Shout Out Studio - Marketing That Motivates

Brand Marketing Strategy and Execution
ViralVideo 1

Viral Videos Stuck in Our Heads

Viral Videos Stuck in Our Heads 1920 700 Nathaniel Seevers

Admittedly our internal marketing meetings can sometimes take, we’ll call them, creative detours. The most recent creative detour led to a conversation on viral videos, our guilty pleasure love of cat montages and someone’s concerning level of anger over Me Too Marketing. That last one is a post for another day.

So today over at Shout Out camp we celebrate the viral video. Today we raise a coffee cup, turn the volume high and hit replay on the viral videos stuck in our heads. Enjoy the following picks and insights from our team.

Luke Pierce

When I think viral video, I think Bed Intruder. While most “viral videos” feel pretty planned, this one feels a bit more genuine. The video wasn’t carefully planned by marketing masterminds over a long period of time. Two kids saw a funny interview and made a video out of it within 48 hours. The success that followed was enormous. The song made it to iTunes and quickly found its self in Billboard’s top 100, it was YouTube’s most popular video of 2010, and has since been viewed over 117 million times. Bed Intruder has always lead me to ask the question, can this genuine type of video and its success be duplicated for marketing purposes? Or are true viral videos something wild that can’t be tamed?

Gretchen Ardizzone

Beyond just being funny and worthy of sharing, viral videos can have benefits when the result is a memorable message that supports or makes you rethink a brand’s image. One of the most compelling viral campaigns I’ve seen this year is Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches.” read more

picture of lego man screaming

Fear Driven Business Scares Me

Fear Driven Business Scares Me 880 461 Nathaniel Seevers

Business can be rough these days. The pressure is on to keep up with the demands and changing ideas of consumers – who seem to be spending less and less. Or maybe they’re just spending smarter.

The trends you jump on this morning are dying by sunset and new trends have moved in. Your competitors are innovating. New competitors are popping up every day – all full of personality and caffeine. Or piss and vinegar as my granddad would say.

I have no idea what those ingredients have to do with anything, but still.

And so, when the heat is on and there are decisions to be made that will have a ripple effect across the organization, far too many companies react based on fear. Like when you punch a haunted house worker even though you know it’s all fake.

It’s fight or flight. It’s instinct.

The difference between socking a guy wearing a zombie mask and leading your company or team with a desperate hand is that the former is a one-time event and the latter often turns into a habit. Those decisions can begin to build on themselves.  They stack up until you have to dig your way out. Change the culture.

Seth Godin talks about something similar here. He calls it Stoogecraft.

So how does one help prevent a layer of suffocating fear-based decisions? read more

CreativeBriefs

Show Them Your Creative Briefs

Show Them Your Creative Briefs 1920 700 Nathaniel Seevers

You don’t have to be a big-time ad agency or even run a traditional “creative” business to benefit from a creative brief. Maybe you’ve hired an outside team to help you design and build a new website or refresh your logo. Maybe your marketing team is about to get started on Linkedin ads. Both of these examples benefit from a creative brief.

So who is it for and what does it do?

A common misconception is that the creative brief is for the client. Nope. It’s not entirely for the creative team either. It’s for both.

A well-constructed brief put together by the creative team harnesses all the important details of the project and frames it in a way that provides validation between client and team and sets a track for the creative team to move forward upon. When the creative team gets the client to sign off on the brief they’ve helped to reduce second-guessing from both sides. It’s all right there in the brief.

In order to accomplish this, however, a good creative brief needs to answer at least the following questions: read more

Dashboard

Test Driving the New Google Databoard

Test Driving the New Google Databoard 1920 700 Nathaniel Seevers

The internet has blessed us with many things. New ways to communicate across distances. The ability to tour a city or building on the other side of the world. Opportunities for new business ventures, avenues for invention, enhanced celebrity obsession and copious amounts of cat videos.

And Insights. Data at our fingertips. With a little smart searching and a lot of compiling you can build a case for or against nearly anything thanks to the internet.

