There is a great piece on hubspot.com entitled 4 Ways To Make Your Corporate Website More Social. This is a recurring topic here on the AHA blog and with our clients. An organization has a real opportunity to use their website to provide relevant information and to connect with stakeholders. Unfortunately, more often than not, websites don’t receive the attention they should because the focus is on some other online tools or technology that have more buzz, hype or profile at the moment.
Take a good look at your website or have a professional provide an audit on your site. There may be opportunities that you are missing because your site is stagnant, stale or just plain outdated.
Vancouver, B.C. – Rhino Marketing Inc., one of North America’s leading online marketing agencies, has entered into a sponsorship partnership with Canucks Sports & Entertainment, Chief Rhino Doug Morneau announced today. The partnership began in April and will run alongside the Canucks throughout the 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
As a partner of the Vancouver Canucks, Rhino is the presenting sponsor of The Playoff Show on Canucks.com and will have a strong rink and video board presence within General Motors Place during the 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Playoff Show, which airs live at 2 p.m. each day following a Canucks playoff game, will highlight leadership throughout the Canucks organization and analysis of the postseason. As a leader in online and Internet marketing, this theme creates a strong connection for Rhino Marketing. In support of this sponsorship, Rhino Marketing has launched a special playoff webpage that showcases a new blog, written by Morneau. Here, he focuses on the topic of leadership as it relates both to business and hockey.
“We are excited about partnering with the Vancouver Canucks,” said Morneau. “We are big fans of the Canucks and will be cheering them on throughout the playoffs. As an organization, they continually show leadership both on and off the ice. We are also strong supporters of their charitable and philanthropic efforts in the local community. At Rhino, we are also actively involved in contributing to our local community, and as our company grows and prospers, we are committed to further increasing our support.”
Rhino Marketing has offices in Port Coquitlam and Vancouver, and recently opened a new office in Los Angeles, California. The L.A. office allows Rhino to further facilitate business development in the United States with a focus on the banking industry, as well as improve service to existing U.S. clients.
Founded in 1997, Rhino Marketing Inc. is a leading Internet marketing services agency. With offices in Canada and the United States, Rhino Marketing Inc. offers clients a single source for the design, execution and ongoing advancement of Internet marketing initiatives. The Rhino Marketing team operates at the intersection of traditional strategy-based marketing and the rapidly evolving digital world of e-marketing, providing clients with a strategic, integrated approach that creates strong results. An active member of its community, Rhino Marketing is involved in a range of charitable and philanthropic organizations, events and initiatives. As Rhino grows and expands as a company, so does their commitment to making the world a better place, locally and globally. For more information, please visit www.rhino.ca.
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For more information or an interview with Doug Morneau, please contact Paul Holman at paul@ahacreative.com or at 604.303.1052.
I have had several conversations recently that made me stop at think. Actually, they also made me go back to the AHA PR office and ask what the crew thinks too.
One conversation I had was about the “depth” of commitment of social media followers. My colleague told me about a recent conference in Vancouver where Malcolm Gladwell spoke about President Obama and how he pulled strong support from social media during his election, but is currently facing challenges. (I wasn’t at this conference, so I am repeating what she explained to me.) Apparently, Gladwell was highlighting the difference in supporters. Social media easily allows people to connect with you or your brand and while that’s a good thing, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be moved to action when the going gets tough. It’s something to think about.
When someone becomes a part of your social media network, how do you move that forward into an authentic relationship? Of course, it’s relevant to the specific brand and the campaign or initiative, but it’s a good question and one that might not get enough focus in planning. Social media provides a communicator with an opportunity to connect. Taking that connection and turning it into something deeper takes energy and effort.
Kevin Barenblat has a great blog post on iMediaconnection.com that focuses on the eight brand personalities that Facebook and Twitter users hate. It is worth a read.
One of the hated personalities, he says, is the non-responder. There are some great Facebook pages out there that have taken energy and effort to build and then, just when an organization seems to be on the verge of really engaging their community—nothing. People are talking, asking questions, chatting and there is no response or connection from the organization. When people are left hanging, the organization loses credibility.
There are several opportunities to respond that weren’t available a few years ago. One that it often overlooked is the daily news – whether print or broadcast – for the most part, it’s online and readers can comment. I can’t tell you how many communicators smack themselves on the forehead and say, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” when I ask them if they monitor the daily news and if they respond, when appropriate.
Facebook is another area. It surprises me when an organization has gone to the effort to create a Facebook page and build a community there and then they just update but don’t engage with the people. One of the challenges here is that many business professionals have not yet embraced the two-way street of communication that social media offers. They think of Facebook and other tools as a way to broadcast their information, not to have a conversation. While there are opportunities to send out information, it is crucial that before any organization makes the decision to participate in social media that they have, indeed, made the decision to participate.
I know it can seem overwhelming. Keeping up-to-date on what is being discussed, commenting and responding can appear to be a real challenge for the over-worked communicator. One of the things we do with clients when looking at how to approach the added work necessary to keep your social media outreach interactive, engaging and authentic is to review what communications tools are currently being used. Times have changed and not all of the tools that provided results in the past work today. Take a solid look at what you are currently doing and what is working. In that mix, there is probably something that can be retired, allowing you to replace it with Facebook, Twitter or another social media tool or network. You only have so much time in a day, a limited budget and limited resources. How are you going to best spend them in today’s online-connected world?
Tamar Weinberg has a great blog post on the seven truths about social media marketing. It’s worth a read.
One of the key points that we focus on, here at AHA, is that social media doesn’t live in a silo. It needs to be integrated throughout your marketing and communications efforts. More often than we should, we hear about organizations that have something happening on a social networking site that their communications team knows nothing about.
