New SSA YouTube Channel

Ill bet Bruno has received a check or two from YT for ads on his video's. That is great. His video's are phenomenal. He deserves all the accolades we can give him.

Look at GoPro (the company). Look how powerful GoPro has become as a tool for so many sports and support organizations. Look at adventure sports in general. Look at the companies that market to people interested in these sports. Some clues in these observations I imagine.............

Every great organization, corporation, company, individual is using video aggressively to share their message and market their products and services. To share "their passions." This is what customers and people and general want to consume on subjects today (more and more every day). Static is dead, has been for many years.

The goal of the SSA is simple: to GROW ITS MEMBERSHIP by making soaring available to as many interested parties as possible. Simple really. A numbers game. What causes someone to go from having no idea about soaring to becoming a member of the SSA? What are their goals? To go for a ride? Or to do more? How do they learn this? How do you take this person who has interest and best use that opportunity to inspire them? A website with low def photos?

Why are kids not showing up? How do we address that?

We have alot of money sitting in SSA accounts.........

Alot of SSA members cranking out video's. Alot of clubs and FBO's and instructors and contests are interacting with customers and students. How do we best leverage and share these assets? What's our strategy? How are we measuring our progress? Is LetsGoGliding working? What are the demographics in that project? We don't have all our eggs in one basket do we?

The SSA has not even begun to scratch the surface of social media. If they truly did focus on it I would almost guarantee a measurable, positive impact.

PS...if you want kids in soaring, where are the pictures, video's, camps, parties, events with soaring kids in the USA? Kids love adults but REALLY LOVE OTHER KIDS! Who is going to the upcoming Jr. Worlds from the USA? Where is the website? What kids recently soloed? Where are these stories? Oh... that's in the BACK of the SSA magazine huh? Hmmm?

Best,

Sean

On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 11:19:40 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 9:14:12 PM UTC-6, son_of_flubber wrote:

At what point does YouTube start charging an organization/company for hosting their videos? The SSA channel might take some care to not step over that line.







What about buying some targeted advertising on YouTube?



Never. In fact, if your channel gets popular enough YT will offer revenue sharing opportunities to the channel owners! There are literally thousands of internet businesses who's whole business model is based off of puting their content in YT using their "private links" feature and then selling those links to their customers. They make the content, YT pays for the bandwidth and hosting, the 3rd party makes money selling their links, YT makes money selling the advertising. Brilliant model!

On Friday, February 22, 2013 12:03:35 AM UTC-5, Sean F (F2) wrote:

PS...if you want kids in soaring, where are the pictures, video's, camps, parties, events with soaring kids in the USA? Kids love adults but REALLY LOVE OTHER KIDS! Who is going to the upcoming Jr. Worlds from the USA? Where is the website? What kids recently soloed? Where are these stories? Oh... that's in the BACK of the SSA magazine huh? Hmmm?

My club has a program where 'kids' perform 'chores' in exchange for flying lessons (and tows).

One of these chores is 'maintain club website'.

It comes as no surprise that a bright 15 year old who has been surfing the web since he was 4.5 years old is incredibly effective at creating web-based content. Making the right moves on the web comes naturally to the talented young.

My suggestion would be to pay a team of 'kid glider pilots' in tow coupons, and let them run the SSA web-based recruitment campaign (to recruit both kids and adults). Maybe get a young adult pilot (less than 25 years old) to oversee the 'creative team'. The team can be web-connected and scattered all over the country (world?)

With this approach, any money that we invest in web based recruitment, buys tows for young pilots. Two birds, one stone.

Sorry I have already had too much coffee this morning. I agree with Sean, the goal is to grow our membership! I have a few ideas on this:

Youtube
We need to develop and manage a strong brand image with an SAA page on YouTube. Right now, Bruno and Balleka are my go to guys for videos that I send to people interested in our sport. Someone mentioned that Bruno looks like an old guy on O2. Actually he almost always explains what it is in each video and the reaction from my girlfriend's 17 year old son was "Holy cow, gliders get high enough that they need oxygen?". Then I sent him off to go Google Steve Fossett.

Social media
You can't do anything these days without tweeting about it, bloging, or updating your Facebook. I get teased about being the oldest living Facebooker but my company has a page and I update our small club's page. I am amazed at the number of random people that visit our club page and text me questions about gliding.

Promote costs
As I try and attract adults to come out I highlight the affordability of flying gliders. Our club prices are still in the single digits per hour for the gliders and I stress that unlike powered flying, after you obtain your license you can still afford to be able to continue to fly! I feel we could do a better job of promoting the long term low cost of club soaring.

Sponsorship
I used to fly in airshows and the biggest part of my job (other than not hitting the ground) was obtaining sponsorship. I am not trying to be negative to the SSA but the SSA should have a paid full time development person going out and funding education programs and programs that grow and promote our sport. My company is a non-profit helicopter air medical organization and our development person is a key position for us. To give you an idea of the cost vs benefit her costs (salary, materials, travel, etc) are under 8% of what she brings in.

