Shout Out Studio - Marketing That Motivates

Brand Marketing Strategy and Execution
laptop and notebok outside
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Inspiration For Everyday Business
Inspiration For Everyday Business 842 452 Shout Out Studio

It’s February. It’s down-right nasty outside. It’s still the beginning of the year so business is crazy. Considering all of this, it can be easy to fall into an inspirational slump. For us, creativity is at the forefront of what we do, so we have to fix this, stat. Last week we worked in a new office space for the day with color and creativity surrounding us and it was awesome. That space got me thinking; what are more ways to get out of the creativity slump in the bleak days of winter?

Switch it up.

The notebook you use, your regular schedule, the font you type in, the color of your nails. Simple changes, something new, can inspire you to switch it up mentally. Heck, even if there is something you really don’t like about your day, such as conference calls, make fun of it.

Have your meetings somewhere awesome.

We recommend gathering someplace where diversity and inspiration is around every corner. If you usually have your meetings in a small white room go crazy and have it at a cool space like this, or at a new coffee shop in town.

Focus on you.

It can be challenging to inspire a whole team, when all else fails, focus on inspiring yourself. Pick up that book you’ve been meaning to read. Catch a few Webinars or Podcasts for motivation. Doodle, even if its not good. When you are inspired it can catch like wildfire around the office. You can even do something great on the weekends like turn off your phone for a whole day (Say whatttt?!).

Do you have ways to stay inspired during the dull days of winter? Let us know.

Photo credit: David Joyce

SocialHabitsStop 3
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Social Media Habits
Social Media Habits 880 461 Shout Out Studio

They say a habit is a routine or behavior repeated regularly and tends to occur unconsciously. But as we know, not all habits are good. Recently the team at Shout Out got into a discussion of social media habits in particular and realized we all had some that we wanted to build and some that we wanted to break. Here’s a look at some of our individual goals around our social media:

Luke Pierce

Admittedly I am usually better at looking at a business’ social media, formulating a plan, and executing that plan on a rigid schedule than I am at operating my own social media. My habits up until now have been more reactionary than anything else. I often find myself only checking Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook when I am prompted. As an example, yesterday I didn’t check Twitter at all, but I found myself sending 15+ connection requests on LinkedIn because someone accepted a request I sent last week. Too many times a week I find myself being interrupted with a social media distraction of this nature. I think it is causing me to spin my wheels socially, so to speak. I want to change that.

To change my habits I am going to set a personal plan with some personal goals. I am going to incorporate social media into my morning routine setting aside time specifically for the purpose of interacting and furthering my social media presence. To illustrate further, here is my rough plan: 30 minutes will be set aside after my morning emails (using one of my favorite apps 30/30 to time myself). I will divvy the time up between the three social networks I focus on, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Each network will have specific daily tasks to perform, but all will have the simple goals of growing my network and engaging in meaningful interaction. Like exercising, sleeping, hygiene, and many other things, I know I will achieve my goals much easier if I start to form better habits.

Gretchen Ardizzone

I’m admittedly a news junkie. I feed off of the constant flow of information and can’t wait to be the first to discover a great article or post. Today though showing appreciation for the content you read has been easily whittled down to a retweet, like, or share.

Understanding how important audience input is to gauge what will resonate, we recently asked our social network for feedback on what people wanted to read in our upcoming newsletter. I quickly grasped that I can’t expect others to share their opinion if I don’t take the time to share myself though. Which leads to a suggestion from our very own Luke, and a goal for myself, who encouraged us all to leave a comment on the content we share with followers. If it’s good enough to share, I should have an opinion on what makes it great, and make a statement.

Colin Smith

When it comes to my social media use, I have been trying to make sure I post relevant content. Sometimes it can seem like you are yelling into an empty room hoping for a response. I’m trying to do a better job at limiting my posts to content that is engaging and interesting. Another thing I’m trying to be better at is limiting how much I post to each social media platform. Oversharing can deter followers and annoy the remainder. In a time of over-stimulation, I think it is important to be aware of what you contribute to each social media community.

Shannon Blair

I’d love to grow an audience on social media that has some backbone to it – this is honestly one of the many resolutions on my list for 2014. Currently, I still have a large following of college friends who are still posting on Thirsty Thursdays, and this is something I’m trying to change. This year I’d like to have more of an audience and continue to follow more people in the small business and digital marketing community. You have to start somewhere right? Why not social media. 2014 is my year to reach out individually as a young business professional and develop my social media into one that shows the knowledge I possess, which may be more things about Harry Potter than actual marketing…but hey, it’s more educational than retweeting Perez Hilton (which I’m also guilty of… I’m a work in progress people, I promise).

 

 

Photo Credit: (davide)

overcome your marketing fears
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Overcoming Your Online Marketing Fears
Overcoming Your Online Marketing Fears 842 452 Shout Out Studio

We’re all familiar with the famous quote, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” made by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1933 inaugural speech. Well although times have changed much since then, the emotion of fear still has the power to paralyze our advancement, and the online world of marketing is no exception. Our team got to thinking about some of our own fears and those that others have shared with us, and how to overcome them. Here’s our advice for overcoming your online marketing fears:

Marsh Williams

My very first career was in broadcasting and at one point when I was faced with what I thought was an insurmountable problem, my mentor told me, “The worst decision you can make is to do nothing.” His theory was that even a bad decision moves you forward; it shows you your going the wrong way so you can turn around.

I’ve carried that around for a very long time and it really is at the heart of many online marketing decisions. No matter what we all like to think, there is a still a lot to be learned in this area and things change every year. In that environment, there are no absolutes, no matter what the experts/pundits might tell us. There is still a lot left to learn in The Undiscovered Country (Cha-ching, Star Trek reference out of the way).

While there are some best practices and a lot of things that we know will work, there is still so much to uncover. If you’ve got an idea, try it. Start small, see what can be learned and then analyze the results. That’s how we approach almost everything we do. It keeps the mistakes small and turns successes into math problems that can be scaled up when needed.

The best advice, try things all the time. Learn and try them again with refinements. It beats doing nothing and will always point in the right direction.

Nathaniel Seevers

Blogging is such a big word these days. Hundreds of thousands of people every day take to their keyboards to provide insights, prose, and expertise on every subject imaginable. Everyone has an opinion. Everywhere. All the time. All day long.

It can be scary to put yourself out there for review. To be read and critiqued or even worse, maybe to not be read at all.

When I wrote my first post ages ago I toiled over every syllable and sentence. I double checked links and ultimately when published I still found a damn typo. I remember thinking I was safer writing fiction than trying to be useful. My fear was being misunderstood or misguiding someone who might read my attempt at being helpful.

None of that matters.

To quell the fear we have to be ok with making mistakes. In fact, we have to revel in them at first as they become steps for our improvement. Not everyone is going to agree with our perspective every time. Just as Marsh stated above, doing nothing doesn’t help. As Zig Zigler once said, “You don’t have to be GREAT to START, But you have to START to be GREAT….”

There are few things more powerful than conquering the fear of being vulnerable and being ok with the fact that your voice might be different.

Luke Pierce

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the vastness of the internet. There are countless ways in which you can try to choose to interact with someone and I, like many people, have this tremendous feeling of necessity to try to tackle them all. When I realize I can’t possibly do them all that feeling then leads to helplessness, and pretty soon nothing of merit gets done in the way of connectedness for the brand.

It’s a fear that many people have about not having enough time to do everything or the expertise to execute everything, but the fact is you DON’T have to do EVERYTHING. The best way to overcome this fear is to start small. Realize that you can’t be everywhere and do everything. Take some time and figure out the ONE or TWO things that you can manage and will help you connect best with your audience. Whether it be blogging, a social media outlet, a site redesign, ad words campaign, or involvement in preexisting communities. If you start small by doing one thing really well, you can build on that in the future to try and tackle the vastness of the web one step at a time.

Gretchen Ardizzone

Striving for perfection is a daunting task in general but when you think in terms of the online world where there always seems to be a trail or trace of history, it can be tempting to want to pontificate the nuances and dwell on details. I’m not suggesting you skip spell check or just go rogue in relation to having a process for putting content out there, but understand it doesn’t have to be 100% perfect all the time.

The first time I had to to be on camera for a video recording, I was so focused on trying to make my points and say it perfect, that I forgot about just having a casual conversation and conveying what I needed to say. The fear of not being perfect can be stifling to your efforts, and sometimes end up changing the context of what you’re actually trying to say. Your marketing messages should come across in a natural way, and not as though they’ve been crafted and re-drafted a million times until they reach no resemblance to your brand.

