The Ocean Agency

Margot Bloomstein is a content strategist who took to the stage on the first day of SXSWi. She provided a fantastic presentation about how content strategy underscores all aspects of a digital campaign:

Her presentation illustrated how content strategy creates:

• More airtight solutions
• Save time, budget, and energy on iteration
• More cohesive user experience
• Higher conversions

An organized and effective content strategy can inform the internal execution of every project:

As an Interactive Marketing Agency in Chicago, The Ocean Agency is extremely excited about South By Southwest Interactive. South by Southwest offers the premier opportunity to learn, network, and perfect our digital strategy.

The conference is a mecca for all things digital and I am thrilled at the opportunity to attend. I will be conducting interviews, writing about different panels, and live tweeting some events for The Ocean Agency. Here is my full schedule:

interactive marketing companies are notorious for buzz words.

With the emergence and mass-adoption of social media, marketing buzz words are now on steroids. So, here at the Ocean Agency, we thought we would help out business owners by translating marketing buzz words and break down how they can improve your business, minus the marketing speak.

1) Augmented Reality

Definition: Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality.” (Wikipedia)

Our Definition: Mixing technology into physical real-world experiences

Example:

Does augmented reality make sense for you business? Possibly.

Here is one example:

If you’re a restaurant, you could have the food items on the menu reveal themselves in all 3-D glory.

Obviously, augmented reality is expensive to produce, but the future lies in digital experiences mixed in with consumers physical spaces that tell a compelling story, or, more importantly, offer some kind of value.

Biggest take away for your businesses: Incorporate technologies that improve the experience of your customers.

2) Geo-Location

Definition:” Geo-location is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computer, mobile device, website visitor or other.” (Wikipedia)

Our Definition: Identifying and targeting  customers based on their location.

Examples: Foursquare location targeted specials and advertisements:

Does geo-location make sense for your business? Probably.

This one is definitely living up to the hype thus far. With the expansion of social networking on mobile devices, people are sharing their location data at an increasing rate. Businesses can create relevant ads on these platforms that aren’t intrusive.

With this data businesses can help consumers make decisions, save money, and build brand loyalty. A win-win for both brands and consumers.

Something to keep in mind:

Recently, Foursquare has partnered with a variety of major media outlets like BravoTV and the New York Times. The only incentive for users from these partnerships?

A Bravo TV or New York Times Olympic Badge.

These are great incentives for Foursquare addicted PR, communication and markerting types, but in order to encourage mainstream adoption the incentives will have to increase.

Biggest take-away for your business: Make your place of businesses a true destination. People share their location to gain incentives and because it says something about them. Ask yourself this question: Would people want to tell the world that they are at your place of business? Why? Why not?

3) Brand Utility:

Definition: “The brand utility method is concerned less with feature sets and more with functionality. How can your products make the lives of consumers better? That is the question that a brand utility advertising campaign seeks to answer.”  (Printing and Advertising)

Our Definition: Improving the lives of your customers to inspire loyalty in your customer base.

Example:

ING Direct.

If ING Direct is a bank, why does it have cafes in major cities in the US?

Brand Utility.

The ING Direct cafe offers free wifi, $1 coffee/tea and $1 pastries, in addition to employees who know all about ING Direct products.

They improve the lives of their customers by offering discounted coffee and food and even give those with an ING direct account free coffe or tea on Fridays. The ING direct cafe concept is a perfect example of brand utility, and it makes incentives offered by other banks look lame/miniscule in comparison.

Biggest take away for your business: If you improve the lives of your customers, they will thank you publicly and keep coming back.

What can you do to improve the lives of your customers in a way that fits with your overall brand message?

Alright, now it’s your turn. Business owners:

Would you use these tools in your marketing plan? Why or why not?

Of interest to interactive marketing agencies everywhere, a report was released yesterday which found that only 8% of online teens use Twitter:

What makes this even more interesting is that 93% of teens are online:

These figures illustrate something really important about teenagers: They care about their friends and their actual physical network. Moreover, psychology has taught us that many teenagers) are terrible at planning ahead and thinking about the future. They live in the moment and with the consequences. The prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that is most involved in future planning and decision making, does not fully develop until your early 20s.

What does this have to do with “public” information sharing, like Twitter or blogging?

1) In order to blog or tweet, you inherently have to believe that you have something remotely valuable to say. This requires both a sense of personal identity and self-esteem, both of which are developing during the teen years.

2) Tweeting and blogging are linked to “personal branding” more than anything else. Personal branding requires foresight, introspection and networking with people who aren’t your “real” friends. If teens are deeply focused on physical friendship and developing a personal identity, the link between Twitter, blogs and personal branding might be seen as “lame” or inauthentic.

If teens don’t tweet or blog, how do you target teens with an interactive marketing campaign?

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?

Today, we had the wonderful honor of receiving a letter from the all powerful Google in the mail (yes a letter!). Between July 1 and September 30, Google users found our business listing 19559 times, making us a Google “favorite place”. Ok, so it’s a little exciting that Google has singled the Ocean Agency out as a high search volume business, but what’s the real point of the Google new favorite place system? How will it impact online business marketing?

With the explosion of Twitter and social media, came tweet ups and meet ups as people want  to solidify their online connections in real life.

If you’re reading this blog, there’s a good chance you have been to a meet-up or tweet up. Let me tell you something, I love meeting new people and I love social events, but generally, tweet up are pretty bland. You go and you talk about how awesome Twitter is, and sit on your phone tweeting the whole time, and never make any real connections.

The Social Media Club Chicago holiday party/event last night, showed me just how valuable and fun a social media event can be. Here’s what they did right:

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:

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.

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.