Smith & Smith campaign on the syllabus at UCLA

Here's a great example of the true power of social media. I posted an article on the class blog that highlighted concepts we've been covering in our discussions during class. We've talked consistently about how brands need to engage in a conversation with their customers. Brands need to listen and brands need to communicate in a meaningful way with customers - where those customers are aggregating. This class focuses on how brands can utilize social media tools to participate in these conversations.

The Lancashire Tea company is a great example of a brand meeting their customers on Facebook. We posted this recently. Today, Karl forwarded this post to me from the pr firm that is conducting the campaign on behalf of the tea brand. Very cool.

Smith & Smith campaign on the syllabus at UCLA

Our online campaign for Lancashire Tea is being used as a case study by marketing students at UCLA- the University of California at Los Angeles.

We really recognise the importance of social media and as such devised this online social networking campaign for the tea company, with Facebook users invited to vote for one of several Lancashire Tea packaging designs by The Rehab Agency. The chosen design will become the official packaging for the tea company.

UCLA chose the campaign as a suitable case study for their social media course taught by entrepreneurs Beverly Macy and Karl Kasca.

For Smith & Smith, American marketing students at UCLA being taught about social media using the Lancashire Tea example is indicative of the ‘barrier-free’ nature of social media. “The beauty of online PR is its ability to travel fast and its ease of access,” says agency MD Nathan Smith. “Another aspect of social media is the exchange of information and ideas, and a spirit of collaboration, which makes it really satisfying that students over in the US can use our work as a learning tool.”

Our staff regularly teach social media to organisations in the UK, and our blog ‘PR In A Jar’, which enjoys an active overseas readership, was one of the first regular PR blogs in the country.