Colin Smith

Digital Marketing can seem like a daunting task if you are new to it, a lot seems like The Land Unknown. With all that goes into digital marketing, where do you start? What I found to be the most help, is asking questions. A lot of them. It’s the best way to get the answers, without finding out the hard way. As with anything you are new to, someone knows how to help. It will also help you feel more confident as you take on more. In this case, it’s ok to dip your toes in before diving into the pool.

Shannon Blair

Finding and remaining who you are online is an honest fear of mine. For companies, it’s hard to find 0r even keep your voice in the online world. As individuals, it’s challenge to be yourself. How do you overcome it? You strive to be your own person (or company) every. single. day. You can so easily get swept up in being just like the guy next to you when you are online. Yet, being yourself is your own competitive advantage, and most people don’t realize it. Embrace who you are as a company and an individual.

Have any online marketing fears you’ve been able to overcome? Leave us a comment, we’d love to hear your success story.

Photo Credit: wsilver
In use under Creative Commons 2.0

30MinuteSocialMedia
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30 Minute Social Media Strategy
30 Minute Social Media Strategy 776 415 Shout Out Studio

I am constantly meeting people who are trying to use social media to help grow their business. The trouble is, they aren’t doing such a good job of it. Why? Time they claim. I get it, most small business owners are stretched extremely thin. But time shouldn’t be a barrier to doing social media well. As with anything else, if you go in with a plan your chances of success are much greater. If you follow these rules, tools, and to-do’s, time won’t be a barrier to being successful on social media. I promise.

The Rules:

  1. Don’t post the same content across all platforms – Why? Because you are giving your fans a reason NOT to follow you on all platforms.
  2. Don’t use social media as a megaphone – A lot, and I mean A LOT of people get this wrong. They think that social media is merely an advertising channel and they use it as such.
  3. Interact – This is the whole point. Get social. Go ahead, see other people. Experience new things. SHARE those experiences. Talk WITH people, not AT people.
  4. Take advantage of tools and aids to help you be effective – There are so many good resources out there to help you manage, curate, and communicate via social media. Make your life easier.

The Tools:

  1. Hootsuite – Meet your new best friend. If there is any one tool that will help you manage your social media in less than 30 minutes a day, it’s this one.  Make sure you use Hootsuite’s stream ability to monitor any keyword, search term, or list that pertains to you. It will make retweeting and mentioning a snap later. Schedule out your posts in advance, monitor topics, and stay efficient.
  2. Feedly.com & Scoop.it – Set up an account and set up monitoring on things that relate to your brand on social media.
  3. Google Alerts – Determine search terms that are similar to the terms you set up on Feedly or scoop.it and use Google alerts to monitor the web for them.

The Platforms:

The sheer amount of different social media platforms can be overwhelming but the important thing to remember is that not every platform is for every business or individual. There is no written rule that says every business has to have a Twitter account, or Pinterest account, or Facebook account, etc. Take a minute to think about the content your audience wants and choose the best medium to deliver it to them through. Especially if there is one person taking this on, don’t manage more than 3-4 platforms and don’t forget the first rule, keep each platform’s content unique to the others. Here is a list of some of the major platforms you may want to consider.

  1. Twitter: Perhaps one of the most engaging platforms running today, Twitter can take a lot of work but can pay off in dividends when running right. A lot of people don’t get on Twitter because they don’t think they have anything to say, but they are thinking of it in the wrong way. Instead of thinking you have to have something to say, think about sharing. Share things you find interesting. Pretty soon you will find you have a lot to say. Daily Tasks – Tweet something. Retweet something. Mention someone. Follow someone. Hashtag something.
  2. Facebook: A good Facebook presence has the most up to date information to your business possible. Especially if you don’t have a website you are proud of, use Facebook to keep your community up to date on what is happening with you or your company. Share events, give insight on new products or variations to existing ones and build your audience. Daily Tasks – Post something. Like something. Respond to each comment.
  3. LinkedIn: Get connected with like-minded individuals through groups. While individuals in your network may include long-term business connections or people you just met briefly over coffee, groups are a targeted audience that has similar interests, and essentially help filter the noise. Start small and join just a couple groups where you can monitor discussions. Set up alerts to get notifications when discussions are posted, take 5 minutes to review, and respond when you can provide knowledgeable insight on a subject matter. You can also make it a goal to post your own discussion topics, maybe once a month, so that you’re actively engaging with the community. And if you’re not participating in discussions, allocate those 5 minutes to share good content that you’ve written or read. It’s a less crowded space in terms of social platforms and stands a better chance of standing out. Daily Tasks – Share something. Connect with someone. Add to a discussion (or start a new one, don’t do this one day though).
  4. Pinterest:  The great thing about Pinterest is you don’t have to be a great photographer to use it well, you simply need to curate your content well. If Pinterest is a good fit for your business, the power of engagement can be incredible. For a deeper look at Pinterest, check out Pinterest for business. Daily Tasks – Pin something.
  5. Instagram: Although most social media platforms have some visual element to it, Instagram is almost purely visual. Though they make it easy to make your photos look amazing, not everyone always has amazing things to photograph. If you don’t have a visual product, i.e. if you are not constantly creating something try to find another approach. For instance, Instagram can be a great way to give a behind the scenes glimpse into your company culture. For more information on Instagram download our Instagram guide. Daily Tasks – Photograph something. Respond to comments.
  6. Google+: Although to some it may seem like Google+ is the social platform being shoved down everyone’s throats by Google, it can actually have a ton of benefit for your social media presence. For more information on how to get the best of Google+ download our guide.Daily Tasks: Post something. Add someone to your circles.
  7. YouTube: When thinking of social media platforms, YouTube isn’t often one to comes to peoples mind, but it is, in fact, a social media platform, and an incredibly powerful one at that. If you are taking the time to upload things to YouTube, make sure you have your own channel and monitor it well. Video may be a lot of work but can pay off dividends. Daily Tasks – Respond to comments. Weekly to Biweekly Tasks – Post a video.

The To-Dos:

*30/30 is an app that my colleague Nathaniel Seevers recommended to me. It has proven to be one of the best tools to keep myself on task for something like this. If you really want to stick to 30-minute social media management, this app is invaluable.

Sunday –

This is Hootsuite day, and if you can spare the time you should block off an hour, but if you can’t it can definitely still be done in 30 minutes.

10 Minutes – To review what your Feedly, scoop.it and google alerts have caught for the week. See which articles pertain well to you or your product and pick a few to share throughout the week. While your skimming or reading through the articles, jot down lines straight from the text that you find compelling. That way when it comes time to share, you have an easy quote from the content itself. Also, this is where if you can take that extra time, do so. Use up to 40 minutes if you can spare it.

5 Minutes (per platform) – Take 5 minutes for each platform to schedule out your posts throughout the week. Use the content you just curated from the feeder services and shoot for 3 posts per platform, also schedule out posts about upcoming events or product information that your social community would find interesting.

Monday – Friday –

Your tasks throughout the week should really be focused on interaction, i.e. directly interacting with others and responding to people who are interacting with you. This is where your streams in Hootsuite become super important. Make sure you have them set up to monitor things like the name of your product or service, subjects and things that apply to your product or service, or anything else your community would talk about and be interested in.

7.5 – 10 Minutes (per platform) – Ideally you should be interacting in real time as things happen, but if you don’t have the means, block off your 30 minutes and divide the time up equally. Look at your streams and use it as a guide to interacting with people. Also, use this time to add more posts to be scheduled as things come up with your business throughout the week. For specifics, see the daily tasks under each platform.

Saturday – Social media never really take a day off, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Unless you have a special event, are responding to someone directly, or find something you just have to share at that moment take Saturday off and let the time you don’t use carry over to Sunday.

 

In conclusion, social media can be easily managed by anyone who is willing to prepare, use the right tools, and be diligent about daily management. Is there any other trick you know about to help with social media strategy? Share with us in the comments!

Photo Credit: Robbie Howellcc

LessonsLearned
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HubSpot 30-Day Blog Challenge: Lessons Learned
HubSpot 30-Day Blog Challenge: Lessons Learned 880 461 Shout Out Studio

When we first heard about the HubSpot 30-Day Blog Challenge, there was no doubt in our minds that we planned to participate. After all, we’re already actively blogging anyhow and this meant just stepping it up a notch. Little did we know we’d learn a little along the way too! Here’s a look at the lessons we learned:

Luke Pierce: Strike when the iron is hot.

The most important thing I learned this month is to start writing as soon as you have an idea. I found that if I started writing as soon as I was inspired by something, I would be finished writing the article in no time at all. Not hesitating not only made the writing easier, but it took the pressure off of deadlines. Once I started writing as soon as I was inspired, I found I would be a week ahead of my deadline. Pretty soon I was two weeks ahead. And now, coming out of our 30-day challenge I already have two blog articles waiting to put the finishing touches on to publish. If you can’t start writing as soon as you have the idea, at the very least, just write that idea down so you can come back to it later.