The folks over at Google decided, you really shouldn’t have to waste all that time. They’ve compiled insights for you via Google research studies and have made them available to you at the new Google Databoard. There are only a few studies available currently, all based around mobile usage and trends, but you’re able to sift through the studies, drill down into topics and curate data points to create your own infographic. read more

GoogleAnalytics

Google Analytics Made Easier

Google Analytics Made Easier 1920 700 Marsh Williams

For those of you who know the power of the Google Analytics dashboard, you can skip to the next paragraph. For the rest of you, Google Analytics has the ability to create customized dashboards which provide a fast detailed look at any set of data you want. While it can be a bit “wonky” to create them they are well worth the effort if you’re trying to get a quick look at any subset of information and invaluable in understanding your audience.

Or if you don’t want to create your own, there are places on the webernet that you can also find pre-packaged dashboards which can be directly imported to your GA.

We have found a few of these to be especially effective and use them frequently…

Site Performance – Go get it

This is a great option for showing how your site is actually performing from a time-to-load standpoint. It also shows metrics for performance in each browser.

SitePerformance Sample

Click the image to enlarge. read more
Image of a tape-measure for Review of Twitter Analytics

If you aren’t measuring you’re wasting your time…Twitter Analytics

If you aren’t measuring you’re wasting your time…Twitter Analytics 880 461 Marsh Williams

Let’s start with a brief bit of context. I hated statistics in college. I did everything possible to avoid it as a subject area and it bored the hell out of me.

Skip forward a whole lot of years and I now love statistics. They are the benchmark for measuring creativity and the effectiveness of any digital marketing efforts.

Seem like a non-sequetor? It’s not. Shout Out’s whole approach to marketing is based on a simple model:

Plan/Create/Execute/Measure/Refine/Repeat

This combines the left brain/right brain, creativity, and measurement, in what we believe has become read more

Image of iMac desktop for "Building Your First Website"

If Your First Website Sucks, it’s Probably Not Your Fault

If Your First Website Sucks, it’s Probably Not Your Fault 880 461 Marsh Williams

We just took over a client’s first website that was a fiasco. The site was done in WordPress but everything, I mean everything, including all of the copy, was put into the site with images. That means, from the viewpoint of search engines, there was literally no searchable content on the site. In addition, the site had no web analytics, search engines were blocked in WordPress, there was no sitemap, etc., etc.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time we’ve seen this. We’ve been involved in several projects where a client’s initial site was poorly executed with many of the essential basics overlooked or just flat left out. It makes me nuts!

People pay good money, which is a start-up is precious, and end up with a website that sucks. How does this happen?

Usually, it’s the client’s first-ever effort at creating a website, which means they are not yet educated buyers of these services. This is not a shot at anyone, it’s just a fact. Imagine if someone asked you to buy a 747 for the first time. You’ve never done it before so you don’t know what you don’t know. Some people describe this state as unconsciously incompetent. How can you possibly make a good buying decision without someone helping you who knows the process? read more

Summer Company Bucket List image of sand buckets on the beach

How and Why to Make a Company Bucket List

How and Why to Make a Company Bucket List 880 461 Shout Out Studio

June is here and everyone is getting that summer itch. It’s the one where people would rather be out and about instead of in the office. It’s the same one that has everyone dreaming of that vacation to The Outer Banks they have coming up.

So, you have a pile of things you have to get done before you can get to the summer fun. What do you do? (I promise I’m not leading you to a cheesy infomercial)

Make a Summer Company Bucket List! For not only fun things but ridiculously productive things as well. 

Yes, you can do both. When everyone else is taking half days to hit the beach or golf course get creative with your productivity.

What are some things that you’ve wanted to do but keep putting off? DO THOSE THINGS. Schedule time to do it this summer. It doesn’t have to be something you are dreading to do, but if it is, make it into something fun by adding a change of scenery. Find a great coffee shop, restaurant or pub with a patio for instance. read more

NotonTwitter

Some Companies Should Not be on Twitter

Some Companies Should Not be on Twitter 1920 700 Marsh Williams

No matter how much we want to think otherwise, some companies should not be on Twitter and we’ve seen more than our share of people that burn out because they are just working against a system that doesn’t support social media for marketing. A lot of times these issues have nothing to do with social media per se but has to do with the overall company culture

Well, taking a cue from Letterman here is our take at considering whether you should be paddling at all…

Reason 5: Your CEO asks once a month what Twitter is.

If your executive team doesn’t understand Twitter then they will never understand expending resources to use it.

