September « 2009 « FUEL LINES Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media

Small Ad Agency Advertises Itself in the New York Times

September 29, 2009

New York Times Ad

Small agency does the unusual by practicing what it preaches.

Barrie D’Rozario Murphy, a small-ad agency in Minneapolis, took out a full-page ad in the New York Times touting the 2009 O’Toole Award that BDM just received as the best small agency in America. The American Association of Advertising Agencies hands out the O’Tooles annually to honor the nation’s finest small, medium and large agencies.

Lewis Lazare, Sun-Times Columnist writes,

The BDM ad was unusual because it is an example of something we rarely see in the ad world nowadays, namely ad agencies advertising themselves. “It’s what we tell our clients to do, so we figured that we should, too,” explained Stuart D’Rozario, the founding partner at BDM who wrote the copy-heavy ad seen in the N.Y. Times. The ad cost the small shop a solid five-figure sum to run, but it did what it was intended to do — attract attention. “We’ve gotten many e-mails,” D’Rozario said.

Click here to read the entire article

The ad congratulates its fellow O’Toole winners, but also issues them a forewarning: “Congratulations BBDO and Bartle Bogle Hegarty. We’re coming after you.”

5 Comments | Agency Leadership, New Business Tips, New Business Trends | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Social Media Growth Suggests a Wholesale Change in the Way the Internet is Used

September 28, 2009

According to a new report from The Nielsen Company, Americans have nearly tripled the amount of time they spend at social networking and blog sites from a year ago. In August 2009, 17 percent of all time spent on the Internet was at social networking sites, up from 6 percent in August 2008.

“This growth suggests a wholesale change in the way the Internet is used,” said Jon Gibs, vice president, media and agency insights, Nielsen’s online division. “While video and text content remain central to the Web experience – the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share is increasingly driving the medium’s growth.”

Advertisers are starting to take note of Social Media’s growth:

Estimated online advertising spending on the top social network and blogging sites increased 119 percent.
Share of estimated spend on social media sites has doubled.
While several industries decreased their overall online ad spend year-over-year in August, spending on the top social network sites increased across the board.
The Entertainment Industry led in growing its online ad dollars, increasing ad spending on the top social network sites by 812 percent in August.
Travel advertisers increased their ad spend on these sites by 364 percent.
The growth of social networking sites has been fueled in part by the explosive growth of Facebook, and it is to this site that many industries head when planning their online ad dollars.

“In the past, advertisers had significant concerns with social media advertising,” said Gibs. “The considerable increases we’ve seen in ad spending over the past year suggest that many of these concerns have subsided or been addressed.”

Read the full press release.

Social Media is also impacting ad agency new business …

2 Comments | Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

30 Ad Agency Blogs Vote for Your Favorite for September

September 27, 2009

Which agency has the best understanding of social media? You decide.

30 ad agency blogs have been submitted to Fuel Lines. Vote for the best agency blog for the month of September. The winner will be featured on Fuel Lines throughout the month of October and included in the voting for ad agency blog of the year.

Cast your Vote by Clicking Here

These are the ad agency blogs submitted for the month of September:

AB&C blog, Aloysius Butler & Clark,Wilmington, DE
ACS Creative, ACS Creative agency, Fairfax, VA
Adverspew blog, Perich Advertising + Design, Ann Arbor, MI
Bergman Group, Bergman Group agency, Glen Allen, VA
don’t drink the kool-aid blog, bg creative, San Diego, CA
Brainstorm, Brainstorm agency, Indianapolis, IN
BrandCottage, BrandCottage agency, New Canaan, CT
CUKER agency blog, Solana Beach, CA
DDB agency’s Strategy blog, NY, NY
Enviral Marketing blog, BGT Partners, Miami, FL
Fusionizer, Fusion Advertising, Dallas, TX
Healthy Conversations, Trajectory agency, Morristown, NJ
Level Blog, Level, San Luis Obispo, CA
Marketing Home Products, Kleber & Associates, Atlanta, GA
Marketing Your Hospital, TotalCom Communications, Tuscaloosa/Huntsville, AL
One Eleven Interactive blog, Brooklyn, NY
Outside In Banking, Michael Flora & Associates, Troy, MI
Point of View, Point to Point agency, Cleveland, OH
PUSH-n-PULL, The Cyphers Agency, Annapolis, MD
Red Door Buzz, Red Door Interactive, San Diego, CA
Shared iDiz, iDiz Incorporated, Indianapolis, IN
TechMarketingBlog, Jacobs Agency, Chicago, IL
The Adams Group blog, Columbia, SC
The Blue Fire Notebook, Pilot Light Agency, Dallas, TX
The Furnace, Firehouse, Dallas, TX
The Side Note, Weise Communications, Denver, CO
We Play in Traffic, ESW Partners, Chicago, IL
Why Moms Rule, BOHAN Advertising | Marketing, Nashville, TN
Winstanley Partners, Winstanley Partners agency, Lenox, MA
TV Is Not Dead, Ad Partners, Inc, Tampa, FL