Colin Smith: Write what you know.

When it comes to writing, in any genre, it can be a challenge to come up with content. Something to help get over this initial panic is to write about what you know. This will allow you to produce content that starts a conversation, as well as the opportunity to continue it. Once you get the ball rolling, tackling subjects that seemed intimidating at first will be more manageable.

 Shannon Blair: Content betters our online presence.

Having more content to provide on a daily basis allows for us to have a better presence online. This means that we can share our content on social media and our blog, and by doing so we have a greater advantage when it comes to connecting with others online and sharing our knowledge with others. We aim to meet the needs of our audience and in providing knowledge this past month in our 30-day blog challenge we have met those needs and wants.

Gretchen Ardizzone: Keep it organized.

When it comes to our normal blog strategy we try to evenly spread the responsibility throughout the team. We feel our readers get the most out of our content hearing from different expertise and points of view. With that said, we knew with increased blog activity we’d need to stay organized with our content so our topics weren’t overlapping and we didn’t cover too much of one subject. Luckily we found a super handy WordPress plugin, CoSchedule, to plan our editorial calendar. We scheduled out the whole month of posts and proposed topics, assigned tasks to team members and had the flexibility to easily move around as needed for individual schedules.

Marsh Williams:

When we first started the 30-Day Blog Challenge I was excited, but also concerned it might become a pain in the rear. Well on the last day of the challenge I can tell you that I was absolutely wrong.

Not only was it not a pain, it was fun and everybody pitched in to help; the entire team. The challenge taught us a few more things that will turn out to be very valuable lessons.

  • It’s not as hard as we thought.
  • Planning things out including topics is a tremendous help.
  • Be flexible, if someone’s creative muse didn’t show up on the assigned day then let another person step up.
  • Writing in your “own” voice is a lot easier than trying to sound like an expert at a conference podium.
  • It was a solid team-building exercise.

We’re here, the last day of the HubSpot 30-Day Blog Challenge and we did it. It was worth the challenge and we’d do it again tomorrow.

We will be analyzing the data results over the next week and report what we found in the next week or two. Stay tuned.

Photo Credit: Mark Brannan

BeBetterBusinessBlogger
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How To Be A Better Business Blogger
How To Be A Better Business Blogger 880 461 Shout Out Studio

In previous posts, we’ve broken down the anatomy of an effective blog post and established why blogging matters for business, but how can YOU be a better business blogger? Here are a few best practices you might try:

Collaborate With The Team

There’s no “I” in team right? Well, there’s no “I” in blog either. The most refreshing blogs online these days are the ones that have different viewpoints – why? Because it’s different! Working together as a team allows different to be created with little to no effort. How does that happen? In 3 ways:

  • When you collaborate with a team you feed off of each other’s ideas. If I’m stuck and my creative juices aren’t flowing I can look to my team to support me through that. They offer ideas or things they would want to hear about.
  • Your team isn’t afraid to say no. Or yes really. Often as individuals, we sit around and question our ideas, yet when we present them to the team we more often than not get a positive response or ways to make our posts even better.
  • Think in broader terms of a team. Everyone has a perspective and sometimes it’s those with the softest voice that end up having a ton to contribute, it just takes asking and they’re excited to be involved.

Understand Your Audience:

You know how everyone and their brother tells you that in order to be a successful company you have to understand your audience? Well, they’re right. It’s Business 101. You have to be able to understand your audience’s wants and needs – and more importantly, provide for those wants and needs. The same goes for your blog. We could sit around all day blogging about why cupcakes are so delicious, but that’s not what our audience wants to hear because that’s not the information or the business we provide to benefit them.

Sometimes it’s as simple as just going straight to the source and asking what they want to hear more (and less) about. Survey your readers directly on the blog or poll your audience via social media. You don’t know if you don’t ask.

Network With Your Peers:

Don’t blog with blinders. Get out of your office and go talk to the world. It’s easy to get into a rhythm of developing content, but an outsider who’s not on the front lines with you all day long can help provide a fresh perspective. Sometimes ideas are spurred by just having conversations with your peers. Ask them about issues they’re challenged with, and turn it into an opportunity to use your expertise to help educate others who might be dealing with a similar issue. Don’t just focus on challenges though, we all love to hear a good success story and share ways we can be more efficient and effective in business. Consider even doing a monthly roundtable with other business leaders to discuss hot topics for blog fodder.

Another way to utilize both your expertise and your peers is to swap your knowledge. Be a guest blogger and pay it forward. Provide insight on a subject matter that might be relevant to their audience, and in return give them a platform to share their knowledge with your audience. Sometimes it a nice little break on both ends.

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk

SayNo
  • Marsh Williams

There’s Nothing Wrong With Saying No
There’s Nothing Wrong With Saying No 880 461 Marsh Williams

At one point in my career, about 324 years ago, I had the privilege of working with Harry Gard, one of the original people behind CompuServe, and one of his favorite sayings was “…I’ve made more money saying no than I ever have said yes.”

I’ve always had a tendency to say yes and felt saying no to something, be it a client, a project, a whatever was a sign of weakness. “I don’t want anyone thinking there’s something I can’t do,” and that philosophy has probably created more problems for me than I want to admit. There’s nothing wrong with stretching yourself and learning, but overreaching and promising something just so you can say yes can cause a lot of problems.

But, over time, I’ve come to understand that know what can be done and what should be done in a given situation is a great strength. I’ve learned to say no. Oh don’t get me wrong I still hate to say no, but I’ve learned that it’s the best route in certain situations.

Two weeks ago we were in a meeting with a prospective client and we were asked if we could help them develop a retail marketing strategy for something. Could we? Maybe. (That’s nothing but arrogance speaking.) Should we? No. It’s way out of our experience and core competencies. I told them that it was just not something we were comfortable with and it would be lying to them if I said we could.

The CEO thanked me. What I was really prepared for was, “Well thank you but we’re looking for a firm with broader capabilities.” What I got was, “…thank you. That’s the most honest answer we’ve had in any of our meetings. I’m just sick and tired of everyone saying they can do everything.”

Did I want to tell him yes…of course, I’m a recovering pleaser, but I had to tell him the truth. He would have found out anyway and at that point, our relationship and credibility would have taken a huge hit.

Saying no is hard, there is no doubt about it, but if asked to do something outside your expertise or abilities, try it…I’d love to hear how it goes for you.

Photo Credit: gaptone

SocialMedia2014
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Social Media Platforms of 2014
Social Media Platforms of 2014 880 461 Shout Out Studio

New forms of social media are popping up all the time, but the question is which ones are going to be the next big thing in 2014? I’ve heard about a few platforms through word of mouth and I’ve read about some online as well. However, I wanted to do thorough research of my own, so I downloaded the apps or played around on their sites to really test these guys and see what all the hype was about. Here is a list of the top social media platforms of 2014 to look out for, and if they are a thumbs up or a thumbs down:

Jelly – Thumbs Up

Jelly has already been brought up in our internal meetings more than a few times due to its rising popularity. The question is, will it take off? Available on the iOS and Android, the Jelly app is very new, but the creator Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is certainly not new to the world of social media.

The concept of Jelly is genius, yet simple enough to understand. Let’s say I’m walking around Columbus and I come across a statue or piece of art that interests me and I want to know more about it, I can snap a photo and ask my network of friends to get a response. According to the website, “using Jelly is kind of like using a conventional search engine in that you ask it stuff and it returns answers.” Here are the 3 key features of Jelly:

  • Friends follow friends. – Jelly is designed to search using the groups in your existing social networks so you can ask your friends.
  • Paying It “Forward” – Jelly works so you can not only ask questions or answer your friends’ questions, but it provides the capability to can be shared outside of the app accessing friends of friends as well.
  • Point, Shoot, Ask! – Being able to ask questions with images deepen their context. Snap a photo and ask away!

We Heart It – Thumbs Up

If Instagram and Tumblr had a love child, We Heart It would be its cute little baby girl. It’s built with a younger generation in mind but since the younger generation is taking over the Internet, the world, and everything else, we can expect this to take off as well. Similar to Tumblr and Instagram it’s a collection of who you are expressed through photos. I enjoy coffee, wine, and shoes so my page is a collaboration of those things in a pretty little package. My only complaint is this social media platform could do with more variety of photos, but with a growing user-base, this issue should fix itself sooner rather than later.

