Passion for Advertising is Becoming Passion for Social Media

June 18th, 2010 by Andrew
"Passion for Advertising is Becoming Passion for Social Media"

I want to begin by greeting our readers, as this will be the first post I have had the honor of contributing to our company’s blog since I came to Steketee Greiner and Company (SGC) almost six months ago. It’s been an amazing journey and I’ve been thrilled to be a member of such a dedicated team of professionals.

In my professional development, before being an employee with SGC, I joined a local organization called Ad 2 West Michigan; in a year I was elected to the role of Chair of Public Service, where I have worked with my friend and professional club associate Ray Cashbaugh (Chair of Creative), as well as the handful of dedicated, to build our charity campaign for the Wealthy Theatre (located in East Grand Rapids).

Ad 2, a division of the AAF (National), is a club for young professionals in Advertising, Marketing, and Public Relations between the ages of 18 and 32. In light of my involvement, I had planned to join the AAF and Ad 2 for their National Conference in Orlando, Florida, as a representative of Ad 2 West Michigan even before my employment with Steketee Greiner; imagine my pride to represent not only Ad 2 West Michigan, but also a rapidly growing company driven by an innovative spirit. The passion I have for my relationship to SGC allowed me to network with professionals in the Advertising industry with a vigor that perhaps Seth Godin would be proud of. Continue reading

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Social Media: It’s not just a young man’s game

June 4th, 2010 by barth
"Social Media: It’s not just a young man’s game"

My name is Barth Wilson. I am proud to say that I am the newest hire, but the oldest employee at SGC.  I’m really thrilled to be part of such an “up and coming” company.  When I called my mid-70 year old parents to tell them the good news of my hire, they asked me what I was going to do? I explained that I would be involved in social media analytics, insights, and strategy development.  Their next question caught me totally off guard; “What is social media?”  To provide some context around this question, my parents got their first computer about 2 years ago. 50% of the time they are able to retrieve their cell phone voice mail and text messages, and it has taken them a year to figure out how to open up email attachments. I told them that social media is worldwide online user-generated and exchanged content. This type of content is generally found in social sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, blogs, RSS feeds and forums.  My Dad got up and left the room to work in the garage.  My Mom said she hears references to Facebook and Twitter frequently. She asked me to explain the different social media sites.  I started to explain blogs, micro-blogs, video, pictures, and alerts; then realized I was failing miserably. Her “deer-in-the-headlight” look was all I needed to realize how confusing these new communication tools can be. To my horror she asked, “Why would people put their personal information out on the internet?” Continue reading

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Beginner AdWords and Analytics – AimWest Presentation

June 1st, 2010 by davidb
"Beginner AdWords and Analytics – AimWest Presentation"

Thank you to everyone who atttended our presenation at the lunch with Google event by AimWest!

You can find a copy of the presentation that Brian Steketee presented below.

The presentation covers the basics of Google Analytics and AdWords as well as some more advanced features and considerations.

Download Here

Thank you once again for your interest and happy measuring!!

David

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Sweet WOM, Chicago…

May 19th, 2010 by david
"Sweet WOM, Chicago…"

It’s that time of year again, the birds and bees are out and about making whoopie, and in the bustling metropolis of Chicago the Word of Mouth Marketing Association is preparing to welcome all (including a few of us from SGC) attending the 2010 School of WOM at Swissôtel Chicago, May 24-26.

The reason I say all this is to shamelessly promote the event and to encourage anyone in the industry that hasn’t signed up to attend to do so if you can. We’ve been involved with WOMMA for almost a year now, and the School of WOM is a “shouldn’t be missed” event, if you’re at all into WOM marketing. In addition to presentations by some of the leading voices from some of the world’s biggest brands on their approach to WOM, there will be a number of great discussions around creating sustainable word of mouth campaigns, how to measure the effectiveness of your efforts and more – much more than this simple post can hope to contain.

So, to all you WOMites out there, get registered, jump on your plane, train or automobile and make your way to Chicago. The weather is nice this time of year, the food is great and I’m sure we’re all going to walk away in an enlightened state of mind.

David

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AdAge Viral video chart – New Media, New Measures

May 14th, 2010 by brian
"AdAge Viral video chart – New Media, New Measures"

The beauty of where this all goes – AdAge Viral video chart

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143824

As I spent some time today on AdAge getting my daily dose of what’s happening and who’s who, I came across a great article that was talking about the most successful viral campaigns of the week. What was intriguing and also wonderful at the same time is that AdAge was referencing “Visible Measures” viral ability chart as a reference guide to who was winning the race. So there we have it – a publication that was once dedicated to a traditional advertising model paying homage once again to the power of digital and and non-traditional. Google’s Chrome video took the lead with an impressive 1.86MM views on a new spot they published online. Toyota was close behind with 1.85MM views regarding a campaign they put together for the Sienna.

What I love most about this example is the market’s willingness to understand and give credibility to the power of digital and social media. However I must say there is a great opportunity to provide more insight into this report than just how many views have been achieved. There is so much more data available to help you understand the true impact and connection that these impressions have had with the eyeballs that have viewed them. If harnessed correctly, marketers have the ability to make those moments so much more impactful to both the brand and the consumer experiencing them.

Brian

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In the End, Google Fiber is About More Than Just Google

May 5th, 2010 by david
"In the End, Google Fiber is About More Than Just Google"

When Google announced they would be taking applications from cities interested in receiving free fiber optic broadband, there was a surge of interest from cities across America – it grew into over 1,000 responses to Google’s request for information (RFI) – and, with some unspoken encouragement from Google’s RFI around community spirit, many of the cities involved in the initiative began to leverage digital media to raise awareness for their efforts, to drum up active support from community members and to show Google exactly how excited they are to be considered for the “grand prize.” In most cases, the people responded. Many who had an interest in bringing Google’s promise to their city acted as brand champions, spreading the story everywhere through both traditional and non-traditional channels. For many of these champions it became a highly competitive race to get Google’s attention, showing the vested interest participating cities have with Google’s fiber broadband technology.

