Columbus Ohio Website Design and Affordable Small Business Marketing

-by Tricia Williams (Inspired by Loni Pellow. Let’s all give her a round of applause)

Oh- the Superbowl! The SUPERBOWL! After the ratings from this past soiree of football elites, it’s safe to say that it is vastly more popular than even the Catalina Wine Mixer. I have a soft spot in my heart (Yes, I really do have one!) for the Superbowl for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because A: My Browns, the team I was born to have a masochistic relationship with, will never get there, but still I hope, and B: The Colts, with whom I have smartly developed a healthy relationship were just there, and won a few years ago and C: the commercials!  I mean really, is there nothing more funny than Betty White playing tackle football, or a kid slapping the heck out of some guy for touching his Doritos? Nope. Not in my book!

The Superbowl has traditionally been the Holy Grail of corporate advertisers, and for good reason. Seasonally the Superbowl pulls in a pretty decent amount of viewers (more than the World Series and The NBA Finals), and some might even be tuning in for just the commercials like the vast majority of women in my family. To get a Superbowl spot means you’ve really made it. You can afford the 5 million dollar bill for 30 seconds of notoriety! And traditionally advertisers have been glad to pay it because everyone knows the Superbowl is the top dog of advertising space. The Head Honcho. The El Capitan! The Maestro! The Jim Tressel (O-H!)! The Big Gun!     But……

There’s a new sheriff in town!

Some names are really synonymous with the Superbowl- perennial powerhouses of the advertisement biz. Budweiser, GoDaddy, Doritos- They were all there this year competing for the most lolz (as our intern Trelawny would say). But someone didn’t come to play this year. Who you may ask? Pepsi. Why? Because the smart people at Pepsi finally figured out that instead of blowing their $20 million on approximately 2 minutes of fame for Superbowl ads, they’d reinvest their money into something inevitably more productive- Social Media. Pepsi released a statement that instead of their usual barrage of Superbowl ads, they would invest in a full blown Social Media front. For $20 million they could create one heck of a web presence, really hear what their customers are saying and reach new audiences in a daily basis. With the record breaking viewership the Saints vs. Colts brought in, Pepsi might be kicking themselves a little for not having a greater presence, but their social media efforts will pay off more in the long run.

$20 million might seem like too steep of an amount for your budget, but luckily that’s why there are people like moi out there who offer a great service for the tiniest fraction of the cost- check out our website to learn more.  I’m not here to plug shamelessly, but seriously, if Pepsi is investing that much money into social media and relinquishing some of it’s Superbowl Ad gusto, shouldn’t that tell you something about what social media can do (if done right, I can’t stress that enough!) for your business?

It’s fourth and goal and a blitz is a’comin’. What are you going to do?

Happy Beer Friday!

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-by Tricia Williams

Jerry Maguire: Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. Show you the money.
Rod Tidwell: No! Not show you! Show me the money!
Jerry Maguire: Show me the money!
Rod Tidwell: Yeah! Louder!
Jerry Maguire: Show me the money!

Ah, Jerry Maguire. One of the most entertaining movies ever, and in my opinion, some very powerful words. I mean really, Tom Cruise had me at hello too.

Once upon a time, when we were a spry start up business with a full belly of dreams and lofty goals, ‘Show Me the Money!’ was our motto for every day living.  We wanted to see it in every corner and we wanted to know how everything we did was going to show us the money. Some things didn’t show the money quite like we wanted them to, like our genius 15 second advertising bit on AM Talk Radio but eh, you live and you learn. Andrew (the bossman) is a very ’show me the money’ kind of guy. He’s a numbers guy and wants to see an ROI on just about everything.  Imagine my dismay when I was hired here to do social media marketing and he kept saying ‘what’s my ROI?’. I thought I was two steps out the door before my chair with no arm rests got warm. He was reluctant to hire me from the beginning because he just didn’t think social media was worth it’s weight in salt. He wanted to see the results from social media RIGHT NOW. I had to explain to him that social media really doesn’t work that way all the time. It’s about brand awareness. It’s about relationships. It’s about having your clients at hello.

