Posts Tagged ‘social network’
SCG Was There: OMMA Social
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009Recently, some members of our Spring Creek Group team went down to San Francisco to mix and mingle with other like-minded social media pros, gain some insight into emerging social media trends, and learn more about what the future of this industry entails.
OMMA Social, a one day conference designed to help guide marketing and media professionals through the social media field, had an attendance of roughly 300 people. In a time when budgets tend to be tight, this impressive turnout shows the huge interest businesses and clients are taking in social media tools and new media channels.
The conference was emceed by Cathy Taylor from MediaPost, and included top name speakers in the online advertising and social media industry such as keynotes Angela Courtin, SVP Marketing, Entertainment & Content, MySpace and Chris Curtin, Vice President, Digital Strategy, Corporate Marketing, Hewlett-Packard Company.
Visible Technologies and Spring Creek Group Partner to Deliver Robust Social Media Management and Engagement Solutions to Fortune 100 Clients
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009By BusinessWire
SEATTLE, BUSINESS WIRE –
Visible Technologies:
- Visible Technologies, an industry-leading provider of social media monitoring and engagement solutions, today announced a partnership with Spring Creek Group, an innovative online marketing agency. Spring Creek will offer its customers Visible Technologies’ social media analysis and engagement software platform, TruCast.
- The strategic alliance allows Spring Creek to extend the capabilities of its social media management (SMM) services by enabling clients to more accurately measure their online brand awareness and the effectiveness of their social media marketing programs.
- By deploying proven SMM methodologies and leveraging robust technology tools like TruCast, Spring Creek gives clients such as Microsoft the ability to track relevant brand conversations online, gain actionable marketing intelligence and engage with the social media communities that matter most to their brand.
- Spring Creek Group is an innovative online marketing agency that helps companies of all sizes improve brand awareness and increase site traffic through social media-based online marketing methods. Spring Creek helps brands connect with their customers via innovative social media marketing programs such as branded online communities, blogs and social networks that result in higher brand awareness, increased sales and deeper customer loyalty.
- Visible Technologies provides brands, including Microsoft, Panasonic and Hormel, the ability to bolster brand reputation, build revenue and measure the success of social media engagement. The company’s TruCast2.0 social media monitoring and engagement platform launched in May 2008.
QUOTES
- ‘Engaging with social media is not an option for marketers today ‘ it’s an imperative. Consumers are using social media like blogs, consumer-generated reviews and social networks to compare our products and determine what other people are saying about them. Working with Spring Creek Group and using Visible Technologies’ TruCast platform, we’re able to create social media marketing programs that actively engage customers in a dialogue with one another, and then track and measure the effectiveness of these programs to drive sales and build brand value.’ – Marty Collins, Microsoft Group Marketing Manager, Windows Interactive and Digital Marketing
- ‘Over the past 18 months we have been building our relationship with Spring Creek Group, working in concert with them to help industry-leading clients like Microsoft achieve their marketing objectives through effective social media monitoring, measurement and engagement.We look forward to replicating this success with current and future clients.’ ‘ Blake Cahill, senior vice president of marketing, Visible Technologies
- ‘Our partnership with Visible Technologies has proven to be a huge success helping companies like Microsoft launch, measure and optimize social marketing programs to achieve real business results. The TruCast software platform strengthens our established social media management methodology by allowing brands to easily monitor and track millions of simultaneous online conversations, articles and posts.’ ‘ Clay McDaniel, co-founder and principal of Spring Creek Group
SUPPORTING RESOURCES
- Listen to Marty Collins, Microsoft Group Marketing Manager, comment on TruCast
- Spring Creek Group
- Spring Creek Group Blog
- Visible Technologies
- TruCast
- VisInsightsBlog
About Visible Technologies
Visible Technologies helps companies listen and learn what consumers are saying about them online, and it enables brands to participate in the right conversations with the right influencers at the right time. With this real-time business insight and response, companies build relationships with customers, bolster their brands and grow revenue. Its innovative TruCast platform is the industry’s first complete solution for social media analysis and participation. Visible Technologies also helps brands and individuals manage and protect their online reputations with the powerful TruView’ search engine solution. For more information, go to http://www.visibletechnologies.com, or follow the blog at http://www.visinsights.com.
About Spring Creek Group
Spring Creek Group is an innovative online marketing agency that helps companies of all sizes improve brand awareness, increase sales, and drive site traffic through social media-based online marketing. Spring Creek Group is made up of experienced, skilled, and results-oriented online marketers with a passion for using the most innovative marketing tactics ‘ including branded communities, interactive content, and next-generation social networking’ to drive measurable business results. Members of Spring Creek Group draw on deep e-commerce and online marketing experience at companies such as RealNetworks, Microsoft, Amazon, Judy’s Book.com, Salton, and Disney Internet Group. The company’s clients include both local growing companies and nationally established industry leaders like Microsoft, Corbis and Paramount Farms. For more information, visit www.springcreekgroup.com www.springcreekgroup.com.
A Case Study About Social Media and Controversial Uses of the Word “All”
Monday, November 10th, 2008At 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.
Will Social Networks Replace Email?
Thursday, November 6th, 2008Technology 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.
How Will President Obama Use Social Networks to Make Change Happen?
Thursday, November 6th, 2008“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?
Facebook Opens Up (a little) – Levels Playing Field with OpenSocial?
Monday, January 28th, 2008Quietly big news in social graph and social applications land today: Facebook is enabling on-platform apps (of which there are grillions, from the cultural phenomena like iLike and Scrabulous to the highly arcane and everything frivolous in between) to be made available on other sites via javascript tools.
Google and OpenSocial either forced their hand here, or it was already in the works strategically for a long time and finally was ready for primetime technically. Either way, social networking application development just got a little more interesting.
