Clients
The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) is the industry peak body for Australia’s information and communications technology (ICT) industry. To recognise Australia’s most outstanding ICT innovators, AIIA organises the annual iAwards, a leading awards program for Australian technology innovators that recognises innovative companies at a state and national level.
Challenge
Although the iAwards was a very established industry award, it competed with many other ICT industry awards given out by IT vendors and publishers. Many of the award entrants were start up companies that did not have a strong company profile and this created an additional challenge in having to educate the media about their business.
Beyond using media publicity to promote the iAwards, AIIA was also interested in looking at how social media can be used in its communications strategy to raise the profile of 2009 iAward winners.
Solution
Max worked with the AIIA to develop a media outreach program to promote the iAwards finalists and winners. It also recommended the use of YouTube to raise the profile of the iAwards.
Max put out media alerts to drive awareness for the various deadlines for the awards and it distributed media releases to announce state based finalists. In addition to reaching out to metropolitan and IT media, Max conducted extensive media outreach for finalists and winners through regional media and vertical publications in an effort to gain further media coverage.
In a first for AIIA and the iAwards, Max developed a YouTube channel to feature video case studies of the iAwards winners. These video case studies were produced during the awards judging process where finalists were interviewed -- providing an introduction about their company, the product/solution they submitted and discussed what winning the award would mean to their company.
The channel was promoted in the 2009 iAwards winners media announcement, AIIA’s membership base and to the iAwards winners.
Benefits
The iAwards was widely covered in a wide variety of publications including Dynamic Business, Adelaide Advertiser, The Land, Canberra Times, The Age, CIO and ZDNet. Besides raising the profile of the iAwards, it provided an opportunity for finalists and winners to be profiled in various state based news outlets.
While the iAwards was successful in garnering media coverage, AIIA’s foray into social media was a significant win. The 2009 iAwards YouTube channel received over 2,200 views from 35 countries including Australia, United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. This created an international audience for the iAwards and helped to raise the value and profile of the awards within the Australian ICT industry.
The YouTube channel provided an additional resource that was valued by award winners with many linking their company websites back to the iAwards YouTube channel creating additional traffic and awareness for the channel.
Clients
The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) is the industry peak body for Australia’s information and communications technology (ICT) industry. To recognise Australia’s most outstanding ICT innovators, AIIA organises the annual iAwards, a leading awards program for Australian technology innovators that recognises innovative companies at a state and national level.
Challenge
Although the iAwards was a very established industry award, it competed with many other ICT industry awards given out by IT vendors and publishers. Many of the award entrants were start up companies that did not have a strong company profile and this created an additional challenge in having to educate the media about their business.
Beyond using media publicity to promote the iAwards, AIIA was also interested in looking at how social media can be used in its communications strategy to raise the profile of 2009 iAward winners.
Solution
Max worked with the AIIA to develop a media outreach program to promote the iAwards finalists and winners. It also recommended the use of YouTube to raise the profile of the iAwards.
Max put out media alerts to drive awareness for the various deadlines for the awards and it distributed media releases to announce state based finalists. In addition to reaching out to metropolitan and IT media, Max conducted extensive media outreach for finalists and winners through regional media and vertical publications in an effort to gain further media coverage.
In a first for AIIA and the iAwards, Max developed a YouTube channel to feature video case studies of the iAwards winners. These video case studies were produced during the awards judging process where finalists were interviewed -- providing an introduction about their company, the product/solution they submitted and discussed what winning the award would mean to their company.
The channel was promoted in the 2009 iAwards winners media announcement, AIIA’s membership base and to the iAwards winners.
Benefits
The iAwards was widely covered in a wide variety of publications including Dynamic Business, Adelaide Advertiser, The Land, Canberra Times, The Age, CIO and ZDNet. Besides raising the profile of the iAwards, it provided an opportunity for finalists and winners to be profiled in various state based news outlets.
While the iAwards was successful in garnering media coverage, AIIA’s foray into social media was a significant win. The 2009 iAwards YouTube channel received over 2,200 views from 35 countries including Australia, United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. This created an international audience for the iAwards and helped to raise the value and profile of the awards within the Australian ICT industry.
The YouTube channel provided an additional resource that was valued by award winners with many linking their company websites back to the iAwards YouTube channel creating additional traffic and awareness for the channel.