Submit your favorite ad agency blog to be considered for Blog of the Month for October.

6 Comments | Agency Blogs | Tagged: Ad Agency Blogs, advertising blogs, Blogs I Recommend, Michael Gass, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Google Sidewiki: Post Comments to Even A Competitor’s Website

September 26, 2009

Google Sidewiki

Another new tool that needs to be on your ad agency’s radar.

Google Sidewiki, which allows you to contribute helpful information next to any webpage or even critical information to a competitors Website. Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page.

Sidewiki, a just-released Google Toolbar feature, is a program that allows you to contribute to any website. User-added info appears as a sidebar beside the page, as Google uses an algorithm to display the most relevant and helpful posts up top.

The key benefits:

You can publish helpful information about any webpage from any browser
Read insights in context from Sidewiki entries added by others
Share Sidewiki entries through Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and Google profiles

See the Sidewiki I created for Jay Baer’s blog, Convince and Convert

Google could eventually put ads in the sidewiki space –monetizing another company’s content

As Jeremiah Owyang points out in a recent post Google’s SideWiki Shifts Power To Consumers –Away From Corporate Websites …

“There’s nothing stopping them from allowing advertisers to put ads on SideWiki as “sponsored” information. For example, Coke could run their latest ads on the Pepsi.com SikeWiki area. HP could run ads on the Dell.com site. This *already* happens in the search engine result pages on Google.com why not in sidewiki?”

I agree with Jason Falls‘ assessment of Sidewiki, It will force every company in the world with a website to get hip to social media and do it now.

If you’re ready to start exploring the web with Google Sidewiki, visit google.com/sidewiki to download Google Toolbar with Sidewiki and contribute your own entries alongside pages on the web.

Additional articles that may be of interest:

4 Comments | Agency Leadership, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: Ad Agencies, consumers, convince and convert, Google sidewiki, Jason Falls, Jay Baer, jeremiah owyang, Social Media, web strategist | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

IBM Study: The end of advertising as we know it

September 25, 2009

The next 5 years will hold more change for the advertising industry than the previous 50 did.

The information for this post is from an IBM global surveys of more than 2,400 consumers and 80 advertising experts … the report is titled, “The end of advertising as we know it.”

Imagine an advertising world where ... spending on interactive, one-to-one advertising formats surpasses traditional, one-to-many advertising vehicles, and a significant share of ad space is sold through auctions and exchanges. Advertisers know who viewed and acted on an ad, and pay based on real impact rather than estimated “impressions.” Consumers self-select which ads they watch and share preferred ads with peers. User-generated advertising is as prevalent (and appealing) as agency-created spots.

Based on IBM global surveys there are four change drivers shifting control within the ad industry:

Attention – Consumers are increasingly in control of how they view, interact with and filter advertising in a multichannel world.
Creativity – Thanks to technology, the rising popularity of user-generated and peer-delivered content, and new ad revenue-sharing models (e.g., YouTube, Crackle, Current TV), amateurs and semi- professionals are now creating lower-cost advertising content.
Measurement – Advertisers are demanding more individual-specific and involvement- based measurements, putting pressure on the traditional mass-market model.
Advertising inventories – Will be bought and sold through efficient exchanges, bypassing traditional intermediaries.

