Time-Slicing/ Day-Parting

Chick-fil-A taps into it's Raving Fan base to create a fund raiser for it's WinShape Foundation. They can do this because they have learned how to be involved in invents that activate. This is quite different than most other advertisers where they are more like the wall paper for an event.

Tom Kennedy, former multimedia director for the WashingtonPost.com gave a talk to the Atlanta ASMP group. One of his slides during his presentation intrigued me about how we use media throughout the day. Tom's List for interaction with media through a day for people:

• Commuting - Podcasts, iPhones, Radio
• Work Hours - Email Alerts, SMS, Tweets
• Lunch Hours/Office Breaks - Websites
• Daily Living Tasks - SMS, Tweets, IM’s, Drive-By Media
• Home Leisure Time - Web, TV, Radio, iPods, iPhone

What he was pointing out is people will use a media often based on the time allotment. When one is riding a train, sitting at an airport or taking a bus they are more likely to get their messages through their phone. It maybe a phone which allows for surfing the web like the iPhone or Blackberry, so for the communicator they need to be aware of how their message is being formatted.

During work hours people cannot always surf the web, so they will allow for short messaging through email, tweets and even SMS (Social Media Sites).

What I was watching and coming to understand that for those of us who thought we were current using email and had a website, most of the audience wasn't being engaged by us.

This past February was a milestone for SMS. Now, more people are communicating through Social Media than with email.

For those of us who are communicators, we need to be aware of how an audience gets their information. It is easier to find the audience than to have the audience find you. We often call this pushing our message.

I am excited to help Chick-fil-A visually engage it's base. I am seeing how operators (franchise owners) use texting, email, Twitter, FaceBook, Websites, Billboards, Events and more to engage with their audience. What is really exciting is they are not satisfied and feel they could do more and be even more effective.

The question each of us must ask is where is our audience and even more specifically, where are they throughout the work day? Are we waiting for them to find us or are we looking for them?