The Ocean Agency

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?

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?

It is pretty clear that social media works for big brands. Just to name a few, we all admire the utilization of SM by Southwest, Jet Blue, Comcast, and Dell among a myriad of others.

But what about smaller companies? What about small and medium sized businesses that don’t have the brand awareness of a large corporation? Does it work for them?

I spend a lot of time convincing businesses that social media marketing is real and here to stay. But I’m pretty sure you all wouldn’t appreciate a sales pitch in a blog post, so instead I’m going to give 21 examples of small to medium sized Chicago businesses that are using social media effectively. In no particular order:

Every DJ has heard this: In this day and age, just about anyone can “DJ” a party. All you have to do is make a playlist and hit play, right?

WRONG.

Every social media marketer has heard this:  Anyone can be a social media marketer, all you need is a blog, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn account.

WRONG AS WELL.

Interestingly, the keys to being a successful DJ and social media marketer are surprisingly similar:

Leah had some great thoughts on online quizzes and how to utilize them. Check them out below!

Quizzes: Tools for Building a Community Around Your Website

I am a bit of a procrastinator. I also really like answering questions about myself. (Yea, I’m honest!) And, guess what, I’m not the only sometimes-distracted narcissist on the web. When used properly, online quizzes are rewarding marketing tools that will increase your site’s interactivity and traffic.

You read it everyday: Brands need to become more interactive online, but many times, brands don’t know where to start. This is where companies like the Ocean Agency jump in, giving mostly good advice on how brands can be more interactive and successful in today’s marketplace.

While many agencies are great at telling their clients how to succeed in a world of social and interactive media, their own presence is lacking.

At the Ocean Agency, we’ve had a lot of success building interactive web campaigns for clients, but now it’s time to practice what we preach.

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: