Last night, Oreo was the clear winner of the social media/marketing side of the Super Bowl. During the frustrating black out, Oreo’s brand team and advertising agency realized that a lot of people were just staring at their TVs and voicing their frustrations on Twitter.

“Our team all said, ‘Hey we’ve got a lot of people staring at their screens and not a lot going on,” Sarah Hofstetter, president of Oreo’s ad agency, 360i, told NPR. “What can we do with it?’”

The result was an electrifying tweet, “@Oreo: Power out? No problem.” with a picture of an Oreo cookie in darkness with the text ‘You can still dunk in the dark.”

This phenomenal tweet was retweeted over 14,000 times, was the least expensive ad of the night and Oreo won the evening. This is a great example of a brand’s trust in their ad agency to create engaging content and to be successful. It also means Oreo was smart enough to put their brand team in the same room as their ad agency to make sure if an opportunity arose, the response could get approved fast.

If you’re sitting there, dumbfounded about how to create a Twitter success like this for your business here are a few tips.

1.       Trust your social media team to create engaging content.

This means handing over the reins, and not overthinking things.

2.       Pay Attention.

Every ad, marketing and public relations person was watching the Super Bowl, reading tweets and reacting to ads. Make sure your team has someone on staff responsible for tweeting during big moments.

3.       Take Chances.

A lot of businesses are holding back because they don’t want to put their foot in their mouth. Put your opinions out there. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but engage with your audience, let them know you’re listening and partake in their conversations.

These tips can help you react to new items and gain a following on Twitter.

The post How Oreo Won The Super Bowl appeared first on BraveMatters.

A Little Background

The marketing and advertising fields have changed dramatically over the past 10 years. Interruption based models are no longer doing the job. Consumers can easily fast forward through that commercial, skip that ad on a YouTube video and not click on your Facebook page, even if it has a million updates. The consumer dynamic is changing and so must the industry. Content marketing can drive traffic, sales and leads to your company faster than traditional methods.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is creating, writing and publishing your own content specific to your audience. Did you think you could only publish finished products and then let the leads come to you? That thinking is a little outdated.  Content marketing can be a blog post, an e-book on your company, a how to video, a white paper about a successful program or a case study explaining how your company did something. Successful content marketing comes from understanding what your audience/customer is looking for. Define your business, how it can help the customer, how you’re special and what you do differently that no one else does. Talk about it all. Be knowledgeable and give great information. This will make you an authority for customers to turn to for help and then turn into your sales funnel.

Content marketing is producing enough relevant content to a specific audience that they take notice. Now writing one or two blogs a month from an intern isn’t going to do it. Regular content isn’t going to cut it — optimized content will. Optimized content hyper-focused on particular segments of your potential customer based will win.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing works hand in hand with content marketing. All of these blog posts, e-books, videos, case studies etc. are being published online and all of the links are leading back to your website and your sales funnel. It is content marketing that supports inbound marketing – bringing new people in to your sales funnel through content you produced.

Let everyone in on the process. Have people who worked on a particular campaign write about why it was successful. Discuss what your company is doing in the New Year or even how you’re dedicated to improving a segment of your business. All of this will give potential clients more information about your business, how you can help their business and if you impress them with your own content they’ll be more likely to hire you to do the same thing for them.

The post Content Marketing — What is it? appeared first on BraveMatters.

Vine can be utilized very easily for marketing and public relations. It can give users a quick glimpse into your business and culture. Here are 5 ways you can use Vine to market your business:

1. If you have a very vibrant office, give a quick tour.
2. Introduce users to your team.
3. Give a quick behind the scenes look at upcoming projects.
4. If you have a new product, do a product demo.
5. Even producing short clips of longer videos can be sent out to make users more interested in seeing the full video.

Here’s how to download Vine and Just Vined will show you the last 20 videos uploaded to Vine. For inspiration on how to get started look at these 15 brands that have started using Vine.

The post 5 Ways to Use Twitter’s New Vine App appeared first on BraveMatters.

Build a relationship

The media doesn’t like to be hounded if they received your press release, or if they’re going to write your story. Normally, emails like that go straight to the trash and your email is blocked. Try building a relationship with the journalist, reporter or columnist first. Read their articles. Get a feel for what they actually cover, not what Vocus or Cision say they cover. Comment on their articles. Let the writer know you’re reading their stuff. Follow them on Twitter, LinkedIn and interact with them. Retweet or respond on Twitter, share their articles, let them know you’re out there. Email them about their most recent article you found interesting and share your perspective. Once you’ve established a relationship, then pitch. They’ll know your name; they’ll open your email and most likely, they’ll respond.

