Living Young & Free featured on CBS Evening News (well, kind of)

As a follow up to last week's recap post on our "T-shirt buy" with Jason Sadler of iwearyourshirt.com, here is the story that appeared on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric!

I guess I'll patiently wait by my telephone. It should start ringing off the hook... right? This experience has been way too much fun!

Tim

He wore our shirt! Fantastic fun for about $600

As I mentioned yesterday, I rented Jason Sadler's torso (of iwearyourshirt.com fame) to promote Living Young & Free. For $313, we received the use of said torso for the full day of November 17, 2009 (the 313th day of the year). To get the most bang for our buck, we added a life-size cut out of DeAndre', Josh and Myles which ran us $100 plus shipping. Finally, add in the cost of an XL T-Shirt and you've got a $600 media buy beyond compare.

For that price, we received two tweets to Jason's 23,000 Twitter followers...

Mutiple status updates to Jason's 3,000 Facebook friends...

Four Flickr photos...

One hour of live coverage on Ustream.tv...

(If the above video is all black when you press play, hit the refresh button on the lower left)

A wrap up video on YouTube and Facebook...

Four minutes on national live TV on MSNBC...

Plus, we owned Jason's home page for the day...

And if that weren't enough, Jason will be wearing our shirt on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric this coming Monday, November 23. Seriously.

What an absolute gas. Jason Sadler is the hardest working man on the Internet. I cannot believe that he does this seven days a week. What I love is that it is 100% real and authentic. There is no automation (tweeting in advance, auto DMs, etc.). Just one guy being incredibly social!

What's the social media marketing ROI of the above? I have no idea, but $600 seems like a steal to me. Thanks again to Jason Sadler, who will likely be running for U.S. President in 2012.

Tim

Jason Stadler is wearing a Living Young & Free shirt tomorrow!

I learned about Jason Stadler and his iwearyourshirt.com website in February 2009 after he'd been up and running for about a month. I love simple brilliant ideas and this is definitely one of the most original concepts I've heard about in a long time. Here's a description from Jason's site.

Well it’s a pretty simple idea and I’m a pretty simple guy. For 2009, I am selling the upper-half of my wardrobe (shirts). I am selling every day of the year at face value, so January 1 is $1 and December 31 is $365. I will be selling all 365 days without exception!

So what do you get for the day(s) you purchased? Well I’m glad you asked. You mail me your shirt (size: X-Large) and you get:

• Daily Video on YouTube & Ustream.tv
• Daily Photos on the blog & Flickr
• Daily Posts on the blog & Twitter
• Calendar (You/Your Company's Logo & Website)
• All of these with me wearing your shirt

Upon seeing this service for the first time back in February, I immediately bought a day! And tomorrow is that day. Jason will be sporting a Living Young & Free shirt and will be a honorary Young & Free Spokesperson for November 17, 2009. We've got some fun stuff planned including a contest.

I've tuned in from time to time throughout the year and have witnessed Jason turning into a one-man-social-media dynamo. His daily, one-hour live shows attract lots of viewers and he has been featured on dozens of national news sites including CNN and the New York Times.

Tune in to the live show tomorrow on Ustream.tv at noon Pacific.

Tim

Thing 17 of 30: Use Internet video

September is 30 things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader.

Thing 17: Use Internet video

Heard of YouTube? Of course you have—it's the most popular website for sharing video on the Internet. It's enables you to post, distribute and embed video on your website or blog for free. With no additional infrustructure necessary on your part. There are many credit unions using video—in fact, there are more than 6,900 video tagged with "credit union" on YouTube. This number doesn't include other popular video sharing sites like Vimeo, Blip TV and Viddler.

Obviously, many credit unions are using video to their advantage, but there are thousands and thousands that are not. If I was a credit union leader, I would use Internet video to communicate our spirit, to promote and demostrate our products and services, to empower our employees, to celebrate our member stories, to train our employees and to give our credit union an approachable personality.

If Mount Lehman Credit Union can buy its 11-employees Flip Mino camcorders, so can you.

Tim

A couple of blog interviews with me

I've been asked to be part of a couple of blog series lately.

First up was an interview with Peter Reek from Smart Savvy + Associates. I've known Peter for about 10 years and he's a great guy. He's found real success with his new marketing recruitment firm. He is an uber-connector and putting people together is exactly what he's excellent at. I was one interview among nine other marketers making a difference in the Vancouver area.

Next up, was an interview with Aaron Strout, the CMO from Powered Inc. from Austin, Texas. I am interview number 55 in a series of profiles he has been doing since January. Honestly, I'm not sure how I made the list considering the first 54 interviews are the who's who in the social media world. Well, I do know, my friend Morriss Partee from EverythingCU.com suggested me. Thanks Morriss!

Tim

United Federal stands up, takes matters into its own hands and says "We're different and you can trust us"

Michigan's United Federal Credit Union isn't sitting back and waiting for the new members to find them, they are taking a stand and have launched their own PR campaign. This is from United Federal's interactive press release.

