A Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Cellphone Love

Marketing, PR, journalism, community building, and social action. They’re coming soon . . . to the smartphone in your pocket.

If illiterate Indian villagers can do it, anyone can. Frustrated by their government’s unwillingness to keep its promises, destitute farmers are making their case via cellphone “broadcasts.” (See the BBC story here)

Citizen journalists talk to the farmers and distribute the stories on cell phones. They “call a Bangalore number to upload a news item and a text message goes out to all the phone numbers in the contact list and anyone who wants to hear the report calls in to the same number and the message is played out.”

In other words, anyone with a cell phone and some ingenuity can become an independent news publisher, PR and marketing distributor, community action organizer. Whatever.

Marketing, media and message are becoming one. Take full advantage of this, and lift your business to the next level.

It’s not as hard as you think, for example, to distribute a self-produced audio or video news clip to your network. Use it to tell us about your clients, customers and prospects from a phone, as you’re talking to them. Everyone is hungry for recognition, and will support you if you give it to them.

Or get really interactive. Challenge the people in your broadcast list to take a photo of your customer’s ad or billboard and send it to you. The first sender will get a free meal or similar small goody as a prize.

Your customers will appreciate the way you use technology “Marketing with a capital ‘me.’