ZimmComm – New Media, LLC

If you subscribe to our website you’ll get lots of information about new media, especially blogging and podcasting. To kind of put it all in perspective in one document, Eric Schwartzman, founder of iPressroom has just published a white paper titled, “New Media Marketing Communications.” You have to register to receive a copy but it’s free and easy.

There’s lots of good stuff in there. In the summary he says that “New media marketing communications programs represent the channels by which organizations may leverage the web to reach their marketing and PR objectives.” That’s exactly what they do. They work in unison with what I would call the traditional media marketing communications programs. Together you can have one extremely powerful marketing program.

If you’re serious about wanting a new way to communicate with your customers or members then podcasting will certainly provide you with a new avenue to do so. To learn more about it I recommend a conference like the Corporate Podcasting Summit. Of course you can call your friendly ZimmComm New Media rep (that would be me).

I like this line describing the event, “How to integrate the podcast into your full suite of marketing activity for profitable gain.”

Look here for the agenda and here for the blog about it.

Our local Jefferson City Chamber holds a periodic “Good Morning Jefferson City” breakfast and companies can have 30 seconds to tell everyone the “good news.” In our case we were just alerting them to our new media capabilities. We read a script and had the tagline play off my iPod on my travel speakers.

Good breakfast and a fun way to learn more about a variety of companies.

I’ve been watching this for a while since we’re a PR Web contributor and subscriber. The idea of podcasting for news release clients is an interesting one. I still wonder who listens and how they find these podcasts. It’s PR Web Podcasts which is still in “beta.” Actually I think everything on the web is in constant beta.

I mean, we’re talking a lot of podcasts here. Just visit this site and have your iTunes ready. There’s pages of podcasts to subscribe to or download. I guess I’ll try a few myself to see what they’re like and then I’ll report back.

When I first heard about them doing this it seemed to make sense. But then I wondered about the whole idea of who will know they’re there. I hope to learn more.

There’s an interesting article on e-Marketer about radio. It pretty much confirms through some research what I’ve suspected. Basically, eventhough there are a lot of alternatives to tradional AM and FM radio people still listen and are loyal. Of course they are. Who has ever said that podcasting or satellite radio would be the end of local radio stations? What these new media options mean is that consumers have more choices than ever. They will and have cut into listening time to radio stations and tv too for that matter. Thanks to MediaBuyerPlanner for the link.

The report states about the internet’s impact on radio, “far from killing the older medium, by adding more listening options and giving listeners more control, the Internet may actually be reviving it.” Let’s assume more people are willing to tune in again. I hope they have something interesting to listen to!

The report says that the internet radio listening audience is at about 52 million people, up from 37 million last time studied. The numbers they quote come from a variety of sources which are identified in the story.

Some other interesting tidbits include that Sirius and XM satellite radio services had about 9.2 million subscribers at the end of 2005 and 18% of people who don’t subsribe are seriously considering doing so in the next 12 months. 11% (27 million) of Americans have listened to podcasts and they estimate that number to grow to 51 million by 2010. There’s lots more in this article. I think it helps put new media vs. “traditional” media in perspective.

New media compliments old media. And as the numbers suggest, new media already captures a significant audience with projections showing that it will continue to grow quickly. For this reason I think marketers should be investing in these new media technologies now as they’ll be necessary if you want to have that edge needed in a competitive media world.

I get asked questions all the time about resources for blogging and podcasting. My answer is a simple one. Google for it. You will be amazed at all the information that’s available out there.

But to make it easier I’ve added a series of resource links to our site. You can find them in the right sidebar. These are all destinations that will provide you with all the information you could ever hope to find in the time you have. Most are blogs and you can subscribe to them. I recommend NewsGator as a news reader btw.

With the advent of new media technology there are a lot of legal question marks about content such as patents and trademarks, etc. iPac was created to try to get lawmakers up to date on what’s happening as they consider legislation that will affect anyone using these tools.

iPac’s first mission is to send each U. S. senator an iPod pre-loaded with content that is free on the internet. So far they’ve shipped a few. You can find the content they included here.

Interestingly a couple of the senators who have received an iPod have returned them without giving a reason.

How’s this for a great program at the National Corn Growers Association, “STATE AND NATIONAL CORN GROWERS ALL STAFF MEETING?”

Breakout Sessions 10:15 – 11:00 a.m.

How To: The Latest in Internet Applications
Chuck Zimmerman, ZimmComm New Media

I’ll be heading out early in the morning to conduct a short workshop which will consist of an online explanation and demonstration of blogging and podcasting using real world examples. If you would like to have a workshop for your staff or members please feel free to give me a call.

In case you didn’t know about it there’s a very interesting first time event going on this weekend called the International Podcasting Expo . It’s only $11 to particpate. I’m currently logged in as of this post. I’ll log in and out as I have time.

This event will run until tomorrow evening. If you want to know more about podcasting you can have me in to conduct a demonstration or get yourself logged in to this event.

The NAMA Conference is underway here in Kansas City.

It’s NAMA Connection Point time and we’re set up and ready for business.

Feel free to stop by.