If you think it’s valuable and it is helping build your brand, business or customer base, then prove it. Do the math and build a compelling argument for Twitter. If you can’t demonstrate its effectiveness, then maybe you should be asking yourself why you’re on it. read more

How to Make Quality Videos for Your Company Website image of sample mobile device recording video

How to Make a Quality Video for Your Company Website

How to Make a Quality Video for Your Company Website 880 461 Nathaniel Seevers

A video is a great way to deliver your message and provide a look at the culture and personality of your company. Video traffic is up year after and it’s one of the most shared forms of content online.

89 million people in the United States will watch 1.2 billion online videos today (ComScore).

Back in the day, you’d have to spend thousands of dollars either purchasing the right equipment or hiring a company to produce quality videos for you. That’s no longer the case. So how can you make a quality video for your company website?

Write your script

How many subjects will be in your video? One person? Two people? Will they be moving or sitting? What will they say?

A little preparation and practice go a long way. Take time to write out your script so you are confident your message is clear. Practice so that your video is hitting around the overall length you’re going for. Be yourself. Talk to the camera just like you were talking to a client. read more

Image showing examples of Instagram filters

Using Instagram’s New Tagging Feature For Marketing

Using Instagram’s New Tagging Feature For Marketing 880 461 Shout Out Studio

Could the new tagging feature improve Instagram for marketing?

You know how Insty is already thebomb.com for creative and visual interaction with fans of your company? Well party people, it just got turned up a notch.

Put down those not-so entertaining pics of cats, food and #selfiesunday’s. Instagram has a new secret treasure they have unlocked:

The new tagging feature.

Put simply, this new feature is a quick and easy way to store fan photos of your company. Before this feature, you received a notification when someone mentioned you in a photo and you had to repost/regram every photo onto your own Instagram for your followers to see it. Who has time for that?

If you haven’t stumbled upon it already simply click on the profile button bottom right, then the icon on the far right in the bar under your bio. read more

Image of white Suggestion Box

Your Business Doesn’t Belong to You

Your Business Doesn’t Belong to You 880 461 Nathaniel Seevers

Let me preface this post by saying that none of what we write here is to call anyone out or make anyone feel bad about their efforts online. If you think we don’t screw up you’re crazy.

The goal for us is to provide some guidance when we can so companies can get better and in turn, provide a better experience for their clients.

Thus the basis for this reminder.

A good friend of mine was telling me about a conversation he had the other day with the marketing manager at a respected business in his area. They were talking about everything online marketing and happened to stumbled over the topic of online reviews like Yelp and Google and so on. This friend of mine happened to ask how this business handled negative reviews online. The reply was to the effect that they ignore it because it doesn’t make sense to let people tell them how to run their business.

Here’s where the reminder comes in: read more

Image of Apple logo on building

Resigning from the Cult of Mac

Resigning from the Cult of Mac 880 461 Marsh Williams

Clearly I’m not an analyst but I have religiously followed Apple since I bought my first Mac in 1984. Apple products have been a staple in our family and in my companies since they first hit the market. I was definitely in the “Cult of Mac” until this morning, when I came to a very solid realization: I’m not and actually never was.

I was in the cult of Steve Jobs and that’s gone.

In the last year I’ve watched Apple make several painful read more

Image of clothing tag "One Size Fits All"

Is Marketing Automation Right for My Business?

Is Marketing Automation Right for My Business? 880 461 Nathaniel Seevers

With a number of marketing automation tools out there many companies are asking, is marketing automation right for my business? It’s a valid question. There could be a ton of benefit. There could also be a ton of cost with little return if you’re not ready.

To really understand when the time is right to implement marketing automation help it’s good to be clear about the real goals and the real purpose of using one, and that is to help you close business. If you haven’t had the time to get familiar with programs like Hubspot, Marketo, Eloqua, Optify and the like it may be easy to hear “marketing automation” and picture a glorified scheduler. “I can schedule my tweets, and my blog posts, and my email newsletters, and whatever right from one system!”

And, if you were to think that, read more

GoWithWhtYouKnow

Content Creation…Go with What You Know

Content Creation…Go with What You Know 1920 700 Marsh Williams

Companies have become obsessed with content creation and many firms are completely flummoxed (yeah I love that word) by this concept, but go with what you know and you’ll do great.

