Archive for the ‘Social media’ Category

We’ve had a lot of internal discussion about engagement marketing lately. Why? Because it represents the culmination of many recent marketing trends: the maturation of the website as a marketing tool, the integration of digital marketing into the marketing mix, and the rise of social media and mobile marketing. Engagement marketing defines successful marketing today. But what is it? Well, our digital marketing director, Tracy Earles, takes a crack at defining it in this two-minute overview.

As you may have heard, Facebook has now introduced the Timeline look and feel for all business pages. This change will significantly alter the way your page looks and operates, but overall, it will align Facebook personal profiles and business pages. In case you’re unfamiliar with what a Timeline page looks like, I’ve grabbed a screen capture for you…

So what do you need to know about Facebook Timeline?

• This change is mandatory. Your business page will automatically switch to this new layout on
  March 31 – less than one month away.
• You will want to have a “Timeline” cover image, and possibly a revised profile image, created for your business page in advance of the switchover. Timeline cover images can include images and text. They serve as large promotional or branding banners for your organization.
• Any custom tabs you’ve created for your pages will now be located in the middle of the page and you can change the order of what’s displayed.

Additionally, there are other major changes – seven in all – coming to business pages. For a complete summary, check out this article from the Social Media Examiner.

If you need help with these changes, give us a call at 970.203.9656. We can help you create a Timeline cover banner or revised profile image.

At Burns Marketing, we love our smartphones. No, I mean we REALLY love our smartphones. In fact, in the last few weeks we haven’t been able to stop kissing them. If you walked through our creative department recently, you may have witnessed designers, developers, and copywriters working long hours with their lips pressed passionately against the screen – all for a new app called LipTricks that analyzes your kissing technique.

Here’s how it works: When you kiss your phone, LipTricks detects your lip position and movement (if you’re really brave, your tongue is tracked, too) and gives you feedback in the form of badges that you earn for different kiss achievements. Unlock the granny badge with a quick peck, or the newlywed badge with an extra-passionate smooch. You can imagine what it takes to unlock the pup badge. Some kisses need a little bit of planning, like the Cinderella, which requires your lips to be touching the phone at the stroke of midnight. There are 20 badges in all – and a few hidden ones to reward those of you who are extraordinarily gifted.

LipTricks is available for the iPhone and Android devices; download it today. Happy Valentine’s Day from your friendly engagement marketing experts at Burns Marketing.

IDG Research Services says two-thirds of B2B marketers expect to increase their digital spending in 2012. And you? Do you plan to use online platforms to gain greater market share?

Give us 5 to 10 minutes of your time to take the 2012 Digital Marketing Trend Benchmark Study, and Burns Marketing will return the favor. We’ll share the survey results to give you valuable insight into what your peers are doing to shape the evolution of digital marketing.

Take the survey before Friday, February 10 to make sure your opinions are counted. And by participating you’ll be sent a copy of the study results.

Click here to get started.

On November 7, Google announced with great fanfare that they expanded the Google+ platform to finally provide businesses, brands, and other organizations an official presence on this burgeoning social media channel. For those of you who maintain a Facebook page, you’ll find the creation of a Google+ page to be similar and easy to do, but that’s about where the features and excitement end.

We set up a page for our business on Tuesday, and we shared a collective yawn (Nice URL huh? https://plus.google.com/110082635138004379816/). Now after a week of reading a bunch of flimsy blog posts like “Get your Google+ Page Now” and “5 Tips for Google Brand Pages Success,” I thought I would end the week with a rant.

As a page administrator, I was shocked that they launched brand pages into Google+ with a total lack of rich administrative and analytics features, after all isn’t this Google? There’s no application framework for developers to make customizations to their pages and differentiate the experience from other business. Additionally, you might want to call your lawyer before running any promotions. Apparently Google+ has even more restrictive policies than Facebook. And worst of all, we can’t even make a lousy vanity URL. How are we supposed to get visitors from our next Super Bowl ad to our Google+ page?

There’s nothing that distinguishes the Google+ page offering from Facebook, or a Google+ profile for that matter. So for now, we’ll do little more than syndicate Facebook content to it… when we think about it. I’ve looked at other brands on Google+ and it appears that most are simply “dumping” content from their other social media channels as well, and why blame them? In a perfect world where more people outside of techie types actually used Google+, you might find an audience to differentiate your content for. However, most people I talk with find a trip to “Google+ land” like a walk through Second Life, it’s just not that relevant in the age of Facebook.

