knowledge Communities… the trend is this: if you market something as available 24/7/365, your audience will never do it. They don’t have a reason!  Even if they benefit from this dramatically, they will likely not do it unless you give them a specific deadline and timeline.

The Knowledge Community observation is the most interesting to me. We’ve found that even communities with good steady flow of content, often don’t get the participation they seek until they schedule a webinar, or rebroadcast, or even a Tweet-up-like chat session (where you schedule a time for your forums and message boards to be active).

While they can be, the triggers don’t have to be expensive, high production events. The point is that it is a scheduled “event” from a reputable organization. That’s enough to get at least some attention and participation.

Here are some Triggers we have used at Peach with clients with some if not great success:

1. Rebroadcasts – schedule a time to replay a live webcast or live webinar as a “Pre recorded” webinar, but the key is to have your experts online and ready to handle live Text based Q&A.  It is likely that the presentation wouldn’t have changed anyway… just the Q&A.   So take your well-produced content and schedule it to happen many times over the course of a month. It works.
2. Live Webcasts – even a simple video from a studio or conference room can be enough to entice people to your site.
3. Mandatory CE deadlines – of course these are great triggers when they come from large governing bodies. However, if your organization offers certification programs, consider the deadlines for the CEU’s for these programs as great ways to get large audiences of people online and “doing something” on your site. Be ready for the push, and plan to upsell and promote anything you have that is relevant to this segment.
4. Webinars – tried and true. Enough said! You should always be doing webinars. We do them for ourselves, and they work.  Believe me, they work!
5. Tweet-Chats – during your in-person conferences or active times of the year, schedule times when participants will be online chatting on Twitter using your hashtags.

My goal with this post is to simply get you thinking about Triggers with your online content, regardless of what it may be.  If you have more ideas, post them below in the comments section.    Now, I’d be happy to come visit your site to see what you have, but when is your next scheduled web event, exactly?

Here is the wave:

The answer, in the simplest terms, go back to the basics, improve your marketing.

In this blog, we have listed the 5 marketing tips that Peach New Media sees as the essentials to enhancing your overall marketing efforts:

Tip #1: Simplicity. When it comes to marketing, keep it simple. Be short, compelling and specific. Use bullets, lists, and brief sentences. Essentially, whether it’s an email blast, or a description on your website, customers want the information they need and they want it fast.

Tip #2: Use the tools you have; Social Media, E-mail, Partners. There are so many outlets available to you, literally at your fingertips, that can and should be used to expand your marketing efforts. Taking advantage of these opportunities is key.  There should be a link to your Webinar registration page almost anywhere you can think of. Your email signature, your Facebook page, Twitter, Blogs, your event partner’s/speaker’s email signature and their social media accounts. The new age of Social Media and E-marketing are here to assist you, so use them.

Tip #3: Listen to and know your audience. It certainly takes time, surveys, polling and analytic strategies. But you have an audience, and it is extremely important to value their opinion. Presenting them with knowledgeable speakers and relevant topics that are specific to them is what will keep them coming back. Take steps to make sure your speakers know your audience, and coach and guide them so they have a thorough understanding of what your audience is hoping to takeaway from the Webinar. Most importantly, make sure you are always trying to improve and adjust to the growth and variations within your audience.

Tip #4: Track, Analyze and Revise. After touching upon listening to your audience, it is also notable to say that it is a must to use tracking and analytical devices to keep getting better. Use surveys, polling and Google Analytics to learn about what your are doing well and what you need to adjust. In addition, use several marketing links and track them, so you get a better understanding of where your registrations came from and which channels were successful.

Tip #5: Be Consistent. Everything above won’t work without consistency. Marketing is a full-time task that needs a lot of grooming and attention. Each effort must be continuous. Updating your Social Media forums, gaining a better understanding of your audience and continuously reviewing and adjusting your strategies are tasks that must be repetitive. Consistency will make your marketing efforts a success.

Here’s why:
Smart professionals doing research in their industry want to read content that’s deemed valuable by a known community of their peers, not based on criteria like random backlinks (incoming links to a Web page, this is a factor in Google’s page rank algorithm), keyword selection, and ad dollars like Google offers.

Here’s why niche Web sites are better:

1. I don’t have to know the right keywords.
   Google doesn’t offer a non-keyword approach to content, which makes research about an unfamiliar subject difficult.  Successful industry-specific Web sites group content based on relevant sub-topics and known industry terms and approaches to information.
2. I find that content is targeted and straightforward.
   Google’s pages are lists of text and hyperlinks.  Niche Web sites offer specific, targeted content that is easy to find and read.
3. I can filter search results and browse by classification.
   Google doesn’t offer this kind of functionality.  Niche sites are so targeted, they often offer the ability to filter search results by sub-topic and the ability to browse by classification so that I can jump straight to current, relevant content.
4. I find authors I know and admire.
   Google search results pages don’t list authors.  Experts and familiar peers in the industry write content for association Web sites, not some nameless, faceless person.

