Awesome Mitten: How 1 website gives Michigan a high 5

If you’re even looking for a great example of how a website can celebrate and promote an entire region or state, you can point to AwesomeMitten.com. So with HighEdWeb Michigan (#hewebmi) coming up in a few short weeks, I wanted to delve into the site more and ask a few questions of Alex Beaton, who founded and leads the Awesome Mitten team.

1.) How did this site come about?

Alex Beaton

The Awesome Mitten was born when I moved back to Michigan after spending my first year post-college in Nashville. One of the reasons I moved back is that I felt so much was happening here. I saw the economy tank when I graduated, and while the unemployment rate wasn’t bouncing back as quickly as I had hoped, people were doing things. The first month I was back, I attended TedxDetroit. I left the event feeling so inspired by these people who weren’t just sharing ideas, they were sharing actions. I went home that night, and bought the domain name AwesomeMitten.com with little or no idea what I was going to do with it. I set up social accounts immediately, and for the next few months I went through several different iterations of what The Awesome Mitten would be. Eventually, by a suggestion of someone I connected with on Twitter, it was decided that the first campaign would be called 365 Days of Awesome. We would feature one cool person, place, band, business, etc. in Michigan, every day for an entire year. The campaign launched on June 6, 2011 and things took off from there!

 

2) Where do the content/content ideas come from? 

Our content comes from a team of volunteer feature and contributing writers from around the state that are insanely enthusiastic about the state of Michigan! (We refer to them as “Team Awesome.”) I can’t even begin to express how amazing they are, and how The Awesome Mitten would cease to exist without them. We accept one-time submissions from contributing writers, or monthly columns. What does it take to be a part of Team Awesome? Send a pitch to our amazing Managing Content Editor, Erin Bernhard (erin@awesomemitten.com), with a few writing samples, and we’ll talk! Content ideas come from everywhere — writers pitch us with their ideas, and businesses and organizations are constantly letting us know what they are doing that is “awesome”! We welcome ideas through a variety of media (social media, email, etc), and encourage readers to let us know what is happening in their neck of the woods. (PS: We’re desperately seeking writers and ideas from the Flint, Midland and Bay City areas — our content from that area of the state is pretty meager.)

 

3) Many of us working in web and social media are trying to promote something, often on a more micro level. How does the Awesome Mitten team do such a great job of celebrating a whole state?

Thanks for thinking we do a great job! It definitely has its challenges. Like I said, we’re aware of some of the glaring holes in our coverage, and we’re doing our best to fill them. I think coming at it from such a broad angle as the entire state of Michigan has a lot of advantages, because we’re never lacking for content: There is always something going on somewhere. After two years, we’ve developed great contacts with people who keep us regularly updated on the happenings of their town or organization. We also go through phases; for example, in the summertime, we have double the content from Traverse City that we do during the winter months. Even though TC is a destination year-round, people REALLY want to read about it in the summer. Grand Rapids is another area where we have a lot of content from, and that is because that is where our largest readership is based. Now were they readers first, so we developed our content to GR — or did we have a lot of GR content, therefore attracting more West Michigan readers? I’m not sure. 

 

We really took a lot of flack in the beginning for not covering the UP (Upper Peninsula) very well, but quickly remedied that with a partnership with Things to Do in the UP. Jesse Land, founder of that site, reached out to me pretty early on, looking for ways for us to work together, and we’ve been promoting and supporting each other ever since. I think that is a crucial part of how The Awesome Mitten has reached where it is today: We want to work with other sites promoting Michigan, and other such sites supported us from day one. Occasionally, we run across people that are very competitive, and don’t want to work together, and while I can respect that, I don’t understand it. Our site is about promoting the great things that are happening in the state of Michigan, and the awesome things that Michiganders are doing; I want to share my experiences thus far, what worked and what didn’t. I want others to succeed, because by doing that, you’re helping make our state a little more awesome! But, I’m rambling. Bottom line: we are able to cover the whole state by partnering with awesome people and organizations!

 

4) Do you have any really awesome examples of successes or feedback with the site?

I think our greatest success, the one thing that really put us on the map, was “Mitten Gate.” Back in December 2011, Travel Wisconsin unveiled a logo that depicted their state as a mitten. *GASP* How dare they!? Naturally, when I happened upon this, I tweeted about it, and hilarity ensued. The Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive contacted me later that evening asking for quotes. The next day, (Dec. 7), the Associated Press picked it up, and I took the day off from my day job. The Awesome Mitten appeared in 400 online publications: everything from the Huffington Post, Gawker, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune even did an editorial on it. I was interviewed by several radio stations, including WGN Talk Radio out of Chicago. My little website went from 700 pageviews a day to 40,000 a day for a week straight. Pure Michigan jumped into the game, teaming up with Travel Wisconsin to determine what was “The Real Mitten State”. A website for voting was launched and a “mitten drive” began in both states to collect cold-weather clothing. It was insane. Almost a year later, on Aug. 29, 2012 (my birthday!), MLive ran another article detailing the debacle and how it won Pure Michigan a US Associate Travel Mercury Award. It was also estimated that the controversy earned $17 million in free media coverage. 

 

This past January, we ran a fun campaign to celebrate Michigan’s 176th Birthday. We kicked things off with a Bake Off where we encourage local bakeries to create a Michigan-themed dessert. We then asked our readers to vote on their favorite, and awarded the winning bakery a cash prize. We wrapped things up with “tweetups” that took place in seven cities around the state of Michigan: Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Metro Detroit, Traverse City, Marquette and Ann Arbor. We encouraged people to tweet their birthday wishes all day long using the hashtag #176YearsofAwesome. Overall, the campaign was picked up by several media outlets, and grew our social fan base by almost 20 percent. The campaign also won the public relations firm we worked with, Grand PR (a student-run organization from Grand Valley State University), a PRoof Award from the West Michigan Public Relations Society of America.

 

The Awesome Mitten is constantly evolving. Right now, we’re working on two programs to better engage our readers. One will focus on finding great resources, or experts, in different communities around the state, and the other will focus on bringing Michiganders who live out of state together. We’re not afraid to try something and fail (we’ve done that) — we want to do whatever is necessary to be a valuable resource for those looking for awesome things to do in the state of Michigan, and we want to do that in a fun, relateable way.

Content is more important than channel.

For all the discussion on campuses, at conferences and in corporate cubicles about which social media channels are reliable or “the next big thing,” one fact remains: Without good content, your channels are not useful.

This lesson jumped out while I worked on our web and social media analytics report for March. Usually Pinterest drives virtually no traffic to oswego.edu (less than 50 refers per month) yet suddenly, for March, we had 1,076 referrals. Does this mean Pinterest had suddenly broken through to undeniable relevancy?

Not exactly. Almost all of that traffic (1,067) went to one page — a piece by Norman Weiner, emeritus director of our honors program, called How to Do Really Well in College. This was not the first time this page brought out-of-left-field traffic from a social network, and it appeared from several boards across Pinterest offering college advice.

For several months straight, StumbleUpon was always our third-biggest social referrer (behind Facebook and Twitter), except this month when Pinterest pushed it to fourth. What drives almost all of that StumbleUpon? You guessed it, How to Do Really Well in College. Weiner said he hears often about other colleges using it, and stats show now it has spread into the social sphere.

So those two channels have been viable traffic providers only because of one piece of content. How to Do Really Well in College is our 39th most-visited page on oswego.edu, and almost all of its traffic involves straight entries from offsite, many from social media referrals. As if we needed proof that content drives channels and traffic, not vice versa.

So I’m amazed about people always running to the newest, shiniest social media platform without any content strategy … it’s like deciding you’re going to open a business without any idea what you plan to sell. Content that tells stories — in text, photo or video — is the building block of every channel. That’s what you should pay attention to, first and foremost.

Crowdsourcing a cover shot? Sure, why not.

We’ve hoped to make the SUNY Oswego Facebook page more interactive without resorting to irrelevant claptrap (“How do you feel today?”), lame contests (“be the 14,000th to like our page and we’ll give you a prize, showing we don’t care about the first 13,999!”) or other gimmicks. So when suddenly an odd idea popped up to fit a content need, I decided to go with it.

The page still had a cover image of a snowboarder from the semi-recent Rail Jam, and as I pondered a spring shot to replace it with, I realized this would be a great time to get our tech-savvy and photo-passionate audience involved. So I posted*: “While we love our snowboarder photo, we feel like it’s time for a spring cover shot. Have any great images of campus in the spring? Post them on our wall, and maybe we’ll use yours (with credit, of course) as our next cover banner!”

[* Scott Stratten of Unmarketing would probably note that some organizations first would have to put together a committee to establish a focus group to test the message before posting it. I'm glad we can go with the flow for such things.]

The first post was a picture of a blizzard, followed by a good-natured jab or two about spring only lasting a week in Oswego, but before I had time to wonder if what seemed a decent idea would swirl down the drain, people started posting photos. Some pretty darn good photos, actually. Often sunsets, but some flowers budding and even a rainbow. Sweet!

Finally, after about 24 hours of collecting, we chose a winner:

Awesome photo by Tim Herrick

We posted it with the promised photo credit but also kept open turning some of the others into cover photos down the line. And maybe we’ll do this from time to time to see what happens. Pretty decent reaction: 165 likes, four shares and a few comments from alumni missing the famed sunset view.

It isn’t rocket science or a major innovation, I know. It’s a small thing, and I’m sure some way-too-serious sort is questioning the ROI of something that took a mere couple minutes. But it also isn’t cynically using your audience as pawns to get to an arbitrary number.

Anyone running a Facebook page will have content needs from time to time — photos are often a big one — so why not see what’s out there? There’s a pretty good chance your community has, or is willing to create, plenty of awesome! And in the process it becomes even more their community.

.eduGuru Summit: Online conference for online communicators.

Communicating in higher education, especially via web and social media, is a fast-evolving field, so it’s marvelous that so many options for professional development exist. Next week comes one such opportunity you can tackle without even leaving your office or home: the 2013 .eduGuru Summit on Wednesday and Thursday, March 27 and 28.

I’m thrilled to be part of a lineup that tackles timely topics in strategy (day one) and technology (day two). Full lineup as follows:

Wednesday, March 27, Strategy Track (eastern time zone, presuming my math skills still work):

• 10 a.m.: “How to Create a Culture of Sharing,” Donna Talarico, Elizabethtown College
• 11 a.m.: “Building a Successful Web Team,” Matt Herzberger, FIU
• noon: “Establishing a Social Media Program,” Michael McCready, NorQuest College
• 2 p.m.: “What Robocop Can Teach Us About Alumni Engagement,” Jeff Stephens, University of Florida
• 3 p.m.: “How Student Blogs, Video and More Can Help You Meet Goals and Provide Solutions,” Tim Nekritz (me), SUNY Oswego
• 4 p.m.: “I Don’t Have Your Ph.D.: Working with Faculty and the Web,” Amanda Costello, University of Minnesota

Thursday, March 28, Technical Track:

• 1o a.m.: “SEO for the Modern College Newsroom,” Kyle James, nuCloud
• 11 a.m.: “WordPress FUNctions,” Lacy Tite, Vanderbuilt University
• noon: “WordPress Themes 101,” Curtis Grymala, University of Mary Washington
• 2 p.m.: “Designing Responsively from Mobile to HD,” Philip Zastrow, University of Notre Dame
• 3 p.m.: “Rebuilding a University Homepage to be ‘Responsive.’ Twice. In Less Than a Year,” Erik Runyon, University of Notre Dame
• 4 p.m.: “Making Analytics Reporting Actionable,” Becky Vardaman

Honestly, I find every one of those tracks fascinating and several extremely useful. So consider registering for the .eduGuru online conference and joining us next week. It’s an outstanding lineup, and you don’t have to worry about canceled flights and lost luggage to attend.

Networking and newsgathering: Breaking stories via social media.

When you’re Division III college or smaller school, your first former student-athlete playing in the pros is a big deal. If your institution also is the first outlet to put out that story and scoop traditional news media, it’s a bonus. As we learned this week, networking and newsgathering are critical to making this happen.

We knew that former Laker hockey standout Eric Selleck was well-regarded in the Florida Panthers organization, albeit perhaps more as an enforcer than scorer. We didn’t expect him to be called up so soon, but the Panthers didn’t expect so many injuries. So on Monday, a couple days removed from current crop of Lakers’ trip to the Frozen Four, former SUNY Oswego sports broadcaster Sean Balogh sent me this tweet.

Students from our sports journalism program, which has produced the likes of ESPN’s Steve Levy and Linda Cohn, don’t idly pass on such rumors. But I tweeted that I was seeking verification, which brought the semi-anonymous friend who runs @OswegoTweets into the conversation.

