The Ocean Agency

As an interactive marketing agency in Chicago, we put out quite a few press releases every month for clients.

Press releases are an integral part of any SEO, social media, and overall content strategy. Here are 3 tips to mastering the social media press release.

1) Social Network Optimization

Make sure that your brand name is consistent across all social networks. While this has little to do with actually writing a press release, it is the first step to effective social media press release syndication.  A great tool to secure your brand name across the social web is Knowem.com. Social media profile registration in this day an age is just as important as domain name registration.

2) Write content that is spreadable, interactive, and stands out in a world of streams.

Press releases are notoriously dry, stale and snooze-worthy. While there is a distinctive style for press releases that should be followed when trying to get traditional media coverage, be sure to tailor your release for different avenues of syndication. Here are some tips about syndicating for different social networks:

Twitter: The headline of the press release is just as important as the content of the press release itself. Make a headline that is eye-catching and  makes the content appear newsworthy. Make sure  your content then matches the quality of your headline, and people will be even more likely to share your press release on Twitter.

Facebook: When tailoring a press release for Facebook, ask yourself, “Why would people share this?”. Sharing anything on the web, and on Facebook in particular, is a personal statement about a person’s viewpoints, opinions, and a part of the construction of their online identity. Focus both your headline and press release on issues that emotionally resonate with your audience.

Video: Nothing is better at forming a relationship with readers or viewers than a video. Press releases with visual elements tend to stay in our memory, stand out, and rise above the pack.

3 ) Make your press release interactive.

Form a relationship with your readers by telling a story that emotionally resonates with them, ask for their feedback, or even go as far as including a live chat within the press release like Ford recently did:

While every press release isn’t worthy of a live chat, including interactive elements like polls, questions, or contests makes your press release remarkable and noteworthy.

To recap: First step, optimize your social media presence so your brand is consistent and well represented. Second, tailor your press release for different syndication channels, and focus on making  content both interactive and spreadable.

Have more questions about social media press releases? Feel free to ask in the comments, send us a tweet, or shoot us an email.

Influence is a term that is thrown around the social media world constantly these days.

Many businesses see social media value in “influencer marketing” — using influencers to spur word of mouth and buzz around a certain product or business. As the social web evolves, and as our trust in peer recommendations declines, communication professionals and business owners alike are going to have to find new ways to create influence online.

The panel included:

Tim Schigel @schigel (from share this)

Mike JB John-Baptiste @peerset (peerset)

Paul Berry @teamreboot (CTO huff post)

Dave Knox @daveknox (P and G)

David Binkowski @dbinkowski (MS and L)

The panel was structured around statements/questions, so I’ll structure this blog post the same way.

Discussion Starter 1: We know where to find influencers

The panel was split on this statement. David Binkowski made the fantastic point that new influencers are popping up online everyday. How can you predict who will influence what? He went further to argue that anyone with enough time can create influence online; he thinks that people can pop up anywhere and become influencers with ample time and effort.

JB (@peerset) pointed out that we now have experts and community. How do you rally those influencers and deliver the right message? So maybe we should think more about rallying influencers than merely identifying them?

As a publisher, Paul Berry from the Huffington post had a different take. He argued that is the job of publishers to unite influencers with an audience.

My take, simply put: Influencers are everywhere, so don’t burn bridges.

Discussion Starter 2: Brands should influence consumers?

Search engine optimization is extremely important for your business as 95% of all site traffic from search engines comes from page one results (icrossing).

While the importance of being on page one for your business has not changed, social media has shaken up how you get there. As social networking has increased, search engines are forced to pay attention to tweets, (public) facebook updates, forum discussions, Youtube videos etc. The list goes on.

Via

In Today’s web, Social media matters to the search engines,  which makes optimizing your businesses’ social media presence a top priority. Recently, Brian Solis wrote a fascinating article about optimizing your social media presence in order to improve your search engine positioning.

25% of search results, for the world’s top 20 brands link to user generated content (Socialnomics July, 2009).  This number is bound to get higher as social network interaction increases.

Facebook has just surpassed Google as the number one traffic driver on the web.

From these statistics it would be easy to paint a portrait of a world where Facebook could eat the entire web, and SERP is completely determined by social content. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves — Posting items about your business to Facebook and Twitter everyday is not enough to rank well on search engines, or communicate your message to your target audience.

Good content that encourages interaction and sharing is now more important that ever to your search engine ranking position.  Spending time crafting resourceful content that is engaging and shareable, combined with patience, hard work, and clean coding will get you to the top of the search engines.

Curating content, both your own, and content that offers value to your target audience syndicated expertly on social media channels is a necessary addition to any SEO campaign.

How is your business or SEO company integrating social media  to improve your search enginge rankings?

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?

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.

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 inspired by an experiment by @VanessaMiemis, author of the emergent by design blog. She asked her followers to write a post, entitled What I’ve Learned About Twitter, and then create a discussion around it. This is my contribution.

I’ll break this post down into three sections: What I’ve learned about individual Twitter use, What I’ve learned about using Twitter for small business, and what I’ve learned about using Twitter for larger corporations and well known brands.

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: