As many of you (all three of my loyal followers) know I am a marketing professor at a local university. In the advanced applied marketing class a common theme amongst the clients has been “how do we reach the younger generations?”. The days of conventional newsprint, radio spots and television advertisements as a sole resource to get your promotional messages out are over. Although top executives are embracing the power of social media, they lack the understanding of why it works or even more importantly when it works.
A little background to better understand why a monkey was in my classroom. I am also the program director of a fair management program that is unique to our agribusiness department. This spring I am teaching the introduction to fairs class. Lesson plans are filled with guest speaker appearances who cover ever phase of the business of fairs and festivals.
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure to feature a new addition to the annual schedule and welcomed Karla of Pacific Wildlife . Fairs are no different from any other industry in the 21st century. They are in constant search on how to attract customers with new exhibits or events. And then how to connect or reach their consumer.
Being huge fan of content marketing, my instincts have told me that not only do many executives underestimate the power of their story, but more importantly the strength of the various platforms available to share their message. Achieving results depends on being real, in the moment, and genuine in content. Where am I going with this back story?
Karla arrived the day of class with an assistant, Lily the spider monkey. As she shared Lily with the students toward the end of class, a greater lesson came to light for me. The room full of 47 twenty year olds first reaction when Lily emerged was to grab their cell phone. From texting their friends and family, to posting photos to Instagram, Lily was an instant social media hit. As she toured the room I watched them take photos, post to Facebook and tweet away. Furthermore when I returned to my office after class’s, everyone already knew about our class visitors. Professors were sharing how their students were inquiring why their was a monkey in the agriculture building.
Not only did, Lilly blew up social media for a short period on Monday morning but confirmed many of my content marketing beliefs.
1 – The most effective content is what is happening now. Being live in the moment on tweets, photos and posts, gather the best metrics. success lies in the relevance of the message.
2 – Personal voice if more effective than a message coming from non identity sources. What do I mean by non identity sources? Well a company Facebook has no personal voice behind the message. But if the viewer could relate the message to an actual person sharing the news, the message takes on a real voice. It adds an endorsement that is sincere in nature.
3 – The wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented to attract a younger audience. I introduced a monkey into an unexpected setting and witnessed a huge response. A personal experience is the golden ticket in attractions, exhibits, fairs or even content marketing. Sharing a story that has character can carry a viral message more effective than any national advertisement campaign.
This experience has got me thinking. How do I take the cell phone as the “word of mouth” devise and channel the viral storm to a central site? How does a marketer capture these divine experience moments and translate them into promotional messages to your consumer? I am not sure just yet, but maybe if I bring a giraffe into my classroom I can gain some more data!
a little bit about a lot of things 
Lily was definitely a hit with my class which was meeting concurrently with yours. Social media is a component to the Presentation in Ag Communications class. To connect again to the ideas of how to generate followership and increase interactions/traffic, I asked my students to pull out their smart devices to see if anything interesting was going on in our building at that moment. At least 1/2 to 3/4 of the class had connections to students in your class. Immediately, questions were tossed about and included, “Why is there a monkey in AGB?” My favorite was a complaint, “She didn’t have a monkey in class when I took it!”
Well done!