Team Summit Day #1 - Teams Get Schooled in Competition PR and Social Media

After wrapping up the technical talk at the Qualified Team Summit, the conversation turned to marketing and social media.  One of the many goals of the competition is to inform the public and get them engaged and involved in the competition.  In addition to traditional marketing and PR initiatives, social media is one of the tools that we use to help keep the public informed.  The reality of utilizing this sort of media – blogging, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, et. al., is that it is incredibly time consuming.  When you’re working hard to change the world by creating a 100 MPGe vehicle, it can be tough to find a spare moment step into the Twitosphere to chat about it. 

But, it is exactly this sort of public engagement that will help the teams to gain supporters, spread awareness and secure sponsors.  We’re working with the teams to find ways to help them get the word out about their projects so that we can shine a light on the incredible work that they are doing.  If there is anything that you want to know about the teams or their vehicles, or if you have suggestions on how you want to hear from them or us please feel free to share them here.

A number of the teams had fun with their newly launched social media accounts. The guys from Urbee were no exception. They were lots of fun to follow on Twitter during their Vegas exploits and meeting with Caterpillar at the end of the week.  The advantage to these tools is that, used correctly, they provide a perspective into not only the projects but into the unique character of the teams themselves.

Video is another media vehicle that we encouraged the teams to use in order to tell their story.  Over the past few weeks, we have received some great new videos from AMP, Edison2, Cornell 100+ MPG Team, Illuminati Motor Works and TTW Italia, which show their work-in-progress. 

Look for news of the launch of a dedicated Progressive Automotive X PRIZE YouTube site, where you can view these videos, as well as interviews with the teams and more, in the coming week.  In the meantime, visit the Qualified Team Home page on our website where teams that have video available are noted with a YouTube logo.  Click through to visit their page, learn more about the team and their vehicle(s) and watch the videos.

Each Qualified Team page also has notices if the team has their own blog, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn account.  Use these links to follow individual teams and get updates from them directly.

Carrie Fox, who heads the competition’s public relations initiatives, armed the teams with some fantastic media data points about the competition.  She advised that since 2007, the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE has been featured in:

• Over 2,400 articles and feature stories

• Over 170 print publications worldwide

• Over 400 radio and TV stories

• Over 1,900 online articles

In addition, the competition has received coverage in 13 countries worldwide and has received over two billion impressions worldwide to date. 

Carrie and Erin manage public relations for the competition
 
Carrie ran the teams through a very thorough training to support them in getting the word out about their project and telling their story.  After two and an half years of working with many of these teams, I can emphatically say that each of them has a unique and compelling story.  It’s getting them to understand how interesting they really are that can be the challenge.

Day #1 ended back at the Mirage with a dinner hosted by the X PRIZE Foundation’s Peter Diamandis and Progressive Insurance’s Glenn Renwick.  It was great to see the camaraderie amongst the teams who mingled and chatted long after the dinner tables were cleared.