I checked @GeorgeRichards’ tweets and sure enough:

While that was retweetable, it wasn’t enough to build a story. I contacted Oswego Sports Information Director Adele Burk but also wondered if Selleck would be the first Laker to play in the NHL. We have a long and storied hockey program, but I couldn’t recall anyone getting closer than former goalie Brett “Stretch” Leonhardt’s celebrated one-night stint filling a jersey on the Washington Capitals’ bench. So I contacted Oswego Coach Ed Gosek, who also played with many Laker legends back in the 1970s, and Joe Gladziszewski, former Laker SID, lifelong Oswego hockey fan and now the associate director of athletic communications at Ithaca College. They were confident Selleck would be the first former Laker to play in a regular-season game.

This was important because it adds great news value. Players get called up to the pro ranks every day, but the first from their alma mater to play on the highest level is a once-in-your-institutional-history story.

So what about some kind of official confirmation, a story with more detail than a tweet? Nothing from the Panthers’ website or traditional media channels. Then this tweet from Chris Horvatits, WTOP sportscaster and member of our merry band at the Frozen Four:

So I hunted down that story on the San Antonio Rampage website, which sure enough led with “Florida Panthers Executive VP/General Manager Dale Tallon announced today that the club has recalled F Eric Selleck from the San Antonio Rampage (AHL) …” I sent the confirmation link to Adele so she could finish the official story but had enough for us to file an official tweet with full context:

Soon after, Adele had the official Oswego athletics story up and out via social media:

Which gave us an official story to post on Facebook, where it was very well-received:

… and even though it seemed to take ages to confirm it, we were still way ahead of the media curve on it. Does that matter? It does if you want to establish your social media properties as places to go for breaking news (and not just canned announcements, but real-world good news). When your social media channels break stories of interest to your audience, and you value accuracy as part of it, you’re bound to build a more loyal following. Having a good social network and some newsgathering skills can help make this happen.

Working social media at an NCAA championship: Humans still come first.

Through all the action of the rollercoaster ride of being an official social media correspondent at an NCAA championship for the first time, the men’s hockey Frozen Four in Lake Placid, what I’ll remember most are the eyes.

I saw them first when Norwich came into their news conference after losing to Oswego, and more acutely the next night when Oswego entered after losing 5-3 to UW-Eau Claire in the NCAA Division III men’s hockey championship game.

The Lakers and Coach Ed Gosek meet the press after their loss. With the emotion so raw, I opted not to tweet this image.

The windows to the soul, the eyes told of tears shed. They appeared shellshocked, as happens when great seasons coming to a screeching halts. Young men who would chat amiably and look you in the eyes earlier that day now looked up, at the table or into space, still grasping the biggest defeat of their lives.

It’s a reminder that social media is, more than anything else, about human beings, about telling their stories. In DIII, student-athletes receive no scholarships and play for the love of the game, so the thrill of victory and agony of defeat are the strongest currencies. It’s the job of anyone doing social media or other coverage to tell these stories, and to remember that a loss does not automatically diminish school pride.

>> On Monday when our sparkplug SID Adele Burk suggested I apply for media credentials if I wanted to do social media for Oswego’s Facebook and Twitter accounts during the games at Lake Placid’s Herb Brooks Arena (home of the Olympic Miracle on Ice), a part of me dreaded an onerous process. But to their infinite credit, the NCAA championship guidelines are reasonable in their social media policies (pdf).

Their main concerns involve practices that would encroach on their rights to live coverage. They request official representatives of institutions and media not do real-time coverage via video, audio or blog — although we could provide “periodic updates ofscores, statistics or other brief descriptions ofthe Event” (according to their Terms and Conditions pdf). While they retained exclusive video rights, they happily supported radio stations (including Oswego’s WNYO-FM) broadcasting from the game.

I tried to get around to tweet pregame and behind-the-scenes photos, from warm-ups to event staff briefings.

The NCAA media center at the Frozen Four was run by the perpetually helpful Jon Lundin, a genial, generous gentleman who made members of all media and colleges feel right at home. I’m sure he and his team deal with their share of difficult requests, but they were always pleasant and positive people. The media center was where you could pick up credentials, statistics and handouts, as well as where postgame news conferences took place.

Lundin finally convinced me to take a seat in the press box (I had a hard time feeling official), and I was happy he did. Various media reps and communicators traded quips and also helped each other get details of things like who scored, who assisted and what penalties were called on whom as we usually tweeted out details (almost everyone there was providing Twitter coverage) before the PA announcer filled in those details.

