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

It’s not enough to have great print or TV ads these days, hence the reason I have a job and am able to write this blog. It’s not even enough to have great print, TV, and social these days. In a time when everyone is walking around with a device in their pockets more powerful than the $4k Packard Bell (yes, you read that right) my dad brought home those many years ago, brands are scrambling to create an all-encompassing experience with users – a seamless brand agnostic of medium, screen size and location – and mobile is the last bit of that puzzle.

But, how do we go about creating a mobile strategy? What do we need to think about? Here are 10 steps to creating a mobile strategy that not only works for your brand, but that works for your customers/clients/and users.

01Know your targets

Paramount in any sort of marketing, but especially so in the world of mobile. Users are potential brand advocates and expect to be treated as such. Know the mobile habits of your targets and start there. Whether it’s online research, ethnographic research or good old fashioned observation, take the time to know your targets.

GigaOm recently posted a piece showing that Symbian users in the U.S. are 2.7 times more likely to click advertising on their mobile devices than Apple iPhone/iPod users. This simple fact not only is a bit of a blow to the recently-announced iAd platform, but it’s an important thing to think about when you’re looking at where to push your mobile ad buys.

Image courtesy of Smaato by way of GigaOm

02 Go local

While it will more-than-likely go the way of the buffalo, location based services (LBS) are an easy way for small and medium businesses to connect with regulars and create brand ambassadors through rewarding loyalty. Brands on the small-ish side have seen a great opportunity with LBS integration and promotion. Now, it’s easy to say “OMG, we should be on Foursquare because I saw all these articles and I know that’s what we need,” but truth is, it might not be. You need to first find out where your targets are and go there, not pick an LBS and hope they show up. Below are a few of my favorites:

Foursquare

Obviously this is the most widely-used location based service out there and brands are flocking to it trying to figure out exactly how they’ll use Foursquare for their brands. You couldn’t go anywhere at SXSW without hearing people talking about checking in, and this was in the town that birthed Gowalla. Brands like Tasti D-Lite, Lucky, and others are harnessing the herd power of Foursquare and quickly finding out best practices for the tool.

Download: iPhone – Android – BlackBerry

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Whrrl

Seattle’s own LBS takes on the Foursquares and Gowallas of the world and does a pretty good job. Their focus on bringing connecting the virtual/mobile with the actual/physical is fairly interesting and their tips of nearby places make for a good night out. The experience is pretty fun and I feel like the tips and interactions within the actual UI are more useful than some other apps/services. Their only hurdle at this point is user base – it’s small (but growing).

Download: iPhone – Mobile Site

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Gowalla

Austin’s own LBS tool found its way onto my phone when I was in town for SXSW, but I’m not going to lie, I stopped using it shortly after coming back to the PNW. It’s a fairly simple tool to use and worked well when I used it, I just don’t have that many friends using it.

Download: iPhone – Android – BlackBerry – Palm

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Yelp

Probably one of the most “old school” of the LBS joints out there, Yelp is a great community filled with passionate users. If you’re able to harness the power of your loyal patrons/clients on this network, chances are you’ll do fairly well.

Download: iPhone – Android – BlackBerry – Palm
– Mobile Site

03Hedge your bets

The mobile world is still evolving (at the speed of light sometimes), so offering brand interaction points for users on multiple carriers, hardware lines, etc. means you’ll have an opportunity to grow user bases with a few options, not just one. If your user base is active in different areas of the mobile web, use testing and analytics to find the most-efficient ways of interacting with those fans and fully realize the ways they like to interact with your brand in those areas.

04Usability over message delivery

While the end game is always creating brand awareness, the mobile world isn’t one where constant bombardment with messaging is very welcome. While yes, some users expect to see a number of marketing messages a day from their mobile devices, they will respond better to great brand experiences with engaging content and excellent usability. It’s been said that content is king, and that’s definitely true in the mobile environment where you’re working with a pretty tiny space (when compared to other mediums). Bring your ‘A game’ in design and usability of your mobile properties and your users will reward you by taking that community to the next level.

05Sometimes there isn’t an app for that

Of course app developers and interactive agencies want to create a custom-built app for you – that’s their job. What most won’t tell you is that many times those applications aren’t necessarily the best way to reach your audiences, let alone keep them engaged. Bring your brand experience to their palms in all you do in the mobile space, don’t rely solely on a application.

06Actually have a strategy

I know this should’ve gone first, but I’m a big fan of keeping you on your toes. Creating a well-thought strategy for understanding and working for your communities in the mobile space means a better chance at success. Don’t build an app because it’s the hot thing to do or go around changing all your content for the mobile web until you’ve got a plan. Then, once you do…

07Let it run

The average time for a new mobile trend to catch on is between 3-6 months… and that’s talking about actual trends that have become “something.” Remember that putting your new mobile content out there doesn’t guarantee instant traction, regardless of the size of your existing social communities. Plan for success and manage for shortcomings in a time period that’s doable for your program, then take time to evaluate and move forwarded as needed.

