We're not alone!

Posted by Maurice Persiani on Friday, February 26, 2010 @ 02:49 PM

I'm not necessarily the "Editor" but I am the production director for CAM Magazine (www.cammagazineonline.com), a monthly publication by the Construction Association of Michigan (www.cam-online.com). We have been publishing CAM Magazine since 1985, and I've been producing CAM Magazine since 1998 with only a skeleton crew of 2-3 writers, an editor, our sales person, myself and a graphic designer.

We started our digital revolution in summer/fall of 2008 with a sink or swim motivation, and we launched our first digital version of the magazine in December of 08. I have been striving as hard as I can to push our 125-year-old company into the forefront of Association-based digital media ever since, based largely on the breaking news via the Skinny newsletters to help guide me to the trends which seem to be sticking and working for companies like ours. I will be the first one to say that we have a long way to go to fully maximize the effectiveness of everything we are doing online, but we are making the most of what little resources we have.

Since 2008, I am publishing CAM Magazine on a monthly basis at www.cammagazineonline.com, via zmags.com and also offering our archive content on scribd.com. We have created a large Twitter following, and a Facebook page and just recently a YouTube page to distribute our magazine and association content.

As far as your article goes relating to staff training in the digital realm, I am the sole vanguard at our company who has taken it upon himself to jump into the digital deep end and run with this endeavor. In the lean economic times we have here in Michigan, spending lots of money and time on training doesn't seem to be an option for us. Not that we do not want training, but we lack the resources & time to set aside for formal class-room learning.

Just last week I, along with our editor, had the rare opportunity to attended a 3 hour seminar on social marketing and we walked away with a lot of great ideas. We have since created a long-term outline of key goals and strategies for online social marketing, and we are really looking forward to expanding our online presence and credibility in the online community. To accomplish this efficiently our goal is for me to conduct training for our staff and get everybody up to speed and on the same page.

To learn the most, our tactic has been to dig deep on the internet, keep our ears and eyes open for tips and tricks and learn as we go.

For example, one of our goals is to start up a company Blog, but not one single person at our company has any experience. To remedy this, I have taken the initiative to create my own blog site, develop content, and build a following. My next step is to take what I've learned and apply it to our company in a way that cannot fail. Because if I wait till everybody at our office fully understands and grasps the needs and benefits of social marketing we will be left in the online dust.

I figure if my 2 1/2 year-old can turn on my iPhone, play her favorite apps and watch train videos on YouTube, I should be able to pull this company into the 21st century.

As far as measurable metrics for determining if all this effort is worth it, all I had to do is Google my own magazine name. 1 year ago, one could only find the home page of the parent organization (CAM) for which you would have to dig deep just to find the magazine content. Now 7 of the top 18 links go to some form of my publication. A recent poll of our readership numbers also indicates that our monthly readership has also DOUBLED compared to one-year ago. Thank you Mr. Internet!

Posted by Matthew Austermann on Monday, March 1, 2010 @ 09:12 AM

If you are waiting for someone to come tell you how to do "digital" you are going to be left far far behind.

Posted by Robin McCabe on Monday, March 1, 2010 @ 05:01 PM