Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 4:00PM ;)
Good Twitter writing. Now there’s an oxymoron. Twitter and its 140 character limit is often synonymous with rambling gibberish and horrifying grammar.
Friday, September 17, 2010 at 4:00PM ;)
It’s difficult to justify a long term SEO strategy to someone when their boss is breathing down their neck, demanding to see improved traffic at next week’s meeting.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 4:36PM 
Twitter launched a microsite for New York Fashion Week (NYFW) last week sponsored by several Fashion Week players such as American Express, Bergdorfs and Modelinia
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 4:00PM 
If you live in the US, you probably noticed that Google has been acting funny the past couple days. The search giant has implemented Google Instant into their engine, showing you streaming search results as you type.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 4:00PM 
Without the help of big marketing budgets, many small businesses have hit it big thanks to exposure through Twitter.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 4:00PM 
If there’s one thing we love Twitter for, it’s sharing social media news and ideas. Just in the past week we’ve found a good heap of fascinating and useful stories
Friday, August 20, 2010 at 4:00PM ;)
Foursquare was doing very well for itself. It was marching along at the head of the location based services (LBS) trend with almost three million users having fun by “checking in” to restaurants
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 4:00PM 
For all you businesses trying to connect with people and gain exposure through social media, we have good news: Twitter has just reduced the barriers to sharing your content to almost zero.
Friday, August 13, 2010 at 4:00PM Internet memes come and go so quickly that sometimes they’re old news just as you’re hearing about them (Sad Keanu Reeves I miss you). At any given moment there are several memes floating around. This summer has seen great blending of brands and quirky fads.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 4:13PM ;)
Like any media, social media takes planning and commitment. Unlike other mediums, social media requires a level of understanding and commitment not necessary
Friday, July 23, 2010 at 4:00PM 
Facebook is on the verge of finding the elusive answer of how to fully cash in on its 500 million users scattered across the globe. Banner advertising has made them a chunk of change, but hasn’t generated much relative to the size of its audience, especially outside the US.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 4:00PM 
Study finds Twitter triggers a chemical response, and it feels a lot like falling in love
If you remain unconvinced that it’s worth your while as a business to connect with people through Twitter and social media, this piece of news should send you hurtling over the edge.
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 4:00PM 
As reading this blog requires you to be on the internet, it’s a pretty safe bet you’re familiar with the Old Spice campaign that has the entire web talking. And, hard as it is to believe on our jaded internets, the talk is almost universally positive, even the YouTube comments.
Friday, July 9, 2010 at 4:00PM They’re smart. They’re unrelenting. They’re Anonymous.
Love them or hate them, 4chan is without a doubt the most effective crowd sourcing community on the internet, single handedly launching some its most popular memes. The idea behind the site is simple – it’s nothing more than a public imageboard where users can post anonymously. The site, started in 2003 by 15 year-old “Moot” in his bedroom, has burgeoned into a 13 million views a day community. But how did this group go from such an inconspicuous origin to accomplishing so much?
Variety is the spice of crowd sourcing
The group is collectively known as Anonymous. It’s not just the numbers of the community that make it a force to be reckoned with - their members have a wide skill set, including code writing, programming and hacking. It’s this variety and talent of its members that make it so effective and able to make their plans a reality. Plans like putting 4chan’s founder at the top of TIME’s poll of the most influential people in the world.
Make waves - the biggest ones you can
Recently, the community has been gaining a new level of notoriety thanks to high profile projects involving vote rigging in a contest from Oprah Winfrey and attempting to send Justin Bieber to North Korea (which we have to admit is pretty funny). Success in crowd sourcing is largely measured by media attention, so find a juicy hook to get people talking.
New BFFs?
Participation has to be one thing: fun
You have 4chan to thank for many of the internets biggest memes. And they do it essentially by creating viral jokes. Sensations like Rick Rolling and lol cats get people jumping on board simply because doing so is so much fun.
Show them something they’ve never seen before
The 4chan community is also responsible for vaulting certain videos to viral stardom. All it takes is finding something compellingly bizarre, and letting the community run with it from there. The Chocolate Rain video is perhaps the most famous, featuring nothing more than a young man with an exceptionally deep voice. It now has over 53 millions views. Crowds just love quirkiness.
Give them a compelling goal
Perhaps the biggest draw of 4chan is its ability to take on behemoths. YouTube and Google have each had their share headaches at the hands of 4chan, as well as many celebrities like the ones already mentioned. They even played a big role in helping to give the people of Iran a voice during last year’s election. Letting regular people be part of something huge is a powerful draw.
We wouldn’t recommend or condone much of what 4chan does, but there’s no denying it’s an extremely effective machine for bringing people together to accomplish a goal. They certainly have a top notch understanding of how the internet works. Gleaning some of that understanding may well help you achieve some goals of your own.
Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 4:00PM Establishing a presence on Twitter is easy. Even getting loads of followers isn’t that hard (if you aren’t picky). But using it in a way that’s worth both your and other people’s time and effort, that’s another story.
When we start putting together a social media strategy for a client, we try to find an innovative use for Twitter that goes beyond the “we need a Twitter account!” impulse. Which can be tough. But a great way to find inspiration is looking at brilliant campaigns that have come before and boiling them down to the idea behind them.
Since it helps us, we figure it’ll help you, too. We’ve put together a list of 6 Twitter campaigns that went way beyond the expected, and highlighted the strategies they used to engage people. Check them out and see if any new ideas begin brewing.
Reactionary auto-tweets
You probably know that you can set up auto tweets, but it doesn’t have to be restricted to a timer. Botanicalls has put together a DIY kit that monitors your house plants and auto tweets when a plant is thirsty. It’s basic technology plus outside the box thinking. Could your target use a clever auto reminder?
Feed me, Seymore!
Solve universal problems
To get masses of people involved in your Twitter campaign, try creating a practical solution to a problem everyone can relate to. Some enterprising university students did so when they started an account for their local laundry room, sending out updates when machines are available. Traffic updates via Twitter are also popular, helping commuters through their daily routine. Much like an inventor, start with a practical need, and then find a way to solve it.
Mass interaction at events
Twitter can add a whole new dimension to events and conferences by letting the crowd contribute to the public conversation. Comedian Eddie Izzard is using Twitter to warm up his crowds, displaying tweets mentioning his account on huge screens, thus letting anyone in the crowd with a smartphone post a message for all the people at the arena to see. If you’re hosting a performance or event, consider letting people get more involved through Twitter.
The face of social media genius
Turn Twitter into visual art
Since a flow of words doesn’t have a visual impact, take them and create one. The museum of modern tweets takes inspirational message sent via Twitter and creates art out of them. Another project called Don’t Tell Ashton created a huge collage of Twitter users, getting thousands involved. See if you can’t find a pool of information on Twitter relevant to what you do, and find a way to make it a visual experience.
Let your followers be the star
Staring You media is almost always a big hit, whether it be elfing yourself or starring in a movie. You can also make your fans the star with Twitter, like a Japanese group did with Twitter Parade. You simply put in your Twitter name and watch yourself lead a procession of your followers. More than 3 million people have done so already, which is amazing considering how high a percentage of Twitter users that is. If you can find a way to let people become the center of attention, they’ll come check it out.
Could it have come from anywhere but Japan?
Let us know if you have any bright ideas of your own, or want to share other inspiring campaigns.
Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.
Friday, July 2, 2010 at 4:00PM StumbleUpon may just be the traffic goldmine you’ve been looking for
StumbleUpon has a reputation as an idle time waster, and as such is often overlooked as part of a serious strategy to promote web content. But in reality it’s a widely used tool for people to find new, highly targeted content tailored to their interests. In fact, almost 10 million people have jumped on board this discovery tool, recommending over 5.4 billion pages in the last year alone.
When we noticed StumbleUpon was sending us a lot of visitors, we decided to look deeper into how it works and how to enhance traffic from the service. With minimal effort, you can get hundreds, or many more, new visitors. Here is a quick guide on how to get your content to go viral among the stumblers of the world and give your numbers a swift kick in the pants.
How it works
Installing the toolbar puts a “Stumble!” button in your browser. You select the topics you are interested in – say Arts, Marketing and Roleplaying – and when you hit Stumble you are sent to a webpage about one of those topics that other people have recommended. Pages are only registered when a user specifically recommends it. While you’re stumbling along, you also have a thumbs up/down button to pass judgement on the page (if you click thumbs up on an unregistered page, it will open a form for you to submit that page to the database). A page with a lot of thumbs ups will have more people sent to it, and vise versa.
May the best man win
Creating brilliant content is key in all social media, but it’s especially vital with StumbleUpon. If Stumblers aren’t giving you a thumbs up, the service will stop sending people to your site. Put extra effort into creating intriguing headlines and striking visuals as it is in the nature of Stumblers to quickly click away from a page if they don’t think there’s anything of interest. You’ve only got a few seconds to hook them, so make them count.
Be selective with what you submit
Certain kinds of content do well on StumbleUpon. It’s a long haul traffic source, so timeless content is more likely to do well than breaking news. Since visitors by and large don’t know you, the page also needs to work as stand alone content and not require delving deeper into your site. Great big no-no’s include pages that have long load times, protected content that requires a sign up, layouts laden with ads and any page with pop-ups - all of those will send people clicking away immediately.
Advocate stumbling
Put a “Submit” button on your website or blog so people can recommend it with one click, even if they didn’t arrive via StumbleUpon. As many don’t know about the service, it’s also not a bad idea to write a post or article educating people about StumbleUpon and why they should use it.
Cheaters never prosper
If you’re thinking you’ll just register and recommend all your pages yourself, StumbleUpon is way ahead of you. Submitting loads of pages from one site will get your account blacklisted (and they won’t even tell you, it’ll just stop working). The only way to effectively submit your own content is to use StumbleUpon genuinely and often, and be very selective about which of your own pages you submit. Also note that if you have avid fans that recommend all of your pages, the value of each thumbs up will quickly diminish, eventually reaching zero. In short, your recommendations need to be from a wide array of active stumblers.
Or just take the shortcut: pay for stumblers
If you’re strapped for time and want an overnight traffic boost, you can join StumbleUpon’s ad program. You first specify your target audience by category, demographics and geography and StumbleUpon will recommend your content to relevant individuals when they click the Stumble button. But it’s still on you to impress them - the more people that recommend your page, the more traffic you’ll get.
StumbleUpon is one of the most genuine recommender communities where each person can shape the content. If you think you've got the content to get loads of thumbs up, dive in and start stumbling your way up the charts.
Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 at 4:00PM
Create an account – After all, you can’t create an effective Twitter campaign without a focal point. Create an account and customize it as much as possible. Refer to our SEO and Twitter post to understand how to maximize your Twitter profile.
Establish a hashtag – It’s important to establish a hashtag early. The sooner a hashtag is created, the easier it will be for people talking about the event to start associating themselves with it. We recommend a short four or five character hashtag. The world’s largest comic book convention, San Diego ComiCon, attracts around 400,000 people over a weekend. To keep everyone informed about events and unite the attendees, they use the hashtag #SDCC.
Tweet early and often – Nothing gets people more excited about an event then announcing activities, celebrities attending and special giveaways. It’s good to start tweeting at least 2-3 months before your event. This will allow you to build an audience, tweet teaser announcements and get the hashtag in circulation.
Offline matters – Odds are the first exposure a person will have to an event will be through a printed flyer or newspaper ad. Just like you would put your event’s URL in the advertisement, you should add your Twitter hashtag as well.
Add it to your website – This may seem obvious, but so often events forget to link their Twitter account from their website and even more often never mention the hashtag associated with the event. People are looking for this information, and it can be just as important as directions and ticket prices. After people get the directions and buy the tickets, they want to find out who else will be attending. Having the hashtag on the website will enable attendees to communicate more easily with each other and stay informed.
Live stream from event – Let people know what they missed and give them a reason to attend next year by giving up to the minute Tweets about what’s happening.
Post tweet – After the event is over, keep the good feelings alive by continuing to tweet. Keep your audience informed about changes, new guests and other news associated with your event throughout the year. The more active you are on your Twitter account, the easier it will be to activate people the next time your event rolls around.
Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 4:00PM
Location-based apps are the hottest thing going right now. Leading the pack is Foursquare. Foursquare isn’t the first location-based app on the market, nor is it the biggest, but what it does have going for it is that it’s the current media darling. The star of this year’s SXSW, this app is proving it’s not just for letting people know where you like to eat and shop.
The system is simple: you check-in to a location, earn badges for multiple check-ins and score points which, in some instances, can lead to real-world rewards from retailers. Local restaurants and bars have started offering free drinks, appetizers and discounts to the person that checked in the most to their establishment. Now you’re seeing the likes of Bravo, Virgin Airlines and Harvard University taking advantage of app to further reward customers. We searched the web to find examples of companies using this simple app in ingenious ways and found four great examples.
Harvard University has teamed up with Foursquare to create a campus-based game that rewards students who check in to locations with badges and helpful bits of information. The idea is to encourage students to connect with others and explore more of the campus. It’s a brilliant way for freshmen to learn about the university and connect with more people.
During New York Fashion Week, fashion designer Marc Jacobs created a “Fashion Victim” badge. It allowed customers during the week to check-in at any Marc Jacobs store to unlock the badge. Four people who unlocked the badge in New York received passes to attend the Marc Jacobs fashion show.
Shoe phenom Jimmy Choo has established a treasure hunt around London using Foursquare. A pair of Jimmy Choo trainers check-in at a location somewhere in the city and whomever checks-in and says, “I’ve been following you” to the pair of trainers before they leave the location will win a pair of Jimmy Choo training shoes. People can track the trainers through their Foursquare user page and their Twitter profile.
