the association

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

The Secret to Social Media

Social Media Strategist: Trevor Eisenman

Helping people design a useful Social Media internet strategy to generate interest and reach for their business is what I’m all about. And since most of my clients weren’t born with a smartphone in their hands, there are usually a few key points to clear up about Social Media right from the beginning. After all, Social Media is a relatively new topic. Or is it?

If you step back and take a look how information moves in Social Media, it’s quite different than “Traditional Media.” Back in the day, most people got their information from newspapers or magazines. The direction of information is from the few (the writer or publisher) down to the many. We’ve all seen this in action in our daily lives, maybe to the point of not even noticing it anymore. Got a favorite newspaper columnist or TV show host? One single person communicating to possibly millions of people with little interaction between the communicator and the listeners.

As we step into the Social Media arena, the direction and flow of information is between the readers and the writers. The interaction (thanks to the internet) tends to be instant and the ripple effect from this sharing of information can spread far and wide. With the users of Social Media able to contribute news and information to anyone willing to listen, we now have a conversation. Just like the conversations you are already having at the local coffeeshop or at work.

The recent buzzing and tittering by the media about Twitter and Social Media in general, it’s no wonder business owners may feel forced into using these internet-based communication tools, or perhaps miss sales opportunities their competition is getting instead of them. Not being familiar with the landscape, many make that sometimes fatal error of confusing Social Media with traditional advertising.

But remember: traditional advertising is the few pushing out information to the many. No matter how you dress it up, advertising never was and never will be the same thing as a conversation. Advertising flows up and down, and conversations flow back and forth. If you are blasting everyone you know on social media with your marketing or business message continuously, ask yourself: who am I talking to? If the answer is everyone at once, you might be advertising mode unintentionally.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s OK to let everyone know what you are doing in general. You’ve gotten those letters at Christmas where a relative runs off a bunch of copies of the family “newsletter” and sends it to everyone? I like reading those. It’s just an update, a catch-up session. But when 90% of the people connecting to me on Twitter are saying the same message (“Want to get 16,000 followers on Twitter?” sound familiar?), we’ve crossed over that thin line between conversing and advertising.

So what’s the secret to this Social Media thing? It IS faster than mailing a letter or a postcard. More interactive than TV. Cheap to boot! Seems like the perfect advertising tool. But to use Social Media as just another advertising channel misses the hidden power of Social Media. What is that hidden power? It’s so painfully visible, so obvious. It’s something I call “Commonality.”

It’s where you and I share a common interest, or have similar background. It’s liking the same funny movie, or both growing up in the South with fried chicken, or having visited the same restaurant in Europe. It boils down to this: if you and I have something in common (no matter what it is), we understand each other better to that degree.

If you have a pet dog, and I have a pet dog, we instantly understand each other that much more, and, to the degree that we understand each other, we are enabled to create a personal, lasting, and genuine friendship. Social Networks facilitate this instant understanding because you can share so many aspects of yourself in a quick glance.

Ever get a friend request on Facebook from someone that doesn’t even have their picture posted and hardly anything listed on their profile? Little hard to cozy up to, isn’t it? Kind of like getting a “friend” request from a statue. Cold.

Social Media is a breeze, really. Express who you are. Make it personal (but not TOO personal!). The more you describe yourself, or rather, profile yourself, on these social networks, the more aspects there are to resonate with for someone who doesn’t yet know you. I know I prefer to do business with someone I like and trust. Would you like and trust someone you’d never met before, but who showed up on your door with a slick advertising message? Didn’t think so.

Does all this seem hard? It’s not, because if you have already been in business (and thus sales) in any capacity, you’ve already been using Social Media. Ever strike up a conversation with someone at an after-hours party? Did they eventually ask you what you do for a living? If you have, you’ve already got practice in Social Media. I’ll bet you’ve even gotten a few new customers that way. Now it’s just a matter of moving that same conversation to an online platform like Facebook or MySpace. It’s the individual and friendly (another word for social) conversations that will forward your business message, because people will like you, and even more importantly, understand you on a level they aren’t even aware of themselves. Powerful stuff.

Social Media Networks are a fun, useful way to share the individual that is you with the rest of the world. The steps to participating are as follows: Join, listen to the conversations that are already happening, participate where you are interested or can be useful to others, give where you can, and be prepared to receive what others give you in return. In this way you can organically build a genuine community of new friends, customers and goodwill that may last a lifetime, no matter what business you may find yourself in down the road.

