Marketing Conversation™ » Abraham Harrison LLC

Thank You To All Of The Olympic Bloggers

Phillip Rhoades — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:32:44 +0000

Recently, we at Abraham Harrison helped the USOC (United States Olympic Committee) reach out to bloggers and others online in order to bring more attention to the Winter Olympic Games. Nearly 300 movers, shakers and influencers responded to our call to action with the placement of banners, tweets, and with blog posts. Thank you to all of the authors of the following posts:

You should know “lo-so”

Ellie Brown — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:55:52 +0000

Oh foursquare, we meet again. The first time was on the black-top at recess in the early 90’s. These days, you are Foursquare (capital “F”) and I can’t help but read about you every where I turn on the Internet. Foursquare, and other location-based social (lo-so) networks like it, are all the rage these days and all the experts are saying we should all start paying attention.

Foursquare, which was launched at last year’s SXSW, now has over 500,000 users who use the service to “check-in” at various locations in order to earn badges and bragging rights as the “mayor” of that particular place. The more a user checks-in, the more badges they acquire and the closer they become to the coveted mayor title. I use Foursquare every once in a while and currently hold the prestigious badge of Newbie that everyone gets when you check-in once (congrats to me). Chris Abraham, however, holds a number of badges including Superstar (for checking-in at over 50 places), Super Mayor (for being mayor of more than 10 places) and my personal favorite, Overshare (for 10+ check-ins in less than 12 hours).

But even as a lowly Newbie in the Foursquare realm I have to agree with the experts here, and say that Foursquare and other location-based social networks present some pretty cool marketing opportunities for businesses in the form of mobile coupons and real-time promotional offers. An article on Mashable says location-based social networking allows for a real world connection to social media that could mean more foot traffic and profits for business owners. Well that sounds pretty good. But my question is: are any businesses actually taking advantage of these opportunities and if so, who is doing it well?

As is the case with any new and shiny social media “toy,” all the experts and gurus seem to agree that lo-so (all the gurus call it that) networks are a hot topic right now, but which businesses are heeding all this advice and implementing strategies that are working? Granted I am a self-proclaimed Newbie, but all I’ve really heard is that Starbucks may use Foursquare to start giving out mobile coupons, for photo sharing and to build online reputation scores. But that’s just the “coming soon” phase.

Do you agree that location-based social networks present some interesting marketing opportunities? Which companies have you read about (or actually experienced) using Foursquare creatively?

(and yes this post is green on purpose. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!)

Blogger Outreach for Haiti

Phillip Rhoades — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:24:08 +0000

Ellie Brown is one great asset here at Abraham Harrison. I hope you’ll go and check out the rest of her articles over on Writing practice makes perfect. Here’s one of her recent ones:

One of the things that Abraham Harrison does as a digital public relations agency is blogger outreach on behalf of clients. So what does that mean? Well, rather than reinventing the wheel, here is an abridged description taken from AH’s blog Marketing Conversation:

With each new client, and each new outreach, we identify a target demographic and identify bloggers who are leading and influencing that demographic. We call these groups of relevant bloggers the “universe”.

The universes are built using existing lists of bloggers AH maintains in combination with brand new lists (since each client has a different set of demographics they want to reach).

We then reach out to these bloggers in a 4-6 week campaign which includes an initial semi-personalized outreach email, followed up by 2-4 follow-up emails. The emails are terse and the majority of the messaging is “outsourced” to a social media news release (SMNR – a one-page simple HTML microsite) that is a “steal me” sheet for the bloggers to add pictures, content and widgets. Here is an example of a SMNR: http://freshairholiday.org/

Each one of these outreach cycles generally leads to 100-300 social media mentions in blogs and on Twitter (depending on how intriguing the client’s message and offering are), invariably reaching millions of people.

After last month’s earthquake in Haiti, I had the privilege of working on a pro-bono outreach AH developed on behalf of former client International Medical Corps. We emailed almost 10,000 bloggers and asked for their help to spread the word about donating via text message or online to support IMC’s efforts in Haiti. My job was to respond to bloggers who wrote back with questions, log any mentions on blogs or Twitter and thank bloggers for their help. We ended up with 171 blog and Twitter mentions that could be directly correlated with the outreach.

