A DIFFERENT TYPE OF AGENCY

As a collective, The Factory Interactive is fueled by a passion for developing enduring messages conceived through a marriage of design and technology. At the core, we are explorers of possibility and architects of memory. We create rich immersive experiences that increase message retention and reward the audience. Our mission: give personality to products, resulting in a stronger, more effective brand.

_{April 29, 2009}
Social Media still growing… can you handle it? _{By Ashley}

In my last blog post, “Social Media is growing…and it’s growing fast”, I mentioned the fast pace social media campaigns are growing at, and how it’s pertinent to have an agency manage that campaign for you. I want to back that statement up with a few points on why and how it can be so difficult to manage on your own.

I wish I could say it’s as easy as creating a Twitter account, sending out a few tweets and you move on with your life… but, sorry folks, its not that simple.

Time – I write this post as I think to myself, “Holy bananas!! It is already 5pm! Where did the day go?” Is there ever enough of time? (I can write an entire blog post on that itself) It’s important to remember that marketing is a 24/7 job. Sure you can allot a time slot every day for it but will it ever be enough? Or will it overtake the rest of your day?

Negativity – Let’s face it, not everyone is a happy customer. You may have upset someone (unintentionally, of course) on the wrong day. These days, the first thing they do is take to the web to rant and rave about it. (I know I do!!) This is where it takes a professional to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible.

Personality – You must balance personality and professionalism. An agency can help you come up with the right “fit” of a personality for your social media campaign. Take Jet Blue for example. They have the right amount of playfulness mixed with professionalism; and it remains consistent across all marketing platforms.

Measurement - Social Media is still difficult to gauge the successfulness of, but each day we are getting wiser and smarter in the ways we can find the value in a social campaign. Everything from analytics tools, to response rates, and retweets can help an expert calculate the real effectiveness.

The social media campaign is becoming more complex by the day. A real strategy must go behind it, and execution must be spot on. But if done correctly, it can be not only extremely cost effective but all-around-effective.

One last quick note: I participated in a webinar today which stated, there will be a 63% increase in digital/interactive campaign spending. And a 59% decrease in traditional media spending. That equivilates to a lot of competition for your customers attention.

Filed under: Marketing — Tags: blogs, facebook, Marketing, myspace, social media, twitter, YouTube — @ 4:14 pm

Social Media is growing…and it’s growing fast. _{By Ashley}

Oprah Effect: According to estimates, Twitter grew by 1.2 million users simply as a result of Oprah.

Oooooh, Oprah. The power that you hold.

It’s been said over and over that 2009 is the Year of Social Media. I’ve seen lots of numbers and statistics thrown out there so I have decided to compile the most interesting of them.

• In March, YouTube hit 100 million monthly users.
• 6.3 billion videos were viewed on YouTube
• Facebook has grown from 100 million to 200 million users in less than 8 months.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be bigger than Brazil.
• Social Networking is now more popular then e-mail according to a Nielson’s Online Survey.
• Twitter grew 76.8% from February to March. Yearly growth expected… 1,382%.

What does this mean to you as a business? I think the numbers speak for itself and social media should be incorporated into everyone’s marketing campaign. It’s become a MUST in today’s world (and economy).

On the same note, along with the popularity of social media comes major brand reputation management. Domino’s for example, has spent 49 years building a brand and within 30 minutes or less, had it’s reputation damaged. I think they did a fantastic job with some serious reputation damage control. Where as social media can be used maliciously by others, it can also (in the same amount of time) have a quick and speedy recovery effort implemented.

The point of this story? It’s important to have a well thought-out, social media plan that can be successfully managed and monitored, which is why more and more companies are turning to agencies to take this big job on. The bigger social media gets, the bigger the job becomes.

Filed under: Marketing — Tags: facebook, nielson, oprah, reputation, social media, twitter, YouTube — @ 3:24 pm

_{April 17, 2009}
History of the Internet _{By Ashley}

History of Internet

“History of the internet” is an animated documentary explaining the inventions from time-sharing to filesharing, from Arpanet to Internet. The history is told using the PICOL icons on picol.org , which are available for download soon. On blog.picol.org you can get news about this project.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: documentary, filesharing, history of the internet, internet — @ 2:02 pm

_{April 15, 2009}
Whether we like it or not, Publishers set on charging for content _{By Ashley}

On the brink of the announcement that Marriott hotels will stop delivering newspapers to hotel doors, top journalists form Journalism Online, LLC; a company that will quickly facilitate the ability of newspaper, magazine and online publishers to generate revenue from the digital distribution of the original journalism they produce.

“We have formed Journalism Online, because we think this is a special moment in time when there is an urgent need for a business model that allows quality journalism to be the beneficiary of the Internet’s efficient delivery mechanism rather than its victim,” said co-founder Steven Brill. “We believe we have developed a strategy and a set of services that will establish that model by restoring a stream of circulation revenue to supplement advertising revenue, while taking advantage of the savings to be gained from producing and delivering content electronically.”

It seems that whether we like it or not, we will most likely be charged for the content we seek out. The model will offer web-browsers the option for monthly, weekly or one-time passses to view content from different publishers. As I previously mentioned in my blog post, Paid For Content?, I genuinely think it will be a toss up on whether or not this model will work or not.

On a side note: I mentioned that Marriott hotel is no longer delivering newspapers. They are calling it a “green” iniative but we all know it’s probably more or less (for lack of a better expression) a waste of  money at this point. In implementing this new “policy”, it will reduce newspaper distribution by about 50,000 newspapers every day or by about 18 million newspapers every year. That’s a huge loss for already down newspapers.

Update: After reading this article, I can’t help but to feel there are major gaps in this plan and while they may have some success, I do not believe it’s the golden ticket they are looking for.

Filed under: Media News — Tags: content, journalism online, marriott, newspaper, newspapers, paid for content — @ 12:23 pm

_{April 7, 2009}
Paid-For-Content?? The Great Debate (of the day, at least) _{By Ashley}

There has been a lot of buzz lately about whether media organizations should start to charge to view their content. And is the model that will save these companies from going under?

I have two trains of thought on this:

Thought Process Numero Uno: I think back to pre-iTunes days when I would use programs like LimeWire to download ALL of my music for free. The days of buying CD’s were long over for me. Then iTunes came along, and gasssp, they were going to charge for their music. I won’t lie… I boycotted for as long as possible. But then I saw the light… it was SO much easier and convenient to download off of iTunes. I always knew what I was getting and that the quality would be perfect; and on top of it all I was supporting the artists I enjoy.

I think it’s very possible that web-users will ultimately do the same thing with getting their news/videos. Most of us will be rebellious at first but soon enough we will see the light…and the value in getting quality content, and supporting the staff that work so hard to bring us this content. Of course, this all depends on how reasonably priced it will be. If companies are competing with each other for eyeballs, I imagine it will have to be pretty low cost.

Thought Process Numero Dos: Newspapers/Broadcasters will  be shooting themselves in the foot if they adapt a paid content business model. Why? Because there will always be ways to find similar, if not the same, content for free so we will never want to pay. Furthermore, according to a Knowledge Networks poll, 80% of online network TV viewers would prefer to view ads in exchange for unpaid video content, up from 67% in 2006. So clearly users will go to some type of extent to avoid paying fees for content. Can the same methodology be applied to a “print” ad before reading any articles? Seems like a plausible scenario.

The Associated Press unveiled rate cuts on Monday to help member newspapers reeling from declining advertising revenue and said it would also sue websites that use its members’ articles without permission. They have been the first to announce such an aggressive plan. I am very curious to see how this plays out, but I know one thing is for sure… I have read a lot of articles about their announcement this week and none of it seems to be positive. Let the foot shooting begin…???

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: ap, associated press, broadcasters, cable, content, itunes, newspapers, paid — @ 10:32 am

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