Shots Of Me – Thumbs Down

If you really enjoy taking photo after photo of yourself this app has your name on it. If you aren’t into that kind of thing, stop here. However, I will say if you want a good laugh check it out. Shots of Me is a Justin Bieber backed mobile app, helping you take selfies and only selfies. Without a real purpose, this app doesn’t particularly interest me, so unless Matthew McConaughey joins I won’t be getting back on this app anytime soon. One positive? It might be the key to getting all those selfies off of Facebook and Instagram. Can I get a hallelujah?

Sportlobster – Thumbs Up

You can always tell when a good game is on when you get on social media and dudes and bros from across the country are debating about bad calls. Sportlobster is giving users the ability to follow scores live, predict results, create content, and interact with other fans. You can follow your sport(s) of choice and jump right into the conversation within minutes of creating an account. When you join the app you can go through and select preferences about the sport(s) categories you are most interested in reading about. This weekend I chose to follow Tiger Woods and when I did so I learned that Sportslobster has a pretty awesome menu of your notifications, predictions, blogs, and news. If you go to your preferences such as Woods, you can check out his events, blogs, news, posts and who the fans are. Sportslobster provides awesome access to athlete specific info. This weekend I chose to follow Tiger Woods and discovered tons of relevant content about his events, fans, news and more.

The one negative about this app is its pretty European-based so there is more Cricket and Rugby than Nascar and College Basketball. They do have American football and professional basketball, so again, with a larger user base, we might see more universal content soon.

Whisper – Thumbs Down

Whisper is a social media platform that is anonymous for people who want to share and connect with other socials. Even CSBC got in on the action on this one posting an article begging the question if Whisper is the next big social media play. There are already 3 billion page views per month. Since this platform is solely based on animosity it really makes me wonder if it will stay strong. This sounds great, but my issue lies in the fact that the focus of being on social media is being social. If I’m on Instagram I’m on there to share my photos with my friends and family. Similarly, when I log onto Twitter during this award season, I’m on there to read what Perez Hilton is saying about Jennifer Lawerence’s dress on the red carpet. My point is, the main focus is that I know who these people are and that’s my point on being on social media.

So, I did my research. I got an account and looked around a bit. The reality is that from the position of a young professional, this app is not for me. When I was 14-15, maybe it would’ve worked. This app gives teens the ability to “whisper” on an anonymous social media platform and connect with other kids who feel the same way. While I may not be a fan, that doesn’t mean it won’t be huge this year because it has a target audience, and with 3 billion page views per month, the makers of this platform are reaching their goal.

Impossible – Thumbs Up

I am completely diggin’ Impossible. I get where they are coming from and I think the world could use a few more social media platforms like this, especially comparing to other social sites. Thank goodness for a little restoration in my faith of humanity.

Impossible is a new website and app that encourages people to do things for others for free. People can post wishes of things that they want or need help with and offer what they can give, which can be things or skills, even a simple hug. Impossible shows these wishes on their site and people can connect with one another to accomplish these wishes being turned into reality. It’s a great concept and aside from some people asking for gnomes and other odds and ends, I think this project could really take off. If a few large corporations get involved and the word gets out more this could be a really great thing.

That’s what’s on my social radar. Anything new you’ve spotted trending?
Photo Credit: thomasstache

Whywehaveawebsite
  • Marsh Williams

Why Do We Have A Website?
Why Do We Have A Website? 776 415 Marsh Williams

Why do we have a website? Every-once-in-a-while it’s really important to stop and ask this question. It’s important to validate what we are doing as a company and make sure that we’re still on point with what we are publicly communicating about our organization.

I can tell you this, what we were when we started is not what we are now. Change is inevitable and we love it. Change is growth, learning, movement, adaptation, and natural, but we need to remember that our story and how we communicate it needs to keep pace with that change in all we do. This is the hard part. It’s so easy to just put something out there and leave it alone and have it be fine, and in reality, it’s what we all want, but in reality, it’s never going to happen. So what do we do? We stop and ask ourselves three key questions:

  • Why do we have a website?
  • What does it say about us?
  • What do we want from it?

It gets to be a little convoluted from time-to-time but here is how we handle it.

We have a website to tell our story. It’s not a sales tool it’s a tool that lets people see into our organization, what we do, how we do it, who we are, and what we’re like. If they like what they see we offer them opportunities to get to know us better and hopefully they will get some insights from our blog,—”Why do we have a blog?” is another topic for later—but we do not expect our website to sell anything…ever. We just think of it as a way to share, our knowledge, something about who we are and tell our story.

What our website says about us is important, not in the description of what we do, but in the words we choose and how we present ourselves. We want our site to reflect who we are as a company and what we are like as individuals. We like long-term relationships and that means we have to be really honest about ourselves. It doesn’t do any good to present ourselves one way on the website and actually show up and be different people. We are, for better or worse, unique. We are the only “us” there is and that’s what makes us different from every other firm in a very crowded space.

We cultivate that difference and work hard to reflect it in our communications. It took a long time and a lot of effort to find our genuine voice and eschew the standard marketing speak for real communication that people can identify with. We do not want to lose this and it’s incredibly important that our website says what we believe and reflects our culture as it really is.

Some companies just don’t care for what we put out there and think that it’s too informal or too “creative,” but that’s alright we are very comfortable with who we are as a firm and a team, and for the companies that can relate to that it’s usually a great place to begin our conversations.

Lastly, what we want from our website is interest. That’s it. We want our website to generate interest in knowing more about our firm. We want our website to generate interest in knowing more about our people and how we dissect and solve problems for our clients. We want someone who needs our services to visit our website and say, “I don’t know if this is the right team or not, but I’m crazy if I don’t meet with them.”

That’s why we have a website…why do you have yours?

Photo Credit: jonathan mcintosh cc

Blogging
  • Shout Out Studio

Content That Adds Real Value
Content That Adds Real Value 1920 700 Shout Out Studio

As marketers and bloggers, we try to keep up on all of the marketing articles floating out there for consumption. For a while it was really good, it was the golden age of marketing materials. But in our opinion, that time has passed. And lately, we just feel like the same crap is being circulated around the circles we follow. There are a hundred “10 Things You Need To Know About X” articles out there for everyone with honestly curated content with real-world experience examples. Trust us, were guilty of it sometimes too (see Top 5 Small Business Marketing Tools) but we want to take a little time to step back, breathe deep, and think about the things we really want to read from here on out.

Marsh Williams

If you’ve followed us at all you know how passionate we are about helping small business people take advantage of the Internet to grow their businesses, and usually, the first thing we have to do in a client situation is debunk the myth that there is some silver-bullet software solution that will fix everything. Despite what the various marketing and sales teams will tell you, there isn’t.

Although tools are sold based on capabilities, it’s the everyday understanding and uses that makes them valuable. Small business owners seldom have time to deal with theory, they want results and that means actionable direction. A step-by-step guide to an outcome is always going to be more valuable than a statement about theoretical marketing or sales strategies.

As an example, marketing automation solutions are often sold by touting their capabilities; generating more customers, delivering focused content, lead nurturing, etc. But, the real question for many organizations is how do I do that. How do I use these tools on a day-to-day basis to grow my business and delivery revenue to the bottom line? The answer is show me, lead me, give me step-by-step directions based on desired outcomes, not high-level theory. That’s adding value where it is needed in the small business world. Give me something to do that will actually help grow my business, not something that I have to figure out before I can even begin to apply it.

In providing content that leads to the desired outcome value is delivered…that’s where the real focus of content creation can come through.

Shannon Blair

We all know that content with Top Tens and 3 “How To’s” are informative and straight to the point but they often lack inspiration. I often sit down to seek out great content that I can share in the social media world… I mean great things gotta be passed on, right? But I have to tell you it can become tiresome when the content to be found every day is a repeat of last weeks old content about how great Twitter is for small businesses (we get it, people, Twitter rocks our socks too). The content I want to see more of is content based on inspiration. When I say content based on inspiration I mean an article that is perfectly written with not only a clearly defined purpose but with clarity that the author was motivated and moved by something, the really good stuff. This is the content that the marketing and digital world could use more of. There is nothing worse than a day chalked full of boring unoriginal content – come on people, get inspired!

Luke Pierce

I have been trying to grow my Twitter presence lately, and in doing so I have started to follow a lot of well known digital marketers out there. And now I have started to unfollow them. I was so sick of constantly having my twitter feed polluted with links to the same articles on the same subjects written the same way. All day every day. I liked to read that stuff when I first got into the digital marketing business, but frankly, I’m sick of it now. The problem I see now is that there is so much information on theory out there, but minimal amounts of information on the practice.

