New SSA YouTube Channel

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.

Great ideas everyone. Keep them coming.

On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 5:39:02 PM UTC-7, wrote:
My own personal experience:

25 years ago I took a glider ride at the Durango, CO Soaring Club and loved it. At the time I couldn't afford nor had the time to pursue it so eventually forgot all about it.

Fast forward to 2012 where I was searching YouTube for videos of Glider slope soaring (I was looking or R/C glider videos not real glider videos). The search returned a hit to one of Bruno Vassel's gliding videos. I watched that video, was mesmerized, and over the next several weeks I watched every single one of Bruno's videos, searched for and found a local club, joined, and here I am today.

I say all of that to confirm that in at least my case the "accidental" discovery of some great gliding videos on YT was definitely responsible for my entry into the sport.

Maybe something free and simple we could do is to just put a link to letsgogliding.com in the description box of all of the gliding videos we post. At least that way we provide casual viewers with a very easy way to get more information.

RS

RS,
Reading your story just made my week! You need to make it out here to Utah some time and lets go soaring together. Thrilled to hear you went all the way and you are now gliding yourself!

Bruno - B4

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.

On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 4:36:59 PM UTC-5, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
how about an SSA sponsored prize each month for the best new video that promotes the sport? say $500 to motivate people?


I think a competition for the best promotional soaring video is a good plan.. At the annual soaring convention in the Netherlands there is a competition for best soaring video and some of the films I saw were amazingly well done.

I propose a slight variation on this theme to get the best video possible using a mass collaboration method.

People can participate in one of two capacities (or both).

1. Get interesting footage – Any pilot can help get as much good footage as possible. All of this footage will be collected in a central location (Dropbox or a designated channel on Youtube, etc).

2. Production - At the end of the year, anyone that wants to be an editor will have access to the raw footage and free reign to make the best video possible. The final product is judged in the arena of Youtube, the most thumbs up will win.

I think this mass collaboration method has some advantages considering the dynamics of our sport. The proliferation of small HD quality sports cameras means filming every flight is cheap and easy. While every moment of a flight may be exciting for the pilot, most footage is boring to watch. However, if the final product consists of the best highlights cut from thousands of hours of soaring, then statistically these highlights will be far more interesting.

This method of collaboration benefits from the fact that the pilots who can get the most interesting and exciting footage, are unlikely to be the best video editors/producers. This way we can tap hundreds of pilots for their most interesting moments of the year. Then those with the most artistic talent can compile the footage into the most interesting videos and target these videos to potential new glider pilots.

I volunteer as my contribution to strap my GoPro to the glider of one of the ridge soaring legends here in NJ and see what kind of footage we get.