Members of the media in the press box high above the action. We acted much less competitors than people who worked together to ensure everyone could do their jobs.

Media members are not allowed access to locker rooms and other areas where student-athletes gather for these high-pressure situations. Before the end of the game, we could request which players we wanted to speak two after the contest, and three players and the coach of each team come out. The NCAA works with a pool of photographers to minimize chaos while ensuring images are available to working media and partner schools. And no, you can’t great great photos from the press box with an iPhone, but I snapped some then quickly edited to post to Facebook during the updates I provided there at the end of each period. I updated Twitter much more frequently, but far short of the real-time play-by-play the NCAA prohibits.

The responses — especially on Facebook — far exceeded what I expected in terms of comments rooting on the team, liking and sharing. I was happy to be in a position to provide that content as well as to keep anyone unable to otherwise follow the action updated. It confirmed what I’ve always thought: Never underestimate the ability of social media channels to provide information and bolster/build community.

>> After falling in the finals, the Lakers we saw in the press conference, crestfallen though they were, came through like champions. Coach Ed Gosek made sure to talk about what these 14 seniors — who have made four straight Frozen Fours — mean to him. In doing so, he provided some very tweet-worthy quotes that resonate with what the players, the program mean to our college community. This is a key part of the narrative, so Gosek’s praise and support merited tweeting:

But observation, looking at what players do as well as what they say, is part of reporting too, whatever your media. I noticed Oswego’s players, even though they had just suffered a heart-rendering defeat, walked over to the media members who covered them (even me?) to shake hands and thank them. Since the anecdote speaks to the character of the players and the program, it was well worth sharing:

Our fans rose to the occasion to congratulate and thank the Lakers.

For their part, Laker fans on social media tended to find the silver lining. Shortly after the unfortunate conclusion, alumni and students, rather than dwelling on the loss, congratulated the Lakers for their unprecedented success, praised their never-say-die attitude and thanked them for making everyone proud. Since our Twitter philosophy is to emphasize the voices of the Oswego family, I was happy to retweet and amplify this Laker pride.

>> So as you watch March Madness and as you follow the social media accounts from member schools and media outlets, think about all the people on both sides behind the stories. Young men and women will compete hard and almost all of them will lose, and I hope their fans are just as supportive and proud as ours are. Remember that athletics, even at the highest level, are about people and their stories first.

As for me, I’ll never forget the fabulous experience, even if it didn’t culminate in an Oswego championship. And, of course, I’ll always remember the eyes.

When unicorns fight bears, we all win: Book(s) on Business of Awesome/Unawesome reviewed

Businesses and organizations have opportunities to be awesome and spread awesome in person and on the Internet every day. Businesses and organizations also have opportunities to be unawesome and spread unawesome in person and on the Internet every day. Fortunately, author/blogger/speaker Scott Stratten (aka Unmarketing) has these phenomena more than covered with his must-read two-headed book, The Business of Awesome/The Business of UnAwesome.

It’s two books in one, unflinchingly honest and unstoppably funny, but it makes one unifying point: How much you care about your customers says far more about your brand than anything else. We’ve all had good customer service and bad customer service, and these experiences linger with us long after we remember our purchase, our meal or our stay.

The Business of UnAwesome side chronicles the many awful things companies do in customer service, marketing and social media. The misguided case of the unfortunately named Boners BBQ, which assailed a customer via social media for her even-handed review (and incorrectly claimed she didn’t leave a tip). Using social media to blast information but never respond to questions. Unbelievably awful marketing gimmicks. Lavishing gifts on new customers while ignoring your loyal customers. Poor use of QR codes. So many truly terrible things somehow conveyed with great entertainment.

If that side says beware the trolls, the Business of Awesome side asks you to embrace the unicorns. Stratten repeats the beautiful story he told at #pseweb about how one man’s heartfelt apology saved his whole view of Hilton Hotels. Even awesome people and businesses make mistakes, but he shows how they make things right. Stratten lovingly details customer service that brings a smile instead of a frown, social brands that make loving them fun, small gestures that make huge impressions, companies that don’t take themselves too seriously but are very serious about pleasing their customers.

A unicorn boxing a bear, or why Chad Frierson from Austin’s Pizza is awesome.

He saves perhaps the greatest example for last: John, a customer who placed an online pizza order and added a small, silly request in the comment field, “Please draw a unicorn fighting a bear on the box.” Chad Frierson from Austin Pizza’s Call Center took the order and knew it wasn’t something the stores were equipped to do. So he drew a picture of a unicorn boxing a bear on a Post-It and sent along with a nice explanatory note ending with “I hope this suits your needs.”

“Needless to say this is the greatest thing of all time,” Stratten worte. “John uploaded the picture to display its awesomeness, which then went viral and was seen by millions of people. This story reigns supreme over all others, not just because it includes a unicorn, although that certainly helps. This was done by somebody in a frontline position with seemingly little autonomy, at no cost to the company, in an industry not known for being mind-blowing. It was done with immediacy and personality, without focus groups or a meeting beforehand. … He simply decided that unawesome is unacceptable, saw the window and acted on the awesome …”

If you’ve enjoyed perusing Stratten’s @unmarketing Twitter feed, checking out his blog or seeing him speak live, you’ll love this book. If you haven’t, yet you work in social media management and/or customer service, you really should catch up on his awesome work.

Content, not contests, key to long-term social media success.

Over the weekend, our student paper The Oswegonian racked up an amazing 158 Shares (and counting) for a photo on its Facebook page. That includes 73 Shares through the SUNY Oswego Facebook page reposting it — with the repost scoring another 480 Likes.

What didn’t these posts do? They didn’t say “Like this page for a chance to win a prize” or “Share this page if …” Why? Because good content through a good channel speaks for itself. It makes it own friends and pathways.

Say it with me: Content, not contests, is the key to social media success.

Yet my Facebook and Twitter feeds are full of posts like “We’re giving a prize to our 1000th follower!” and “Become our 5000th fan to win a prize!” This is all stunt-based and has nothing to do with content. Also, if you’re one of the followers or fans who helped build the community’s success, how should you feel that some late joiner gets a prize for just showing up (and then may leave anyway)? You’re right, you should feel slighted and unappreciated. For that matter, many are running contests that don’t adhere to Facebook terms of service, which could get the effort shut down.

>> Back to this this weekend, what attracted that huge level of interest for The Oswegonian and SUNY Oswego? A photo of the Laker men’s hockey team celebrating beating Plattsburgh (our archrivals) to win the SUNYAC championship and a return ticket to the NCAA DIII Tournament. No, it’s not an image you can get every day. But …

… it also attracted that interest because it came via channels that have built their audience through content. People have stayed connected and even watch those Facebook pages for news because of years of providing useful, helpful content.

I’ve talked before about how you shouldn’t beg for likes. Contests for likes, while looking perhaps a bit less desperate, are short-term efforts … the long-term goal is having content strategy and a commitment to making yours a lively, engaging community.

If none of the above has convinced you yet, stop to equate a Facebook page with a personal relationship. You want your friends to like you because you’re an interesting person, right? Not because you have to bribe them for affection? Social media is the same way. You want to build a relationship with the members of your community. It should be based on much more than a stunt.

After all, providing useful, helpful content to your community on a regular basis is the REAL prize … the gift that keeps on giving.

The branding of blizzards and the commodification of catastrophe.

In the media swirl around Winter Storm Nemo, many wondered why blizzards suddenly had names, like hurricanes have. Simple: It’s part of a new branding strategy by the Weather Channel. We have names like Nemo because it’s all about the Benjamins.

Weather Channel’s rationale behind the branding, er, naming of storms speaks volumes. Extracts follow:

Hurricanes and tropical storms have been given names since the 1940s. … Important dividends have resulted from attaching names to these storms:

• Naming a storm raises awareness.
• Attaching a name makes it much easier to follow a weather system’s progress.
• A storm with a name takes on a personality all its own, which adds to awareness.
• In today’s social media world, a name makes it much easier to reference in communication.
• A named storm is easier to remember and refer to in the future. …

Finally, it might even be fun and entertaining and that in itself should breed interest from our viewing public and our digital users. [Emphasis mine.] For all of these reasons, the time is right to introduce this concept for the winter season of 2012-13.

In this lesson on branding 101, the most important bit is that “should breed interest from our viewing public and our digital users” part. Translation: Branding storms will raise ratings and readership, which means higher revenues. Getting attention for your business is much easier when you have a well-defined and memorable brand, and storms are no exception. This comes, after all, from the media company that brought us the “See Friends at Risk in Severe Weather” feature. (And who finds a storm bearing down on them “fun and entertaining”?)