The marketing articles I really want to see now are the ones chronicling practice, not theory. Give me some transparency. I want to see exactly what people are doing, what worked, what didn’t work and how they are going to try and correct it. Tell me your failures, brag about your successes, and be innovative, not repetitive. Let me see the way others grow. In the future, I want to see way more well-documented case studies, analytics on specific campaigns, and crazy ideas put into practice. Digital marketing is not my religion, I don’t have to take things on faith. Give me cold hard facts.

Gretchen Ardizzone

I read a lot of content that is written from an authoritative, expert point of view, but what resonates with me most, and what I’d like to see more of, is content written from personal experience. It’s one of the guiding principles in many of our own posts. We’ve written about exercises in finding your company voice, why blogging matters, and how to conduct a blogger outreach program, just to name a few. Each of these we wrote from a personal perspective with total transparency.

It’s about positioning content so you’re not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. Writing from a personal experience perspective makes the content more relatable to the audience, and can be a great way to be able to express potential pitfalls that can be avoided based on your experience—what to do and what not to do.

Nathaniel Seevers

It’d be great to see less of all of it actually. Not just fewer sales pitch paragraphs at the end of blog posts, though that one is way, way up there, but less in general. Less focus on quantity and more focus on quality. From that; more stories. More background. More details.

2014 will usher in stronger movements toward reducing the noise and disconnecting. So when you, me, any of us put out content it better be damn worth the precious time someone spends to read it. Readers won’t be asking for more they’ll be purging blogs from their feeds so content has to stick.

There’s no hard and fast rule that says you need to put out a blog post every day to be relevant. We’re in the midst of a blog writing challenge right now as a company – all through January. But quality comes first and we planned our actions accordingly. We’d rather lose than not be useful to our readers.

 Tell us about the content you want to see in 2014.

 Note: This post was written in one hour as part of the HubSpot 30-Day Blog Challenge.

desire not fear postheader 1
  • Nathaniel Seevers

Marketing Based on Desire Instead of Fear
Marketing Based on Desire Instead of Fear 1920 703 Nathaniel Seevers

Every day we’re subjected to broad-brushed statements and statistics geared toward making us take some sort of action. It’s marketing. It’s communication. It’s normal. But all too often a portion of the content we digest on a daily basis works to drive action by peddling fear.

Local news has been guilty of this for as long as I can remember.

Severe weather alert, the roads are virtually impassable, stock up now, you might as well just stay home and watch your local news all day for the latest so we can sell more ads.

I get it to an extent. Your local news is a business just the same as a company making hand soap. They are both working to make a profit, to stay open, to pay their people.

The problem with this approach, outside of creating a nation of people digging bomb shelters in the backyard, is that fear is a short-term game. Fear may be the easiest emotion to tap into but it is only a short-term motivator. It’s motivation based on an instinctual reaction—survival not on choice.

People learn and adapt. It’s the same reason why interruptive marketing tactics like animated banner ads and pop-ups lose effectiveness over time.

What if we built marketing based on desire instead of fear?

If fear shaped long-term consumer behavior, fast food restaurants would no longer exist. Gyms would far exceed McDonald’s locations. Las Vegas would have no more secrets to keep. Fear doesn’t embed habits. The solution does. The benefit does. The reward does. The attainment of the desire is what promotes dedication.

In the book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg tells the true story of Claude C. Hopkins, a successful advertising executive hired in the early 1900s to help market this new toothpaste called “Pepsodent.”

Despite widely known information on the decline of the health of Americans’ teeth, many other toothpaste pushers were going broke. That is until Hopkins focused Pepsodent’s positioning on the reward, the desire to have a clean feeling, pretty, film-free teeth.

book on a desk

“Within a decade, Pepsodent was one of the top-selling goods in the world and remained America’s best-selling toothpaste for more than thirty years. Before Pepsodent appeared only 7 percent of Americans had a tube of toothpaste in their medicine chest.” – The Power of Habit

Many B2C brands thrive in the world of desire-based, benefit-forward marketing. Coca-Cola says, to open a Coke is to open happiness. They even encourage you to share a Coke with a friend. They don’t say, “the world is going to shit, buy all the Coke you can carry, so you have something to drink while you’re hiding out in your basement.”

Why not position around fear?

It’s a punk move: It’s a quick fix in an age where consumer education and the value of social validation are high. Fear might get you a quick sale based on reaction but rarely will it translate into recurring revenue or repeat business. You can do better than fear. You can be more creative. We believe in you.

Don’t confuse fear and empathy: Empathizing with a concern or pain point in order to provide a solution isn’t the same as pushing an unbalanced dose of “do this or else.”

Brand Association – Communicating from a fear platform doesn’t mean you’ll be cast in the role of the hero saving the day. It just means you’re scaring the hell out of everyone.

This is a great opportunity to refer to your Brand Manifesto or Brand Guide as your compass, making sure you’re pointed in the right direction and speaking from the brand characteristics you documented for your business. I bet you didn’t write “scary” as one of your brand characteristics so why tag your company with that feeling? It can lead to a negative association in the subconscious of the consumer if pursued regularly over the lifetime of the brand.

What to do instead

  • Focus on the resolution – put your benefit upfront and the problem at the end of your copy. “Shout Out fresh scent hand soap softens hands and kills 99% of the germs that cause bad marketing.”
  • Paint a brighter picture – instead of talking about the potential of a post-apocalyptic fall out describe the utopia that comes with the solution you provide.
  • Build an audience around social proof – back it up with positive feedback and a happy community of fans across social platforms.
Picture of tools on table
  • Marsh Williams

Excellent New Marketing Tool for WordPress
Excellent New Marketing Tool for WordPress 776 415 Marsh Williams

Everyone has heard about marketing automation; the holy grail of business software solutions; at least this week. The solutions abound, HubSpot, ActOn, Infusionsoft, Marketo, and so on. They promise the moon, and for those with the human and financial capital to use them effectively, they actually deliver outstanding results. But what about the little guy, what about the small business that wants some of the same capabilities but has a staff of five and no money to spend. What do they do?

Well, using our superpower of prognostication we think we may have found one; LeadIn. We’ve been trying it out for the last few weeks and really like what we’ve seen so far. Clearly, it’s a work in progress, but it already is adding value to our organization.

In short, the current software provides capabilities to track individuals who visit a website and fill out any associated form, be it a request for information, a download of some sort, or joining a newsletter. LeadIn adds a tracking cookie to the visitors’ browser and automatically ads them to the LeadIn contacts section it will create in your WordPress site. In that sense, it is as powerful as the other options that cost thousands of dollars per month.

The folks at LeadIn are very much on the right track and have designs for bringing significant capabilities to the WordPress world.

Now the reason for this blatant plug…something we don’t do often…they need testers. Right now they are seeking to get as many people as they can accommodate to install the beta PlugIn and try it out. If this holds any interest for you, we hope you will check them out and we can all watch together as they move forward.

Photo Credit: tashland

eCommerceSite part3
  • Shout Out Studio

Building a Successful eCommerce Site – Part 3
Building a Successful eCommerce Site – Part 3 776 415 Shout Out Studio

In parts one and two of Building a Successful eCommerce site, we talked about location and design, respectively. Those two aspects of eCommerce sites and brick and mortar stores are fundamental to success throughout the life of the business, but even if both those aspects are stellar the business may not succeed long enough to matter. Enter promotion.

First off, don’t confuse promotion for marketing. Marketing is something you should be engaging in at all times, through the life of the business to build and reinforce your brand. Promotion is a specific marketing campaign, in this case, geared towards promoting your new eCommerce site. It’s one of those “all bourbon is whiskey but not all whiskey is bourbon” kind of things.

Business owners often understand the need to promote their new brick and mortar store but for some reason believe that the internet is a magical place that people instinctively know to flock to their new site. There are some familiar ways that people promote new brick and mortar stores like hanging a sign, doing a PR outreach to local publications, and hosted events. Each one of those promotional tactics has an eCommerce equivalent that is easy to do.

 Signage = Electronic ad space or splash page

A Nordstrom Rack recently opened in Columbus. Everyone knew it was coming months in advance because Nordstrom bought significant amounts of ad space on billboards and park benches downtown and elsewhere (some of which are still up). It sparked high levels of anticipation and word-of-mouth marketing. The same thing can be done online. Do your research to find out where people would be excited to hear about your store. Check specific facebook (or other social media) groups, search terms applicable to your product or service, and popular blogs.

Since most ads on the internet are pay-per-click you need to give them somewhere to go. That is going to be your splash page. It’s the equivalent of hanging your banner on the fence outside your brick and mortar store that is containing the construction going on. Make sure your splash page has some information about an opening and a place to opt for an e-mail communication.

