Virtue, » social media

Social Media Sites and Their Marketing Values

Tela Kayne — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 14:44:47 +0000

Below is a link to a great infographic depicting what each social media site is good for in terms of marketing value. Whether you’re trying to increase brand exposure, improve customer communication or increase site traffic and SEO, there is a social media outlet best suited for your strategy. Many companies feel that Facebook is the be all, end all when it comes to social media. While Facebook is a valuable marketing tool, at Virtue, we recognize that Facebook can actually detract from site traffic. As you’ll see in the infographic referenced below, there are other viable and valuable social media options that can drive traffic to your site and can be used in conjunction with Facebook. Once users are on your website, you can actually achieve all four measures (customer communication, brand recognition, site traffic & SEO) if your site is designed and optimized appropriately.

Check it out! Social Media Landscape | CMO.com

Mashable Comic – Social Media Parenting

Tela Kayne — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:39:18 +0000

I know it’s been a while, but I couldn’t resist posting this comic that appeared on Mashable regarding parenting and social media. Funny stuff!

Virtue Launches BrainBalanceCenters.com

Tela Kayne — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:14:44 +0000

Announcing the launch of the new BrainBalanceCenters.com website today! We’re proud to call Brain Balance Achievement Centers a client. They are an incredible company that specializes in working with kids who suffer from neuro-behavioral and developmental disorders such as Autism, Asperger’s, ADHD and Learning Disorders. This site is a great resource for parents and educators alike! Please check it out and tell your friends or even better follow Brain Balance on Twitter or “like” them on Facebook . We’re particularly proud of “The Results” section. Not only are the case studies a great testimonial to the success of the Brain Balance Program®, but the programming and functionality of that piece of the website took the collaboration of a very talented team of individuals who are the core of Virtue!

April is Launch Month at Virtue!

Tela Kayne — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:31:09 +0000

I guess it’s a good sign when client work is keeping us so busy that we’ve neglected our own updates! Lots of news and April is an especially active month. This month we officially announce the launch of The Virtue Agency website. The Virtue Agency is the next evolution of Kayne Interactive. We work with some incredible talent (the best of the best in the industry), in a virtual environment and so, Virtue is born. Our new website is up and running with some minor revisions coming soon (once we have time to refocus on our own brand, but we’re not complaining…we love client work!) In fact, this month we are launching several client websites and social media campaigns, including:

BioVedaTechnologies.com (launched!) – We built this corporate website to accompany the already existing, consumer facing BioVedaWellness.com website that we developed for them last year. BioVeda Technologies is a cutting edge, medical device company and their new website was built using cutting edge interactive design and technology!
BrainBalanceCenters.com (coming soon!) – April is autism awareness month and what better time to launch the website for Brain Balance Achievement Centers, an incredible company that specializes in working with kids who suffer from neuro-behavioral and developmental disorders such as Autism, Asperger’s, ADHD and Learning Disorders. This site will be an incredible resource for parents and educators alike!
HeyYouNeverKnowtheBook.com – A Jewish Novel by Robert Newman, this website represents what we hope to be the first of many author and small publishing house websites. Contact us if you need help marketing your novel!
SpecEye.com (coming soon!)- Spectrum Eyecare is an optometry practice committed to patient care and Dr. John Henahan recognizes the importance of an interactive website coupled with a social media presence. If you are a small business owner and have a consumer service, we want to help you establish your web presence and gain more customers! Contact us today.
And, more to come…

Ikea Uses Facebook to Promote New Store on a Budget

Tela Kayne — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:27:50 +0000

Forsman & Bodenfors came up with another innovative digital campaign for Ikea by turning one of Facebook’s basic functions into a promotional tool, to promote the opening of the brand’s Malmo outpost, its most modern store to date. Armed with little media budget, the agency came up with an unconventional Facebook campaign that started with a profile of the store’s manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Gustavsson uploaded pictures of the store’s showrooms to his photo album and any “friends” who tagged the products with their names then won those items.

From Creativity Online

A Mad Approach to Advertising

Tela Kayne — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:43:48 +0000

I just started watching Season 3 of the show Mad Men, which offers a glimpse into the life of an ad agency on Madison Avenue during the 1960′s. While the “Mad Men” of the show are quite interesting to watch as they smoke heavily, cheat on their wives, and drink throughout the day, I find the most compelling character to be the lead woman of the show. She’s Peggy Olson, the Secretary turned Copywriter at the Agency, and she has a knack for understanding what it means to know your audience. The agency is pitching a new product for Pepsi called Patio, a diet drink for women. Their campaign involves casting a sweet and sultry woman to sing Bye Bye Birdie while sexily sipping her diet drink…appealing to a man but that’s not their target audience. Peggy Olson questions this approach in favor of something more relatable. The “Mad Men” of the show insist that it’s the right way to go…women will buy the soda because they want to be just like the sexy woman in the commercial.

