Hi Everyone,

It has been months since we have put a post on our blog. Not because we didn’t have anything to SHARE or celebrate as there is plenty of that, but rather because the demands of prioritizing as we continue to grow as a company – became our main focus.

As mentioned over the last year, I joined the millions of adults who faced the “unplanned” reality of a parent facing significant illness and the change to their lives and mine was monumental.

I think we all believe we can do it all and when reality hits you – sometimes we need to rethink “what doing it all means“. For me it has meant being the best daughter I could be first. Second it meant helping our clients understand, create and implement social/digital strategy and tactics to meet their business objectives and establish meaningful relationships with their customers.

Some may perceive this absence – to be a lack of savvy or klout for us as a business or a company. Others may have thought we dropped out of the game. Neither could be further from the truth! Marketing guru Scott Stratten often tweets on Twitter as @unmarketing -  the idea that one is better to post nothing on a blog, then to post something that is not of value.

What is amazing about substance – is that we began this blog in November 2008. That was almost 4 years ago and right out of the gate I began writing about social media and digital strategy. At that time, all the clients I visited were curious to listen to what I had to say – but none of them were ready to take the chance and test it out. The information over that span of time shared on our blog and website is now relevant and used by many companies and businesses to meet their objectives and establish honest and true relationships with their customers. Funny, that it is now a mandate for all businesses to be engaging social media as a marketing strategy – for success!

From that perspective, the content, opinions, ideas and many examples from the many posts over an almost four year period are well worth the read! We encourage you to look back and see what we had to say then and see how that information matches up to your goals and needs now.

As the summer comes to a close – we look forward to once again becoming engaged and active by continuing to lead the way with ideas, opinions and new styles of engaging and encouraging you – to leverage social media and digital channels to meet your business objectives.

Thanks always for all your support!

Best Nicole

I have been writing for almost 4 years now about the power of social media. With Linkedin’s success on their IPO – shares closed at Thursday’s closing price of $94, it’s trading at 36 times its 2010 revenue; Google trades at five times.

This legitimizes the power and success of social media and re-enforces for all businesses – it is time to get into the game. It also points to many other big companies, Canada’s major retailer The Bay is rumored to be looking at an IPO for the fall. But how are these retailers leveraging the power of social media – as they step into the future in their marketing and continue to engage  their customers? Read the rest of this entry »

I tweeted the other day Digitally creative, innovative, design savvy, experiential , savvy to the user experience, agile, hungry = creative tech agency – So what does this mean and or refer to?

I was thinking about our small boutique agency. As we continue to grow and create successful campaigns for our clients, we work to carve out a space for those companies who greatly desire our skill, expertise, creative tech skills & bandwidth -while meeting and exceeding their objectives. Yes and keeping the money in their pockets with low cost innovation and implementation and high returns. Some believe the more “likers” and followers you have the better success you will be – yet they forget that it is quality not quantity you want via information and engagement. There is today no accident that your neighbor, former high school teacher, doctor, dentist and boss former & current are all on Facebook. (Yes we may all want to take an extra minute to review our privacy settings) It means that all the brands you can think of, businesses, products and services know we are all there too and they are looking for new marcom partners and business advisers to help them reach all of us. Both online and offline. It will be those such as ourselves with a wealth of award winning traditional talent and  savvy experiential technical talent – who clearly understand and can translate that user experience – on an array of platforms, that will help you knock it out of the park- in reaching that customer in the place you desire to have them go. Read the rest of this entry »

I first came across this video last week posted by my friend @alexasamuels and variations of this theme have been roaming on Twitter in the last couple of days. The discussion revolves around the success of social media. P&G made a huge declaration -“The nation’s largest advertiser said it would forgo further involvement with daytime television serials (called “soap operas” because P&G used them to sell soap, dish washing liquid and laundry detergent) in favor of a hefty investment in social media.” I say that is certainly putting a stake in the sand!

As we work to gear up with new campaigns for our clients in 2011 – using a digitally ahead- total communications outlook – leveraging tools like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube do and can work - not only for consumer engagement but to increase sales too! In a great article posted on Brandchannel.com – Going Social: Brands Large and Small Must Adapt to Social Media in 2011, Author Barry Silverstein says” Going social will demand a whole new level of consumer responsiveness from brand marketers – and a whole new way of looking at lead generation and qualifications process. Those who rise to that challenge will have the distinct advantage over their competitors in 2011. Click here to read more of this article.

For us the proof is always in the case studies and examples of success to show how powerful something can become. Everyone by now is familiar with the Old Spice campaign. That campaign garnered 140 million views on Twitter, an increase of Facebook fans of 2700% and 1.2 million Facebook fans. Sales rose 107%, according to Neilsen Data. You can’t get better than that. Here’s a link to a video from CREATIVITY that provides a case study for you to see how it worked so well.

The famed agency Weiden Kennedy knocked it out of the park with this one. What are you gonna do?

Best Nicole

This morning I attended an event hosted by IBM. The topic of the half day conference was The Future of Interactive Technologies. I decided to title today’s post as The Future of Interactive Technologies is NOW. Why? As I sat beside many businesses – both retailers and suppliers such as myself – many of these business on the retail side or B-C sector, are just starting to implement their social media strategy. For me the future is now. Every business needs to be involved in finding ways to engage and build their tribe/community – as so aptly written – by one of my marketing guru’s Seth Godin. There were some great stats about the trends of social media, the emergence and importance of mobile and of course the value and power that is now wielded by your customer. Over the last 3 years we have written about all of these topics. The power of the brand ambassador, the idea that they are talking about you whether you are there or not, understanding how your target market wants to communicate and then focusing on those digital tools to engage them and featuring businesses that have been doing social media right. Read the rest of this entry »

In the last month I have had several large potential and current clients come to us and say that they want to grow their email lists and need innovative ways to do that. With the comfort and now current use of social media – leveraging social media tools is a great way to do this. Social media tools allow for a  more targeted, relevant and successful email campaign – that encourages the recipient to get involved and better yet SHARE! Read the rest of this entry »

These days in marketing – many are looking to mobile and the ipad and how to create apps and mobile campaigns to leverage their social media and marcom campaigns. As a communications company that continues to expand – as one of the few truly global leaders in Canada – we are interested in the power of mobile – not just how we use it here in our day to day life – but how the world is using mobile and the power it has on the global stage. Read the rest of this entry »

As we begin to eagerly move forward in the last quarter of 2010 – social media is no longer something that is unfamiliar to most. Today via my Twitter feed, I saw a question from Mitch Joel of Twist Media and Author of the book Six Degrees of Separation – that asked
Does complaining about customer service in social media make a difference?

All sizes of companies big and small have lost their leverage with purchasing customers – because the public in many cases has lost trust in brands. These customers who have had information pushed to them for years and years – now have the opportunity and are armed with the information they need about products and services -without the assistance of the companies that produce and offer those products and services. Read the rest of this entry »

It is October already and I am going to try to keep up once again with our blog posts. I start out with a new month writing about something that is of interest to most of us – marketing green.  For most businesses this is an agenda and sustainability is not just a discussion point but rather a line item for budget and one of the way many businesses – are trying to show that their brand is making a commitment to being a committed corporate citizen. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi Everyone,

I have not abandoned our blog and thought that I should send out another note to let people know that we are still here. As I mentioned earlier in the summer, I have been one of the main care givers for an aging father – who has encountered a time in his life where unforeseen medical issues have popped up one after another. As like many of you, one never expects the amount of time or effort that this support can demand and I am happily yet juggling all of the additional planning needed to fulfill both my personal and growing business commitments.

The amazing thing is that there are so many of us just entering into this transition of supporting our families and maturing parents – as we all continue to move on in years. Since I posted my last note – letting you know why we had lapsed on our regular posts after all these years – many of you have come forth to share your stories of the support you too – are also giving to your families and how you have worked to make room in your lives for these added adjustments and responsibilities. I thank you for those that have come forward and encourage others to share their stories with us.

I have been able to keep up posting on Twitter and Facebook as I can post from my iphone easily via Tweet Deck and hope you will continue to engage with us there as well.

Work is ways there but your health is a precious gift to which nothing is more important.

Looking forward to connecting again with you all in October!

Best Nicole