Authored by: Trevor Eisenman

Tags: Dogs, Facebook, Fletcher Murray, Really Simple Solutions, Social media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Strategies, social networking, the association, trevor Eisenman, Twitter
Posted in General | No Comments

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Simple Ways to get Complex Shots

REALLY Simple Marketing Solutions

This is a series on marketing solutions. Often the simplest solution is the best. Here’s one you might find interesting.

Are you surrounded by people who just can’t keep themselves from making things as complex as possible? They’ve got this idea that for something to be worthwhile it MUST be complex and very hard.

We don’t work that way. Hey. It may be our experience or we just like to have fun or some of both. We think there is always a way to get what you want simply and easily.

This Norm Taylor spot is a good example. It was a difficult TV commercial to do. The storyboard called for a distraught woman in a car which had broken down at night on the freeway. She almost gets hit a number of times. Her car’s a lemon and, as the narrator says, she needs to call Norm Taylor to get her money back.

Well, as you may know, it costs a godzillion dollars to close a freeway, plus permits, traffic cops, firemen etc. Even renting a piece of asphalt big enough for background trucks and cars to zoom past in the background was pricey and we would have to rent a generator to fake the lights overhead.

So, we decided to shoot the foreground of the woman in the car against green screen and then marry it to a background shot of freeway traffic at night.

We thought it’d be fun to shoot a time lapse of the green screen shoot so we didn’t bore you to death.

We call the time lapse video “Gone in 60 Seconds”.

Our pro’s really did an excellent job. Better than some of the green screen in Die Hard 3. If you want to see the final spot, click the picture below.

Written by: Fletcher Murray of The Association

Fletcher Murray

Tags: award winning tv spots, Fletcher Murray, green screen, Norm Taylor, Simple Marketing Solutions, the association
Posted in General | No Comments

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Small Business vs Big Business

In Social Media Marketing an Hour a Day, Dave Evans remarks on one of the reasons a company wouldn’t want to start an online social networking campaign. Not enough happy customers! In the online world, it takes seconds to share information with hundreds, even thousands of millions of people. If your customers mostly don’t have good things to say about your service or product, opening the door to social media and the uncontrolled conversations that occur online could be costly.

Because small business owners tend to do a lot of the work themselves, and the customers often have direct access to the owner, it usually is easier to get good service. Even custom service. The result is that the customer tends to be happier and there is a better chance customers will be become Brand Advocates. Compare this to a franchised operation! The whole reason for franchising is so you can make a ton of money, in most cases. Customized service tends to be a little lower on the list of priorities.

Ok, so as a small business owner you probably have more happy customers than your larger competitors. And this is where your edge is over big business when it comes to social media. The big companies tend to forget about the past customers and all of their efforts are on gaining new ones. A great example of this are cell phone companies that give the best deals to the new customer, leaving their long-term customers out in the cold.

Why is this an edge for you? Well, because in the case of a small business with a high ratio of happy customers, the customers can do the heavy lifting for you in the “new customer” department. Remember, we are talking about happy customers here. This edge doesn’t exist if your customers are mostly unhappy with your services. The happy customers, however, by blogging and tweeting about their experiences, can affect the new customer’s opinion and decision to buy. Do you research a purchase on Google before you commit? Well, so do your customers!

Here’s a really simple strategy almost any business owner can use:

1. Create a Facebook Fan Page for your business.

2. As you come into contact your leads, prospects and customers like you normally do, work out a way to capture their email address with the purpose of inviting them to your Fan Page. This could be as simple as a sheet of paper on a clip board for their name and email address. Tip: When a customer is interested but declines to purchase “right now”, mention you have a Fan Page on Facebook. 9 times out of 10 they are on Facebook and will agree to be sent a link to the Fan Page.

3. Schedule time each week or each month to email the Fan Page URL to these specific customers.

4. Keep updating the content on the Fan Page with news, photos, event dates, etc. Make sure to add the “Reviews” application to the Fan Page!

5. Ask customers to write reviews and have promotions from time to time that give an incentive for your customers to share your company with their friends. Facebook has applications for that too.

A really, really good reason to have a Facebook Fan Page for your business is because it is completely indexed by Google. One of my smaller clients has only been on the Internet for about 4 months, if that. She doesn’t have a website yet, but she has a Fan Page. With minimal content, she is now on the first page of Google when you search for her product by name. Ever since we started that Fan Page her phone orders have been steadily increasing as well.

There is a lot you can do with a Fan page, and it’s free so it’s a good place to start! As long as you keep your customers happy with good service, keep inviting people to join your page, and interact (read “listen”) with your customers, you’ll find that in most cases, your customers start marketing for you. At the very least, you can improve your ranking on Google.

Having a Fan Page doesn’t mean you should avoid getting proper SEO done, or avoid getting a website or even avoid doing marketing and advertising. All of those tried and true actions are valid and should be done if you can. But if you can’t afford them, Facebook Fan Pages are a great way to get started.

Anyway, the point is, as a small business owner you have something the big guys don’t have. YOU. As long as your customers can easily “share” you with their friends (who are likely in the same demographic as your customer!), they can pioneer in areas you couldn’t reach for lack of a budget or other reasons. I can’t think of any other medium where it’s easier to share than Social Media and online Social Networking . Ok, maybe preschool. But 4 year olds are probably not the right demographic!

Written by: Trevor Eisenmen

Social Media Expert: Trevor Eisenman

Tags: easy marketing, Facebook, fan page, marketing, simple marketing, small business vs big business, Social media, Social Media Marketing, the association, trevor Eisenman
Posted in General | No Comments

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

How to make a slow Chopper look fast.

REALLY Simple Marketing Solutions

This is a series on marketing solutions. Often the simplest solution is the best. Here’s one you might find interesting.

Marketing is about making something appealing. It’s kind of making the sow’s ear into a silk purse (although I’ve never seen that done successfully but it’s an attention getter.) This articles about a chopper and a hog of sorts.

McDonnell Douglas was introducing their new MD 500 Explorer helicopter, which was designed for the Medivac market. It was a complete re-design from the sleek helicopters in the 500 series. It was well…fat and slow. The bigger cabin made room enough for stretchers and medical personnel but it certainly lowered the score in the sleek and sexy department.
So the marketing problem we faced with was how do you make a boxy, sluggish helicopter appealing?

Our creative department came up with the idea of positioning it with another chopper, i.e. the Harley Davidson Electro Glide.
We got a vintage Electro Glide and fueled up the Explorer and off they went into testosterone territory.
Click here to see the award-winning video that premiered the Explorer at the Helicopter Association Internal convention:

Written by: Fletch Murray

Fletch Murray

Tags: Chopper, Fletch Murray, Media, Really Simple Marketing Solutions, the association, TV spots
Posted in General | No Comments

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

How Can You Show How Quiet a Helicopter Is?

REALLY Simple Marketing Solutions

This is a series on marketing solutions. Often the simplest solution is the best. Here’s one you might find interesting.

Problem: How can McDonnell Douglas show how quiet it’s new helicopter is?

Creative Solution: Have it land and take off without awakening a sleeping man and his dog.

The scene: Historic Old Tucson (scenes of many Western movies).

We cast an old guy to dress up like a old prospector. He’ll be rocked back on a chair taking a nap on the front porch of the cabin. At his feet will be his trusty watchdog, ‘Snappy’, who doesn’t miss a thing.

The helicopter will land in the background and then take off again and we’ll see if they can do it without waking up wither the prospector or the doggie.

Now why are we jumping through all these hoops to show how quiet this helicopter is?

Well, because McDonnell Douglas spent a godzillion dollars developing the No Tail Rotor helicopter. The NOTAR. Removing the tail rotor eliminates the danger to people walking around behind the helicopter. Conventional helicopters have rapidly spinning blades at the end of the tail boom, which spin so fast they virtually disappear. Hence, lots of people walk into them and get the vegomatic treatment.

So the NOTAR is the big thing we are pushing cause people are people not vegetables.

Another big plus is that people complain about police helicopters making so much noise when they are overhead. The NOTAR system virtually eliminates that problem since the main noise from a helicopter is the tail rotor, not the big blades above the cabin.

So, here comes the shoot day. The weather’s good. The prospector looks sleepy. The dog is ready to go, although to me he looks a little “tight”, like a swiss watch that won’t wind any more.

The dog wrangler says that the dog’s not about to freak out, he’s just shivering in the early morning cold.

So, we radio in the helicopter. Here he comes. Roll camera. The helicopter lands. The helicopter starts to lift off. The dog jumps.

Take Two. We radio in the helicopter. Here he comes.

Roll camera.

The helicopter lands. The helicopter starts to lift off. The dog jumps.

Take Three. We radio in the helicopter. Here he comes.

“Roll camera! Steady everybody.”

The helicopter lands. Somebody sneezes. The dog jumps.

Take Four. We radio in the helicopter. Here he comes.

“Roll camera! Steady everybody.”

The helicopter lands. Nothing moves. A lizard a half mile a way. Skitters down a rock. The dog jumps.

Take Five. Dog jumps.

Take Six. Dog yawns.

Take Seven. Dog wags his tail at his owner who’s madly trying to make the dog keep her head down.

We have a “conference” with everyone EXCEPT the dog owner.

“Have we got a clean landing?”

“Yes”.

“So let’s get a clean take off.”

“It won’t work. The helicopter won’t land in the same place. So we have to restage the landing and takeoff until we get a good one.”

We motion over the dog owner.

“What can you give the dog to calm her down?”

“No,” she responds.

“Do you have a staple gun?”

No one laughs.

“She’ll get it this time,” she promises.

Okay.

“Take godzillion and five.”

We radio in the helicopter. Here he comes.

“Roll camera! Steady everybody.”

The helicopter lands. The dog doesn’t move.

The helicopter takes off. We watch the dog.

The dog doesn’t move.

We notice small pools of Crazy Glue around the dog’s legs and ears. The fur is strangely matted with clear laquer*.

We’ve got the shot!

“CUT !!!!”

The dog tries to smile but her lips won’t move. The wrangler comes up and we turn our backs not wanting to see what she did to immobilize the dog.

We wake up the prospector, pay him fifty bucks and send him on his way.

Anyway, it is a very quiet helicopter. Check out the finished spot.

Please be advised that no animals were harmed in the production of this commercial.

Click on the link to see our final cut of the spot:

Written by: Fletch Murray of The Association

Fletch Murray

Tags: Fletch Murray, Fletcher Murray, helicopters, Really Simple Marketing Solutions, the association
Posted in General | No Comments

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

How to Make All Your Marketing More Effective

Pretty much every business is going to attempt marketing and advertising to some degree. There are those businesses that survive just through referrals, and maybe that’s all they need. But lately I’ve been hearing more and more that what used to work for business development isn’t working as well anymore, regardless of the method.

Postcards, mailings, TV ads, newspaper – Traditional Media just isn’t cutting the mustard anymore. So what does that mean for the future of business development?

First off, Traditional Media may not be as effective as it once was, but that doesn’t mean it should just be canned. From a “holistic’ perspective, it does have its place in the overall scheme of things. Traditional Media is great for creating awareness and driving interest about any topic. But realize that, because of the Internet, consumers have a voice in the marketplace they didn’t have before. This voice is expressed through blogs, comments, Facebook, etc., and is picked up by new potential customers with the help of a quick Google search, and serves to validate (or not) your marketing message.

If a company is doing a bad job delivering what it promises, it is unlikely the world of social media will be very kind without first addressing that issue. But that is an Operations matter and not the subject of today’s article. Perhaps the next article.

So, potentially a business needs to continue their Traditional Media approach while also engaging in social media and online networking to ensure the consumer has enough information with which to make a decision: to purchase, or not to purchase?

Whether your business has been around for years or just got started, there is a way to increase the effectiveness of both Traditional (mass) and New Media (digital) efforts. It’s very simple, but escapes the attention of many business owners.

Take the blindfold off.

Yep. It’s that simple. Let’s look at this from the perspective of two gunmen at target practice. They both have the same model gun, bullets and targets. One of them, however, is blindfolded. Assuming they have the same level of skill, which one of them is going to hit the targets more? Obviously the one without the blindfold.

The way to remove the blindfold is to conduct market research. But not just any kind of market research. I mean emotional market research.

Sometimes market research is conducted, but all that is obtained is facts and figures. What you need are the “buttons” that when pushed, get an emotional reaction, and communicate directly to the heart of the consumer.

A fatal, fatal mistake is to assume that you know exactly what your customer needs and wants, and that you know how to communicate to them on an emotional level that will speak to their mind on the subject. Did you ask them? If not, you just might be off an inch or too. However, we are looking to hit a bull’s-eye, not just get kind of close.

Case in point: One of our clients, a skilled and trustworthy attorney, had a 2-3% conversion rate for his Pay Per Click campaign before market research was conducted. All of his marketing, both paper and online, spoke a very conservative message: “I am an attorney”

Market research dug deep and revealed his potential clients didn’t trust attorneys. They also weren’t conservative about the issues they had, they were angry! So the existing marketing efforts missed on two levels. Potential customers couldn’t “see’ the advertisements because they couldn’t relate to them on an emotional level, and an attorney was the last person they would seek out to resolve their valid cases.

The solution was to re-brand the attorney as a “Consumer Advocate” and change the imagery in the advertisements to show angry and upset consumers. Instant success! Conversion rates rose as much as 8%!

Market Research can save a business thousands and thousands of dollars if it’s done correctly, and the data is usually valid for at least 10 years. How much more income would your business have if your existing marketing was 8% more effective? Take 10-20% of that figure and invest it in Market Research, and see your results soar accordingly.

Make every move an effective one. Get market research done for immediate use, and use social media to create a permanent “feedback loop” so you always have up to date information (the good and the bad), and the door to success will open. If you feel like you don’t know what to do, you just might not have enough information to make a decision. Done properly, Market Research will give it to you.

Written by: Fletch Murray

The Association

Fletch Murray

Tags: advertising, conversion, market research, marketing, pay per click, Social media, surveys, the association, traditional media, trevor Eisenman
Posted in General | No Comments

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

“The Dick and Jane Show” Premieres to Great Response!!

A new comedy, “The Dick and Jane Show” rolled out on the web, grabbing 30,000 views in its first weekend online. Starring Elvis Winterbottom, our own Katie Dean, and Houston Graham, Episode One introduces a couple from another place and time – sort of like the neighborhood portrayed in the movie, Edward Scissorhands.

Elvis is into his meerschaum pipe and Katie into her popcorn balls.
Expect the unexpected as you check this out for yourself on YouTube! “The Dick and Jane Show”- Episode 1

We were glad to help Katie Dean launch “The Dick and Jane Show”. And we’ve shot webisodes 2, 3, and 4. We’ll let you know when they’re on the web.

Tags: Comedy series on the web, Elvis Winterbottom, funny, Houston Graham, Katie Dean, the association, The Dick and Jane show, top web series in first week of release, Webisode, YouTube
Posted in General | No Comments

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Social Networking – Is it a Mammoth Task?

Have you ever said, “I’ll use Twitter the day Clint Eastwood takes up knitting”?

You’re not alone. A lot of business people still aren’t sure Twitter is of value to them in business. In fact, they’re unclear about this whole social networking on the web.

I was dragging my heels as well, probably because I didn’t understand what it was. So, what is a social network?

Wikipedia says, “A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called “nodes,” which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.”

From this definition you can see that social networking isn’t something new. I’ve got a social network and so do you. In fact, social networks have been around since the caveman days.

(above) Social Networking when we used to hang out together.

Cavemen were “tweeting” to alert each other of danger or perhaps just to check in with the wife. Caveman Ralph would stand on a hill and let out a scream that meant (roughly translated),

“Leaving work, now, honey. Want me to pick up a pig on the way home?”

As we’ve evolved, we’ve adopted innovative software to help us do caveman tasks. Take PowerPoint, for example.

Before the big wooly mammoth hunt, the tribe leader, Tor the Merciless, would have his “creative artist”, Larry, paint “slides” on the cave so he could show his cross-eyed but well-meaning warriors what to do when the mammoth comes.

Wooly Mammoth - To the caveman it was a walking grocery & apparel store.

Tor would then “present” to the group to get their buy-in on his strategy for the hunt. (Tor tried to keep it down to less that twelve words per slide.)

We’ve adopted PowerPoint to help me accomplish this age-old task of getting group buy-in. Surely we can adopt innovations to help us with our social networking.

If you’re having trouble adopting social networking it may be that you don’t understand the innovation. According to Wikipedia, Everett Rogers, in his studies of innovation, says that your “willingness and ability to adopt an innovation depends on your awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption”.

And it’s true. I have been an early adopter of many things, if I understood them (understanding), they apply to me (interest) and they had value to me (evaluation) and worked well (trial).

I did drag my feet and only bought the “Clapper” when the price came down. That’s because I didn’t place the value on it (evaluation) that they were selling it for originally.

In summary, these new social networking web tools will make it much easier to stay in touch with the people in our social network in this time-shifted, virtual office world we live in.

And it’s so much better than screaming from the hilltop.

You could say that understanding social networking is not such a mammoth task after all. Trevor, our social media strategist will explain it to you and how you can use it.

If you’d like to understand Social Networking and social media marketing better, we heartily recommend a book called Social Media Marketing On One Hour a Day by Dave Evans. Wiley Publishing, available on Google at:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0470344024/ref=sr_1_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256861474&sr=1-1&condition=new

Tags: caveman, nodes, Social media, social networking, the association, Twitter
Posted in General | No Comments

The Association is an award-winning, creative, full service, solutions company - providing film, video and new media for successful marketing and advertising campaigns.

Subscribe to our Feed

Search

Archives

Categories

the association

Simple Ways to get Complex Shots

How to make a slow Chopper look fast.

How Can You Show How Quiet a Helicopter Is?

“The Dick and Jane Show” Premieres to Great Response!!

Subscribe to our Feed

Search

Archives

Categories

Popular Tags

the association