PUSH notification is the fastest growing bulk method for messages. PUSH is also most likely the message media to be opened by its recipients. MyChamberApp uses PUSH to promote commerce for Chamber members. MyChamberApp also encourages Chambers to use PUSH for News, and Chamber Events.

Hooters took advantage of this great feature by sending a PUSH coupon through MyChamberApp. Within two hours, over 1,000 local consumers saw their promo, over 100 local consumers clicked to get more info, and more than 12 new clients showed up in their restaurant with their coupons from MyChamberApp ready to eat! What a great way for quick results!

Superbowl 2012 vs. Apps – Guess which of the two got more attention during the game
Great Info from Flurry:

The Super Bowl is an American phenomenon, now largely considered a de facto American holiday.  As a premier media event, it regularly attracts record-breaking audiences.  This year, Super Bowl XLVI became the most watched television program in history, drawing an audience of 111 million viewers according to The Nielsen Company.  Prior to this, the record was held by last year’s Super Bowl, which itself had overtaken the number one spot held for twenty-eight years by the final episode of M*A*S*H.

The Second Screen

Also breaking new ground this year was the concept of the “second screen,” which illustrates that while watching TV (the first screen), people often interact with second screens such as smartphones and tablets.  To keep viewers focused on the first screen, marketers increasingly are exploring ways to complement the first screen experience with the addition of hash tags, QR codes, voting and more.  Among the most ambitious is Shazam, a music and media discovery service, which worked with ad partners such as Toyota, Best Buy, Pepsi, Bud Light and Fed Ex to drive additional second screen interactions related to advertising via the Shazam mobile app.  During the halftime show, for example, viewers could get the setlist, buy music and download mobile apps from the artists.  Shazam reported millions of audio tags as a result.

Aside from a handful of innovators like Shazam, Flurry believes that the second screen is still largely more disruptive than complementary to first screen viewing.  If a consumer is not paying attention to the television program in front of her, she is likely using an application to post social updates or play games.  For example, if a Super Bowl ad isn’t holding a viewer’s interest, playing another round of Words with Friends is a likely activity.  Monitoring app usage provides Flurry the ability to understand this tightly-coupled relationship between the first and second screen.

Massive Second Screen App Audience

For this report, Flurry tracked U.S. app usage, per second, over the course of Super Bowl XLVI, mapping application session starts to each television spot aired, game time segment, the halftime show, and more.  We further studied behavioral differences between males versus females.  With Flurry Analytics in over 160,000 applications, the company detects app usage on more than 90% of all iOS and Android devices per day.  Let’s start by comparing how many people used apps during the Super Bowl to the number who watched the Super Bowl.

You can see the full report here:

http://blog.flurry.com/bid/81719/Super-Bowl-2012-Nothing-Curbs-App-Usage-Except-Madonna

Chamber members and MyChamberApp users travel A LOT!

Did you know that the average MyChamberApp user and Chamber of Commerce members are the most likely to travel? According to the US travel association people born between 1945 – 1979 make up over 66% of travelers.

MyChamberApp connects over 200+ cities / chambers to support your members while they travel and encourage visitors to your city to use your members’ businesses. By using MyChamberApp, your chamber is taking advantage of the local and global explosion in mobile users.

We are very lucky and grateful for our amazing Chamber Partners. MyChamberApp is the original app for chamber of commerce, and thanks to the great support from our Chamber Partners, active members, and app users, MyChamberApp is by far the largets app provider for chambers of commerce in the world!

As of today we work with over triple the chambers of any competitor, over ten times the app downloads, and over twenty times the ads sold than any other chamber app provider!

We still win side by side usability test with results that prove to be twice as fast with 1/2 the steps of any competitor.

We know all of this is ONLY possible by the great support we have received from our amazing Chamber partners.

Thank you!

This week his email hit home for my core beliefs.

You Can see it below, I encourage all of you to sign up for it as it is VERY informative:

“The best part of my job as an organization executive was the same as it is now now being a consultant to our industry; we never stop learning. And some of the best things we learn are those things we already know. Go figure.
A few weeks ago I spent two weeks with the Perry, Georga Chamber of Commerce to help them create a 3-5 year strategic plan that would serve as a compass for their future business plans. One of their greatest issues was the desire to lose the “party planner” image that had evolved over the years.
In one of the very first focus group sessions prior to the strategic planning session, it was stated that the Chamber of Commerce is more focused on the chamber than it is on commerce. There was such a focus on raising money to keep the doors open, it had smothered the purpose of the organization which is right there in the name, Chamber of… Commerce.
So simple yet so often missed. Getting members to sponsor the work of the chamber as opposed to sponsoring the events of the chamber is a new paradigm for many but it is catching on. Selling the value of issue development that lasts far longer than a festival sponsorship will be one of the key objectives for this Chamber of Commerce as well as many others wanting to change their focus.
Recently, the Laramie, Wyoming Chamber of Commerce established a “Cornerstone Membership” for $10,000 per year. They currently have seven corporate members. The money is there and new Chamber exec Gordon Crow has proven people will come around to this Focus on Commerce.

	Patrick H. McGaughey, IOM
	E-Mail:	pat@chambermentor.com
	Telephone:	1-800-545-3610 1-208-765-5494
	Address:	McGaughey Enterprises.net, Inc. Attn: Patrick H. McGaughey P.O. Box 1951 Coeur d’Alene, ID 83816

Thank to T U A W:

Loyal AT&T iPhone customer? AT&T wants to say thank you to iPhone owners by sending you 1000 free rollover minutes. All you have to do is text.

