While memes have migrated from the internet into mainstream media through advertising, there are certain risks and rewards with incorporating memes into advertising. Memes often stem from tongue-in-cheek humor, their viral nature providing a huge audience, while the memorable humor can create a sense of familiarity.
The Old Spice Guy Plays Vuvuzela
By Joseph Stucker | Published August 10th, 2010Twitter Lessons from Hip-Hop
By Tyler Magnin | Published August 4th, 2010Any marketing professional knows the importance of promotion. But in addition to traditional companies, artists and entertainers use cost-free venues such as Facebook and Twitter to relentlessly promote themselves as a brand and their products. These social media tools serve as outreach to an artist’s fan base who are hungry to hear from their hero….
Social Media’s Impact on Journalism
By Tyler Magnin | Published June 7th, 2010Social Media has changed the game of Journalism for good. The impact of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have allowed several important changes to the way articles are written, displayed, and shared today. Tippingpoint Labs sat down with social media journalist and trainer Jeff Cutler to elaborate on these adaptions.
Transferring Offline Action back Online
By Tyler Magnin | Published May 24th, 2010If you read my post last week on how the Social Media Breakfast morphed from an online interaction between marketing gurus to an actual offline meet-up, you might be wondering how the relationship might change when it returns online.
More likely than not, the participants will have deepened relations after any offline interaction. These deepened online relationships could open the doors for more business, since a trust has been built from breaking “the stranger” threshold.
Here is how three pundits weigh in:
Social Media Breakfast Proves that Online is a Great Place to Spark Offline Action
By Tyler Magnin | Published May 19th, 2010Communication online can lead to events offline once interest for a certain topic reaches a critical mass (or a tipping point). The offline event is then followed by post-event online communication, which may serve to break down individual topics discussed in person even further. Each new topic leads to fractals of communication that may serve as new platforms that bear new events.
Here are what four social media experts had to say about this cycle:
Finally a Brand Harnessing the Power of Location-Based Media
By Andrew Davis | Published May 18th, 2010As most of you know, Starbucks just launched a campaign that rewards their most loyal, local customers:
Starting today, mayors of individual Starbucks stores can unlock the Mayor Offer and enjoy a money-saving perk for their frequent store checkins. One of the major opportunities in any new media channel lies in the chance to be the ‘celebrity hit’ that actually demonstrates the power of the platform to actually impact revenue or reduce costs. This moment marks the ‘Celebrity hit’ for FourSquare.
Our Content Methodology
By Jim Cosco | Published May 7th, 2010Here at Tippingpoint Labs, we recently documented the way we think about our three major disciplines: content, strategy, and experience. Although we went through this exercise to share with our clients and our internal team, we decided to expand on it and share it with everyone. Today, we look at our Content Methodology.
In order to create meaningful content in an ongoing fashion, Tippingpoint Labs bases its model on the newspaper publishing industry. Because newspapers are designed to pump out massive amounts of great content every day, we’ve examined how they do it and encourage clients to replicate the process.
The resulting methodology includes building an Internal Newsroom of staff who produce content and curate external contributors, and to creating an Editorial Calendar every month.
Our Content Approach
By Jim Cosco | Published May 5th, 2010Here at Tippingpoint Labs, we recently documented the way we think about our three major disciplines: content, strategy, and experience. Although we went through this exercise to share with our clients and our internal team, we decided to expand it and share it with everyone. Today, we look at our Content Approach.
Build Relationships with Content
It is our belief that quality content builds relationships, thereby increasing revenue or saving money. In order to do this, your content needs to reach influencers in your market, and it needs to be geared toward very specific audiences. The key to creating content that works is to segment your audience down to very specific niches. A typical marketing plan might identify the target audience as men ages 18 to 45; but that demographic is far too wide to create content that resonates.
Our Content Philosophy
By Jim Cosco | Published May 3rd, 2010Here at Tippingpoint Labs, we recently documented the way we think about our three major disciplines: content, strategy, and experience. Although we went through this exercise to share with our clients and our internal team, we decided to expand on it and share it with everyone. This week, we look at our Content Philosophy.
