Like Tweets and most texts, bubbles are short, with a recording limit at one minute.  But Bubbly has added intimacy – users hear a favorite, well-known, or trusted voice instead of just reading a simple message, which, for celebrities, could have been written by an agent.

While the BBC is leading networks in using Bubbly to release breaking news, the Indian film industry is using Bubbly as a tool to build buzz – and brands.

Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor, Bollywood stars who appear together in the film “3 Idiots,” were using Bubbly to promote the film before its release.  Their bubbles soon had hundreds of thousands of followers, and built incredible anticipation over the movie.  The film swept India’s 2010 Star Screen and Filmfare Awards, and has grossed over $86 million – the highest profit in history for any Indian-made film.  It seems the film owes some of its box office success to Bubbly.  And so do its stars.

Bollywood stars aren’t free from Hollywood’s standards of youth and vitality to grab choice roles and maintain careers.  And what better way to appear young than to be among the first to popularize a new social media tool?  In a recent interview, the mid-40s Aamir Khan was asked how he stays young looking enough to play a 20-something college student in “3 Idiots.”  He answered that it’s essential to eat a balanced diet, drink lots of water, and get plenty of rest.  He could have added bubbling to the list.

The list of countries in which BubbleTalk has been launched is limited so far, and there aren’t immediate plans for a U.S. (or U.K.) launch.  So while there aren’t options here now for utilization, there is time to investigate how potential users respond to this new media and the potential impact on communication channels here.  Is enthusiasm for Twitter fading?  Nonprofits struggle with being both media savvy and able to implement new options usefully, could BubbleTalk be the righ solution?  Or is this mode of information dissemination not the right match?  One blogger notes, “ears are for music and for live communication, not for news that I scan more quickly with my eyes.”  Let us know your initial reaction to this emerging tool.

- Liz Arora

One aspect of CCA’s mission is its Alliance of States.  These states’ governors and leaders in higher education have pledged to make college completion a legislative priority by setting completion goals, creating a plan to reach those goals, and publicly reporting progress.  The Alliance has 17 member states now, but its ranks continue to grow.

Clips resulting from the launch currently number over 300 in media around the country, in the Alliance states, in national print and broadcast outlets, and in higher education trade publications.

In addition to coordinating the launch, Lipman Hearne designed CCA’s new visual identity, stationery suite, a temporary landing page (to house materials for the media before the launch), and CCA’s new website.  Impressive comments about the site and the CCA’s work are already rolling in.

One early site visitor praised the website for “delivering  a great and powerful new tool that combines the voices of students demanding reform together with powerful state- and campus-level data.”

And from Stan Jones, Complete College America’s President, comes this recommendation:  “I know everyone is busy but take a minute and watch at least the first video on the website.  It is an excellent reminder of why we do this work.”

The number of Tufts applicants choosing the video option has been significant, but not overwhelming – about 1,000 of the 15,000 applicants this year submitted videos. The responses range from students showing off card tricks to day-in-the-life montages to flying a remote-controlled blue-elephant helicopter (representing Tufts’ mascot, Jumbo the Elephant). Some of the videos have even gathered a YouTube following – the most popular one features Amelia Downs; her video has gotten more than 6,000 views.

So what does this all mean? Will videos ultimately replace the written essay? Tufts admissions staff insists that they remain “committed to the traditional essay-writing requirement” and that videos are genuinely optional. But this is clearly the year of the video for colleges and universities – between the “Lipdub” phenomenon and Yale’s YouTube musical “That’s Why I Chose Yale,” universities’ staff and students are increasingly turning towards video as an effective means of marketing their institution. So it seems natural that prospective students are likewise using this medium to market themselves. Only time will reveal to what extent video and other social media vehicles will come to dominate the higher education communications sphere.

What do you think about colleges allowing prospective students to submit application videos? Do you foresee the end of the traditional college essay? Share your thoughts in our comments section.

Another curiosity is the seemingly broad use of the word “brand” being used to compile the list.  In addition to Valentine’s Day (really!?) there is an eclectic mix of people (Alexander McQueen), products (Apple iPad) and annual events (Super Bowl). Should these topics really be compared to each other from a marketing perspective? Will tracking of such mixed topics really help Twitter’s future monetization? And more importantly will those Justin Bieber followers succeed in taking over the Twitterverse?