As we began to monitor conversations around the initiative and the participating cities in the digital landscape, several cities stood out as clear leaders. These leaders had over ten thousand Facebook fans alone, with some breaking twenty and even thirty thousand. Pictures, tweets, blog posts, videos and more all supported the digital media presence of active cities, showing how very hands on participants became – fiber became a catalyst for community growth in cyberspace and beyond. And I say beyond, and this is a key learning for everyone, because the cities that controlled the largest share of digital voice were those that not only pulled together strategies for deploying digital media but carried it through to PR and experiential activities as well.

As Google’s March 26th deadline loomed closer we monitored even more excitement online as many cities saw last minute increases to their fan bases. This was likely tied to the flood of nationally recognized events various cities used for promotion, as well as the effect of word of mouth and the variety of media coverage that backed the buzz around Google’s fiber initiative. Continue reading

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The Next Google Fiber Report

April 1st, 2010 by david
"The Next Google Fiber Report"

First off, congratulations and good luck to all the cities that have applied. It’s been amazing watching what everyone has pulled together so far. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a very unique perspective.

On that note, and based on Google’s post on its official blog that it will be making its selection “…by the end of the year,” we have decided to take a step back from our weekly reports, evaluate the number of cities participating in online efforts around the initiative to make sure that we have the most inclusive list possible and then resume our efforts on a regular basis until Google makes its final decision. Again, we’re not saying in any way that Google is using online share of voice as a factor in its decision making process, but we still want to make sure that everyone knows who the top contenders are around this metric and what they are doing to try to get Google’s attention online. And given Google’s tip of the cap to Topeka today, the question has to be asked: does it hurt to go out of your way a bit to stay top of mind in the digital world?

So, look for our next report sometime in April, and thanks to everyone who continues to send in insights and requests on behalf of your city – we are taking as much relevant information into account as we can. In the meantime, make sure you continue to include your city in your tagging strategy, as we’ll continue to base our search for data on the participating cities, and please don’t hesitate to email me at david.greiner@sgandco.com with questions, concerns and anything else I should know is going on in your world.

Finally, and this is way past due, thanks to Martin at Zettaphile for his efforts in compiling the original list of Google fiber cities on his blog. It was our starting point.

Thanks and again, best of luck to everyone!

David

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Dangerous words…

March 30th, 2010 by kyle
"Dangerous words…"

I really hate Helvetica…

Before you hit up the comments section and start a debate over which one of you hates ME more, please hear me out. I am not trying to be a rogue designer that just wants to be different (and tick people off in the process). And it’s not that I didn’t pay attention during Typography 210 (or something like that), where we were told which fonts were good, which were bad and which was the greatest (Helvetica, supposedly).

I also understand that Helvetica is arguably over-used, but that doesn’t even bother me. Honestly, it is a nice typeface; it has great, safe characteristics which make it viable for a lot of applications and mediums.

But…I can’t stand the capital ‘R’. The descender is awkward to say the least. For a typeface with such little connotative character, where did this rolling leg come from? The rest of the family is so sterile, so defined, so geometric, but the ‘R’ is so, so confusing.

To me, it looks likes Max Miedinger played “Pin the Tail on the P.” Sure, he put it in the right place (impressive for having been blind-folded), but that is to be expected from such letterforms displayed in the rest of the  family.

Or maybe his hand slipped when finishing out the letter. Many long nights have been put into his work, the accidental yawn / slip could be expected.

Whatever the case may be, I can’t stand it. Now, I realize that I have been praising the rest of what Helvetica has to offer, so I guess I have to retract my previous statement a bit. I actually hate 1/26th (not counting numbers or punctuation, who needs those anyway?) of the entire family (from 27 to 93).

And I thought I was the only one that had this growing internal irritation with Helvetica. I mean, it’s so universally loved that there was a movie made because of the impact and popularity of the typeface. But I have 2 “R’s” in my last name, and seeing it set all caps in Helvetica makes my left eye twitch a little.  Luckily, in my research (to prove I am not crazy) I found this guy. It’s comforting to know I am not alone.

Unfortunately, I don’t think I will ever like the capital ‘R’ in Helvetica. I don’t change my appetite much, considering I still don’t like grapes, bananas or many other forms of fruit.

I want to hear from you though. Let me know whether your a lover or a hater (of Helvetica that is, not me).

Cheers!

Kyle

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Google Fiber Initiative Report – Round Two

March 25th, 2010 by david
"Google Fiber Initiative Report – Round Two"

Below is the second in our series of reports ranking the online share of voice for the cities participating in the Google fiber initiative.

This report updates our initial metrics based on the insights we’ve collected from our research, which includes all of the direction submitted through blog comments on our first report and emails we’ve received directly. And on that note, thank you to everyone who took the time to contribute to this research on behalf of your city. As we hope we’ve shown in these reports, active participation is essential to any good online efforts, and yours is much appreciated.

Please note that if your city did NOT make the top 10 in our report, it is no indication that you are in any way not competitively positioned in the initiative. Again, Google has multiple factors in their decision making process, including how interested a community is in working with Google, community support, local activities, needs and resources, approved construction methods, local regulatory issues and area broadband speeds. And though most participating cities assert that online interaction in their campaigns will increase the chances of favorability in their selection, ultimately Google will decide which factors are most relevant.

The second report is available for download here. Just click on the image below.
And please reach out to us through the comments below or by email to david.greiner@sgandco.com if you have any questions or comments on the information and insights we’re presenting.

Download Media Kit (6MB ZIP)

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