Creating Content That Works
Good content is paramount in any successful online platform, whether it is a corporate website or a blog. Quality traffic and lead generation is dependent on great content that is relevant and laser focused to the audience you want to attract. The right content can increase market awareness, increase customer retention, and drive more revenue.
New Studios Answer Brands’ Need for a New Kind of Agency
By Josh Cole | Published April 12th, 2010Ad agencies, PR firms and interactive shops are all scrambling to extend their offerings to include more social media services. They’re hiring social media experts and community managers while they try to create compelling content to broaden their traditional campaigns.
Meanwhile, some unlikely players in the digital cinema space are quietly encroaching on the services traditionally reserved for some of the biggest players in the game. Custom publisher, McMurry, based in Phoenix, recently announced the acquisition of Spark Productions and, in a similar brand extension, Tippingpoint Labs today
Why Panel Discussions Suck…
By Andrew Davis | Published March 29th, 2010I went to SxSW this year and attended half a dozen panel discussions. I also just returned from the Custom Content Conference in Nashville, where I attended one panel. Quite frankly they all sucked. Don’t get me wrong, they all had extremely high caliber talent sitting on the stage. Every panel had huge potential for real discussion with powerful market leaders. And every panel fell short! Way short.
Apples to Oranges: The Food Thinkers Platform
By Eric Sagalyn | Published February 11th, 2010The best way to start any platform discussion is with the baseline features. What does this platform need to accomplish? At its core, Food Thinkers had to have the ability to create stories that were categorized by the features that our content calendar laid out and it had to engage the reader by allowing them to comment on the stories.
How the Food Thinkers Content Calendar Works
By Jim Cosco | Published January 25th, 2010
Rule #1 for a successful content strategy — you have to update your content on a regular basis, preferably every day. Most organizations think that adding frequently updated content to their website is next to impossible with their existing staff. It might be hard, but it’s not impossible. The keys to success are creating a…
There will be blood. Digital blood. Or how we chose our audience.
By Eric Sagalyn | Published January 19th, 2010
There comes a time in any man’s life when a little blood must spill. Sure, it’s not as morally or physically messy when it’s digital blood, but at the end of the day it’s still blood and there will be a lot of it. (I know it’s not real blood, I’ve established that. Please just…
Finding Our Audience
By Jim Cosco | Published January 14th, 2010
One of the first steps in creating good content is to figure out who your audience is. At Tippingpoint Labs we do that by creating digital profiles that are very specific.
Content Strategy Constantly Adapts
By Josh Cole | Published January 4th, 2010In the spirit of consuming our own canine victuals, we are reassessing our content calendar — as we do every six months or so. By sharing knowledge internally, we are able to generate a ton of new ideas for content very quickly. It is remarkably easy to get the ball rolling.
Oprah Helps Skype Discover Itself and the Right Audience
By Andrew Davis | Published May 20th, 2009Oprah Winfrey has teamed up with Skype for one of the best product placement pushes I’ve seen on television.
Promoted as “Where the Skype Are You?”, Oprah’s audience will see icebergs in Antarctica and the depths of the ocean in a submarine – all broadcast live using Skype’s teleconferencing technology.
How Geico Wastes $90MM a Year on Search Engine Marketing
By Andrew Davis | Published April 3rd, 2009Stop Wasting Your Money on Google AdWords: Invest in Some Good Content Lately, I’ve engaged in the exact same conversation about buying search terms. The conversation goes something like this: Them: “We spent $1MM buying keywords last year and Google’s our top referrer. We’re planning on spending the same amount of money this year buying…
Search Engine Optimization Is a Waste of Money
By Andrew Davis | Published March 23rd, 2009I’m well aware that this is a controversial topic. I have friends who make millions of dollars (literally) running businesses that seed their clients’ content with just the right keywords to help improve their search rankings. I’ve always thought this to be an odd business. If your content isn’t relevant to the audience you’re hoping…