Every company in the world has a level of expertise in its core business. Think about it. How many times has someone shared a client story about how you were able to help on a first project. Ask your customer service people about conversations with current or prospective clients. What kind of questions do they get and what type of answers do they give?

The trick is to create a simple system to capture and retell these stories for the other people who want to know the same things but haven’t asked yet.

We have a new client in the printing industry (more to come about that) and during our initial conversations about content creation for their website, we went through this “capture” process with them. One of the stories they shared is how they advise clients during their design process to wind up with some really great images. This is gold. They know the story and they are experts in sharing it one-on-one every day. The only difference is that they now have to capture it and share it with a larger audience.

This is where a lot of companies freeze in their tracks. read more

Social Media Burn Out

The Trend in Social Media is on Reducing the Noise

The Trend in Social Media is on Reducing the Noise 842 452 Nathaniel Seevers

Why the Move in Social Media is Toward Reducing Noise

It seems like everyone has a blog these days and every company is cranking up the content marketing engine. Information is a dime a dozen and it’s accessible from every device and we consume more of it than ever before.

But there’s a shift taking place. Local, regional and craft movements aren’t just happening on the streets in your hometown. They’re also happening across social media.

We’re using Feedly and Pocket to collect and filter info we actually want to read and save it for later. Mailbox is helping us put off reading less important emails until tomorrow. Smart social media is allowing us to Consolidate, Segment and Simplify. Is it possible we’ve nearly come through the stage of Social Media Glutton and we will now trend toward reducing the noise? read more

Image of LinkedIn pen

Basics for Getting the Most from LinkedIn

Basics for Getting the Most from LinkedIn 880 461 Shout Out Studio

Building a Solid LinkedIn Foundation

Just because you have a presence on LinkedIn doesn’t mean it’s doing things for you. LinkedIn is considered the world’s largest audience of influential, affluent professionals in one place, and they are gaining one new member every two seconds. Use this almighty information to your advantage. Here are straightforward, but often overlooked, basics for getting the most from LinkedIn.

4 kick-ass things you should be doing on LinkedIn?

Share Information.

You find a cool new tool that helps your business and you keep it all to yourself. Well, that’s selfish. Share it! And don’t do that ultra-mega social media blast unless it is earth-shattering information. Pick what info you are going to share on which social network.

Why? Because each platform could mean a different type of audience for you. An awesome Ryan Gosling meme will be loved and shared on Facebook but on Linkedin, that’s not what your audience is looking for. And don’t just share your own articles, curate great info your connections and groups can use. read more

Image of Spartan Lego man

How to Work Smart and Hard

How to Work Smart and Hard 880 461 Nathaniel Seevers

Work Smart and Hard – Imagine what you could accomplish

I always remember the saying, “work smart, not hard.” My granddad used to tell me that despite the hard work he put in – long hours as a steelworker. I wore the “work smart, not hard” mantra like a cape all through school and it worked out pretty well.

Except for in math class. We won’t talk about math class.

As I got older though and began to pay attention to the leaders I respected and how their efforts related to the things I wanted to accomplish I thought back on the “work smart, not hard” philosophy. But instead of trying to figure out new and better ways to implement that strategy I thought, “imagine what could I accomplish if I do both.”

Now, in the midst of growing a young company, working smart and working hard is a must for meeting goals. Technology makes it pretty easy to work smart. Focus, inspiration, self-awareness and self-discipline make it easier to work hard. Here are some thoughts on both. read more

passion

Passion For Doing It Right.

Passion For Doing It Right. 842 452 Marsh Williams

One of the great things about our work is that we’re always meeting new people. Every week we are getting to talk with entrepreneurs who are doing everything from creating new medical devices to craft brewers, and there is one undeniable link: they are incredibly passionate about what they are doing. I love this! It’s not often I throw exclamation marks around but there it is.

Seriously, I can’t remember when I’ve had the privilege of getting to know so many people who are passionately committed to making something great. It almost seems like a recommitment to the craftsman era of the 1900’s when small groups of people got together bonded by their passion for art, furniture making, architecture, whatever. This movement which was essentially anti-industrial stood for craftsmanship and simplicity, and while today’s movement may seem read more

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