Local Media
In our 24 hour news cycle it is surprisingly easy to promote via local news.. Find a local producer or reporter and offer an interesting story about soaring (16 year old solos, FAI achievements, open house, etc...) It might be regular news for us but interesting for them.

Podcasts
Why is it that the only podcast on soaring is by a guy who is just starting out? Podcasts are easy to make and...I think I will take my own advice and start one.

Tom (formerly Lucky812)

On Friday, February 22, 2013 8:48:29 AM UTC-7, Tom K (ES) wrote:
Sorry I have already had too much coffee this morning. I agree with Sean, the goal is to grow our membership! I have a few ideas on this:



Youtube

We need to develop and manage a strong brand image with an SAA page on YouTube. Right now, Bruno and Balleka are my go to guys for videos that I send to people interested in our sport. Someone mentioned that Bruno looks like an old guy on O2. Actually he almost always explains what it is in each video and the reaction from my girlfriend's 17 year old son was "Holy cow, gliders get high enough that they need oxygen?". Then I sent him off to go Google Steve Fossett.



Social media

You can't do anything these days without tweeting about it, bloging, or updating your Facebook. I get teased about being the oldest living Facebooker but my company has a page and I update our small club's page. I am amazed at the number of random people that visit our club page and text me questions about gliding.



Promote costs

As I try and attract adults to come out I highlight the affordability of flying gliders. Our club prices are still in the single digits per hour for the gliders and I stress that unlike powered flying, after you obtain your license you can still afford to be able to continue to fly! I feel we could do a better job of promoting the long term low cost of club soaring.



Sponsorship

I used to fly in airshows and the biggest part of my job (other than not hitting the ground) was obtaining sponsorship. I am not trying to be negative to the SSA but the SSA should have a paid full time development person going out and funding education programs and programs that grow and promote our sport. My company is a non-profit helicopter air medical organization and our development person is a key position for us. To give you an idea of the cost vs benefit her costs (salary, materials, travel, etc) are under 8% of what she brings in.



Local Media

In our 24 hour news cycle it is surprisingly easy to promote via local news. Find a local producer or reporter and offer an interesting story about soaring (16 year old solos, FAI achievements, open house, etc...) It might be regular news for us but interesting for them.



Podcasts

Why is it that the only podcast on soaring is by a guy who is just starting out? Podcasts are easy to make and...I think I will take my own advice and start one.



Tom (formerly Lucky812)

Tom,

Thanks for the ideas but most of them have already been proposed. The problem isn't ideas, it's the execution of those ideas. While the SSA is in far better shape financially than in the recent past, it can't pay professionals to do these things so we need volunteers to step up. Far too often a call for volunteers is met with a deafening silence.

So, if you really want these things to happen, volunteer to do them.

http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/studio10/...o-fly-a-glider

Great job!

Can anyone tell me where, on the SSA website, you can find a link to the official SSA youtube channel which is supposedly all abuzz? I do not see one anywhere.

The only thing I see is the "New To Soaring" info bar on the right side of the homepage. This takes you to a list of videos which reside on the SSA website but not on YouTube. Do these videos also reside on youtube? Where are the comments? Do these videos auto reformat to mobile devices? Are they searchable? Hmmm?

Looks like a new video is added once every 3 or 4 months.... Really?

Sean

On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 7:23:44 PM UTC-5, Sean F (F2) wrote:
Can anyone tell me where, on the SSA website, you can find a link to the official SSA youtube channel which is supposedly all abuzz? I do not see one anywhere.

Dear Sean,

If you really want to gain traction on issues with the SSA membership, you should write a letter (or three or four) to Soaring Magazine. Better yet, you should write a monthly column.

It appears that there has been some significant confusion about YouTube and the SSA already has a YouTube channel.

I have been asked to shut this new one down now that it has come to their attention that a channel already exists. :-)

I have also been asked to invite the 40 or so who have subscribed to this new channel to join the original. :-)

At this time, I have no idea how to find this original SSA YouTube channel unfortunately. I have searched a bit but am unable to find one. The only other SSA related channel I have been able to find is the LetsGoGliding channel. Can anyone identify a link to the SSAs previously existing YouTube channel? Please post here if you do...

On behalf of the SSA, sorry for this confusion.

Happy soaring,

Sean
F2

On Monday, February 18, 2013 9:09:45 AM UTC-6, Sean F (F2) wrote:
It appears that there has been some significant confusion about YouTube and the SSA already has a YouTube channel. I have been asked to shut this new one down now that it has come to their attention that a channel already exists. :-) I have also been asked to invite the 40 or so who have subscribed to this new channel to join the original. :-) At this time, I have no idea how to find this original SSA YouTube channel unfortunately. I have searched a bit but am unable to find one. The only other SSA related channel I have been able to find is the LetsGoGliding channel. Can anyone identify a link to the SSAs previously existing YouTube channel? Please post here if you do... On behalf of the SSA, sorry for this confusion. Happy soaring, Sean F2

https://www.youtube.com/user/SoaringSocietySSA

Found this one as well: http://m.youtube.com/user/thesoaringsociety