Desperate to stay relevant, The Wall Street Journal has created special badges that provide interesting facts about New York City and reviews of local business and movies. It’s always great when a print giant like the WSJ embraces new media instead of fighting it like so many other print outlets.
Hopefully you now feel inspired to craft a location-based campaign of your own. Feel free to share any bright ideas.
Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.
Friday, June 18, 2010 at 4:00PM You may be out-ranked, but you can still out-traffic the competition
You pour blood sweat and tears into SEO, clawing your way to the top spot on Google, triumphing over adversity like Rocky climbing stair after stair in Philadelphia. And you still don’t get the clicks.
Like your mother always told you, winning isn’t everything. Being in the top spot in search rankings doesn’t guarantee people will be impressed enough to click your link. It’s likely enough they’ll take a look at the few entries below you and go elsewhere. That’s why your click-through rate (CTR) is the real measure of your SEO success.
Getting that high CTR is all about your meta tag descriptions. These are often neglected since search engines have been ignoring them in their rankings for many, many years. Which doesn’t make much sense as, whether it’s organic search traffic or pay per click, the meta tag is where you pitch your website to surfers, telling them what they’ll find on your page and why it’s worth their time.
Follow the subtle arrow to find the meta tag
But hey, you’ve got the first spot, so you’ll still get most of the traffic right? Actually, you could be missing out on 80% of it. Traffic can vary between 20%-60% of clicks with a brilliant vs. rubbish meta tag description. If we’re talking about tens of thousands of searches, or more, that’s one heck of a lot of missed visits.
Let’s look at an example. Here are the top 5 search results for “international ad agency.” Which one would you click on?
I would go for the second or third entries and skip the other ones entirely since their meta tag descriptions are far from convincing.
Now that you know how important the meta tags are, here are some tips for writing them:
One last thought to mull over as you ponder how to handle your meta tags – if you don’t write them yourself, you may be in for some character assassination at the hands of Google. Just look what kind of spin the meta tag below put on an innocent writer, who in the context of the article is actually held in high esteem. Not so much on Google.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 4:02PM We are emotional creatures. Like it or not, raw emotion affects how we judge things intellectually. Businesses and admen have known and played on this since well before the days of Don Draper. With social media, our emotions are played on in a whole different way when it comes to dealing with corporate image issues. Letting people vent their spleen through channels like Twitter to a large degree defuses people’s anger and bitterness. After all, haven’t you ever been upset and felt better just by talking about the problem? The problem doesn’t go anywhere, but the talking lets off most of the steam.
I’ve been seeing this happen with British Petroleum (BP) on Twitter. If you’re on Twitter, you’ve probably heard of BPGlobalPR. Nope, that isn’t BP’s official PR presence on Twitter, it’s a satirical account started by one enterprising comedian shortly after the gushing oil pipeline catastrophe struck.
The Tweeter calls himself Terry and has chosen to remain anonymous despite being contacted by major news outlets who want the inside scoop on how this rogue account has chalked up 140,000 followers. Compare that to the just 12,000 of the real BP account, which actually does provide regular informative updates on the crisis. If you add up the retweets and news stories, the scathing tweets by the fake BP representative have reached millions of people eager to point and laugh at the oil giant.
Though secretive about his identity, the LA Times did get a quote from “Terry,” all the while refusing to break character, about why he’s doing this: "Companies screw up and then they hire folks like me to come in to make it look like they're doing something while they figure out how to make money again," the fake public relations representative wrote. "BP is doing everything we can to save our reputation and hopefully salvage some oil out of all this. We're making a ton of shirts and commercials about how we care, and I cleaned an ugly bird yesterday." For more great quotes, check out the interview with “Terry” on ABC News (never mind the scary monster voice).
Yes, it is an inspiring case of how social media lets a regular Joe go toe-to-toe with a mega-corporation. It’s hardly surprising that satire is successful on Twitter, it’s easier to pack a lot of sting into 140 characters than it is genuine dialogue or detailed explanation. But despite it being a fitting way to stick it to the man, BP may be the one benefiting the most from this Twitter parody. Don’t you feel less angry and anxious to do something after having a laugh at the jokes? It is still an infuriating travesty, but the heated malice toward BP is somewhat tempered, they become more bumbling than evil. BP could well have filed a complaint with Twitter, but they must have realized that would only create more negative PR and instead let people blow off steam. It may be the one good call BP has made in all of this.
Regardless of whether it’s disarming us or not (on the plus side, Terry is selling oil spill T-shirts and giving the proceeds to charity), some of the tweets are just great jokes. Here are my 5 favorite tweets from the rogue BP Twitter account so far:
What effect do you see the mock BP Twitter account having? Let us know below.
Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.