Granted this outreach was for a noble and timely cause, but pretty much all the feedback I received from the bloggers was overwhelmingly positive. Sometimes bloggers respond negatively and may think our efforts are “spammy,” but most of the time they are happy to oblige and impressed that there is a real person behind the emails they are getting.

It was a great learning experience for me, and I’m definitely looking forward to working on more campaigns.

You might be wondering why Abraham Harrison is so big on promoting it’s own staff and why the company isn’t afraid of “Brand Dilution” from letting our workers out of the box. Well, Chris Abraham, the Abraham of Abraham Harrison and COO has this to say in regards to all of those worries:

Too many “old school” businesses try to squelch the unique personal brand, thinking that it competes with or dilutes the parent brand. They feel like the employees need to be subsumed into the greater corporate brand; however, personal employee passion-based personal brand actually almost always enhances the parent brand. And, since it is so rare to find a passionate and excited employee, one should really try to encourage the personal brand growth. If you’re afraid of losing that employee via headhunting, you did something else wrong if you do lose her. Also, if you think she’ll get too big for her britches and she’ll be impossible to deal with? Well, look at your CEO — you deal with her, too! And, to be honest, the bigger her britches are the more influential she will be, so that’s generally a good thing. Besides, nice people generally don’t become jerks overnight. Well, I did, but most don’t. :)

Social Media History

Phillip Rhoades — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:36:59 +0000

Social media started long long long. . . you get the idea. . . ago in the stone age. Back then sending messages consisted of drawing pictures on walls that were pretty much meant to reach the next generation. Those pictures looked something like this:

This translates pretty much as, “I had a successful hunt today, but sprained my ankle, I will probably be dead when my son reads this.”

Eventually people learned about fire and started using smoke signals, but those were cumbersome and the wind often mangled the sentences:

At some point someone decided to invent the alphabet and people started writing letters to each other. Those usually took months or years to reach their destination. They’d go something like this:

47 months later Adeliene would receive a reply:

As you can see the time it took letters to arrive usually resulted in a lot of problems. .. well that and people sending poison to each other on a regular basis.

People quickly decided that getting letters back and forth as quickly as possible was so important that it required running horses to death. Thus was born the Pony Express.

As people became interested in sending electric shocks through wires they eventually invented the telegram. A system of sending little bursts of noise along long long long pieces of wire. Of course those little bursts of noise could sometimes be misinterpreted.

Soon people moved on to telephones and party lines allowing many people to speak to each other at once and some to just spy and listen all day. Many middle aged recluses loved this pastime.

As we approached the 1980s and computers became more prevalent in the home, people decided to return to alphabet based communication. Dial up Bulletin Boards in the 80s were the peak of social media, but each system was closed off from the others so there wasn’t nearly enough space to spread crazy rumors.

Then Bob Dole invented the Internet (he said he did) so that people could send out great amounts of rumors, lies, facts, spam and everything else all day long to all over the world. This destroyed many of the little groups that had existed on the dial up bulletin boards and replaced them with giant web based bulletin boards that people could reach through a single phone number. Eventually, people did away with the slow dial up method and switched to “high speed” Internet.

People missed having their little cliques and groups though, so Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter came along allowing people to feel like they had thousands of friends. This also allowed urban legends, crazy rumors, and conspiracy theories to spread even faster. Since everyone is more willing to trust a “friend” when they say something odd.

The future is bringing with it cell phone mesh geolocation, augmented reality, face recognition, always connected, social media insanity. You won’t be able to walk down the street without someone adding “tags” to your face that everyone else with a camera phone will be able to see when they meet you.

Eventually everyone will be plugged into a giant machine that will stir all of our thoughts together and I’m pretty sure the end result of that will be something like this:

A Blogging Cycle Of Misunderstanding

Phillip Rhoades — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:11:06 +0000

And this. . . this happens to us all. We have all been the blogger and the reader in this cycle. Skim with care my friends, skim with care.

Neema Cafe Is Crafting A Better Life For The Physically Handicapped

Mark Harrison — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:25:25 +0000

Abraham Harrison loves the Neema Crafts Cafe (http://www.neemacrafts.com/) and the amazing work they are doing for the physically handicapped and hearing impaired in Iring a, Tan zania, East Africa. Besides… they have hands down the best melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake between the Cape and Cairo!