We first heard about this free 1000 minutes deal earlier today but declined to post because we weren’t sure that AT&T really was offering it to all customers. We sent an email to AT&T PR and never heard back, but since 9to5Mac claims that AT&T has confirmed this is legitimate for all customers, here are the details of how to claim your minutes.

Hop in to your SMS app and send off the message YES to 11113020 by March 31, 2011. Your account will be credited with 1000 bonus rollover minutes — although it can take up to four weeks to process the offer. Enjoy!

Update: We contacted AT&T via Seth Bloom (blogger relations) to ensure this was legit and he said, “It’s a valid text that some customers are getting. We’ve done it before, thanking customers.”

Didn’t get this text? If you’ve previously opted out of AT&T’s special offers, you can call 611 (1-800-331-0500 from a land-line) and request it back. Tell the representative that you want to receive “AT&T Marketing Solicitations” on your account. You cannot, according to the AT& T rep I spoke to, re-activate this feature through the web service or through your iPhone’s AT&T app or the SMS app.

(Update: TUAW Commenters suggest that sending YES back to this number automatically opts you in as well… You get rollover minutes, they get a willing customer to receive marketing texts.)

The rep also clarified some details about the new $20 individual/$30 family unlimited mobile-to-mobile feature plan. This plan can be added on top of individual calling plans starting at 450 minutes and family calling plans that have at least 700 minutes, she told me. That means, for example, you cannot add it to the 550 Family plan. As you’d expect from the name, the plan adds toll-free minuteless calling to all national wireless carriers, but cannot be applied to calls to landlines.

Target Marketing & SouthComm Publishing Names Mark Schenthal New VP of Business Development

CRESCENT SPRINGS, Ky., Feb. 8, 2011 — Target Marketing & SouthComm Publishing is proud to introduce Mark Schenthal, IOM as the new vice president of business development.

Schenthal has served the last twelve years at The Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, most recently as the vice president of marketing & communications. While serving for the Chamber he graduated from The Institute of Organizational Management (US Chamber) in 2008 and received the designation of Accredited Chamber Executive (ACE) from the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Executives, and served on the US Chamber of Commerce Institute’s Midwest Board of Regents, Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Executive (KCCE) Board of Directors, and ACCE Communications Board.

Philip Hageman, Target Marketing & SouthComm’s chief executive officer, is elated with the selection of Schenthal, saying, “I have worked with and respected Mark’s efforts and accomplishments for the past eight years. To have him join our team, to have an innovator that understands what chambers need and what members want, is a huge asset to any company. But for that addition to be Mark Schenthal is nearly a dream come true. We are very fortunate to have procured such an individual as they are indeed rare.”

Mark was named vice president of business development on January 5, 2011 with the appointment being effective February 7. Mark is especially excited that he will continue to be an active part of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, albeit in a new and different capacity.

Prior to joining the Chamber of Commerce Industry, Schenthal previously spent over 7 years at Adams, Stepner, Woltermann & Dusing as a legal administrator. Previously he spent over 5 years with DuBlois Capital as an entrepreneurial assistant. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1980 from Ohio State University and his master’s degree in 1983 from Washington University in St. Louis.

Schenthal will continue to reside in Covington, KY with his wife Theresa, son Jake and daughter Maddie. Mark’s eldest daughter, McCall, will be graduating from Whittier College in May of this year.

Target Marketing/SouthComm is an industry-leading publisher of maps and directories for over 30 years, featuring My Chamber App, the only cross-platform Smartphone Mobile Directory that drives commerce to your members. More information about Target Marketing/SouthComm can be found at http://www.chambermaps.com

Contact: Matt Wethington, 1-800-933-3909, mwethington@chambermaps.com

The recent political conflict between the Obama Administration and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has thrown a new spotlight on an old communication problem. Local chambers of commerce, although they predate the U.S. Chamber by nearly a century and a half, often are assumed to be part of the U.S. Chamber, or otherwise under its direction. They aren’t. They are independent.

During the pre-election controversy this year, it was clear that many people, including many chamber members, did not know this fact. They believe that U.S. Chamber President Tom Donohue and his colleagues on H Street directly or indirectly control all that local chambers do. But Donohue and his staff don’t exercise such control, nor do they want to.

Few people think about what chambers do locally. For example, who knows that Elliot Tiber, president of the Bethel, N.Y., Chamber of Commerce, secured the permit for Woodstock?

It was also a local chamber – the Business Men’s League of Atlantic City – that came up in 1920 with the idea of a festival to keep tourists in town after Labor Day. Pretty women in beachwear would turn out to be the centerpiece of the annual event. We have that business group (now called the Greater Atlantic City Chamber) to thank for the Miss America Contest.

Was Charles Lindbergh’s plane called The Spirit of Enterprise (the U.S. Chamber’s tag line)? No, the flying bucket of bolts was, of course, The Spirit of St. Louis. The president of the St. Louis Chamber came up with the name in order to promote the great river city. And why should Lindbergh object? The chamber president also raised most of the money for the aircraft.

And who sent out the promotional brochure that enticed the first movie producer to southern California in 1907? It was the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. In nearby Hollywood a chamber was later active as well, helping re-fashion the famous Hollywood sign out of a decaying advertisement for a real estate development called “Hollywoodland.”

read the rest here:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001881-the-other-chambers-commerce

Check out this article from TechCrunch.com:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/16/meeker-smartphones-pcs/

Mobile Media Is Business Media ! MyChamberApp

Courtney shows how important apps are to Chambers of Commerce, and why MyChamberApp is leading the industry.

The Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce launches MyChamberApp !

The San Antonio Biz Journal covers it !