"While Congress continues to pour billions into a bailout stimulus plan for the banking sector as a solution for economic recovery, alternative financial institutions like United Federal Credit Union (UFCU) are standing up and speaking out about being another resolution to the financial crisis, and an institution that Americans can trust."

United Federal is not beating around the bush! Nicely done. More credit unions should step up and get their good name out this way.

Tim

Is your credit union looking to attract more Moms? You better watch what you say!

I have heard this one quite a bit at my presentations this year, "This social media thing is fine and dandy, but our members aren't online. I don't see how these things that you are talking about apply to us."

I like to dispell this myth any chance I get. One of the biggest segments in the blog-o-sphere is Moms. They are active bloggers, vloggers and Twitterers. To illustrate the power of the social web and to alert you to one of the biggest corporate goof-ups blow-ups on the web this year, simply watch Motrin's brand new commercial below. From what I can gather, it was released just this past week.

This ad has enraged the Mommy blog-o-sphere. Look no further than these live search results on Twitter. In addition, there are countless video responses and blog posts popping up like wildfire. You can actually buy anti-Motrin T-shirts on Cafe Press already.

This is a constructive video response. Some of them aren't so nice.

Lessons for credit union marketers:

1. Members and potential members have a voice
2. Do not assume your members aren't online
3. Do not underestimate the power the Internet
4. Pre-test your ideas with the target market you are attempting to attract

I will be following this story closely. I am very interested to see how Motrin handles this huge PR issue in the coming weeks.

Tim

Are you listening? What your credit union can learn from EA and Tiger Woods

By keeping tabs on what is being said on-line about its products, Electronic Arts picked up on a user-generated YouTube video that demonstrated a glitch in its Tiger Woods 2008 video game. For the release of the 2009 version of the game they produced this new commercial.

 This is a quote from the WOMMA website. 

Tiger Woods Responds to Fan's YouTube Video

A fan of the video game Tiger Woods 08 posted a YouTube video highlighting a "glitch" in the video that enabled the Tiger Woods character to walk and golf on water—dubbed the "Jesus Shot." In response, and as a promotion for the Tiger Woods 09 game, game creators Electronic Arts and Woods posted a video that shows the real-life Woods taking that very same shot. The video's message: "It's not a glitch. He's just that good." It's a great example of the good ideas that can come from keeping a pulse on what people are saying about you and your brand online.

EA took a possible negative and made it into a huge positive. Well done.

Listen. React. Repeat.

Tim

Should your credit union be engaging in the social web for issue management?

A regular reader of our blog recently tipped me off to an interesting story regarding asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) being discussed on Facebook.

A group of individual investors have formed a Facebook group to draw attention to ABCP and provide a forum to discuss ABCP and its roll in the sub-prime mortgage crisis in Canada. This has been a burning story in the Canadian press for quite awhile. For the past few months most of the coverage has focused on the institutional investors, but during April and May the spotlight turned to individuals—the mom-and-pop investors whose life savings (in some cases) got trapped in what they had been told was an investment that was as secure as a GIC.

The discussion board on the Facebook group is available only to members of the group to see, but what I can relay is how these concerned members have used this social media platform as a tool to air their grievances. And I'm not talking about Gen Y—I'm talking about older, close-to-retirement (or retired) folks. They seem quite knowledgeable about the credit union system, the provincial centrals and their relationship to investment firms that service the credit union industry.

To be frank, my knowledge and understanding about these issues is limited, so without talking over my head or getting political, I am interested in starting a discussion about the questions this type of situation raises. Here are some basic questions for you and your credit union to consider.

1. Is your credit union doing enough to keep tabs on social media for issue management purposes?
2. Do the available social media tools offer credit unions an opportunity to be proactive about an issue like this?
3. And, do those of us in the credit union world tend to be too narrow in our view of who is using social media, demographically speaking?

Over to you!

Tim

PR insight: 10 tips for getting unpaid coverage.

I was recently asked to by Credit Union Executive Society (CUES) to be a guest PR Insights columnist. You might be getting sick of all this Young & Free talk, but here is some more!

How do you garner significant unpaid media attention for your credit union? Create a compelling good news story with multiple chapters.

Here's how our marketing agency worked with $1.6 billion (U.S.) Common Wealth Credit Union, Lloydminster, Alberta, to create sustained media interest that has resulted in incredible unpaid coverage for the launch of a free checking account. While free checking accounts in the U.S. are commonplace, that isn't yet the case in Canada.

Common Wealth CU approached us with a simple brief, "We want to launch a free checking account for the under-25 group and connect with the youth market in Northern Alberta."

Our solution was to name the new product Young & Free and create a fully integrated marketing campaign, combined with a spokesperson search to find the voice of Alberta's under-25 crowd. The campaign comes to life on a dedicated microsite at www.YoungFreeAlberta.com. Public relations has played a significant role in the success of this initiative...

+ Read the rest on the CUES website

+ View all of the media coverage on the program

Tim