Share your thoughts on what trends and behaviors should be tracked on Twitter in the comments section.

The technique was created by a group of students at Hochshule Furtwangen University in Germany, who wanted to “show the whole world that studying does not have to be boring.” They shot a video in which students lip sync to a song, while the camera follows them through campus, resulting in a highly-choreographed musical university tour. This spurred the creation of the “University LipDub Project,” which challenges students of other colleges to produce their own videos and show what their campus has to offer (and to see if their creation is worthy of “going viral”).

What started as a European phenomenon gradually moved over to Canada, where the Université du Québec à Montréal’s “LipDub” video made quite an impression – it became so popular that it was featured on CNN and, to date, has received over 4 million hits on YouTube. Now, U.S. universities have begun to catch on, with Texas State University and Suffolk University being some of the first to embrace the trend.

A prime example that this phenomenon has the chance to transition from a grassroots amusement to a legitimate communications department marketing tool is Johns Hopkins University’s end-of-the-year “LipDub” video. Created to thank their donors for their continued support, it shows how the whole university community can collaborate and lend their voice to promote their community and showcase the spirit behind the brand.

The key to not killing this concept before it leaves the ground is to remain inclusive when it comes to who is primarily representing the university. It is ok for the university staff to have a stake in the video, but don’t lose the student-run feel. As with the popular strategy of featuring student blogs on admissions websites, like MIT does, it is the sense that it is providing an unfiltered, first-hand account of campus life that is the spark behind these videos.

Have other examples of social media trends storming your campus? Share them in the comments section.

-Erin Kelly, Marketing Intern

The launch caps a great year for the school. Recent rankings put Miami among the top 10 law schools for Hispanics and among the top 20 law schools in terms of the quality of the lawyers it produces.

Central to the site is Lipman Hearne’s best asset: the staff. Visitors can browse staff stories in the People section, hear staff members’ voices through quotes that float throughout the site, and catch glimpses of them as they travel the globe. (In one such glimpse, a space suit is involved.)

Other media-rich features include portfolios of work, curated along special themes, such as Wasabi for the Brain and The Dean’s List. In addition, the stories of successful collaborations are told through selected case studies, including University of Cincinnati and The Nurse-Family Partnership.

Key Insights reports, presentations, and articles are also available on the site. Information sharing tools make it possible for visitors to share these resources and news articles with colleagues.

Check out Lipman Hearne’s website and leave a comment here – we’d love to hear your feedback.

- Erin Kelly

The project is a close collaboration between Muhlenberg’s internal web team and Lipman Hearne.

There’s often a long silence — the kind that makes presenters wince — and then someone raises a hand and asks, “How?” Not how to do it, not how to figure out what to say, but how can we possibly do that, too? In other words, how can we staff this?

That’s pretty much what happened during the Innovation session at the  Greater DC Care’s 2009 Business and Nonprofit Philanthropy Summit and Awards conference. The question came from a small nonprofit, and everyone in the room started nodding.

There isn’t a single, easy, comfortable answer. So, I offered three uncomfortable ones.

Once you’ve decided that channels such as blogs, Twitter, or Facebook really could be important components of your marketing, you may have to court that special staff member who has an incredible and personable voice and is willing to take on the extra responsibility. That staff member could be anyone, including the executive director. That’s the case for a small Chicago nonprofit called Sit, Stay, Read, which uses dogs to help kids learn to read. The executive director is very much the voice of the organization on Facebook and other tools. Mary Ellen Schneider’s style is so distinctive; you can literally hear her voice when you read her entries.

Or you may want to ask a volunteer with a similarly distinctive voice and a passion for the organization. This is controversial. Some fear that activating volunteers means a dangerous loss of control. Others, such as New Tactics in Human Rights, have forged ahead with multiple volunteer bloggers.

In higher ed and larger organizations, the answer may be an uncomfortable four-letter word: hire. Of course that’s tough to do in these economic times. As a result, the answer may be reallocating staff duties, so that real time is available to the person tasked with tracking and participating in online conversations, writing and recruiting others to write for blogs and other channels, and lending social media strategies to the communications mix.

But one thing is clear: a long, deadening silence probably isn’t the solution.

- Lee Reilly, Vice President, Interactive

“Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”

Here is what Wordle helped us create from our musings found on
The Commons :

Click on image to enlarge