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NPMA Round Up: Social Media is Marketing Tool of Today & Tomorrow
1 Jul, 2008 By: Jessica Phelan Pest Management ProfessionalIf you've looked around lately, you've likely noticed that many individuals are strolling city streets, working out in the gym and cruising the grocery store aisles wearing small white buds in their ears. Long retired is the Walkman. Long live the iPod.
Even more, you have likely noticed that the words MySpace and Facebook roll off your tongue far more easily than they did just a year ago. It's hard to remember a time when MySpace or Facebook were not a part of the everyday lives of teens, tweens and young adults. Yet, now more than ever, smart marketers are using these sites as another avenue to communicate with consumers.
With the ever-increasing popularity of these communication tools, the Professional Pest Management Alliance (PPMA) has chosen to focus a portion of their marketing power in social media. Social media is not only an exciting topic but also an important and necessary conversation for our industry to have as we face tightening market conditions and decreased availability within the daily news cycles due to the 2008 Presidential Election.
 Jessica Phelan |
In the first half of 2008, PPMA made a concerted effort to engage consumers through social media and build upon the success of Pestworld.org,
PestworldforKids.org and WhatisIPM.org. We believe it's critical to strengthen our online presence in new and unique ways to reach our current customers, our potential customers and also our employees of the future.
In February, PPMA launched its own MySpace page: NPMA Bugged Out. Addressing a younger demographic, this page mixes our important industry messages with humor as a way to connect with and engage this audience of future homeowners and employees. With features such as our Bugged Out Blog, "What Pest Are You?" Quiz and our Pest of the Month, NPMA's MySpace page is gaining momentum. Through June, we had more than 500 unique visitors to this page and we have been "Friended" by NPMA member companies as well as employees from NPMA member companies across the U.S.
In tandem with our efforts on MySpace, PPMA has also launched its own podcast series focusing upon various pests and pest prevention tips. Featuring NPMA experts, such as Greg Baumann, these podcasts run between seven to nine minutes and offer consumers practical information on thwarting and treating common household pests. The first three podcasts within the NPMA series — addressing spring pests, termites and bed bugs — are now available for download at Pestworld.org, iTunes and PMPtv (pmptv.mypmp.net). There are two additional podcasts scheduled for release through August 2008 addressing summer pests and pantry pests.
Additional episodes of the PPMA Podcast Series will be recorded in August and subsequently released through the end of 2008. I encourage each of you to not only visit Pestworld.org and subscribe to this series but also, to recommend this podcast series to your customers. Podcasts open new avenues for communicating our message of protecting public health and property through professional pest management to current and prospective consumers.
Our ability to embrace such cutting-edge technology is critical to ensure we're growing our industry by increasing consumer awareness of pest health and property issues, and the necessity of professional pest management in fresh and innovative ways.
The entire PPMA team hopes the industry's work within this exciting new marketing space will spur pest management companies to evaluate the role these tools should have within their marketing scope. In addition, we're confident PPMA's work in promoting professional pest management has been successful. For us, the bottom line is your bottom line and social media is proving to be an invaluable tool in growing it.
You can reach Phelan by e-mailing
jphelan@vaultcommunication.com.
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