And Neema Crafts is hoping to win British Airways “Expat Best of British” contest for the restaurant category. Please help them out by going to the Expat Best of British Restaurant page, and casting your vote for them (scroll down and click on Revie w & Vote for this venue below the images and above the comments.)

Neema Crafts is a cafe (yum!), weaving, and handcrafted paper workshop/store employing the deaf and physically handicapped in Iringa, where I used to live in Tanzania. Amazing panini, incredible cakes, and freshly roasted, freshly brewed local highland coffee… incredible. Neema saved more than one of my days there in the mountains of East Africa.

In addition to treating us customers to moments of culinary bliss, Neema has literally changed the lives of the physically handicapped and hearing impaired there in Iringa. People with handicaps in Tanzania suffer under strong discrimination and in the past have have few opportunities to earn good livings for themselves, regardless of their skills and talents otherwise. They are also subject to particular targeting for acts of crime and violence. Neema Crafts has changed all that in Iringa, providing training, employment, and as a result, status and futures for the handicapped of the city. It’s a truly amazing organization, making the world a better place for their co-workers and for anyone in Iringa craving a delicious bite!

Here’s the Neema Crafts entry on the British Airways Expat Best of British page:

Set up and run by a Yorkshire couple from Harrogate, Neema Crafts Restaurant is entirely staffed by deaf people and is part of the Neema Crafts Centre employing 103 deaf and disabled people in our craft workshops making everything from elephant dung paper to micro-solar panels. Also a physiotherapy Unit serving disabled children where you can also book an amazing massage. The restaurant, internet cafe and conference room (plus soon a guest house) serve fantastic food, cakes ice cream and some of the best teas and coffee in east africa. A favourite stop off for everyone from ambassadors to the guy with hardly a shirt on his back. A great place to relax and the place to go for the top tips to explore the area.

A tour of the workshops is the unexpected highlight of many an expat or tourists trip to Tanzania. The restaurant serves local dishes, but also a taste of home with cakes made to recipes from Susie’s (who runs the place with her husband Andy) great grandmother. The chocolate cake and carrot cake draw expats and all the VSO workers out of the bush to induldge. The ice creams and deserts like lemon meringue pies and rubarb crumbles are equaly fantastic and the chocolate toffee shortbread… The restaurant also features a childrens play corner with wendy house and books and toys so you can sip your coffee in peace while reading British and local newspapers or reading one of the second hand novels which we sell to raise money for the physiotherapy work with disabled children, playing a board game or browsing the development journals in the development library which is kept up to date with the best in development literature for the N.G.O. workers in town.

The Centre recently recieved rave reviews in the Rough Guide to Tanzania and the new Bradt guidebook and is soon to be featured in the National Geographic magazine for its micro-solar project. They run regular childrens clubs for the whole community in school holidays. Their deaf dance and drumming group are also amazing, having toured the UK in 2008 and danced for the EU embassy celebrations in Dar and zanzibar where they are currently performing in a major cultural event sponsored by the British Council. please also see these videos to hear more: http://www.vimeo.com/322277 & http://www.vimeo.com/322185 to hear from some of those who work at Neema Crafts.

Stori Nne/Four Stories from Usikike/Be Heard Film Project on Vimeo.

Safari Siyo Kifo from Usikike/Be Heard Film Project on Vimeo.

Every month a evening event is held which ranges from Scottish dancing to concerts from visiting musicians often top international cultural acts from across East Africa. These draw a huge crowd of Ex-pats and locals in from the bush to have a great time! A truly British establishment fully imersed in the local community and including everyone and serving the most disadvantaged.

Please go vote, and if you are ever in Iringa, Tanzania (perhaps on your way to a safari in one of Africa’s best, but still little known game parks, Ruaha), stop on by and tell Susie and everyone there at Neema that you voted for them!

A Smart Phone Is A Social Phone

Phillip Rhoades — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 04:19:46 +0000

Looks like the smart phone revolution has really actually come this time, and is keeping pace with the social media revolution, or maybe they are completely building on each other.