08Extending, not creating

Ask yourself this with every piece of your mobile campaign “are we extending the brand?” If you’re not extending the brand, but trying to create something else through your mobile efforts, you’ll more-than-likely be sitting in a conference room some time down the road talking about why your mobile efforts fell flat. Using applications, mobile-driven campaigns and ongoing programs to extend existing brand image and community should be the goal.

09Keep innovating

The mobile world is like the wild wild West right now – wide open. What is hot today will be luke warm tomorrow, so keep a finger on the pulse of the mobile world. This makes sense, right? Sure, everyone wants to keep up with the mobile world so they can keep up with competitors – WRONG. Keep up with trends in use among your publics to see what’s next and move in that direction (even try to get out in front if you’ve got the resources).

10Don’t be afraid to fail

There’s nothing wrong with failing once in a while. Some of the best ideas have come after colossal failures and you can always remember that even the highest-paid major league baseball playings are getting paid millions of dollars to succeed only about 4 out of 10 times (a lot less if you’re talking about the Mariners). This rule doesn’t just pertain to mobile, but I’m willing to bet that there were a hell of a lot of failtures before there were monumental successes in the mobile world. Also, so I’m on a cool visuals kick today, check out this ode to failure at Portland-based Wieden + Kennedy.

In the end…
Mobile strategy is constantly changing and anyone tasked with running this area of ongoing marketing efforts has a heck of a job ahead of them, not to mention a lot of sleepless nights. As with any new/reimagined area of marketing and advertising, the mobile space offers near-endless opportunity heavily guarded by near-fruitless endeavors. The ability to track, know, and see what’s next is probably the best set of abilities any one person or group can have – and even these are changing.

Our Services

• Social Intelligence & Analytics »
• Channel Guidance & Strategy »
• Social Engagement & Campaigns ::

Our Services

• Social Intelligence & Analytics »
• Channel Guidance & Strategy ::
• Social Engagement & Campaigns »

Another Social Media Club Seattle event, another great evening of networking and hanging out with like-minded, interesting people. Last night, a few of the SCG crew team rubbed elbows with Seattle’s social media movers and shakers at Capitol Hill’s Sole Repair Shop as H&R Block hosted the latest SMC Seattle event.

I know it was promised that @ronschott and @jeffdaviscourt would be working the door, but our services weren’t needed.  A shame really, as we had already taken our SECURITY shirts out of their boxes and watched a security training video in preparation.

For full-bodied rundown of the event, click over to SMC Seattle’s blog.  Thanks for the good times, great people and cold drinks.  Hope to see you all at the next event.

About Us

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Caveat Emptor: A bit of a treatise…

Social Media Marketing is now old enough for methodologies to have been developed, but new enough for rules to still be written. We have been involved in this process of trial/error/success/ data/analysis/learning/improvement/repeat from the start, and we are presently among the largest and most experienced marketing agencies on the west coast focused on this exciting and evolving online marketing field. We now boast a team of 25 Social Media brand analysts, marketing campaign leads, and outreach and engagement leads. While we’re small enough to be laser-focused on every client, scale does matter, and we’re large enough to cover the entire Social Media Web with ease. Each team member is skilled across the Social Media spectrum, as well as a subject matter expert in a few particular channels. So no matter what your brand engagement or marketing campaign requirements, we can build a customized Project Team matched to your analytics, strategy, or brand marketing campaign requirements.

While we work with a number of clients on a direct level, we also know that you have had long relationships with talented creative and advertising agencies.  That’s why we’ve carved out our space as Social Media strategists and practitioners in a way that we can work and play well with your current agencies of record. We typically don’t develop our own creative, shoot videos, design print ads, buy media, or write code, which allows plenty of opportunities for your talented creative agencies to focus on these core competencies. We should add, however, that we can offer any and all of these capabilities through close sub-contract relationships we enjoy with a number of leading social media creative development agency partners. Feel free to learn more about them here. We are well accustomed to partnering with your existing creative agencies, PR firms, and design shops so that their work is being seen by more people – and more relevant people – in as many of the right nooks and crannies of the conversational, social, user-generated, crowd-sourced, networked, 2.0+ World Wide Web. Connect us, and we will all work together for a positive outcome. And in the event you don’t already have an agency partner who can bring a particular concept or creative content idea to life, we have some friends who can make it happen too.

