Partnerships in New Media & Entertainment: Getting in the Social Media Game

EWD's New Media & Entertainment Initiative (NMEI) is a statewide network of Community College educators working in strategic partnerships with businesses, industry and community organizations to identify and meet California's workforce and economic development needs in the areas of digital arts and new media applications.
 
At a time when economic and workforce development is needed to rebuild the California economy, companies of all sizes and industry types are looking to utilize new media and Internet-based technologies to grow. But, social media can be completely overwhelming for businesses.  Where do you start?  What tool do you need to grow your business?  How do you begin?  Will it work for your type of business?
 
Metzer Farms, a Salinas Valley company that has been producing and breeding ducklings and goslings since 1978, wanted to get in the social media game and make their series of blogs come to life.  The hatchery covers every aspect of the business from breeding to shipping the highest quality birds. They attempt to be innovative in their production methods and customer-oriented in their marketing. The NMEI at Hartnell College connected Eric Brown, a video production student, with Metzer to create a series of YouTube videos that showcased an educational topic for this particular market - sexing baby ducks. YouTube was selected because of its high growth rate of users (over 400M per month) and the ability to distribute the video in a cost-effective manner.
 
Social media can support the growth of just about any business, and it's not just for youth. Forrester reports that a third of adults post at least once a week to social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and a quarter of adults publish a blog and upload video/audio they created.  Approximately 70% read blogs, tweets and watch UGC video. Online video viewing increased 35% year over year; that's 15 hours uploaded every minute!
 
The NMEI supports the growing needs of small to medium sized businesses to adopt new media applications that enable better marketing, customer service, productivity and collaboration. The curriculum and contract learning products cover the application of digital arts to new media, multimedia and entertainment. They span topics from hands-on classroom software training to community outreach and on-line seminars covering the business adoption, management and legal concerns of new media applications. For more information, contact NMEI Statewide Director, Steve Wright at 805 496 8583 or swright@cccewd.net.