Posts Tagged ‘Spring Creek Group’
The Blogging Battle Royale: A Closer Look
Wednesday, October 26th, 2011Here at Spring Creek Group, we’re big fans of Tumblr and we’ve been driving out clients to evaluate the platform in their social media programs. We love the platform not just for its crazy/wonderful memes (like Selleck Waterfall Sandwich, Garfield Minus Garfield and Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses) but for how straightforward it is to use, and for how quickly you realize the point of Tumblr is as much about exploring others’ content as it is about sharing your own.
With over 30 million blogs to date, it’s only in the past year that we’ve seen big brands make a foray onto the platform. Publishing and broadcast media brands like The Economist, LIFE, Sesame Street and the Travel Channel were quick to embrace the platform’s multimedia-friendly design and to share behind the scenes or bonus content with followers. Recent Tumblr blogs from companies like IBM, Bungie and Huggies have showcased the platform’s flexibility in creating a blog right for each brand.
It was big news this week for Tumblr when President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign launched its own Tumblr blog, but the article that piqued our interest was this quick blog post from Compete.com’s Damian Roskill: “Tumblr vs. WordPress vs. Blogger: Fight!” To kick it off, Damian illustrates that when it comes to unique visitor rates, WordPress is head and shoulders above the rest while Tumblr is ascending and Blogger is seeing steady drop-off.
According to Compete.com’s data, 2011 has seen huge gains for Tumblr, with the platform tying WordPress for overall blog visits. The most compelling (and frankly, astounding) chart Damian shared outlined page view trends:
While Tumblr trails WordPress in unique visitors, Tumblr’s visitors are viewing a dramatically larger number of pages. This illustrates Tumblr’s true potential: it encourages visitors not just stop by, but to stay and explore.
We agree wholeheartedly with Damian’s assertions that Tumblr’s success is likely tied to the platform’s emphasis on reducing barriers to publish content and making it easy to tag content across blogs, while also encouraging users to build a network of bloggers with whom you mutually share content. Make sure to check out the rest of Damian’s post for some other interesting tidbits about the three platforms.
We’re excited to see how Tumblr’s future plays out and what brands create using the platform. In the meantime, make sure to sneak a peek at two of our Tumblr guilty pleasures: Barack and Gary, BFFs and Scanwiches.
Spring Creek Group Joins Mediabrands
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
Spring Creek Group was founded more than five years ago, during the emergence of social media in the form we now experience today. We have evolved and expanded our services for clients as content and social networks on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others have grown dramatically. Through it all, we have maintained a steadfast focus on opportunities to improve our clients’ customer advocacy and engagement. Simply put, our mission is to help customers better connect with each other and with the brands on which they spend their time and money.
Today, we are delighted to announce a major step in our continued growth and evolution as an agency. Spring Creek Group is joining the Mediabrands digital agency division of global media and marketing company Interpublic Group! You can read a little more about our exciting news here.
Spring Creek joins innovative digital agency leaders such as Cadreon, Reprise Media, and Ansible Mobile, and we will play a key role in the newly-formed Mediabrands Audience Platform (MAP). By joining Mediabrands and the MAP initiative, we are bringing our expertise in all aspects of social media marketing strategy and programs execution to our new agency partners across Mediabrands, including leaders in media planning and management such as UM and Initiative, as well as others. In addition to the opportunities that this move creates for us to integrate our social media services more tightly with our new agency partners’ offerings; it opens many new ways for us to introduce complementary services to our existing and future clients.
As a founder of Spring Creek, I am so very excited about this announcement and this new step forward in our growth. I believe that the strategic and - as importantly for me and my team – the philosophical ‘fit’ for Spring Creek Group within Interpublic’s Mediabrands agency group is perfect. They are extremely committed to helping us maintain our vision for the future of Spring Creek, while we also build a holistic digital media marketing services model through the MAP. Above all else, Mediabrands shares a similar set of values to ours. In short, we are thrilled about what the future holds for us, as well as for all of our clients and technology and software partners.
In closing I would just like to say THANK YOU to all of those client stakeholders, partners, and many others who have been so important and valued over the past 5 years. I owe my deepest personal gratitude to each of you who have been a part of our ability to arrive at today’s news, including everyone who has been a part of our SCG team. I am most excited about the myriad new ways this move opens new opportunities for client services innovation and social media strategic leadership for our entire Spring Creek team. Thank you for being a part of this journey with us this far… let’s keep it going.
Warm regards,
Clay
SCG + TAF = (Learning) x 2
Monday, September 20th, 2010
Kids are back in school, and we here at SCG are about to go join them. One of the best things about Spring Creek Group is our relationship with the Technology Access Foundation (TAF), through which we help out with TechStart, their afterschool technology program. Every Tuesday and Thursday during the school year, volunteers from our office head down to White Center Heights Elementary School to assist a talented educator, Tri Nguyen, in getting a bunch of 5th and 6th graders REALLY excited about technology. We help keep the students on task and talk to them about nearly everything from computers and college to favorite colors and least favorite pop stars (classroom consensus: Ke$ha). This past spring, we helped them build and program Lego robots. (That’s mostly a lie. They built and programmed the Lego robots while we looked on in awe and wonder).
We are honored to be a part of both TechStart and TAF’s internship program, which places high school students from the TAF Academy in summer internships at tech-based companies. Brian, our intern this past summer, consistently impressed us with his excellent work and dedication (so tech savvy for such a young person!). We loved that he loved the office snacks so much, and can’t wait for him to come back next summer. We strongly believe that TAF’s mission of “transforming public education for students of color” aligns perfectly with the values we hold as a company. Frankly, we feel incredibly famous to be featured in their Volunteer Spotlight!
Spring Creek Group re-brands as SpringCreek9000
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010We here at Spring Creek Group are constantly on the lookout for new trends and thought-memes in the social media marketplace where we ply our trade. Well, we realized recently that what began as a few small rivulets has developed into a full-bore flash flood in the realm of social media technology and services firm naming convention. [BTW, like the way I subtly incorporated both a water reference AND a 10-dollar word into that last sentence? What can I say, we’ve got a lot of clever copywriters on the team here, and occasionally I go a bit overboard trying to keep up with all of these creative writing majors…]
Allow us, if you will, to drop the following list on you of industry contemporaries, partners, competitors, friends, followers, and those-we-do-not-yet-know… see if you, too, can determine the hip company naming convention that’s been sweeping our industry these past few years:
We know, and we agree: there really is just something so modern, so interactive, so un-old-school about a company name that dares to bring together both letters and numbers in a space-less string of alpha-numeric freshness.
And so, not wanting to miss the chance to ride this wave, we humbly submit our (potential) new company name to you, dear blog readers. What say you?
SpringCreek9000
Spring Creek Group Rocks #Twtrcon
Monday, June 1st, 2009
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.
Everybody’s Heard About the Word (of Mouth)
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009Word-of-mouth has been one of the strongest driving forces in the marketing world since- well, since there has been a marketing world. Create a happy customer or user experience and that person tells someone who tells someone else who tells their hairdresser and before you know it, your widget factory is in need of new space to keep up with the demand.
In today’s world where word-of-mouth is more often word-of-keyboard, how do we track and analyze these messages that are passed on, built up and broadcast?
Sure, you can use readily-available tools like search engines to comb the interwebs looking for mentions, tracking the story and seeing where it originated, but that takes time and time, my friends is money. That’s why, at Spring Creek Group, we work with, associate with, and generally pay attention to leading-edge companies that are solving those problems of tracking and analyzing the word of keyboard side to your online presence.
One of those groups of folks we always pay attention to are our old friends over at Meteor Solutions. Ben Straley, CEO of Meteor Solutions, was recently profiled in the Seattle Times. Here’s the nugget:
“Word-of-mouth is an organic activity. You can’t purchase it, for any price. When it occurs it can produce a fantastic boost for your brand.”
While you can’t buy word-of-mouth activity, you certainly can keep your finger on the pulse, and that’s what we do here. By keeping an eye on how a client’s messages are living on the social Web once they’ve cleared the press rooms, Spring Creek Group provides statistics and qualitative feedback that helps create and refine future marketing – ultimately, it’s money (and time) well spent.
Non-Profits We Like: Technology Access Foundation
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009Yesterday morning, the SCG team attended the 8th annual fundraising breakfast for one of our favorite non-profits, the Technology Access Foundation. TAF is an organization that was founded with a mission “to give children of color the tools to be inventors and creators of technology.” TAF exists side by side with educational resources that are already in place, and work to connect technological resources and education to those that need it most.
Aside from this breakfast serving as a way for donors to get to better understand the services that TAF provides, it also gave us a chance to listen to and meet some former TAF students and hear their success stories firsthand. There were several great speeches, including one memorable enough to serve as the introduction to a TAF-focused editorial in The Seattle Times.
The Technology Access Foundation is a wonderful organization, one that we couldn’t be prouder to be associated with. With educational budgets being slashed left and right, it’s good to know that there are groups like this dedicated to provide those resources to students, resources that otherwise might not be available. That’s also why it’s so important for the community to help them out.
Make sure you check out the Technology Access Foundation’s website to learn more about how you can help.
SCG Co-Founder Clay McDaniel on Facebook Advertising
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009One of Spring Creek Group’s intrepid leaders, Clay McDaniel, has recently written a great article for MediaPost’s “Online Media Daily” section. For any of you out there looking to get your feet wet in the world of brand management and advertising on Facebook, this article serves as a great primer (and continuing resource) for you to rely on while you attempt to make the most out of the various resources and benefits that Facebook can provide you and your company.
Hey, we’d still recommend that you read the post even if we didn’t know Clay, so make sure you check it out.
Wait Wait. . .Don’t Tweet Me (or Actually, Please Do)
Monday, March 23rd, 2009 
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.
SCG Out on the Town: In Which Spring Creek Group Discovers Its Love for Drew Carey
Friday, March 20th, 2009It’s been a tough time for sports in Seattle, but last night marked the start of something refreshingly great. Yesterday was the inaugural game for Seattle’s professional soccer (FOR BRITISH PEOPLE, “football”) team, Seattle Sounders FC. We here at Spring Creek Group, being fans of organized sports, yelling, and beer, were of course in attendance. Part-owner of the Sounders and full-time Bob Barker replacement Drew Carey kicked off the event with a rousing keynote address.
That is but one picture of the evening, but let us assure you, the following events happened: 1) The game resulted in a 3-0 (“THREE – NIL,” British people) Sounders victory. 2) The SCG Team had a wonderful and memorable evening. 3) An unfortunately headlined newspaper recap was written.
Welcome to Seattle, Sounders FC.
