The Ocean Agency

Art is the most social of objects– it is made exclusively to draw out human emotions, get people talking, and cause congregations.  And the homes of art,  galleries and museums, have a long history of social interaction, too. The people of the art world gather for gallery openings and for the debut of an artist’s new works. Galleries all over the country team up for a monthly celebration of the arts through First Friday events or similar festivals.

Our agency is proud to present a new web presence for Douglas Allergy Relief Source, a well-known seller of allergy relief products in Highland Park, IL. Douglas Kritz, a highly esteemed contributor in the purification and allergy control industries, has been focused on his customers since 1963, and his new website notes absolutely no departure from his tradition of the highest level of customer service.

Yesterday, 1-800flowers.com became the first retail store on Facebook. There have been countless articles that talk about Facebook retail, and the possibility for retailers to integrate themselves into the social graph.

While the 1-800flowers.com store is exciting there are some issues. Firstly, let’s say you want to join the 1-800flowers.com group. So, you go into your Facebook search box and look for 1-800flowers.com. What comes up first? A group called, 1-800 flowers sucks. Don’t believe me? Look for yourself:

Anyone who works in the interactive space has likely heard of Groundswell, the groundbreaking (see what I did there) book on social media and how companies can tap into the millions of conversations that are happening online.  And we quote:

Hayley pointed me to this video today, a song by rapper Charles Hamilton. He is best known for his song, “Brooklyn Girls” a catchy tribute to the female inhabitants of a certain burrough.

So, exploring his other music, Hayley came across this gem:

Sometimes, you just can’t plan the best exposure.

So by now, you’ve probably seen this video, which recently exploded across the internet. Maybe it’s the catchy Chris Brown song, or the joyful wedding party, or just the general gutsiness it would take to do this that makes the video so addictive– whatever it is, it’s already gotten almost 2 million views on YouTube. Here at Ocean, our office has been bumping to “Forever” all day.

The “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” is the first and only video posted by Jill and Kevin, a couple from Minnesota. And that may just be the reason behind it becoming such a viral hit. It feels real, genuine and legitimate, and not like content created by a marketing company and planted on YouTube to drive traffic to a website or spread brand awareness. People love to share it, the defining characteristic of a viral success, because it comes from other people just like them, who were looking to share a moment of their life. If you are trying to create a viral smash hit, remembering the importance of the urge to share and emulating Jill and Kevin in their genuiness would probably take you a long way toward success.

Who benefits from this kind of viral video, though? Clearly, Jill and Kevin weren’t pushing any agenda with their wedding day stunt, but just expressing their personality and sharing it with friends. This time, Chris Brown may actually be the winner. According to The Idolater, his song “Forever,” is “currently No. 45 on the iTunes Store’s singles chart, and No. 41 on the corresponding chart at Amazon MP3.” Around a year after this song made it’s original pop chart splash, that’s a big deal. It also makes us agree with The Idolator writers–  maybe Chris Brown should send Jill and Kevin a wedding present for the free press. You know, something nicer than a breadmaker.

According to TechCrunch, Amazon has purchased well known online shoe retailer Zappos. Very rarely do you read about a business partnership, merger, or acquisition that makes this much sense for both brands.

In a letter  by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh published on their website, Hsieh explains that Zappos will remain an “independent entity and a ‘wholly-owned subsidiary’ of Amazon.”

Both Amazon and Zappos have won with this deal. Amazon’s greatest strength is the size and infrastructure of its operation– from exclusive deals with retailers to its legendary affiliate program. The sheer size of the Amazon webstore is astounding, and they have leveraged long tail and niche marketing to rise to the top of the online retail business. While Amazon’s size is its greatest asset, it is also its greatest weakness. People worry about customer service and personal interaction from a store the size of Amazon.

Zappos is legendary for its customer service, transparency, and social media presence. People shop at Amazon because they have just about every product imaginable and an extremely clean and intuitive shopping experience. People shop with Zappos partly because of their selection, but also because they are a company where customer service is at the forefront of their whole operation.

Now, with the merger, Zappos gets Amazon’s infrastructure and Amazon gets Zappos’ beloved personality. This is great news for both brands, and could forecast a larger trend of big business partnering with smaller businesses who excel in areas such as customer service or social media outreach.

But the best news of the entire deal: Soon you will be able to buy a pair of Minolo heels and a copy of Groundswell using the same ecommerce interface. Marketers everywhere are salivating.

Check out Jeff Bezos’ comments on the merger:

Everyday, something is written about sports and social media. The sports blogging community is quickly becoming monetized, and the line between the mainstream sports media and the sports blogosphere is quickly blurring. On ESPN’s SportsCenter broadcast, there is a new segment entitled the “Blog Buzz” where a sports marketing company uses it’s “Buzz-Manager” software to provide the top 5 most blogged about stories of the day.

Beyond blogging, thousands of athletes and teams are constantly on twitter and other social media portals. There is even a service that aggregates athletes’ twitter updates. Partly because of social media, the sports world is more transparent than ever, where athletes have the ability to control their own public image and interact directly with their fans. Chad “Ocho-Cinco” Johnson has even threatened to tweet during NFL games.