There is no question that the future of advertising will look radically different from its past. The push for control of attention, creativity, measurements and inventory will reshape the advertising value chain and shift the balance of power.

Change has been a part of our industry but the changes we are seeing now are coming more rapidly than ever before. These changes in communications technology also greatly impacts agency new business practices. So far agencies have been slow to adjust.

38 Comments | Agency Leadership, New Business Trends, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Tsunami Warning: Google Wave, will it replace email?

September 24, 2009

There are a number of questions that have been raised about Google Wave. Will it replace email? Twitter? How will it impact businesses? Advertising agencies?

E-mail is the most popular way people communicate online, yet it was invented 40 years ago! Google says it developed Wave to answer the question, “What would email look like if we set out to invent it today?”

Everyone uses email, instant messaging and live chatrooms online now, but Google Wave will be able to tie those forms of communications together plus utilize established social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Google Wave has the potential to be another revolutionary communications tool that greatly impacts the advertising industry, content marketing and ad agency new business.

On September 30th, Google will start sending out about 100,000 invites for the next version of Google Wave. Ad agencies will need to be prepared to get up to speed with it quickly. This will be one of those products that you have to experience first hand to understand it and use your marketing mind to explore its potential for your agency and clients. .

Here are some additional features of Google Wave:

Wave participants can share and edit documents at the same time and use waves to track and complete projects without ever having to set foot in the same office
Participants can also have faster conversations than they can by waiting for e-mailed replies
Waves will come with a handy robot called Rosy, which can translate your typing, into 40 different languages, allowing you to communicate in real time with almost anyone around the world
It includes a smarter spell checker as well as a link checker
The ability to drag and drop files, photos, videos, etc. even from your desk-top
There isn’t much of a question that the Wave will be a great project management tool and create greater efficiencies in internal and external communications
Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process
A playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when
It is embeddable, and can push wave content to a blog or website
You can turn a Wave into your own eBay
Allows for collaboration on a Google map to plan events
Wave participants can rate and review items – then it will show you a tally of the results
Google Wave will be left an open source project to encourage the development of improved extensions from third parties which will greatly accelerate its usefulness for a wide variety of applications

Will Google Wave have an impact on ad agencies? It’s too soon to say, but it certainly has the potential to be the next big wave to further transform communications and user generated content.

I am very interested in Google Wave’s potential as a tool for ad agency new business and managing an agency’s new business program. I look forward to sharing my evaluations from a new business prospective soon.

To sign-up for the early version fill out this form at https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignup/

Additional, helpful information is found at the Google Wave Blog: http://www.googlewaveblogger.com

Mashable’s Ben Parr: Google Wave: A Complete Guide

Latest update and insights from Kate Loveys’ article: With a Wave, Google aims to conquer the network:

Google last night invited 100,000 people to become the first users of its latest internet tool which aims to rival email, Twitter and Facebook.

Google Wave allows a limitless number of internet users anywhere in the world to have instant conversations and share files.

The service combines aspects of email, instant messaging, social networking and web chat and is aimed at friends catching up with one another and business partners sharing documents.

Among suggested uses for Google Wave are organising trips, laboratory record-keeping and journalism. Users can join a wave – a group of web users – to have a discussion or share photos or documents.

Everyone in the wave can see what other users are typing and any document placed into the wave can be accessed by all the users at the same time.

In what sounds like a recipe for chaos, colleagues can work on the same document at the same time, seeing every change being made to the document as it is made.

Among suggested uses for Google Wave are organising trips, laboratory record-keeping and journalism.

9 Comments | Agency Leadership, New Business Trends, Social Media | Tagged: Ad Agencies, Advertising, Ben Parr, blogs, email, Google Wave, Mashable, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agencies Should Take Note, Social Media Metrics Neglected by Most

September 23, 2009

If you don’t measure it you can’t improve it.

Metrics are an important component for the use of social media for your agency as well as for your clients. Especially measuring for ROI in regards to the amount of time that must be invested. You would think this would be a no brainer. But according to a recent a survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education, a whopping 84% of professionals do not measure ROI for social media. It appears that hardly anyone is taking the time to measure the ROI for social.

Some additional insightful statistics from this survey:

86% of respondents to the survey of professionals from a variety of industries said they had adopted social technologies..

57% said they were using social media tools for marketing.

More than four in 10 respondents did not even know whether the social tools they were using had ROI measurement capabilities.

3 in 10 reported using social media for customer service and support.

Click Here to download a copy of this report.

A great resource of social media articles and fresh reports comes from eMarketer. I found the original source of this survey through their eMarketer Daily Newsletter. I highly recommend it.

9 Comments | Metrics, Social Media | Tagged: Babson Executive Education, Blogs I Recommend, eMarketer Daily Newsletter, Mainga, Metrics, ROI, social media metrics | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agencies: 97 Articles on How To Write Effectively for the Social Web

September 20, 2009

To convert content to new business leads you must learn to write effectively for the web.

There is a completely different writing style for web vs print. A lot of ad agency professionals have difficulty with the transition from print to web.

I’ve found a number of helpful tips. For example: The use the inverted pyramid style of writing for my blog …

The most important information, the take-away or the benefit from your post should be in the first paragraph.

I’m always searching for additional resources that help me to become a better writer for web, whether it is for my blog, Twitter or other social media platforms. I recently came across a post written by Robin Broitman, chief internet and social media strategist for Interactive Insights Group, IIG, titled: HOW-TO: Write Effectively for Twitter & The Social Web . This post contains a collection of 97 articles that are a tremendous resource for your online writing. The articles are conveniently organized in the following 4 categories:

General Web and Social Media Writing Principles
Writing Strong Headlines and Titles
Writing for Twitter
Writing for Search Engines

Click Here for the links to Robin’s collection of “how to” articles for writing effectively for Web

An additional article of interest: How do users read on the Web? They don’t … they scan

8 Comments | Agency Blogs, Creating Content, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: IIG Group, Robin Broitman, Social Media, social media strategist, writing for web | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Advertising Works: Ad Agency Advertises for New Business

September 18, 2009

Todd Knutson, CEO of The List, recently highlighted an agency that actually practiced what it preached, An Ad Agency that was advertising its services, even offering a discount during the recession. It worked!

Advertising Agency Advertises

When asked by a reporter from the National Post, Ron Telpner, chairman and CEO Brainstorm, a Toronto-based agency, (read interview here), Why did you choose to advertise your services? It’s not a move that many agencies would take — at least not so publicly.

The primary motivation was to “walk the talk”: to remove the inherent hypocrisy of an agency that would recommend advertising to its clients as a strategy while not having enough belief in the power of advertising to use it for themselves.

The recession provided a unique opportunity to make this point more poignantly. And as an agency that’s offered fully integrated services from inception, we also wanted to ensure that the market was aware of our full range of services, including digital.

It started with the development of our new website (www.brainstormgroup.com),which offers a more “shopper friendly” interface for potential clients, with less about the agency’s philosophy and more about the goods. One of the campaign objectives was to increase visits to the new site, and it attracted 1,600 new visitors the day the ad ran. (Click Here to read the entire interview, “We’re Walking the Talk”)

I would also encourage you to read Todd’s entire post to learn the results and to get his perspective regarding the ROI this agency generated: “$40,000 Off Our Fees, Your Next New Business Pitch?”

Additional ad agency promotional articles that may be of interest:

1 Comment | New Business Tactics, New Business Tools, New Business Trends, Promotion | Tagged: Advertising, Brainstorm agency, Promotion, Ron Telpner, The List, Todd Knutson, Toronto advertising agency | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency’s New Business Initiative: $1 Million Brand Ad Campaign

September 14, 2009

Ad Agencies are battling the recession with aggressive new business tactics.

I’ve written a number of times about Jaci Russo and The Russo Group, Lafayette, LA. This full service agency has been fortunate enough to win 14 new clients this year through awareness generated through social media. Their business is up 118% over 2008.

RUSSO HELPS COMPANIES BATTLE RECESSION WITH BRANDING INITIATIVE

The agency has a new campaign to help companies through the recession by allocating $1 million dollars in branding services for qualifying companies. Interested companies are asked to fill out an online application at www.therussogroup.com/brandaid.pdf. Five companies will be chosen and each will have their branding efforts funded with a 50% match up to $200,000 per recipient.

I’m sure that this campaign is a legitimate help to the companies that will be chosen, but it is also helps build good PR and awareness for The Russo Group. Read The Russo Group’s Press Release

Even with the great growth this agency has had over the year, they are not resting on their laurels. They realize that they have an open window to gain market share that is unlikely to be repeated during their lifetime. The Russo Group intends to make the most of it by being aggressive and continuing to press new business initiatives even when the agency is at its busiest.

Additional ad agency promotional articles that may be of interest:

6 Comments | New Business Tips, Promotion | Tagged: ad agency promotion, Blogs I Recommend, Brand Aid Campaign, Jaci Russo, LA, Lafayette, Michael Gass, The Russo Group | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency New Business AdMan Remembers 9/11

September 11, 2009

I was in my office at The Maryland Group, a full-service ad agency located in Brentwood, TN when I learned of the first plane striking the North Tower of the World Trade Center. All of our staff were glued to watching live televised reports of the tragedy as it continued to unfold. We scanned the web for additional information.

There was also lots of misinformation being reported, such as the the possible bombing of our own State Capital Building in Nashville.

Little work was done that day. Our minds and hearts were with the people of the city of New York.

I want to bring to your attention a post written by, Eric Hyman, for his ad agency’s blog, Where were you on 9/11? My Story Began With a Pitch. Eric, is from New York, and currently serves as SVP, Business Development JWT Communications, Entertainment and Technology Practice.

“I often say, half seriously, advertising is a silly business. But I’m proud to be in it, and to have made it my life’s work. So I am forced to view the world through my own stilted marketing infused lens. Like it or not, this is they way I experienced 9/11. It began for me with what at the time seemed to be an important new business pitch; a meeting which in the grand scheme of things now is seemingly meaningless.

But not to me. My name is Eric Hyman. I blog and tweet as ericadman. I grew up in Manhattan and called the city home 9 years after graduating from college. I’ve been in Atlanta now for 17 years and love my adopted home. But I am still a New Yorker. It was 8 years and a few hours ago that the events we call 9/11 took place. But it still seems like yesterday. And my New York adman’s heart goes out to all who feel the same way.”

I encourage you to read Eric’s entire post: Where were you on 9/11? My Story Began With a Pitch

Cathy Taylor shared her comments to Eric’s posts:

“Really beautiful Eric. One thing that’s resonating with me on this 9/11, is that we have so many tools with which to share where we were and how we felt — things we couldn’t do through social media in 2001. I’m glad that so many people are finding ways online to honor all of those who died, and honor our memories of that horrible day.”

An additional post that may be of interest as you reflect on this day: Remembering 9/11 Through Social Media, … 2001, social media was still in its infancy, but now we have such an easily accessible global communications to share our own memories … social web sites are being used as gathering places today for those remembering the September 11th attacks.

1 Comment | Social Media | Tagged: 9/11, Blog, Eric Hyman, JWT, remembering social media, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

How to take advantage of Twitter’s growth for ad agency new business

September 10, 2009

My consultancy business has been built through the use of social media. I use the tools that I recommend that you use for agency new business. Over the past year the leading traffic generator to my blog has been Twitter. Hopefully this post will help you take advantage of Twitter’s growth to generate new business leads for your agency.

Edward Boches, Chief Creative Officer, Mullen Agency

Twitter’s audience has skyrocketed in recent months and continues to grow in popularity and importance in both the consumer and corporate worlds. It has evolved into an important component of brand marketing. Twitter is also a place to generate agency new business. It is a powerful prospective client networking tool if used correctly.

In 2009, there will be 18 million US adults who access Twitter at least monthly. </li>
<li>Twitter is the fastest growing social network in the world, increasing by 1,928% from June 2008 to Jun 2009.
Twitter reached the 50 million unique visitor mark in July 2009. </li>
<li>If Twitter’s current growth rate keeps up, they could be at 100 million members by the end of 2010.

There are a number of Twitter tools that will allow you to take advantage of Twitter’s growth for ad agency new business:

Social Oomph

I currently have published 373 blog posts. I’m able to repurpose that content. Posts that are over two years old continue to generate traffic. To save time I use a tool called Social Oomph (formerly known as Tweetlater). This tool allows me to schedule the day/time for each of the 373 posts to be published through my Twitter account, @michaelgass (23,256 followers) and Ashley Cox, my administrative assistant created and maintains the Twitter account for Fuel Lines @fuellines (18,471 followers).

Once a post is inputed into SocialOomph, the recurrence feature allows you to set the day/time and frequency of publishing a post through your Twitter account. You can set recurrences from hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly. I’m currently using it to post to my Twitter accounts a post every hour, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. I change up my schedule quarterly and rotate in the higher traffic posts into Twitter’s prime-time, from 11 am to 3 pm.

Note: I’ve been able to measure what is and what isn’t acceptable to the majority of followers using additional metric tools such as SocialToo that help me maintain the proper balance. The repurpose content also has to be resource type content, the kind that is helpful to the intended audience. It isn’t about your capabilities, a sales pitch within 140 characters.

TweetAdder

I also use a new tool called TweetAdder, an inexpensive software program, to primarily find and follow prospects for clients. This tool allows me to grow a network of targeted followers. The more followers a client has, the more their content can become viral and generate traffic to their blog, the “gateway” to their agency. Early social media adopters and leaders like Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan - 97,563), Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki - 170,000) have amassed a huge following. Mashable’s CEO, Pete Cashmore, (@mashable) has an incredible following of 1,459,481, which keeps him among the top Retweeted users (check out Retweetist).

TweetAdder allows you to find and follow by searching for Tweet keywords (i.e. environmental, moms, healthcare), by bio keyword (i.e. CEO, CMO, etc), or by location. This tool also allows you to follow the followers of another user. For instance, if I were looking for B-to-B prospects I would could follow everyone who is following @btobmagazine or if my prospective clients were hospitals I could follow those following Twitter accounts such as the @mayoclinic.

TweetML

A brand new tool that was just recently introduced is TweetML. TweepML is a simple format to make it easy for you to organize your Twitter prospective client lists. Share your lists internally to allow staff to monitor and network with prospective clients. You can also use it to create your own lists of Twitter accounts to follow, whether they are agency related or interests related (i.e. if you target audience was into environmental marketing, you could provide a list of the best environmental Twitter accounts to fllow).

This is a sampling of Twitter prospective account lists that I’ve created using TweetML.

Ad Agency New Business (resource list for ad agencies)
Airlines (transportation prospects)
Banks (financial prospects)
Convention Visitors Bureau – CVBs (tourism prospects)
Hospitals (healthcare prospects)

Use Google search to find existing lists and organize them through TweetML. Here are 20 different lists of prospective clients using Twitter.

Create your agency’s own list of Twitter accounts made up of your best target audience.

Here are 19 additional Twitter articles, specifically for ad agencies that can help you take advantage of Twitter’s growth for new business:

16 Comments | New Business Trends, Social Media, Twitter | Tagged: Blogs I Recommend, Michael Gass, prospect lists, Social Media, Social Oomph, TweetAdder, TweeterML, Tweetlater | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agencies: 94 Social Media Monitoring Tools and Solutions

September 9, 2009

Ad agency new business can be negatively impacted if you are not monitoring your agency’s brand.

“Customers, prospects and peers are discussing your brand, your industry and your competitors right now in social media: with or without you. Unfortunately, choosing not to listen doesn’t make those conversations go away. Actively listening means protecting brand reputation, discovering opportunities, staying competititive and avoiding runaway crisis”. David Alston of Radian6, a leader in the field of social media measurement

Ben Kutz, through his post, List of social media monitoring tools, introduced me to a great list that was initiated by Ken Burbarby. I actually found this resource as a result of monitoring my own brand and comments that had been made about one of my recent post.

Ken says, “When the Social Media Monitoring Tools & Solutions Wiki launched a little more than two and half weeks ago, I wasn’t sure what the response from the social media community would be. To say the least, it has been overwhelming. I’m grateful to all the people that volunteered to expand on the original list, and submitted additions of their own. In a short time, we’ve built up a comprehensive set of world class monitoring tools from companies that span the globe. I’ve already received a deluge of feedback, requests for more information, and ideas to expand on what is already there.

As of right now, the social media monitoring wiki contains 34 free tools(wow!) that you can use to listen to online conversations with, along with 60 paid commercial tools, ranging from inexpensive and lightweight for smaller tasks, to heavy duty full service platforms.”

Click here to view Ken’s Master List of social media monitoring tools

8 Comments | Social Media, Time Management | Tagged: David Alston, Ken Burbary, Michael Gass, monitoring tools, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

Ad Agency Blog of the Month: ANidea Blog, Agency Net

September 6, 2009

Agency Net’s blog, ANidea, edged out Weise Communication’s blog, The Side Note, as Fuel Lines’ blog of the month. 861 votes were casts with ANidea receiving 166 votes followed by The Side Note’s, 160 votes. Check out the voting results for the 29 agency blogs submitted: Twtpoll results

AgencyNet is a 14 year old digital advertising and marketing agency based in Fort Lauderdale, FL along with an office is the SoHo district of New York City.

Submit your favorite ad agency blog to be considered for Blog of the Month for September.

Check out these Blog of the Month winners:

July: The Russo Group

June: 919 Marketing

May: SONNHALTER

April: The Creative Department

March: Sapient Interactive

February: Razorfish

January: Zapwater

Leave a Comment » | Agency Blogs, Social Media | Tagged: Ad Agency Blogs, Agency Net, Bergman Group, BG Creative, BGT Partners, Bridge Worldwide, designkitchen, E.B. Lane Advertising, ESD Advertising & Communications, Fusion Advertising, HillMullikin, Inc., Internet Exposure, Launch Agency, loysius Butler & Clark, MEA Digital, Mindfield agency, Nelson Schmidt, Obsessed with Conformity, One Eleven Interactive, Oster and Associates, Perich Advertising + Design, Red Door Interactive, Rizen Creative, SONNHALTER, The Adams Group, The Russo Group, Tiziani Whitmyre, Trajectory, Upshot Agency, VBP Out Sourcing, Website Biz, Weise Communications | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

How to generate traffic to and new business leads from your ad agency’s blog

September 4, 2009

First: Ad Agencies Need to Answer One Question Before They Blog

I believe ad agencies need an integrated social media strategy for ad agency new business. An agency blog is the central platform. The place you can drive targeted online traffic through SEO, Twitter, email newsletters, Facebook and LinkedIn. The blog becomes the “gateway” to your agency.

To create an agency blog that will be successful in generating traffic and a consistent flow of leads, you first will need to answer one simple question.

The very first question you must answer, before you create your agency’s blog is, “who is our best target audience?”

Without answering this question you will find it extremely difficult to generate traffic. If your blog has not traffic, no audience, no community … then you will have NO leads.

If you don’t know who your target audience is you will also find it difficult:

Deciding what to write about
Where to find resources
What search terms to use for SEO
Where to locate your online audience

It is a fruitless exercise without having a target audience identified. I can provide dozens, and dozens of examples of agency blogs that have not identified their target audience. They are like ships without rudders. Aimless. I would list some of these for your but I don’t want to embarrass anyone.

But I will provide some examples of agencies that have clearly identified their audience:

Blue Collar Branding (From boots, bowling balls to boats. Manufacturers who need to reach blue collar workers)

She-conomy (male advertisers who should be marketing to women)

Healthy Conversations (health and healthy lifestyle brands)

Marketing Home Products (home product manufacturers)

A Brighter Shade of Green Marketing (companies interested in having an environmental component to their advertising/marketing)

Tech Marketing Blog (high technology companies)

TV Is Not Dead (retailers who should be using TV as a major part of their marketing mix)

Tradesmen Insights (B to B companies who target professional tradesmen)

We Play in Traffic (retailers)

Why Moms Rule (companies who should be targeting moms)

Additional articles that may be of interest:

5 Comments | Agency Blogs, New Business Trends, Promotion, SEO, Social Media | Tagged: Ad Agency Blogs, list of agency blogs, Michael Gass | Permalink
Posted by Michael Gass

How to Generate Traffic to Your Ad Agency’s Blog with Repeat Tweets

September 2, 2009

Twitter has long outgrown the original intent of its early adopters, establishing relationships with people by answering the question, “What are you doing?”  

My Twitter participation from the very beginning has been from a new business perspective. How to use this new communication’s tool for ad agency new business. The way that I use it has been different than most. At times I receive some criticism from some early adopters of Twitter that I’m not using it correctly.

One of the early Twitter rules: Do not repeat your Tweets.

Well, I’m proud to say that I never followed that rule. Now others are starting to see the light. I recently read a post by social media mega star, Guy Kawasaki, How to Drive Traffic with Repeat Tweets. Guy shares an experiment he conducted re-tweeting some of his posts that was hugely successful … he advises:

“Based on these experiences, I encourage you to break all the “rules” that you’ve heard about social media and make your own. Like my friends from Alaska tell me, unless you’re the lead dogma, the view never changes.” 

This past month I had 25,000+ page views to Fuel Lines. Twitter generated more traffic to my blog than any other tool I’ve used. Here’s how I use repeat Tweets:

Create a Twitter Schedule

I actually create a “twitter media schedule” for over 370 of my blog post using an Excel spread sheet. I assign 168 of these posts a specific day and time to publish on Twitter. I publish a different post every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For example a post that is published on Thursday at 2:30 PM, will post every Thursday at that time until I rotate it to a different day/time placement or take it out of the rotating schedule.

Usually the only complaint that I will receive will be from a few of those that are following less than 200 people. You will get some that will unfollow. I keep a check on unfollowers using a tool called SocialToo and receive an email generated daily report.

Use Twitter tool: Social Oomph (formally known as Tweetlater)

Using my twitter media schedule I add each post to Social Oomph and select a day/time for the post to publish and the recurrence to once a week. Social Oomph has a tool to shorten the URL so basically I’m publishing a post title and tiny URL so that it stays within Twitter’s 140 character limit. Almost all of my post titles identify my target audience so that they know the post is a resource of interest to them and can also be found through search.

Whenever I add a new post to my blog I will also post it immediately to Twitter, include it in my Twitter Schedule and add it to Social Oomph (Tweetlater).

Keep check of your blog analytics to see what posts are trending higher then periodically, usually once a quarter, add your higher trending posts to Twitter’s “prime-time” between 11 am and 3 pm so they will get more exposure.

I publish round the clock because of the traffic that can be generated from other time zones. Along with a large West Coast following I’ have a following and traffic to my blog from places like Brazil, England and Tokyo.

The time and effort that goes into creating a single blog posts can provide a great return on your investment. Blog posts that I’ve written 2 years ago continue to generate traffic back to my blog.

For Twitter to have real value from a new business perspective for ad agencies, you must have a clear objective and follow a simple formula for use.

To reach my objective to my blog’s traffic and exposing it to a new but targeted audience, I’ve followed Angela Maiers 70-20-10 Twitter Engagement Formula.

70 to 80% of my “Twittertime” is spent sharing helpful information for ad agency new business with my audience. I do this in two ways:

I share lots of information from my online reading that I think will be of help to my audience. I’m able to use some tools such as TwitThis that I’ve placed in my browser bar. When I come across a good article that I think will be of help all I have to do is click on TwitThis and automatically post the article title and tiny URL into my Twitter account.
I also share the content from my FUEL LINES blog. Repeating older posts, that are still useful, have new life. The best posts are often re-tweeted and exposed to new networks of people.

Twitter is more than a fad. It is a valuable marketing tool. The searchability of Twitter already have some saying that it can become even more valuable than Google. Twitter tools such as Social Oomph make it priceless.

Read more on how I use Twitter for new business: A Simple Twitter Formula for Ad Agency New Business

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