The Ocean Agency

Much of the promise of social media marketing lies in the ability for your business to go “viral”. However, unlike an actual virus, which spreads no matter what, people actually have to choose to share content to make it spread.

Before you make you business promotion, advertising, or messaging go “viral” you first need to understand why people share online content.

To elaborate on this chart, let’s work with an example:

Let’s say that you own a dive bar and have created a humorous 15 second video that promotes your bar. At the end of the video there is a coupon “password” that will get people a free pitcher of beer on a Monday night. Beyond questions like “is the video entertaining” or ” is the coupon effective” you need dig a little deeper and get at the motivations for online sharing.

Where are people going to share this information?  How will sharing impact their percieved value among their digital networks? To make matters more complicated, everyone utilizes their online networks differently, and shares accordingly.

When you share a piece of content it means something. We all know that “sharing is caring”, but with online content sharing is usually more about caring about yourself and your image than anything else.

So next time you’re looking to make a branded piece of media and you want people to share it, make something that will make the sharers look and feel cool, intelligent, and in the know. Don’t worry, you don’t have to come up with it all on your own, The Ocean Agency can help you out.

For more great discussions of “viral” campaigns check out these other posts from The Lost Jacket, and  Big Spaceship.

Social media, and Twitter in particular, are big here in Chicago.

According to HubSpot’s “Top Twitter Cities” Chicago is number 3 in the world, behind London and Los Angeles.

Now, this Hubspot grade is not about the number of Twitter users, but based on the the number of “elite” Twitter users in an area.

What does this mean for your Chicago business? Connecting with those in the Chicago social media world is a great way to generate word of mouth about your business or product. Investing time in social networking is more and more important as social networking activity continues to grow. It has recently overtaken porn as the 1 activity for people on the web.

When you look at the top 50 Chicago Twitter users you see that they are not just marketers, PR people, or advertisers. They are the folks that are innovators,  journalists, publications, and brands that truly have a pulse on the City.

No longer is social media some new or experimental format, it is the media.

As business in Chicago, social media presents itself as a giant opportunity to expand your business. With an accurate plan and measurable objectives the time to act is now.

As a small to medium sized interactive marketing agency in Chicago,we have an advantage over larger firms: Our internal communication.

Interns can talk directly with the principals, a link building specialist can work directly with a coder. As someone who focuses on social media, I can work directly with our design team to make sure that social applications are built into the initial design.

We are always looking to improve our internal as well as external communication, and here some new(ish) social media tools that will help:

1) Evernote

Evernote is a great way to keep track of inspiration, everywhere you go. At work, we are constantly interrupted and lose our train of thought easily, never forget that website you meant to blog about or that snipet of code ever again.

2) Group Posterous/Tumblr

People respond to humor and creativity. Setting up group Posterous and Tumblr accounts are great ways to encourage creative interaction among employees, and  show some personality. Showing  personality is one of the first steps to building online engagement with potential customers.

3) Teambox

Like Google Wave, Teambox has set out to improve the way we collaborate. Unlike Google Wave it isn’t creepy. Teambox is great for assigning tasks, organizing information, and for group collaboration without any of the clutter. Also, all of your information is stored securely in the “cloud” so you don’t have to worry about jump drives etc.

What online tools do you use to improve your internal communcation?

We give interactive marketing advice to companies in Chicago and all over the country. Of course, the Ocean Agency is more than happy to help with interactive marketing strategy, social media guidelines, and with social business design. This is an example of where we get our inspiration from:

Today, Cisco has released findings from its latest study about how business use social media to colloberate and interact with customers.

What is so special about this study?

1) The process:

The study utilized qualitative and not just quantitative methods. By using in depth interviews by graduate students and professors from universities all over the world, the data is espcially robust and reliable.

2) The findings:

Companies need to integrate their new media efforts with internal IT professionals, and that internal social media use needs to be more effectively organized and regulated.

IT professionals? Regulation of social media efforts? What does this mean for your business?

This post is part of the Guest Blog Grand Tour over at Life Without Pants – an epic journey of over 75 guest posts. Want to learn more about Matt Cheuvront & see how far the rabbit hole goes? Subscribe to the Life Without Pants RSS feed & follow him on Twitter to keep in touch!

Remember a couple years ago when the term “Social Media” was foreign to all of us. Now, everyone and their mother (literally – my mom friended me on Facebook last week) is on the bandwagon trying to get the hang of this Social Media thing.

It’s become much more than a tool to stay connected with your old high school buddies, or to update your friends on what you ate for dinner last night. Social Media has become a regular part of our daily lives, and for businesses, an integral part of their marketing and PR strategies.

So with everyone on board – how does a business stand out from the rest? At the end of the day – Social Media is about forging, nurturing, and promoting relationships. The one on one connection Social Media allows between businesses and their consumers are allowing small businesses to not only compete with larger corporations, but thrive and succeed where the competition falls short.

Here in Chicago – there are a lot of businesses who “get” Social Media –
Threadless
Foiled Cupcakes,
GroupOn and
Grubhub to name a few.

Our generation is wise to the corporate act – and very rarely do we buy into a straight up sales pitch. This is why, when it comes to online advertising, we’re seeing more affiliate geo-targeted campaigns rather than pure Google ads. Businesses that get it focus on building a relationship first, helping us realize that there is a need or want there, and then acting on it.

Mari Luangrath, founder of Chicago-based Foiled Cupcakes, connected with me as a friend. She followed me several months ago and since then, we’ve become good friends both on and offline. Not once did she sell me on her product – not once did she throw a sales pitch my way. She focused solely on building a genuine relationship and friendship with me. Now I’m days away from signing a contract to have Foiled Cupcakes cater my wedding.

So what can business learn from this? What’s the take away? Here are some basic takeaways to implement into your Social Media marketing strategy:

If you’re a business owner, social media is tantalizing. For free, you can set up a profile on a variety of different networks and have your products reach a larger customer base than ever before. All you have to do is make something viral, talk to the right influencers, and watch your sales time go through the roof!

While social media experts and consultants may tell you to “crush it” , become a “trust agent” or harness the power of the “groundswell” they generally underestimate  the time, investment, and strategy that goes into effective social media marketing, PR, and branding.