Video blogger Ze Frank nailed this years ago when he did an episode of The Show on branding: [F]or a brand to be successful, its emotional aftertaste has to be stronger than the more general brands that are associated with it. Your grandma, unless your grandma is Grandma Moses, isn’t as strong as the general brand “grandma.” But “grandma” is a stronger brand than the more general brand “old people.”

And “Nemo” is a stronger brand than “winter storm.” It’s easier to sell a weather disaster with a name, especially a cute one with a pop culture reference. Calling it Nemo launched a million “finding Nemo” and “just keep swimming” references and related memes. What about reasoned discourse over this storm? Ain’t nobody got time for that!

Branding storms and creating added media attention also help spread one more thing: Panic. With Nemo, like Sandy this summer, the Twitterverse filled with tweets in the order of “[College hundreds of miles away from us] cancelled classes. Why won’t my school? Don’t they care about our safety?” When you’re hoping for the shared experience of the brand Nemo, little things like geography and meteorological factors are less relevant than the feeling of being left out. Lining up for the sequel to Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, it’s as if, to paraphrase Death Cab for Cutie, the world was flat like the old days and storms can travel just by folding a map. (Disclaimer: I never fault my college or any institution for closing in the name of safety. Ever.)

Perhaps one positive offshoot could be a return to hyperlocal coverage with the volume turned down on hype. When he gave a revised and reasoned forecast on Nemo late Thursday, 9WSYR meteorologist (and SUNY Oswego alum) Dave Longley had a rather remarkable statement on his Facebook page:

I NEVER write a forecast for ratings or what I think people want to hear. I write a forecast based on the information that is presented and how it might impact CNY. I put everything into each and every forecast and I live each forecast to the end. That is my commitment to you the viewer and me as a scientist.

This, then, is where the Dave Longleys and the scientists of the world diverge from the Weather Channel, which is selling branded infotainment. Seems like it’s only a matter of time until “I Found Nemo” T-shirts crop up in their online store.

No snow job: Celebrate who you are.

We get snow in Oswego. Sometimes a lot of snow. That’s just a fact. It’s also the subject of fake photos, fiction and folklore. But it defines our part of the Upstate New York experience. The story goes that the massive 2007 blizzard in Oswego County making national headlines attracted many passionate meteorology students. (Did I mention have our own lake-effect snow research center?)

But how do you handle this from an admissions standpoint? If you pretend it doesn’t exist, it would shift from a recruitment to a retention issue after a bad winter. So we’re pretty up front about it, including our winters in everything from our admissions video to a Pinterest board.

To a degree, it all involves accepting, sometimes even celebrating, who we are. As the only U.S. campus directly on the shore of Lake Ontario, we take the ups and the downs. Snow pictures can be beautiful too, so toward the end of my lunch hour on Tuesday, I trekked to take some iPhone photos of our statue of founder Edward Austin Sheldon in front of our signature building, Sheldon Hall. Since we adopt a “been there, done that” attitude with the snow I put on a caption of “A snowy day in Oswego? We get the feeling Edward Austin Sheldon has seen this before.”

Was by no means an award-winning photo, but figured it would provide some fresh Facebook and web content, maybe get a few likes or comments. I had no idea.

No idea, that is, it would become our most-shared photo ever. With a Tuesday afternoon posting, at last glance it had 70 shares, plus 319 likes and 24 comments. The shares, as I’ve said before, are valuable because it shows someone likes your content enough to “buy” it in a sense and pass along to their friends, as it eclipsed the record of the sunset shot mentioned in this blog entry about content and serendipity.

Were all the comments positive? Not really, as some did talk about not missing the snow at all. But others yearned for their snowy fun with friends, and one alum provided one of the more interesting testimonials ever: “I visited Oswego in a snowstorm and knew it was where I wanted to be. Miss the snowball fights.” (Note: We don’t officially condone snowball fights. Just saying.)

Snow is part of the Oswego family fabric. Our winters build character, and surviving and thriving in them become a badge of honor. So even if we don’t enjoy all that shoveling, the cold, having to wear layer after layer, we can still embrace opportunities to show how this makes us special. Judging by the numbers of likes and shares, many many members of our extended campus family would agree.