   Bonus: I can connect with the SME’s (subject matter experts) of this content. Niche industry sites, like association Web sites, offer the opportunity to network and connect with industry peers and content providers.  It’s a value-add to which no search engine can compare.

5. I find content that’s related to my interests, not full of clutter.
   Google’s ads are irrelevant and getting out of control.  Good niche Web sites display content related to a user’s interests… so when I’m browsing the Institute for Supply Management Web site for the latest manufacturing data, I’m presented with the latest Report On Business®, too.
6. I find all kinds of resource types while browsing.
   Google segments its search by content type.  Good industry sites don’t only separate content by image, video, blog, or book.  Information is accurate and reliable, and segmented by content classification, not content type.

Associations are the ideal providers for these niche industry Web sites, as they usually have the inside scoop on advocacy efforts, industry trends, important shifts in thinking and early impact of outside forces on their industry.  But the power of knowledge sharing goes much further than that.  Associations have a unique opportunity to gain credibility and build their communities by not only delivering quality data, but also actionable knowledge and peer-to-peer wisdom to share in their trusted network of members.

To learn more about how associations can excel online and provide a better richer experience for members, check out the upcoming session “Competing in the Age of Google – Association Tactics for Translating Data into Knowledge and Wisdom” at the Association New Media Summit October 27^th.

1. I have to guess what keywords to use… over and over again.
   Every time I look on Google for content I know is out there, somewhere, I have to guess what keywords to use.  IMHO, this requires a superior act of skill and patience because to get the good stuff, (you know, the paid research studies, the articles by industry experts)… well, to get that stuff you pretty much have to know the lingo.
2. I find the results page overwhelming.
   Too much text, not enough substance.  I’d rather have 5 very targeted, reliable resources to read than thousands of unknown junk competing for my attention.
3. I can’t filter the results.
   Within both of my vaccine searches, it’s pretty obvious that there are subtopics to tackle… where to get it, who’s on the preferred list, latest or breaking news, how it started, etc.  Want any of that stuff?  No such logical groupings or filters are available.  Search again.
4. I believe the resources are unreliable and inaccurate.
   When reviewing the search results for “swine flu vaccine”, I noticed that Wikipedia out-ranked the CDC as a resource.  Seriously.  Don’t you think the CDC a more qualified resource to talk about swine flu facts than a bunch of wikipedians?  How am I to know if someone adding the content on Wikipedia is an expert, is a doctor, or is my next-door neighbor’s 16-year-old kid?

   Note: This is not a slam against Wikipedia, which does have some good content.  However, when I’m doing research, particularly for something that impacts my health or my business, I want to know who that person is, where they’re from, how I can reach them, what makes them an “expert”, etc.  Google offers none of that.

5. I find sponsored links are often irrelevant and just add clutter.
   I got a chuckle checking out all the people trying to make a buck off of H1N1 and swine flu…and yeah, you can bet Google’s laughing all the way to the bank.  As a prize to the most irrelevant ad, I’m providing a link to it.  The winner is: Dr Weil’s swine flu ad for antioxidant and multivitamin package.
6. I do not care about content type, I care about quality.
   I don’t care if the content is an image, video, blog, or book.  My concerns are that the content is reliable.  Videos of news clippings about H1N1/Swine flu vaccines are very relevant to my search.  Why don’t they appear in the results listing?

Bottom line, Google’s not a good research engine.  Tune in for part two, “Why niche Web sites are better than Google”.

“From my experience, a successful webinar depends upon many things. One of the most important is the engagement of the speaker. Are they passionate and knowledgeable about the topic? Are they a relaxed speaker? Can they talk to the audience and not at them? And of course, the topic is very important. Are the expectations of the audience met by the presentation/presenter?

Other thoughts:

Actual program needs to cover the advertised topics
Provide real-world examples
Provide actionable suggestions, tools, and next steps
Know the audience. If multi-national, be prepared to offer country-specific resources for information.
Avoid self-promotion or sales pitches
Have handouts that list sources for additional information for easy reference
If appropriate, pull up actual websites that may be helpful or provide screen shots
Use polling questions to engage the audience
Use the annotation tools to provide additional visual stimulation

And most importantly, have some fun. It comes across well to the audience if you are not too serious.”