Now all of this is impressive, and has been examined thoroughly by just about every sports blog and PR company. What few have talked about however, is what major market teams can learn from smaller sports teams in niche markets.

Today, I became a fan of the Chicago Red Stars on facebook and started following them on twitter. For those who aren’t familiar, the Red Stars a professional women’s soccer team from Chicago. After checking them out, I am very impressed by their social media campaign and fan community. There is much that major market sports teams can learn from these Red Stars:

1) Build an officially licensed and branded fan community:

The Red Stars have an amazing fan community. The key to the community is integration. All of the Red Stars’ social media presence is accessible from the fan community– links to their twitter, facebook, myspace, and youtube profiles.

Beyond links to other social profiles, they have lots of internal blogs and media on the page.

The fan community reflects  that the organization seriously cares about their fans. Moreover, by putting up interesting and fresh content, they will convert many new fans (like me), who just happen to browse through their community.

Imagine if every NFL team had a branded fan community with great interactive content  such as forums, pictures, video, and blogs like the Red Stars. Give fans the tools to express their loyalty online,and your brand or fandom will grow exponentially.

2) Leverage contest marketing with Twitter and Facebook

Both twitter and facebook are great tools for contest marketing. Many large market sports teams are using both twitter and facebook, but few are tapping into their full potential.

The Red Stars are running a campaign right now where if you suggest friends join the facebook group you receive a $10 ticket to the game. Moreover, if they hit their goal, 5 fans will win free parking.

This is a perfect example of the power of contest marketing with twitter and facebook. I guarantee you if a major market team ran a contest similar to this they would be on Twitter’s trending topics within hours. Imagine if an NFL team randomly gave away 5 pairs of tickets a day to those who mentioned the team on twitter using hashtags. People would go nuts.

3) Transparency and Fan Appreciation (Reaching out to content creators)

One of my favorite things about the Red Stars fan community site is that they list all the people who work within the organization with links to their personal profiles and blogs. In this day and age, transparency in your organization is key. We live in a world where the open brand is king, and privacy has been redefined.

Acting as a closed brand, you appear untrustworthy. In today’s world, if everything isn’t placed out in the open, it is assumed you are hiding something. Fans want to be part of their organization, they want to know who is running their team, and feel like they reflect their own values.

Show your fans that you reflect their desires by expressing your own ideas  in an authentic way. By showing the human side of your franchise you will create a fan base and community who not only believes in the athletic prowess of your team but in the underlying message of your whole organization.

In the sports world in particular, many sports bloggers and other content creators have huge followings. Bring those content creators into your own fan community. Offer them guest posts. Involve them in press release creation. While you can never fully control the message in the online world, you can develop relationships and communication avenues where you appear likeable and human– even in the eyes of those pesky bloggers.

The Red Stars are building up a passionate fan base one social profile at a time– your major market teams could learn a thing or two from them.

Interactive marketing and fashion are a natural combination. People who are into fashion love to talk about it and share their opinions with others, after all, and there are hundreds of social networks and thousands of blogs devoted to fashion, trends, and personal style. 

Beer is inherently social, and people love to talk, drink,  and share their beer. It is most definitely a powerful conversation starter. Essentially, beer is the perfect object for social media

.

Case in point: Facebook has a gift program, that allows you to place a gift on other people’s profiles. They charge a nominal fee for the gift, and brands can also pay for gift placement.  When they were trying to get their gift program off the ground, one of the free gifts they offered was a beer mug filled with delicious brew. It was a huge hit. Facebook leveraged free effectively, and today Facebook gifts are everywhere, partly thanks to that little beer stein.

Beyond the obvious qualities that allow beer to connect people, companies that make beer, especially those who make hard to find micro and specialty brews, portray themselves as especially social — just regular folks who enjoy drinking with friends and savoring the flavor of life. Even larger brands, such as Sam Adams, have adopted this approach, featuring “brew-masters” in commercials who describe their passion for beer.

These tactics allow beer companies to appear open, likeable, and as beverage experts. At face value, many of these micro-breweries market themselves so effectively that you would swear that they would give their beer away for free if they could.

So the goal of most breweries is to appear open, social, and friendly. Social media allows brands to connect with their fans, appear transparent, and increase their likeability. So, I’ll come right out and say it. Beer companies, especially small micro-breweries with a following of passionate fans, need to use social media.

By using social media specialty and micro breweries can further their already effective branding, and be as social as possible. Beyond branding, Social media also gives you amazing niche marketing. Micro and specialty breweries definitely cater to a growing niche market, that probably is engrossed in social media already.

So, to all you micro and specialty breweries out there, leverage this passion and further your branding by using social media. Whether it is creating a facebook fanpage where you advertise events and talk about new brews, or using twitter to interact with your fans, or a great company blog that illusrates your personality, social media is key for growing your business. So get started today.

For some great examples of micro and specialty breweries that effectively use social media, check these out:

Dogfish Head Brewery. Not only do they have great beer, but they have an impressive Twitter presence as well, check it out.

New Holland Brewery. They have great blogs that really illustrate their personality. Makes me want to go hang out in Michigan, which says something about the power of their social media presence.

New Belgium Brewery. They have a great site, a facebook fan page, and a strong Twitter following. Also, their Skinny Dip is one of my favorite summer beers. Yum.