Celebrity endorsements and the idol approach are effective for large companies with big marketing budgets. However small or medium sized businesses need a more cost effective approach which leads us to the grass roots movement that social media propels. When we examine social networking, you are achieving something much more valuable than advertising. You are creating referrals, testimonials and endorsements, which gives you instant credibility and a level of trust that traditional advertising simply cannot achieve. Social Media allows you to leverage your existing customer base and create real world champions of your brand. While we may be entertained by a pretty woman singing Bye Bye Birdie while sipping her diet drink, we are more likely to purchase something based upon the positive experiences of our like-minded family and friends.

Advertising Times They are A-Changin

Tela Kayne — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:35:54 +0000

A recent article in Advertising Age, “Advertising Will Change Forever” suggests that companies will double their digital spending over the next 5 years, leaving ad budgets to at best remain the same and at worst disappear entirely.

In this recession, marketers have learned that interactive marketing is more effective, and advertising less effective, per dollar spent. While budgets for online have decreased, they decreased less than other budgets. Six out of ten marketers we surveyed agreed with the statement “we will increase budget for interactive by shifting money away from traditional marketing.” Only 7% said “we have no plans to increase our marketing budget.”

And it means that social “media,” which will account for $716 million this year between social network campaigns and agency fees, will generate $3 billion in five years. And this doesn’t even count displays ads on social networks (which are in the display ads category.) Of all the parts of digital marketing, social network marketing one is poised for the most explosive growth.

How are you marketing your business? Are your marketing dollars being used most effectively? Is it time to change with the advertising times? Get Started with your new interactive marketing and social media plan today!

Freedom of Social Speech

Tela Kayne — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:57:58 +0000

Social Media is a wonderful tool for old friends to reconnect, colleagues and associates to network, and businesses to promote their services and products. However with the recent Facebook controversy related to the Holocaust denial group being allowed to remain on Facebook, inevitable questions are raised as to where the line should be drawn when it comes to freedom of speech versus terms of use violations.

Due to the power of social media, messages are broadcast to the world quickly and easily. Personal opinion can be positioned as truth, propaganda can turn into news, and freedom of speech is sometimes used as an excuse for tolerating hateful agendas. Due to the nature of social networking, the wrong “speech” could turn into broad scale hate-mongering.

We live in a country that provides us with great freedoms and people should be able to say whatever they choose even if it’s hurtful to others. However, it’s unfortunate that technology provides those with a hurtful intent a forum on which to spread offensive messages. Which raises the question…are social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook responsible for keeping offensive content at bay? To what extent do you feel they are responsible? Facebook bans pornography…by allowing the Holocaust denial group to remain on their site, is Facebook sending the message that pornography is worse than hate speech?

Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Technology Thrives Despite Economic Slowdown

Joshua Kayne — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:47:24 +0000

Two years ago when the building industry began its economic downturn, even the companies most hard hit looked at how they could cut costs and increase productivity through an investment in technology. A recent study by The World Economic Form reports that the countries most likely to thrive following the world wide economic slowdown are those countries that have made the biggest investments in technology. These countries, simply put, have created a competitive advantage by lowering overhead and thus improving efficiency and productivity.

One area in which we have already seen exponential growth is social media and blogging. As unemployment rises, the number of subscriber sign ups on business networking sites such as LinkedIn has grown by as much as 25% in a single month, reflecting nearly 28 Million users (September 2008). Businesses and organizations are running to join the social media movement, allowing them to reach broad audiences of like-minded people at virtually no cost. Frequently this is in lieu of using traditional media or even formerly inexpensive online tactics such as SEM. While Google is cutting anywhere from 200 employees to 1% of their workforce, depending on what you believe in the media, it’s reflective of a movement away from SEM toward the strategic use of social media and tactical blogging. This strategy may prove to be equally or perhaps even more effective for substantially less cost.

It’s time to overcome the misconception that businesses don’t spend money during an economic downturn and embrace the fact that the American entreprenurial spirit fights for survival by spending money prudently. Every organization and company must improve their ability to communicate with more relevance and frequency to their defined target.

Social media provides the opportunity to leverage brand, build loyalty, maintain relevance, and reach new customers by leveraging relationships with existing customers.

While it’s a microcosm of the movement to create efficiency through the use of technology, social media has seen more growth during this economic challenge than any other business sector. There is substance behind it. If your organization has not investigated how to more efficiently communicate with new and existing customers, I strongly suggest you do your due diligence.

Read the Report: Global Information Technology Report: 2009