Recently I came across an article on CNN exploring the validity of Twitter’s place in the social media market, and those questioning the status of its dominance. We know that Twitter is the darling of many journalists and in-the-know technophiles. It has a thriving, niche community. But can Twitter connect with the average consumer? Or, is it purely for the types who are willing to put in the time to learn how to manage multiple stream of information?

Twitter is still very much in growth phase – growing roughly 500,000 accounts per day – and it certainly has a ways to go before it catches up to that other social network.

However, the Twitter structure, that tricky 140-character “status bar” which is referenced in the article, is already influencing the way brands are thinking about how to successfully connect with their customers in social spaces, regardless of channel.

So, think it’s just a tweet?

In my estimation, there are at least three things you can learn from Twitter, today, that will improve your overall communications approach and build stronger communities.

• Brevity: You can’t market your way into people’s hearts anymore. Well, that might not actually be fully true, but what is true is that consumers have less and less tolerance for fluff, so you better get to the point. The 140 character limit is not a limiting factor, it’s a very real challenge to force you to mean what you say and say what you mean. Cut out the excess and get to the heart of what your customer should care about.
• Think Before You Write: There are a lot of variables to consider when you’re using Twitter. Should you create a bit.ly? Should you use a hashtag? Should you look up someone’s handle to mention them in the tweet? All of these things force you to consider a variety of variables which might impact the success of your message. If you’re not thinking about these things, you should start.
• Provide Credit When Credit is Due: Perhaps more than any other social network, Twitter is constantly citing and crediting the source of information. Through RT’s or @mentions, taking credit for someone else’s idea or resource is a faux-pas and you’ll likely get called out. Whereas, taking the approach of thanking someone for their @mention or their article engenders a lot of good vibes, which go a long way to making your social presence authentic and trusted. That will lead to improved sentiment and brand perception, and encourage others to become fans of your brand on social media.

While it’s still to be seen just how big Twitter will be in 5, 10, or even 20 years, does it really matter? We’re already seeing the way it’s impacting the way people are communicating with groups of people, now. We better continue to read the trends and think bigger about why these communications are connecting with people, instead of falling behind. Read the article for yourself and let me know what you think. What else do you think brands can learn from Twitter?

Spring Creek Group made it down to Twtrcon and the 140smiles launch party in San Francisco this weekend, had a great time, and participated in a ton of great discussions and presentations.  For those of you who missed it, here’s a quick rundown of what went on.

Saturday:   The 140smiles launch party was kicked off by Operation Smile, hoping to raise enough for 140 cleft palate and facial deformity surgeries. The party was packed, and due to a poor AT&T signal (therefore no iPhones) and only intermittent Wi-Fi, the attendees spent a lot of time networking and getting to know each other, which was a good thing.  Without having that 140 character limit to fall back on, the crowd got even more actively real-world social.  By the end of the night, we’d spent hours talking with @davemcclure, @jacobm, @ericoverman (from Operation Smile), and @ginasmith888 (who ran a lot of the conference).

Sunday:  At Twtrcon itself, Guy Kawasaki answered our question regarding how he feels about farming out his personal brand to assistants by saying that his ultimate goal is to promote his business, and since his Twitter presence is larger than Alltop’s, he’s satisfied to leverage it. 

At two periods during the day, Twtrcon attendees had the chance to pitch their companies or whatever they preferred, so long as they submitted a 140-character application and this application then received the most votes from the other attendees.  Spring Creek Group received the second highest amount of votes and so we were able to talk about how charities and not-for-profits are innovating and blazing the way for brand and corporate success on Twitter.  That 140-second pitch generated a lot of one-on-one questions from people in the field.

Right after the pitch, we were selected to moderate the “Twitter Analytics 1,2,3″ lunch discussion table. There was a lot to learn from the participants, as they came from agencies, company brands, applications, and personal brands, meaning they all had very different needs from, and views on, Twitter data.  Two of the most fascinating tools mentioned at the table were Tweetriver and Twittfilter.

After lunch, there was a bit of a lull as you could tell everyone was getting a little sleepy, but Shel Israel’s talk about building neighborhoods that are no longer constrained by geography and Steve Rubel’s vision for the future of Twitter really woke everyone up.  As a result, the Twitter pro panel that finished off the day was really energized, and turned out to be a great way to cap off the conference.