 PR Outreach = Blogger & eMagazine Campaign

A press release is often sent out to local print publications about an upcoming brick and mortar store generating curiosity and buzz in the local community. On the web, you want to focus on bloggers, podcasters, and eMagazines to do much of the same thing. Reach out to them and offer a sample of an early product. See what it take to be a part of their content. Keep in mind most bloggers and magazines plan their content out very far in advance so you may not get in right away but planting that seed for a traffic pop down the line could pay off dividends for you.

 Parties & Events = Social Media Contests or Give Aways

Brick and mortar stores usually have some sort of grand kick-off party, sale, or giveaway. It is a great way to open your store to big crowds and generate word of mouth. These things usually include an offer of some kind although it doesn’t have to. Restaurants do it with practice nights where they give away free food to friends and family. Some stores offer big savings to their first customers. You can achieve the same thing with eCommerce stores with a focus on social media. Try doing a social media contest. Raffle Copter can be a great tool. Or maybe put an opening day discount code and share it on some Facebook ads. Social media can be a very powerful tool, but if you are waiting until opening day to start building your audience you have planned very poorly.

Building a successful eCommerce shop is a complex undertaking but the rewards for doing it right are infinite. If most people approach their eCommerce shop with the same considerations as building a brick and mortar store; good location, great design, and efficient promotion the chances of success are in your favor.

Photo Credit: jurvetson cc

OscarforMarketing
  • Shout Out Studio

2014 Oscar Nominations for Marketing
2014 Oscar Nominations for Marketing 776 415 Shout Out Studio

Being a team full of movie lovers it’s one of our favorite time of year here at Shout Out Studio, award season. We love to have yelling matches lively discussions amongst ourselves about what we think the best film of the year was. But today we are taking time out for one of our favorite Oscars, that they don’t give: the Oscar for best Marketing. Here is our list of movies that marketed themselves with genius and finesse this year.

 Luke Pierce – Inside Llewyn Davis

I’ll be honest. There was absolutely no way I wasn’t going to see Inside Llewyn Davis. It’s a Cohen brothers film and it’s about folk music. Talk about a hipster jackpot. I had been anticipating its release for a while, but it wasn’t until I heard about the concert that I got super excited. The concert was called Another Day/Another Time and it was a one-night benefit concert for the National Recording Preservation Foundation. It took place in September, about three months before the release of the film. The concert generated so much buzz about how good the music in the film is that it started to create the feeling that it didn’t matter how good the film was (although come on, it’s a Cohen brothers film). The concert was documented and is now playing on Showtime. There are talks of continuing the concert for more venues and showtimes in 2014. In my opinion, when a film can create such a buzz about something other than it’s visual appeal, that is a marketing win and Inside Llewyn Davis did it beautifully.

 Gretchen Ardizzone – Frozen

I’m giving the award for best movie marketing of 2013 to Frozen. No, it’s probably not in my top five favorite movies of the year, but there’s something to be said for the strategic marketing behind the movie. It’s no secret that Disney set out to market this movie differently than they had in the past. Hoping to attract an audience beyond little girls who love princesses, pretty dresses, and musical ballads, initial marketing was somewhat vague. Early on I had seen several trailers for the movie, but every trailer I had seen included a goofy little snowman, named Olaf, and an awkward Moose. You can check it out here.

It wasn’t until later in October, a month before the November official movie launch, more details around the plot of the movie were released. Apparently, I missed this part of the marketing though, having it in my head already that it looked like it was going to be good. So over Thanksgiving weekend, I headed out to the movies with my son, to see what I thought was going to be a cute animated movie about a snowman and a moose. Not so much. If you haven’t seen it, you can check out this trailer for a more accurate portrayal of what the movie is really about.

Turns out I may not have been the only one confused, not realizing that the movie was about the relationship of two sisters, sprinkled with a little youthful love story, according to Forbes, “43% of audience members were male.”

I’ll admit I would’ve been less inclined to go see the movie had I not been introduced to it in the way that I was. Disney creatively selected elements of the movie that would appeal to a broader audience upfront, and captured their interest, myself included.

 Colin Smith – Anchorman 2

When it came to building a campaign to get the attention of viewers in 2013, no one did it better than Anchorman 2. To begin, they had the popularity of the first movie on their side. But they did more than just make ads and send the star-studded cast out to promote the highly anticipated sequel. They took it a step further.

They created content that people wanted to share. Instead of having Will Ferrell appear on shows to talk about how great they all feel about the movie, they sent Ron Burgundy to do what he does, report the news. His features in Dodge Durango commercials not only boosted their sale but also brought a humongous spike in their website’s traffic. The team also took to social media, giving fans a chance to interact with their favorite newscast from San Diego.

They did something they weren’t able to do the first time around: they created a campaign that was able to stand alone and didn’t rely on the movie. The buzz surrounding the release of Anchorman 2 was one that stretched beyond that of a normal sequel.

 

 

Photo Credit: Dave_B_ cc

three shadows in the street
  • Gretchen Ardizzone

Utilizing User-Generated Content in Your Content Strategy
Utilizing User-Generated Content in Your Content Strategy 880 461 Gretchen Ardizzone

Your content marketing plan likely includes a combination of a blog, eBooks, whitepapers, video content, social media, and possibly a few other mediums, but one of the most compelling forms of content is created by your consumers. It’s emotional, passionate and powerful. Businesses have a huge opportunity to leverage user-generated content, and here are a few brands seeing success with this strategy:

BaubleBar

BaubleBar’s Co-Founder Daniella Yacobovsky recently spoke at National Retail Federation’s annual Retail’s BIG Show and shared how incorporating user-generated content is a highly effective tactic for BaubleBar. The brand currently integrates selfie snapshots on their website with the customers sporting their various sparkly baubles in a shoppable slideshow. Customers simply share their pic on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #BaubleBar or upload it directly to the website. According to Yacobovsky, “A third of site visitors engage with it and the conversion rate for those who do is 2.5 times higher than those who don’t.”

What’s great about this approach is that it gives the consumer a realistic view of how the product might look on them and inspiration for how to style the accessory. Much more compelling than just seeing the product on a white background, and consumers are able to relate more by seeing it on an everyday person rather than a model. And giving the consumer even more reason to share, the brand also selects three of their favorites every month to win $100.

I’ve mentioned before the value Pinterest can provide for businesses, and BaubleBar is no exception here. What’s interesting is though, the brand realized that “pins posted by others drove 10 times more traffic than BaubleBar’s own Pinterest content, so to encourage shoppers to pin, they redesigned and emphasized the “Pin it” button on product pages.” Instead of just thinking about your Pinterest strategy as a separate entity, think about how you can make it useful in the shopping experience and integrate into your website. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve visited websites and pinned items to my style board to serve as a virtual reminder, and essentially a trail of crumbs to where I can buy the product when I’m ready.

Juicy Couture

To promote its new sports apparel product line, Juicy Couture has engaged with the photo-sharing platform, Snaps to get consumers involved. Snaps is similar to Instagram but allows consumers to edit and add graphic content to their photos. The app has a two-fold purpose for the Juicy Couture brand: to allow consumers to add Juicy graphic elements related to fitness and working out, and share with friends and family, as well as try on Juicy Couture Sports product to see how it looks on them via their mobile device.

The method is effective in branding the images beyond just a hashtag connection and gives the consumer the chance to virtually try on a product, but the user-generated content has potential greater than just the selfie.

Warby Parker

I’ve praised Warby Parker in previous posts for their genius marketing efforts, and this may not be the last. The online eyewear brand with a home try-on program wholeheartedly believes in word-of-mouth marketing has found a way to incorporate user-generated content. The brand encourages consumers to use their social network to help in the selection process of their perfect frame by posting a pic of themselves wearing the various options on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.  Warby Parker’s Co-founder and Co-CEO, David Gilboa, says, “Customers who post photos of themselves in frames are buying at twice the rate as those who don’t.”

It doesn’t have to be just about promoting the product when it comes to utilizing user-generated content, it can also benefit promoting the overall brand.

Nike

While I may be a marketer, I’m no stranger to my own contribution to providing user-generated content. In 2013 sports apparel brand, Nike carried out one of the most creative initiatives which I was lucky enough to be able to participate in, which resulted in a community of individuals sharing content like you wouldn’t believe…all for a great cause. Nike organized a Women’s 10k event to raise funds for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, oh and did I mention it was all virtual? Given the fact that there was no specific destination for this event to take place, you might think the participation would be low. Think again though.

So how did it work? Everyone had to register and pay the $40 entry fee. Each runner had to commit to running a 10k distance (6.3 miles) over a 2-day period (March 9th or 10th) whenever and wherever they chose—trail, track, road or gym—using the Nike running app to record their efforts. In true race fashion, each runner received a technical race shirt (Nike branded of course), with a blank space for runners to write in the various reasons why they run…for fun, for a cause, for those who can’t, just to name a few. Runners were then encouraged to share their route and run using the hashtag #letsturnitup.

Participants professed great satisfaction with running for a worthy cause, and over the course of the two days, runners logged 29,524 miles on the Nike running app, and filled Nike’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter news feed full of stories of individuals and groups participating in the run. Not to mention, raised almost $50,000 for LLS.

Many runners had never used the Nike running app and were exposed to a new run tracking method, at the same time feeling the reward of accomplishment. And while the event may have been virtual, that day connected thousands of individuals through social media. Well done, Nike.

While the brands I mentioned may have big marketing budgets, small brands and entrepreneurs can successfully utilize user-generated content without a significant investment, but with a sound strategy.

Photo Credit: The Real Estreya

sign and guitar
  • Marsh Williams

Marketing Equals Engagement
Marketing Equals Engagement 880 461 Marsh Williams

We’ve been on an internal campaign lately to think less about marketing and more about engagement. After all, you cannot create a customer/client/friend/whatever until you engage them in some way.

The phrase we’ve been kicking around is AIDA—not the opera, but ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE, ACTION. It’s a natural progression in forming a relationship that so many companies, including ours, forget from time-to-time.

Alright, break it down. Let me share what the little voice in my head is saying in response to your marketing…stay tuned there’s a prize at the end.

Attention

The goal here is not to just get someone’s attention but doing it in a way that leads to interest. Any idiot standing on the corner screaming can get my attention, but lose it just as quickly because I have observed, processed and decided I have no desire to be around them.

So now turn that around. In the same way, a great visual element, or line of copy can pique my interest and get me to the point of spending a few seconds more (that’s all you get) to see what is going on, “…you’ve got my attention, now keep me interested.”

Interest

I’ve seen enough on this brief journey to start observing critically and begin to form an internal value statement on what I’m observing/reading/listening to.” I’m actually going to spend a few more seconds to see what happens next. “…you better keep it interesting.”

Desire

“Alright, I’m in. I’ve seen enough that I want to know where this goes.”

Action

This is the payoff…what all marketers want: engagement. Up till now, I’ve been “distracted into” seeing what someone has chosen to present. I’ve been a passive party in the experience, but now I’m stepping over the threshold. Now I’m taking action based on my experience and I am going to be proactive in my response by calling/emailing/buying/referring.

Now for the fun part…take those thoughts and apply the first three steps to the video.

Attention

A man in formal wear standing in the middle of a public plaza with a bass doing nothing.

Little Voice: “Wait, what’s wrong? Why is he here in tails and why is he just standing there doing nothing.”

Interest

The man starts playing and almost immediately someone else comes out and joins him to build the experience.

Little Voice: “Alright this is cool and completely unexpected. I want to see where this goes”

Desire

New elements/layers are being added at a rate that captures my interest. The overall experience in building on itself to the point that people are going to see this through and get the full message.

Little Voice: “This is pretty wonderful and I don’t care if I have to be somewhere else right now. I’m just going to be late because this is worth it.”

Action

People loved it and it has been the most successful marketing/engagement the Sabadell Bank ever undertook… that’s right, the bank that’s in the background of almost every shot.

Little Voice: “If that ever happens again I want to be there to experience it myself.”

By the way…if you don’t have a little voice in your head then we rent ours out.

 

Photo Credit: Stephen Poff

dictionary
  • Shout Out Studio

Digital Marketing Terms Defined
Digital Marketing Terms Defined 880 461 Shout Out Studio

If you’re new to digital marketing, you may find yourself in a world full of unfamiliar acronyms and jargon. It can seem intimidating, confusing, and even exclusionary. But, most of the time it’s a way for marketers to communicate with each other in the most efficient way possible. Knowing some of what it means can help you as your company enters a digital marketing venture. Below is a list of commonly used terms you will come across in digital marketing, and what they mean. By familiarizing yourself with these terms, you can feel confident moving forward with your companies marketing goals.

B2B:

Business to Business refers to business interactions that occur between two businesses. It is the way goods or services are exchanged between two companies. This is usually part of the development or manufacturing of one company’s consumer goods.

B2C:

Business to Consumer is similar to B2B. A business to consumer transaction is when a consumer buys a final product or service from a company for use.

CTA:

A Call to Action is a something on your company’s website that grabs the attention of a viewer and invites them to view another part of your site. It can be something like a banner or button, such as a “Learn More”  button at the end of a paragraph, inviting the viewer to continue reading. In other words, it is a lead or a prompt.

Bounce Rate:

This is the percentage of people who visit one page on your site but leave it without visiting any other page. It is better to retain a viewer’s attention and get them interested enough to visit more of your site.

Blog:

A blog is what you are currently reading. For a business, it is a chance to self-promote. You can put out original content, create site traffic, and grab the attention of potential clients. It’s a good way to interact with your audience by starting a conversation.

Brand: 

In marketing, a brand does not just refer to your logo or tagline. It is identifying what you want the target audiences’ perception of your company to be, and how your company’s voice reflects that image.

ROI:

Return on Investment basically comes down to getting the biggest bang for your buck. You want to see results, and developing a strategy geared towards providing ROI (Return on Investment) is the first place to start.

SEO: 

Search Engine Optimization is the visibility of your site in a search engine’s “natural,”  or unpaid, results. The better your site’s SEO is, the more views it will get from this “organic”  traffic.

SEM:

Search Engine Marketing is the promotion and SEO development to increase site visibility.

UX:

UX is an acronym for User Experience. In terms of digital marketing, this is the experience your visitors will have when they visit your site. User experience takes into account the actions you’d like the user to take and the information you’d like them to obtain. The more they enjoy that experience, the more likely they are to spend time looking at what you have to offer.

While this is not a complete list, it can give you a better understanding of what’s being discussed in digital marketing. In the fast-changing culture of the Internet, and therefore digital marketing, it is nice to have a base of reference to lean back on.

Photo Credit: MrPhilDog

DesignPlan
  • Shout Out Studio

Building a Successful eCommerce Site – Part 2
Building a Successful eCommerce Site – Part 2 776 415 Shout Out Studio

In part one of building a successful eCommerce site, we talked about how the location of a brick and mortar store is the equivalent of the search engine results for an eCommerce site. The gist of what we were talking about is putting the business in the best position for high volumes of traffic. However, high volumes of traffic to your business, whether it be foot traffic or Internet visitors, isn’t going to do any good if the business can’t convert the sale. So let’s look at another consideration that applies to both brick and mortar stores and eCommerce sites; Design.

Brick and Mortar Interior Design = eCommerce Site Design

Quality design makes people feel at ease, it lets them know you are serious about what you do, and it adequately reflects your brand. Good design not only reflects well on your brand, it also influences how people buy. In a brick and mortar store, you have the advantage of employees to communicate the brand’s message to potential buyers, but eCommerce sites often don’t have the luxury of face to face communication. This is where design becomes even more important. Consider these things when you start to think about your site design:

Vet Your Designer

Do your research here. Look at their past work. Either ask them for references or look up contact info for someone they worked for and just ask them about it. Actually, do that! You might find that they were slow to work with but they communicated every step of the way, which is much better than someone who doesn’t communicate at all and gives you a finished product that vaguely resembles what you want.

Ask Them To Tell You a Story

So you found someone who designs some pretty slick stuff, great! But how are they at telling stories? If they are simply asking you what design choices you want and not at all about what makes your business unique and different, walk away. Just like that. Find someone else. There are hordes of people out there that have the technical skills to make a website work and look good, but most don’t possess the traits required to tell your brand story AND make it look good, which is what sets apart a successful eCommerce site and a mediocre one.

Set Yourself Up For Flexibility

We have written about why we love WordPress here before, but I can’t stress to you enough the importance to have your site built on a system that you can manage yourself. Most designers, and frankly people in general, tend not to be the best communicators, especially when you need something done urgently. The power to make changes yourself will be priceless over the life of your business.

One should place just as much importance on site design just as one places importance on the interior design, product placement, and customer flow of a brick and mortar store. In the end, good design will last the life of the business and pay for itself ten times over. Take your time and find someone who can help tell your story with finesse and efficiency.

Stay tuned for part 3 of Building a Successful eCommerce Site.

Photo Credit: xJason.Rogersx cc

Statue with head in hands
  • Shout Out Studio

Biggest Marketing Mistakes
Biggest Marketing Mistakes 880 461 Shout Out Studio

Marketers have the great responsibility (and sometimes burden) of coming up with creative, attention-grabbing campaigns, communications, advertisements, and more, and every once in a while there’s a marketing initiative that makes us ask, “What were they thinking?” We’ve compiled what we believe are some of the biggest marketing mistakes from years past and others very recent. There’s something to be learned from them all!

Marsh Williams

So who doesn’t love St. Patrick’s Day? I mean really…all the beer, all the green, all the green beer. So why not honor the Irish with a new product launched in their name on their day. Nike thought it was a great way to tie everything up into one neat bow.

They wanted to introduce a new shoe named the “Black and Tan” in honor of the drink by the same name which is usually made with the Irish staple: Guinness. What they failed to realize is that while Black & Tan might be a perfectly respectable name in Beaverton Oregon, it would never, ever be used in Ireland.

Black and Tan refers to a British paramilitary group organized to help put down the Irish rebellion of the 1920’s. The Black and Tan’s were notorious for their violent and oppressive tactics and are reviled to this day in some parts of Ireland.

So take Nike’s plan to introduce a shoe named Black and Tan on St. Patrick’s Day, an incredibly insensitive and ignorant move, and you have a perfect storm for stupid marketing tricks. The only thing Nike could do to make it worse when they got called out on this gaffe would be to say that “Black and Tan” was the unofficial name and they never intended to use it. Sometime I’d love to hear a company say, “…you know what? We really screwed up and we’re embarrassed by our actions and lack of knowledge in doing this. We’re sorry.”

Colin Smith 

When developing an advertising campaign, companies take everything into account from color to typography. Well, most companies do. Apparently PepsiCo. and Japanese based fashion company A Bathing Ape didn’t double check the latter. They collaborated to create a limited edition can, calling the promotion “Pepsi x Aape” to bring attention to Bathing Apes sub-brand Aape. The two companies decided to use Pepsi’s typeface for the promotion, which seemed reasonable. The unfortunate part of this collaborative print ad, which was featured in a Hong Kong subway, was that some mistakenly thought the ad read “PEPSI x RAPE.” The misinterpreted campaign even made its way on to various other promotional products made for the collaboration. This confusion was avoidable if they had reconsidered the typography they both approved for the ad. Attention to detail is crucial, and failing to do so can lead to some embarrassing public apologies.

Luke Pierce

I realize that I am about to write about a very polarizing subject, so please do not focus on the Obamacare part of these ads and instead look at the approach the ads take. At first glance, the ads promoting the healthcare initiative in Colorado are offensive to millennials. They continue to be offensive at a second glance as well. For those of you who have not seen the ads, you can check them out here. After seeing Wednesday night’s episode of The Daily Show where they aired a report on these ads, you can see why this was the first thing that came to mind when we decided on this subject for our Free-for-all Friday. However, when I sat down to write this, I came across this NPR article which shed a little more light on the story of these ads.

After reading that article I now have mixed feelings about these ads. On one hand, given what they had to work with (a budget of $5000), they seem to have done a pretty good job of getting eyeballs on the ads via social media. But on the other hand, the use of offensive material seems like a cheap trick used to just get some added exposure without communicating the brand message at all. This is ultimately the reason I think this is a huge marketing mistake. At the end of the day, the ads succeeded in getting attention, but they didn’t do anything in the way of relaying the brand message that they really wanted to communicate.

 Gretchen Ardizzone

I was just born the year that this marketing blunder was committed, and while it may be an oldie, there’s certainly a lesson to be learned. Prior to 1981, the portable computer didn’t exist. One company, the Osborne Computer Corporation, saw an opportunity to launch a product that would allow professionals to take their work with them via a portable computer with the creation of the Osborne 1. A twenty-four-pound machine hardly sounds portable when I compare to my current day MacBook Pro, but at the time the product was a true innovation. And with innovation we know comes competition. Big brands Apple and Compaq (who no longer exists) launched their own more advanced versions of the PC. Osborne Computer Corporation felt the need to fend off their competitors with the announcement that they were coming out with a newer, more advanced model. One problem…people quit buying the Osborne 1 in anticipation of something more sophisticated, which wouldn’t be released for more than a year later. It resulted in an immediate financial impact and eventually resulted in the company filing for bankruptcy.

Some of you may have heard of “The Osburne Effect.” The term was coined after this event of prematurely announcing a product launch before the product was made available, and the unintended effects of having a negative impact on product sales. The Osburne Computer Corporation may have been first to make this mistake, but others have since followed. When it comes to product life cycles and innovation, there’s definitely something to be learned here. Timing is everything! It’s the reason Apple stays so hush, hush about their new products, and it’s also what fuels their need for constant innovation.

Photo Credit: Alex E. Proimos

pinterest for business
  • Gretchen Ardizzone

Pinterest for Your Business
Pinterest for Your Business 842 452 Gretchen Ardizzone

There’s no denying there’s a visual aspect to digital marketing especially when it comes to social media—heck look at Instagram, which is virtually an image-based medium with little content. In the last couple years, Pinterest has definitely matured with an audience of 70 million users. From a medium that was once ruled by consumer pinning preferences to a place where brands have pinpointed the opportunity that lies within.

Pinterest has managed to influence many aspects of the online world. You may have even noticed big brands like a natural food market, Whole Foods, and luxury shoe brand, Jimmy Choo has adopted a Pinterest-like visual style to their website design. Most recently during the holiday season Target even created a Pinterest-powered online storefront with the beta launch of the Target Awesome Shop.

So it’s clear that brands understand that consumers like to visualize product, but let’s get back to the real question, how can you make the best use of Pinterest for your business?  Here are some suggested approaches to make Pinterest interesting to your followers:

Not Just Pinning Product

Some brands find Pinterest an anomaly and believe it’s no place for their brand. But if you think out-of-the-box and consider your strategy you might realize it’s a better fit than you think. Don’t be focused on just pinning your product. Pin things that represent your brand, inspire you or even give your followers a behind the scenes perspective into how you make the magic work. One brand who uses their pins to showcase their brand personality is Ben & Jerry’s. You’ll find boards like The People Behind the Pints, The Factory, The Flavor Graveyard, and Fan Photos, which gives recognition to the fantastic brand lovers of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. They even have a history board to serve as a visual timeline for the brand. The key is developing boards that represent your brand accurately and utilize an authentic brand voice.

Create a Guest Pinboard

Create endorsement for your brand and gain traction with your followers with an expert contributor. Piperlime’s Guest Editor, New York-based fashionista, Olivia Palermo, also serves as a guest contributor to the brand’s Pinterest profile with her own board of picks. It’s a great way to engage your audience through a like-minded point of view, but also potentially leverage interest from the guest’s followers too. At the same time explore what opportunities are out there for your brand to pose as a guest pinner for other brands. Whole Foods serves as a guest pinboard contributor for eCommerce site Etsy’s Pinterest board.

Engage with a Creative Campaign

If you’re looking to create awareness about a new product launch or seasonal product, creating a Pinterest campaign might be a great strategy for you. GUESS saw great success with their “Color Me Inspired Contest.” The brand invited pinners to create boards around spring colors that inspired them. The boards were judged by popular style bloggers and winning pinners received color-coated denim from the GUESS spring collection. Another brand who has found value in the campaign model is Michaels. In an effort to build awareness around their new upscale line of frames, “the Platinum Collection from Studio Décor,” the brand launched a “pin it to win it” contest. Little activity was required of the pinners. They simply had to re-pin a frame from Michaels “Frame” board to one of their own boards with a pre-crafted description about the frame, and they were entered to win. The end result was an increase of 86% of followers of the Frame board during the length of the contest.

Pinterest On & Offline

We know that consumers use multiple channels in the shopping process and while they may start by exploring pins online, the actual purchase may end up taking place in-store. Consider how you can bring the Pinterest activity into your in-store experience. Nordstrom was one of the first brands to really make a move with this. The high-end retail brand started to identify the most pinned products online with hangtags featured on racks in-store. We know consumers love recommended products, in fact, we know they’re more likely to select a product that has been recommended than not.

Watch for New Features

In the last six months, Pinterest has launched several new initiatives like Place Pins, which allows pinners to explore pins in a map-like visual. This creates a huge opportunity for small businesses to utilize and put themselves on the map, literally. Not to mention the integration of advertising, and also the recent purchase of VisualGraph, which will allow Pinterest to suggest more relevant content or ads. For example, if you’re always pinning pointed flats (the hot spring trend), it’ll show more of those items instead of high-heel stilettos.

The key is to keep your eye on this social media platform and determine what new elements add opportunities for your brand to engage with the consumer. Monitor others who are doing it well, learn from them and see how you can make it work for yourself. At the same time, you can also use analytics to measure your pinning presence. Check out these recommended tools from Social Media Examiner.

Photo Credit: mkhmarketing

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