Being a business, I’m sure you have a constant eye on the money too. Most people who sit down at the table with me to discuss a social media marketing strategy say the same thing to me- ‘Show me the money!’. Just like I did with Andrew (who very quickly came around and trusted what I was doing because, well, it worked!) I explain that it’s not really about seeing an ROI immediately. Social media marketing is brand awareness in a whole new way. Social media is a great way to get your name, your brand, your service out there into the world for people to see and become familiar with. I know it’s hard to really get behind a form of advertising when it’s brand new and you’re not sure how it will work for you,  but look at traditional marketing methods- how do you really know a billboard is driving traffic to your business? Sure people see it, but that’s about all they do. The design may stick in their heads but rarely will someone pull a U-ey on the freeway to high-tail it to your business. Still, people will pay a boatload for a billboard, not really sure what they’re going to get out of it or if it’s doing anything for their business. Plus it’s outdated and B-O-R-I-N-G. Seriously, I think I just fell asleep writing that paragraph.

Social media offers you so much more than a one way picture on the side of the road- for a fraction of the price. A social media campaign is necessary for any business to build a solid brand in this day and age. Instead of thinking of social media part of your marketing budget, and a vital part at that. Going back to the billboard example, instead of reaching only drivers going west on Route 33, you can reach anyone in the world with a Facebook account (if you do it right, of course). You can interact with your clients- find out what they want, what they care about, how they feel about your brand, and really hone in on a better customer experience. You can create a strong and well recognized brand through social media by connecting to your market directly- let them get a feel for who you are and what you stand for. With the right social media campaign and the right tools, social media efforts will pay off. It takes time to build a solid campaign but when it’s developed you’ll be able to say to it “Show me the money!” and it will. I don’t think it’ll have any googly eyes though, but you never know.

Ps- Please join our LinkedIn group! There’s even more good Social Media stuff there: tips, talk of the trade, idea sharing and networking! http://ow.ly/163JE

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We are big fans of a lot of things here at mywebWOW!com. For example: days that contain no snow, Ohio State football, playing with the intercom on our phones and pretending like we’re pilots, watching ‘Ellen’, listening to Dave Matthews and making fun of each other. But two of the biggest things we really love (I mean really, REALLY love) are social media and beer. We’re such a fan of beer in fact, we’ve instituted what has affectionately become known as ‘Beer Friday’. It celebrates a week well done and gives us something extra to look forward to (besides just the end of the work week and two days of inevitable freedom). My boss Andrew is even so kind to get us the type of beer we like to keep us happy. I, being an Irish girl at heart, always choose a red or stout ale- I love me some Killians! The others who choose the watered down “lesser” beers get theirs too, and we all sit around the conference table for at least 30 minutes, talking about anything non-work related. Needless to say, I’ve gotten to know my co-workers pretty well, and we have a bunch of moments where there’s  TMI being flung around all over the place  but honestly, who cares?  We’re talking. We’re engaging. We’re connecting. We’re singing Irish drinking songs and designing sites with reckless abandon (not really…sigh).

Applying this “Beer Friday” notion to social media is just as important. When you run a good social media campaign you want to make sure you’re establishing meaningful relationships with your audience. Your fans should feel as if they know you, that you’re easily accessible, and that you’re not just a suit or a scam. Social media is a great way to get to know your clients on a more personal level, and the best part about getting to know your clients in this manner is getting to know their needs better. When you’re one on one with your clients and they’re free to comment and post about your product, you can get a better understanding of just how your product or service affects them. If they think your product, well, sucks, you can tweak a few things here and there to better meet demands. You can talk to your clients about why they think your product or service stinks and try to make it right (Think Domino’s recent campaign but a lot cooler. I had to take a jab at them- they’re located in Ann Arbor).

When you really know how your client base is reacting to your business or your product, you can tailor your advertising, marketing and duh! social media campaigns to fit their needs and give you more bang for your buck. And everyone knows that when the customers are happy, the company is happy. Having a good customer satisfaction reputation is imperative to staying in business and social media allows you to take it one step further and hear from your customers directly.

A great way to create such a connection is by hiring a social media guru, and creating a simple survey or survey question and distributing it throughout your network. Ask your customers their feelings on things and really listen to what they have to say. A simple three question poll can really open a lot of doors and let you see inside the windows of your customers souls. Peter Gabriel’s song from a few years back describes the kind of power real insight can have. 

So I say institute your own virtual round table discussions. It’s like doing focus groups, but way cooler. Time to get hip with the kiddo’s and the way to do it is social media. Of course.

Please drink responsibly

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Hey there y’all! Happy rootin’ tootin’ Wednesday afternoon to ya!

We’re going to be participating in Columbus Hope for Haiti, a fundraiser here in Columbus uniting Columbus leaders, media and the Red Cross. The event is happening tomorrow, Thursday January 21st from 7am to 7pm at the Ohio Historical Society.

According the the offical website for Columbus Hope for Haiti “The events are free and open to the public. Residents are encouraged to stop by any
time on January 21 to meet personalities from these TV, radio and print companies:
 WBNS 10TV, NBC 4 WCMH, ABC 6 WSYX, FOX 28 WTTE, WOSU, Clear Channel
 Columbus, Columbus Radio Group, Radio One, Wilks Broadcasting, 97.1 The Fan, The 
Columbus Dispatch, Alive!, ThisWeek Newspapers and Fronteras.”

We’re urging everyone in the Columbus area to stop by, retweet, repost blog, and donate to the Red Cross to benefit the people of Haiti. If you didn’t know, a strong aftershock rocked Haiti again this morning, furthering the desperate need for essentials.

We hope to see you there.

For more information please visit:

http://bit.ly/4tWikI

There is also a Facebook fanpage established and you can visit their page here:

http://bit.ly/4UUZgU

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by Tricia M. Williams

By now (especially if you are a Social Media enthusiast), you know about the earthquake that rocked the nation of Haiti to it’s very core. The pictures that swept Twitter alone were enough to make you want to get on a plane and fly down there to help. Unfortunately most of us don’t have the opportunity to do so, so we’ve forced to just sit back and watch the aftermath of the destruction feeling helpless. Until now.

In the past, the only thing that you could do in a reasonable amount of time was gather around the T.V. with your family and watch stars like Dean Martin and Johnny Carson host telethons where people pledged donations to help whatever cause was being addressed. While telethons were great and helped a vast number of people, they are becoming a thing of the past. Social Media has once again proven triumphant in the ongoing battle for digital world domination.

The Red Cross got proactive and began to launch a national campaign urging people to pick up what was probably already in their hands- a cell phone. By texting “Haiti” to 90999, participants were able to donate $10 to the Red Cross campaign. By creating a portal that was not only convenient but affordable, the Red Cross was able to raise $20 million by last night (Sunday), according to an article on mashable.com, found here. Also, by creating a campaign that was around the clock, the Red Cross was able to continually raise money for Haiti. Suddenly it wasn’t necessary to wait until the news gave relief effort information or for some gorgeous actor to do a song and dance across your T.V. screen (bummer).

While the idea of texting for donations was incredibly fresh and progressive, the campaign was spread around the world thanks to Social Media campaigns. As soon as the announcement for the $10 donations was made, Social Media networks were flooded with retweets and reposts of the effort, and awareness was raised quickly. We’re talking $20 million dollars in a matter of 6 days….in $10 increments. Really, it’s just astounding.

If this recent campaign isn’t proof of the power of Social Media, then I just don’t know what is. I do though have to thank everyone who has taken the time to donate to the Red Cross and in other forms around the country. It’s important to take the time to help those in need, and strength really does come in numbers.

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