All in all, we met a lot of great people, had some excellent discussions, and formed some relationships and connections that’ll hopefully continue long into the future.  We found that some of the most interesting things about the conference were not necessarily what people said, but the nature of the communication itself.  We connected face-to-face with so many people that we’d before only interacted with online.  This might just be part of the power and relevance of Twitter-its ability to bring people together who might otherwise might never have met.

We heard a great NPR segment today about a new eatery that has taken Los Angeles by storm.  At first, it seems like a simple and straightforward enough story, but of course there’s was a clever little social media catch that we at SCG found particularly interesting. 

This eatery, Kogi, is completely mobile, operating out of a large truck, with a bevy of differing locations each day.   Ten (or even five) years ago, this probably would have been a bad idea, but thanks to Kogi’s embrace of various forms of social media, the concept has come on the hip dining scene like Gangbusters.  By using social media to interact directly with its customers through real-time location updates and daily menu changes, diners can remain in the loop and stay constantly connected, knowing that their Korean BBQ fix is only a tweet away. 

Sure, there have been some obstacles in the process, but by addressing these issues as they arise, Kogi has been able to avoid major gaffes while still actively driving their brand presence in the social media sphere through open and direct communication with their customers. 

On that note, Spring Creek Group would like to remind @kogibbq that citizens of the Pacific Northwest also love Korean BBQ.  As a matter of fact, there is a particularly large parking lot directly outside of SCG Global World Headquarters that would suit the spatial needs associated with the truck quite wonderfully.

No one seems to know exactly why Twitter is so popular these days. Apparently though, the Times of London found some scholars that have taken notice of it, done a little research, and formed some not too positive opinions on everyone’s favorite micro-blogging service.

In a recap and analysis of these Twitter-focused studies, the gang at Valleywag points out that one prevailing theory is that the reason people use Twitter is because their sense of “the self” is not only woefully misguided, but also sadly underdeveloped.

The general breakdown of the studies mentioned is this: “You are not truly important. You think you are, and so you use Twitter to shoot off mundane messages about your daily life that reinforce your own inflated sense of self-worth. According to these folks, staying permanently connected with others reminds you are alive, providing you with a sort of “baby monitor” for your own existence. They don’t think this is a good thing.

So is using Twitter just a way for users to placate their egos? Or a way for us to commiserate with Ashton Kutcher about noisy neighbors? Or is the interaction provided by Twitter similar to most other interactions that people already have on a daily basis?

We can now instantly connect and share thoughts and ideas with other people, and regardless of whether or not those connections revolve around an exciting new economic theory or what kind of fish you had for dinner, the importance and value of the connection itself shouldn’t be diminished.

If people want to take Twitter’s ability to disperse and share these seemingly mundane micro-conversations as proof that its users are the sole members of society that seek self-validation and vindication through communication, we invite you to take a good long look at anyone who has ever sent out family-themed holiday cards. Or written a book.  Transcribe a conversation you’ve had with a cab driver, compare that to a Twitter feed, and then we’ll talk about how tweeting is entirely responsible for the downfall of society’s fully-developed sense of self.

Here’s what we’re getting at: while Twitter may feel unnecessary, irrational, and counter-productive to some, this doesn’t mean we should simply write off its importance as an instantaneous tool of communication, connection, and sometimes, yes, even self-discovery.

Regardless, though: free cup of coffee, on us, to the first person who begins tweeting as THE_REAL_ KIERKEGAARD.

About Us

Our Team | Press | Philosophy | Ethics | Partners | Associations | Jobs

Spring Creek Group is a rapidly growing Social Media Brand Analytics, Strategy, and Marketing Services Agency located in the Emerald City – Seattle Washington. We are comprised of passionate and experienced marketing professionals, and we employ subject matter experts in all of the major categories of the social media Web.

Spring Creek Group attends and speaks at a range of events. Find out more on our press page.

Clay McDaniel,
Managing Director and Founder

Clay brings more than 10 years experience in consumer product and services management, new product development, and technology marketing to the Spring Creek Group team.

Prior to co-founding Spring Creek Group, Clay was the Senior Director of Product Management for RealArcade, the rapidly-growing casual games consumer digital media business at RealNetworks, Inc. Clay joined RealNetworks after 2 years at Microsoft, where he helped launch Windows XP in 2001 and drove national retail and online marketing plans for the company’s flagship operating system software product. Before moving to Seattle in 2001, Clay worked as a Product Manager for enterprise “middleware” software pioneer Vitria Technology; as a Corporate Business Development lead at the Whitney Museum of American Art; and as a technology project Consultant for the retail and telecommunications sectors at Deloitte Consulting.

Clay holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and an AB in Economics from Princeton University.

Clay also speaks at a wide range of social media and marketing events. You can find out about them on our press page.

Our Team

Our team at Spring Creek Group consists of a growing group of Project Leads, Analytics & Measurement Leads, and Engagement Leads. Our titles don’t map to traditional marketing and advertising agencies, because our services and business model are quite a bit different than typical agencies. We are organized from the ground up to focus on our clients’ needs and driving brand insights and awareness in the social media channel.

Dear Traditional Marketers,

Let’s be friends.

Look, we know that social media is exciting. It’s new. It’s really interesting. Yes, it’s changing how we reach people, but it’s not replacing all other forms of marketing.

A lot of social media experts, gurus, and assorted web-enthusiasts are so gung-ho about social media that they’re bashing all other forms of communication and marketing. They’re claiming that social media will make all other media irrelevant.

We don’t think that’s very nice. It’s not very smart, either. Social media is just one spoke in the wheel of a smart campaign. Advertising, PR, Event Planning, Promotions—those are important spokes as well.

The best media is the media that fulfils actual client strategies and reaches the right audience. If that’s social media: great. If it’s a direct mail campaign: great. If it’s a blimp floating above the Super Bowl: great.

Social media is a great complement to any campaign. It can amplify and clarify traditional vehicles and it can enable review and measurement of those vehicles. But if it’s the only line item in the media plan, that media plan is woefully anemic.

As marketers, we’re all after the same goal: to make our clients successful. We won’t be able to do that unless we drop the silos and put all of our media options into the same, integrated plan.

So, let’s work together. We’ll all do better, and so will our clients.

Let us know when you want to grab a coffee—our treat.

Sincerely,

The Spring Creek Group

At Spring Creek Group, we love case studies. They are the easiest way to explain to clients (and future clients) why social media is important and such an influential way to start actual online conversations. So imagine our pleasure when we were able to turn the case study microscope upon ourselves, after an unexpected opportunity was thrust upon us by someone we have never met.

The situation: As a leading Social Media agency, Spring Creek Group is sometimes asked to comment on industry events or trends. Our CEO, Clay McDaniel, is our appointed spokesperson. It’s usually a good opportunity for him to comment in an established media publication, part of the “mainstream media” if you will.

Clay’s recent post at DMNews included the phrase, “We’re all spending plenty of time in our social network accounts,” a fairly innocuous phrase that nevertheless set the social media wildfires ablaze. Over at Bly.com, professional copywriter Bob Bly took particular offense with the word “all” and provided the following response,

“I for one spend NO time on the social network sites — Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn — where I have accounts. So Clay is wrong….There are very few instances where “all” — which in Clay’s statement is synonymous with “everyone” — can be safely used.”

Now Bob Bly is an established copywriter, and technically he is right. In a strictly literal sense, the use of extreme words such as “all,” “never,” or “no time” should rarely be used. But instead of arguing semantics, let’s follow the social media train, which is far much more interesting.

Unlike a read-only advertisement, this conversation doesn’t end with Bly’s criticism on his blog. And if there’s any form of online media more conversational than the actual blog post, it’s the post’s comment thread, where Clay gets criticized once again, from a poster named Brian who complains,

“That’s the general problem with the Social Networking crowd. They surround themselves with each other, so it appears to them that everyone is doing it. And once you think that everyone is doing something that thing suddenly seems to be really important.”

The complainer has taken Bly’s specific technical argument and taken a broader brush to slam social media professionals in general. This is the fear of big corporations, who are scared of social media because of what a random blogger or commenter might say about their product. Advertising is positive, while social media invites criticism. And that rightly frightens people who are managing marketing campaigns for lousy products. But marketers sometimes forget that when someone who doesn’t fully understand your product criticizes it, you are just as likely to have an evangelist come to defend you with a much stronger and relevant argument.

Such is the case here, where a champion of Social Media pops up and politely criticizes Bob Bly for being out of touch with today’s environment. Michael Foreman writes on his blog (which includes a trackback to Bly.com),

…If you follow (Bly’s) blog, you know he hails from a time before web 2.0. He’s skeptical of social media trends…So why have accounts on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn if you never check them?… I think a little old school bias shows through his statement. Even big business and law enforcement are turning to sites like Twitter for feedback and communications. And the last election demonstrates the raw power of social networking. (See MoveOn.org, and more recently Change.gov, Obama’s new transition site.) No, you don’t need to be plugged-in 24/7, or get a Facebook account because it’s ‘cool’ as one comment on the post suggested. But we live in an age of paperless newspapers, iPhone apps, viral marketing, cloud computing and an increasingly mobile workforce. It’s good to log in every now and then.”

So let’s track this:

• Clay McDaniel contributes to an article on DMNews.com.
• Bob Bly criticizes the article and writes disparagingly about Clay Daniel (sic).
• Clay is then both attacked and defended by Bly.com readers.
• A thoughtful response is posted at ByMichaelForeman.com, who judging by his blog, may be the most interesting read out of all of us.
• And then of course the story comes full circle back to the Spring Creek Group blog.

The Conclusion: We think this is a pretty interesting example of how social media really is a conversation that leads to other conversations, and much more powerful than a “read-only” piece that you view once and then forget. We can’t put an ROI number on it, but at least eight people engaged in the conversation, across at least four pieces of online real estate, and many more people had opinions that they didn’t bother to write down. Can you say the same thing about a brochure?

Epilogue: For the record, Clay McDaniel apologizes for his use of the word “ALL,” and to prove his apology is genuine, refuses to say it will “NEVER” happen again.

Technology continually changes our means of communication. There was actually a time when mail was written on paper and men delivered these messages by foot, horseback or even train.  Then email came, and in less than 15 years, was transformed from something you did on AOL to a vital and necessary business communications tool.

Now, will social networks supplant email? Spring Creek Group’s Clay McDaniel debates Sean O’Neill on this subject at DMNews.com.

“Presidential Candidate” Obama was a master of using the Internet to generate money and fan support. Rather than ignoring young voters who couldn’t afford campaign donations, he encouraged them to evangelize on his behalf, an effort that has earned him a new address in Washington D.C.From something as simple as soliciting donations through a tremendous amount of emails to his supporters, to something as complex as recruiting Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes to create his own social media networking site (myBarackObama.com), it’s apparent that the president-elect certainly understands the impact and influence that the social media ecosystem holds.

So here are some of the questions on our minds at Spring Creek Group, now that he’s built this network.

• Where will it go from here? Will it simply be a fundraising tool, or will this social media network be used as a means of continuously engaging and informing the electorate?
• Now that he’s proved he can use the power of Social Networking to get people to political events and voting booths, how will he leverage this medium to get them actively engaged in community efforts?
• Since he doesn’t have to ask me for money now, what kind of emails or communication will we receive from him or his staff each every week?

President Obama has already announced Change.gov. If you were him, how would you use social media channels to keep your fans involved with the process of government?

We try to be as transparent as possible at Spring Creek Group about what we’re good at, what we’re great at, and what we believe is better off handled either internally by our clients’ own marketing and development teams OR handled externally by other, more qualified and deeply experienced expert agencies or consultancies. One of the areas about which we are asked most often – and it appears the marketplace is most perilous for decision-making – is SEO. And to be clear, the end game isn’t SEO for its own purposes, but good and improving natural search engine results for a client’s website against the potential available list of search terms and phrases most relevant and aligned with their business / value proposition. When we can, we offer a set of “core principles” regarding website architecture, page code and construction, and linking and content propagation strategies (including SEO / SMO PR and Communications publishing and editorial principles). And I believe we charge fairly — which is to say “not excessively” – for providing this information to our clients, when they request it and it’s pertinent to their marketing goals. However, we are VERY CAREFUL not to over-sell, over-promise, or over-promote our agency’s capabilities in the realm of SEO simply because we believe two things:

1) Most SEO “best practices” can be researched, learned, understood, internalized, and taken action upon BEST by the program managers and development managers + teams who are chiefly responsible for the UI / UX and actual website code development for a given domain;

and,

2) Genuinely best practice SEO guidance and principles are available from a pretty short list of deeply knowledgeable, right-on-top-of-the-topic-as-it-develops-given-the-ever-changing-nature-of-the-search-engines-algorithms SEO firms and websites out there. To site a few of the best ones we’re aware of, there’s SEOMoz, SEOBook, ethical-yet-clever reputation management and search engine result improvement services such as Visible Technologies’ TruView service, and some of the resources available via links from the Wikipedia page on SEO (including SEMPO).

And let’s not even get into the whole realm of “paid links” practices and firms… which we regularly and firmly denounce, because linking should be a result of company advocates and compelling content doing their thing whenever there is content or information on your site that deserves a mention and link elsewhere on the Web. We DO help clients provide tools to increase the likelihood and velocity of “voluntary linking and sharing” of our clients’ sites, via integration of content syndication tools like RSS feeds and integration of Bookmarking, Sharing, and Permalink/Email “one-click” tools such as the very simple and comprehensive ones that AddThis supplies… for free!

Well, the following post came across our RSS Reader today and we thought it merited linking to — and extending commentary upon — because the whole topic of SEO is genuinely a growing problem for marketers and their good-hearted efforts to improve their customer acquisition funnel and brand awareness.

We did some research a few months back, and the marketplace research and analysis reports seem to suggest that SEO consulting services represents between $1billion and $1.5billion annually in Web marketing services revenues. And it’s growing as rapidly or more rapidly than Web media/advertising fees (usually structured as 15% – 20% of total media buying budget spend, when serviced externally by an agency partner).

The short story – from our perspective, as well as the author of this post‘s – is that sound SEO practices DO NOT come down to spending exorbitant fees on SEO consultants and “black hat” SEO firms. Instead, they come from doing two things well:

1) Learning and staying knowledgeable internally with a website development and/or product management / product marketing stakeholder about the highest-priority core principles of search engine natural results performance effectiveness,

and,

2) Allocating the focus and resources regularly over a long period of time towards this marketing opportunity, alongside the focus and resources allocated to the other key customer acquisition and brand awareness channels on the Web such as SEM, display and rich media opportunities, Web-optimized PR practices, and social media marketing opportunities.

The author of this post – and countless others like it – is absolutely correct: $350-and-hour SEO consultants not only often aren’t worth it on an ROI-basis for your marketing spend, but often they don’t know any more about the leading edge thinking and theories regarding SEO best practices than what your talented internal team members could learn at little or no cost (beyond the “cost” of their resource time and attention dedicated to the topic, of course).

We believe we have some knowledge, information, and experience to offer our clients in this realm, just as we do from both a strategic and a tactical standpoint when it comes to performance-marketing advertising campaign management, social media marketing and management strategies and programs, and web analytics methodologies and technology solutions. We’re in the business of helping our clients grow their online brand awareness and penetration, and helping turn that into increased flow of potential and returning customers into their website conversion funnel. But we strive to do so using completely ethical and “value-fair” services which neither under NOR over-charge our clients for the actual value of this knowledge, experience, and services to those clients created by our partnership with them in pursuit of their marketing and business growth goals. We deserve to be held totally accountable to this standard. And so does the rest of the SEO industry.

There is real, non-zero value to this knowledge… and most importantly translating it into actionable, impactful strategies and tactics/development for B2C and B2B Web-enabled businesses of all kinds. And it’s true that this value increases as the desire, ability, and inclination to gather and act on this knowledge by any given company internally declines. But much like any other marketing investments — comprised of both actual dollars spent + value of resource time internally and externally spent on the channel — these SEO investments should be evaluated by the same metrics and standards applied to all other Web marketing activities: “What is my return on spend?” The math is pretty simple here, much like it is for total SEM, display, rich media, promotional, PR, social media, or other marketing spend:

Total Expected Profits from Channel / Total Expected Cost for Channel
If your SEO investments are too low today, look at your overall marketing budget + resources mix and determine if you can improve your profitable return by investing more here. But if you are over-spending, be sure it’s not because your cost of acquiring SEO knowledge isn’t wildly out of whack in relation to your current and expected future return in real revenue and profit growth from increasing your natural search results “ranking” and domain presence.

And one last point on this topic: The reality is that most businesses have, at best, any luck of hitting the first page of search results for maybe 10 or 20 search terms. Beyond that, if you want to be there, unless you are in the upper 1% of site content optimizers and link-generators, your most cost effective expenditure between SEO and SEM investments to get on to the first page of search results for a given search term or phrase is likely to be cagey, analytics-driven search engine advertising.

Happy SEO researching — and auditing of your SEO investments/expenditures on behalf of your business. Don’t under-spend, but certainly don’t over-spend here either. Snakeoil wasn’t medicine… it was just something that made you think you would get better. [And often the principle ingredient was alcohol, to divert your attention later from the fact that you had been duped into buying something you didn't need and that wouldn't work the way the salesmen said it would.]