We’re not here to simply build you a blog or a Facebook page and walk away. Nor do we want to – We don’t believe that makes sense for any business and brand looking to make a real commitment to connecting with their customers in social media. Just like everything in life, benefits require commitment – and commitment takes time and effort. Our scale allows us to license the strongest measurement and analytics tools available, so we can learn quickly where your brand is being discussed, where it’s strong, where it’s weak, and where we have some work to do in order to catch up to your key competitors in the key locations online. You may tell us, “I think I want a MySpace page”. But if what you mean is, “I think my customers and competitors are in this channel, I don’t think we’re where we need to be and doing what we could be doing best there, and I think I need some help,” well then, we want to help. We use powerful brand analytics tools and a data-driven methodology to determine which of the social media options are best suited for an efficient and effective campaign – specific to your brand. We’ll help design a Social Media Strategic Marketing Plan and Editorial Calendar for your business that makes sense – in the short run and the long run. We can provide a ready-to-go team of Engagement Leads deployed on your behalf to drive your marketing campaign content and brand outreach to relevant audiences across the social media Web. And then we’ll measure how well we (and you) are doing, and where we need to shift course or re-allocate our resources.

While we’re on a bit of a roll, a note on the “viral video” phenomenon… One thing we don’t do is “viral.” A virus is something that you catch by accident. No one tries to catch a cold – it just happens sometimes. Instead, we plan, analyze, and execute brand engagement campaigns that are purposeful, logical, and measurable – and designed for the long term. If you want to make a single video, push it up to YouTube, cross your fingers, throw salt over your shoulders, and hope it gets 22 million views, we’re probably not your guys. If you want to analyze the current state of your brand presence across the web and benchmark it relative to your key competitors, to design a thoughtful brand awareness and engagement campaign, and to invest in the social media channel in an efficient manner that’s focused on better understanding and addressing your customers needs, well then, that’s music to our ears.

On top of all this, we recognize that Social Media agencies are sprouting up all over the place.  This is a dynamic, energetic field with new ideas and campaigns launching hourly.  Sometimes, we may not be the right agency for you, and we’re happy to refer you to a better fit.  But we’d love the chance to at least talk to you about how your organization can start to implement a Social Media philosophy into your culture.  We’ve been doing this a while, and can help guide you down the right path from the beginning.

Finally, we have proven ourselves capable of scaling up to service an all encompassing, multi-channel campaign. We’re flexible, service-oriented, and our services pricing model was designed from inception to work to the advantage of our clients. So whether you want a deeper understanding of your brand presence and equity online, support in building and maintaining a trust-worthy 24/7 Social Media presence, or just a solid marketing plan for the channel which you can execute yourself… we want to help make any or all of these things a reality for your business.

Everyone Googles. They were doing it before Merriam-Webster made it an official verb in 2006, with its addition to the dictionary. You can bet you’ll be Googled when applying for a job, bidding for a contract or even meeting someone for a date. That’s just the way the world works in the age of advanced search.

Designer Ji Lee, in his wacky world of design, (he’s the artist/designer who started the Bubble Project) took the inevitable and turned it into an idea for a minimalist business card. Where Patrick Bateman and his Pierce & Pierce cohorts compare shades of white and raised lettering, Lee’s card screams simply: Google me.

But, what if the recipient of the card does just that? What do they find?

Online reputation management (individual and company) is reaching new heights of importance with mouse cursors hovering over the search button. Are you ready? Is your company ready?

What if we Googled you right now? What would we find?

We know what our friends, clients and competitors find when they Google Spring Creek Group. Try it and find out for yourself.

(Original article at Geeksugar, syndicated on Gizmodo. Image from Please Enjoy)

Our Projects and Clients

Spring Creek Group is in Seattle.  Our 30 person team of Directors, Project Leads, Analytics Leads, and Engagement Leads are here for one simple reason: to help our clients and partners be more successful. Our client stakeholders know that they can pick up the phone, shoot us an IM or email, or even DM us over Twitter, and we’ll handle it.

We handle work for the largest product groups inside software and services companies, and we support Seattle’s most exciting music festival. We complement giant television buys with custom YouTube brand channels, and we build groundswells with tiny grassroots tweet campaigns. We also give back to the community with pro-bono efforts for worthy Seattle non-profits. It’s our way of saying, “We really like Seattle, and we’ll do our small part to make it better.”  But don’t ask us. Instead, check out a few of our projects and clients.  And if you’d like to see some detailed case studies, just let us know and we’ll walk you through some campaigns.

Our Services

• Social Intelligence & Analytics »
• Channel Guidance & Strategy »
• Social Engagement & Campaigns »

Usually when you think of the words “wet” and paint” you’re thinking of steering clear of whatever those words are talking about, right? Well, someone needs to tell that to the 8 million monthly visitors over at Wetpaint.com.

The wiki platform provider is expanding their offerings and seeing the benefits. Wetpaint users around the globe can now include videos and the all-important embeddable widgets in their wikis.

While wikis have been around on the internal side of things for some time now, the creation of outward-facing wikis that breed collaborative cultures are changing the way groups interact with their publics – whether they are car clubs, movies, or even sports teams.

Not quite sure what a wiki is? Check out the Common Craft video that spells (and acts) it out in plain English here.