Public Relations must be measured

Public Relations used to only be about outcomes; what media outlet you got your client published in or who mentioned your product. That way of measuring PR is outdated and needs to be revised. It doesn’t take into consideration the influence of that article, the sales generated, the reach of the press release, tweet or the effect of owned content published on social platforms because of that article.

Every PR professional should get familiar with Google Analytics, Edge Rank, become a landing page’s best friend. Learn how you can measure a campaign’s successes through reach and influence. Understand the customers; understand what engages them and what they’re interested in through this data. If you aren’t a numbers person, become one. Your job depends on those numbers going up, and if you don’t understand them, how can you influence them?

Media doesn’t always equal Success

A client can be featured in a national magazine, being interviewed about their innovative entrepreneurial spirit. Fantastic! Good for you! But if you’re trying to sell a retail product, how is that going to grow sales? It might, or it might not.

The key is to understand their customer base. What do they need? What problem are you solving? Will they be motivated to buy because of brand loyalty, or because they love the owner of the company? Will this article even interest them, or are they too busy? Make time to evaluate these questions and proceed. If it doesn’t work, make time to understand the “why.”

Public relations is life. It is how you present yourself. It is how you are perceived. Invest in relationships, build genuine friendships, be yourself and create opportunities through the changing face of PR.

The post In 2013, Resolve to Understand the Changing Face of PR appeared first on BraveMatters.

This is a really interesting twist because many career-minded individuals have always deemed Facebook off limits to potential and current employers because they wanted to keep a clear separation between their personal and professional lives. That’s why LinkedIn was so highly embraced because people needed a social network specifically for professional purposes, especially because too many “unprofessional” photos had already been published on Facebook (especially the first few generations of users.)

Currently, Facebook’s user base is 800 million active users, while LinkedIn boasts a modest 187 million members this month. LinkedIn focuses mostly on salaried positions, and making connections throughout the industry. The new job board seems to be an aggregator of sorts that will handle many different jobs from hourly to potentially salaried jobs. The social networking giant has made it clear that the online job search is going social, but many companies and recruiters are already ahead of them. Companies already have tabs on their pages for job opportunities and are active on LinkedIn, therefore negating the traditional online job search services, like Monster, that Facebook has teamed up with.

While I think the idea is interesting, I don’t think it will take off. I’ll be interested to see if users continue to feel they need one social network for personal and one for professional, or if they’ll actually start applying to jobs through their Facebook profiles. What do you think? Will Facebook’s new social venture pay off?

The post Facebook Social Jobs vs. LinkedIn appeared first on BraveMatters.

“We’re hoping to deepen the capacity of the states and tribes to understand social communications and utilize social media tools, in concert with other initiatives, to listen to and interact with their target audiences online and help prevent substance abuse in their communities,” said Wanda West, Training Coordinator for SAMSHA’s CAPT Southwest Resource Team.

Participating organizations from nine states and five tribes served by the CAPT’s Southwest Resource Team were invited to attend the three-part series. The first session provided an introduction to social media concepts and technologies, including usage statistics and best-practices for using different social channels. The second session prepared practitioners to profile audiences and conduct audits of online conversations. During this session, participants were provided with planning templates designed to help them to develop a cohesive, strategic framework for their social media campaigns. The final session introduced various techniques for monitoring and measuring their social media channels.

“People are increasingly influenced by the opinions of others that they trust online. In a digital world, that’s something that can be easily monitored and measured, but also misused. It’s not difficult to join a conversation, but building a strategy to utilize many of these new digital technologies to influence change is challenging. It requires as much listening as it does talking,” Peter Wyro, BraveMatters President, said. “People are increasingly distrustful of anyone trying to sell them a product or even an idea. Our program is designed to help our clients understand, and incorporate the voice of their constituents in the message to build trust, deepen relationships, and improve results.”

The goals of substance abuse prevention programs are to reduce the incidence of substance abuse and related behavioral health problems in communities. Social media channels can be used to engage and educate communities and create awareness and public support for policies and programs that offer help.

Blake McCammon, Social Business Strategist at BraveMatters, said, “We developed a program that helps member organizations connect with advocates through social channels in their communities to broaden the conversation.”

About SAMHSA
SAMHSA’s Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies is a national substance abuse prevention training and technical assistant system dedicated to strengthening prevention systems and the nation’s behavioral health workforce. http://captus.samhsa.gov/

About BraveMatters
BraveMatters is an integrated marketing firm that helps provide clarity in a world faced with complicated alternatives. The firm provides branding, customer acquisition, public relations, and social business solutions. Centrally based in Norman, OK, BraveMatters serves clients throughout the U.S. www.bravematters.com

The post BraveMatters and SAMHSA collaborate on substance abuse prevention appeared first on BraveMatters.

If you’re visualizing a way of looking at the buying process for the first time, the funnel is a good place to start. It provides a framework that helps link marketing strategies to customer objectives and helps advance the user from one stage to the next. If you’re syncing marketing objectives to customer experiences, you’re already avoiding the first obsolete convention, distributing dollars to different kinds of media.

Pushing potential customers into the funnel doesn’t ensure that they will fall through to the other side to result in a sale. Leveraging the voice of your customer long after the sale can protect your brand and future profits.

GM, focused on the media, not the journey

General Motors claims that response from its Facebook advertising didn’t meet their expectations. As a result, they publicly withdrew their plans to further their advertising investment. There’s nothing unusual about a large corporation switching agencies or changing direction. But big spending doesn’t necessarily equal big results. Just ask GM. Ford, on the other hand, saw their competitor’s departure as a big opportunity and they’ve got the customer engagement to prove it. Maybe consumers just love Ford trucks or maybe they’re influencing the process beyond the sale, helping to create advocates and collaborators.

GM might have been right. Their efforts weren’t working, but it might have had something to do with not understanding the customer’s journey or the unique kind of interactions and experiences on Facebook. Not taking for granted the complexity or competitiveness of the automotive industry, there’s a lesson here for businesses of all sizes.

The customer’s journey

The customer’s role has changed and so has their journey. They’re better informed and they actively seek out information and opinions from a wider range of influential sources. Much of the time, customers come pre-loaded with familiar brands. As they seek out alternatives, the numbers increase. Even simple buying decisions are considered hours or even days in advance and the number of influences has nearly doubled from 5.2 to 10.4 sources. Source: Google Shopper Sciences, The Zero Moment of Truth.

This idea of a “customer’s journey” was conceived by consultants from McKinsey and Company, who led a study to examine the buying processes of 20,000 consumers in several different categories. They found that the process looked more like a circle than a funnel with multiple points of entry and opportunities to return and participate in the brand beyond the sale. There were also multiple battlegrounds that marketers could win or lose along the way. Even though consumers started the journey with brands that they were familiar with, as they sought out feedback from other authorities, the numbers often increased and new entrants sometimes displaced established ones.

Furthermore, purchasing wasn’t the end of the journey. As customers experienced their purchases, they became advocates or detractors. They joined communities of similar buyers to share stories about their experiences, thus influencing a new generation of potential buyers.

5 recommendations

1. Start with listening, observing and visualizing your customer’s journey. Make sure that you identify key stakeholders, their objectives and the media touch points at each stage.
2. Recognize the importance of each stage in the customer’s journey and then align resources and strategies to the battlegrounds where you can gain leverage.
3. Lack of initial awareness doesn’t preclude you from winning a sale. It’s possible to displace an entrenched competitor with the advocacy of a trusted influencer.
4. Invite customers to be a part of the process. Invite their feedback. Make them collaborators and co-creators.
5. Orchestrate and integrate marketing, public relations and all customer touch points.

Next time: how to map your customer journey

The post What’s wrong with your funnel? appeared first on BraveMatters.

Last year, notable director Kevin Smith was ejected from a Southwest Airlines flight because he was considered an oversized passenger by Southwest Airline’s “Customer of Size” policy. With over two million twitter followers, Kevin Smith took to social media and started a PR disaster for the airline. Southwest lost a significant amount of customers because of the way the situation was handled. While it is true that not everyone has over 2 million followers but almost any social media user knows how to influence their network in just 140 characters.

Sentiment is subjective. If you provided the exact same service for two customers their perception of that service could be polar opposites. Companies will never be able to produce a perfect experience for their customers one-hundred percent of the time. So if you can’t make everyone happy what’s the point in monitoring sentiment?

Sentiment allows companies to know what’s being said about their brand. If your company is investing money into building social capital there must be a reason. Whether it is brand image, awareness, or increasing sales, the goal must be tied back to a company objective. Knowing what is said about your brand can affect all three areas.

Sentiment can potentially show areas of growth. While monitoring the conversation new ideas might be presented by customers. Getting feedback of existing services and products might provide valuable insight into areas that you might not have thought of.

Positive Sentiment can provide new customers. . Peer to peer recommendations typically carry more weight than business to customer. If customers are happy and excited about what you have to offer they will use their influence and social reach to tell about a service or product. In fact, many social media users turn to their network of followers or friends specifically for recommendations on restaurants, products and more.

In the age of social communications customers  cucuare quick to turn to their social networks to share the details of a bad experience or a disappointing product. One bad review to a large audience is all it takes for the airwaves to catch on.  Big and small brands are at the mercy of the consumer’s opinion and outcry of unhappiness.

The post The Power of Social Sentiment appeared first on BraveMatters.

“I am pleased to welcome Steven and Blake to the BraveMatters team,” said Peter Wyro, President and Founder of BraveMatters.  “Steven brings a wide range of experience to BraveMatters, both as a strategist and as an implementer. Blake has worked in the rapidly changing social media strategy environment, giving him a depth of knowledge in digital and social media most companies simply can’t offer.  I believe that their combined experience and leadership, coupled with the proven ability to deliver results for clients will continue to move our business forward, allowing us to strengthen and broaden our scope of services,” Wyro added.

Steven brings nearly a decade of broad-based marketing experience to BraveMatters. An expert in brand strategy, identity, and media buying, Steven is focused on helping companies maximize return on investment, while increasing brand awareness. He is responsible for understanding the intent and scope of each client’s needs and developing and executing a well-planned strategy. Steven has led corporate marketing initiatives at national companies and served clients in entertainment, franchising, medical, non-profit, retail, including bi-lingual campaigns.

“I am energized to join this growing and innovative company.  Part of what attracted me to BraveMatters was the company’s commitment to achieving results for clients through innovative marketing strategies and the ability to deliver effective ROI tactics to clients, and I am honored to be a part of it,” Newlon stated.

Blake has been creating brands, most notably; he created and nurtured the social media strategy for Northeastern State University while an undergrad. With a BBA in International Business from Northeastern State University, Blake has learned the art of developing brands across many different platforms and cultural barriers. “We have an innovative way of proving ROI on social media for clients, in an easy to understand way, that the typical ad agency just can’t offer,” added McCammon.

The post BraveMatters Adds Marketing Director and Social Business Strategist appeared first on BraveMatters.

The first and best place to start is the name. Everyone asks about the name. “What’s Brave-Matters all about?” Well, what’s first and most important is that it invites you to ask. It’s memorable and despite the obvious perception of self-importance, the intent was to respect the very serious nature of making big, important business decisions. There’s nothing brave about making choices that lead to the same momentum and the same results. And there are no paths that are without risk. Every path offers pros and cons and risk that require judgment, leadership and courage.

Our original logo was meant to be accessible and unintimidating. In the beginning, the flag theme seemed like an unassuming “take charge” visual-counterpoint to the serious and prescriptive tone of the name.

After three years, the original identity felt disconnected from the way we presented ourselves and the transformation of our organization, our clients and the nature of our services. We’re dealing with serious stuff. Why diminish the importance of it?

What’s different? We’re different. Our approach to marketing is different. We work with a broad footprint that requires looking way beyond media and communications. We’re concerned with how an organization is holistically organized and optimized to serve their customers, beyond the media, beyond the communications. We’re here to protect what our customers have and improve their return on assets.

A flag? The concept felt much too lighthearted and might have even come across as a bit satirical.  So, after careful introspection and a comprehensive search for a metaphor, we found it hard to let go of a “shield” concept, despite our concerns that the visuals would be too unoriginal or too conservative. Thanks to Seth Rexilius @sethrexilius, we developed a modern shield identity and new brand artifacts that helped reinforce a more culturally-relevant value proposition.

When should you update your brand?

A successful brand strives to be relevant to its future market (its next dollar) and its history. That’s not an easy balancing act. A brand is being continuously steered and realigned. Just like evolution, it’s sometimes difficult to see the small changes and every once-in-a-while, you need to take big step to survive.

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