Sarah Perez over at Read Write Web says in Social Networking Now More Popular on Mobile than Desktop.

A recent study from Ruder Finn revealed that Americans are spending nearly three hours per day on their mobile phones. And what are they doing there? Educating themselves, conducting business, managing finances, instant messaging, emailing? All of the above, as it turns out, and then some. But perhaps the most interesting finding from the new data is the fact that more people are using the mobile web to socialize (91%) compared to the 79% of desktop users who do the same. It appears that the mobile phone is actually a better platform for social networking than the PC.

What has given rise to this trend? What makes social networking such a popular mobile web activity? It’s easy to point to the proliferation of smartphones and their host of applications, 3G network speeds and more affordable data plans, built in web browsers and mobile-ready websites. Of course these are all important factors that have helped increase mobile social networks’ popularity. However, these measurements are the reason why mobile web use, in general, is growing, not specifically mobile social networking.

A less quantifiable statistic that may also have impacted the rise of mobile social networking to the point where it has surpassed desktop-based social networking is the fact that it’s an activity that taps into how people – normal, everyday people – go about their lives.

Perez has hit the mark with that one.

ChatRoulette.com Not Anything Worth Any Time

Phillip Rhoades — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:51:06 +0000

Earlier this week, while looking through the Washington Post I stumbled on an article by Monica Hesse about a new fad online, ChatRoulette.com. Hesse says in ChatRoulette.com is the latest fad in social networking Web sites

Trollers of the Internet, you have been looking for the next big thing. Facebook bores you. Twitter is too frenetic. For months you have been wanting something different — a way to connect with people online that will both stir your heart and turn your stomach, that will launch a thousand privacy debates and discussions over just what our society is coming to.

The experience is either an unbridled realization of the Internet’s awesome randomness, or a compilation tape of its greatest hits: Omegle meets Hot or Not meets Match.com, plus a liberal dose of shame.

Personally, as far as I can tell, ChatRoulette.com is just plain garbage. It’s a useless waste of time that I can’t see building any kind of real relationships without some better social networking structure. I don’t just see it as burning out, I truly hope it does burn out quickly.

The truth about Social Media in Latin America

Rodrigo Martucci — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:37:21 +0000

We have been talking about the growth of social media in Latin America and now that some exciting numbers came in, let’s check out the quantitative truth behind all of our qualitative hype about these markets.

According to “Inside Facebook”, Latin American Facebook users grew by more than 10% from last November. The stats also point out that Argentina has the most FB users although Brazil is the country with the most potential due to the current growth rates and number of internet users. We have experienced this growth first hand through our two big clients operating heavily in Brazil. Mexico also shows great potential due to its current low penetration rate and large population.

Another very interesting research was made by Paris-based Semiocast, pointing out that only 50% of all tweets are in English. Although Twitter is still a young emergent in social media around the globe, different countries are showing great potential, specially…….. That’s right, Latin America. Coming in 3^rd on the number of tweets the study shows the Portuguese language (majority coming from Brazil) and 5^th is the Spanish. The two main languages of Latin America account for 13% of all tweets which means that on average, there are 4.5 million tweets in Portuguese and 2 million tweets in Spanish per day.

This all means that Abraham & Harrison is on the right track when it comes to anticipating for the latest international trends. We all know that the Asian market presents great opportunity for many different industries, but when it comes to the openness required by Social Media, Latin America presents the perfect setting. Latin America is quickly becoming a considerable piece of the Social Media pie and there’s already plenty of hungry companies out there.

URL Tagging For Google Analytics Using The Google URL Builder Tool – Video Tutorial

Phillip Rhoades — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:18:40 +0000

Below is a basic video tutorial for using URL tagging in Google Analytics via the URL builder (which is really really really buried). I hope this helps out my fellow bloggers, coders, geeks, and gurus.

Things to keep in mind:

Only useful when linking to a page that has the analytics code on it.
Results in really ugly URLs in the address bar.
Not good for tracking views of a banner/link/etc

Keeping those things in mind, URL tagging still has its uses:

Good for tracking click throughs
Useful for figuring out which banner/link/flash produced the most click throughs

Let me know if it helps you out, any questions you might have, and anything you’d like to see further tutorials on.