I think that Google is demonstrating a complete inability to deliver a coherent integration of their exceptional products into one powerful platform. This launch really shows how isolated the Google development teams must be from one another. Google+ just seems like another product of the Google empire and not an integrated system like we have with Facebook.

I expected more from Google, and as a marketer, couldn’t believe we didn’t get another Zuckerberg moment from a company with such vast engineering and technical prowess. Just a few weeks back, Facebook delivered so many cool features and platform changes that we didn’t know what to mess around with first. This launch was just a complete tease. Google, with all of your resources you can do better. Let’s hope that version 2 is much improved.

Still want to make a Google+ brand page?
How to Create a Google+ Business Page in 5 Simple Steps (HubSpot)

Things to consider with any new social media channel:

• What will the content focus of your Google+ brand page be?
• Will your content on Google+ be different than what you are doing on other channels?
• What technical features are available to build fan interaction?
• How does Google+ work into your overall social media plan?
• Be personal, yet remain true to the voice of your company.
• Do not overtly promote your products or company.
• Demonstrate your expertise.
• Join the conversation. Don’t be afraid to participate, answer questions, or comment on other comments.

Remember summer camp? The fast friendships you made, the thrill of being “on your own” for a week, acquiring vital skills like learning how to roast marshmallows so that the outside is lightly tanned and the inside is warm and gooey… Those are memories every kid should have the chance to make.

You can help make that happen. Log in to Facebook, find the “Send a Kid to Camp” app, and post a camp badge on your wall. From horseback riding to fishing to roasting marshmallows and dressing up, the variety of badges lets you share your favorite camp activity with others. You can even personalize your post with a short description of your favorite camp memory.

Posting the badge on your wall will help us get people talking about Roundup River Ranch, a camp for kids with life-threatening illnesses. At this medically supported camp, children and their families can focus on fun, not their medical conditions. Together, we can create memorable experiences for our campers and their families – for free and forever.

Please help us get the Send a Kid to Camp app rolling by donning your badge proudly.

The Burns Marketing interactive team has completed a new app called the Ghost-O-Meter. Now, you can detect the presence of ghosts using your phone. Read the haunting story behind the app and download it for free here. Happy Halloween from Burns Marketing!

Sometimes desperate situations call for desperate solutions. So we decided it was time for a little agency-wide chat. Literally. Our employees were getting so glued to phones, email, and IM that everyone was forgetting how to talk with one another.

A few insurgents left these “No butts about it” cards, candy cigarettes, and email reduction patches on everyone’s desks to institute a “No internal phone calls or emails day” yesterday.

Results were extraordinary. Idle chit-chat spawned into numerous ideas. One old-timer discovered a copywriter had a baby a couple months ago. And an account executive even decided she could eat more cookies since she was walking around the office so much. Now that’s sweet.

We came, we built a ton of furniture, we conquered. Miranda traded heels for hiking boots. And some of us even broke a sweat – all in a day’s work for a tremendously worthwhile cause.

The first week of June 2011, the Burns Marketing crew rolled west to Roundup River Ranch, a camp for children with life-threatening illnesses located near Gypsum, Colorado. They needed a little help getting their facilities ready for their first campers later this summer, and we had the volunteer workability to get ‘er done.

What an amazing facility staffed by truly inspirational people, tucked into a postcard-perfect setting in the Colorado Rockies. We were glad to move awesomely heavy tables, carry cubbies, build a couple boating docks, and tackle furniture assembly… armed with little more than flathead screwdrivers. A few of us wielded power tools. But don’t worry, none of the creative types were harmed (although there was some gratuitous whining about the nausea-inspiring cruise ship conditions on the bus – and spotty cell phone coverage at the camp).

At the end of the day, the dining hall and cabins at Roundup River Ranch moved ever closer to reaching camper-ready status. We’re happy to report that when the first campers arrive in early July, there will be tables to sit at and beds to sleep in. Because many a camp memory is made over good eats in the cafeteria – and embellished from the bunks after lights out.

So what happens when you take a whole bunch of artsy types to the mountains to perform some manual labor?

We’re guessing lots and lots of whining.

But bless their souls, our Burns Marketing crew is sucking it up this week for a day of grueling volunteer work at Roundup River Ranch – a camp for children with life-threatening illnesses. With our help – or despite it – the camp will be ready for its first summer campers in no time.

And another cool thing? We’re working for you. Just follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or on our blog, and it’ll be like you’re helping in our work. Need to know more? Check out this video: