Here is a really interesting video with some statistics about the current state of the internet and how it has evolved. Videos like this help us step back from the minutiae and realize how fast we are moving.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

…wow. That was cool.

While we’re at it, here is another video with cool statistics. It’s a little preachy at the end, but we like the overall idea:

At any advertising agency, there are many parts. There is usually some mix of creatives, account service, word of mouth/social media, traffic, and PR professionals. (Hint – if you want to see the people behind The Cyphers Agency, click on some of the links in this blog post)

We thought it would be a good idea to let you know what all of these people do, and why, when you put us all together, we come up with such great ideas.

Account Service – The people in account service at The Cyphers Agency are constantly making sure that our clients objectives are being accomplished. They oversee all projects and campaigns, and provide strategic and planning insight throughout the process. Communication (to keep clients happy, and keep the agency “account”-able) is essential with account service personnel.

Creative Department – These groovy folks aren’t just the ones creating ideas, websites, building facebook and iPhone apps, designing print ads, and filming television ads. Yeah, they do all that, but their most important job is conveying ad messages and accomplishing strategic objectives in unique and memorable ways. If you can see it, these people did it. And they put a lot of thought behind the idea.

Word of Mouth / Social Media (we call it “Push-N-Pull” here at Cyphers) – This department spreads the word for our clients. Whether our clients want to increase awareness, increase web traffic, improve customer service, search engine optimization, increase customer reviews, (BREATH….) perform market research, distribute promotions, handle a crisis, or just start “Facebook-ing” and “Twittering”, this is the department that will be getting your message to the people that want to hear it.

Traffic – This department handles the behind-the-scenes management of all the jobs. Who needs what? Where does that job need to go next? Traffic handles the who, what, when, where, and why for all of our clients. Most importantly, our traffic department ensures that all of our jobs are out the door to clients on time.

So hopefully you now have a greater understanding of how advertising agencies work. Why does ours work so well? Because we don’t just do our jobs separately. From brainstorms to our open office to staff meetings to following each other on social networks, there is a lot of communication here at The Cyphers Agency. That way, when something important happens, we all know about it quickly. Or when someone has an idea, we can all build on it quickly. This is just one of the reasons that The Cyphers Agency is greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Yesterday, as I walked into work with our creative director, my attention was brought to a pile of phone books lying on the ground beneath our mailbox. Darren, our CD, noted that they were for our office complex to use, but that they had been sitting there for about a year. A YEAR!

The nearly untouched pile of phone books got our minds turning. How long ago was it that EVERYONE wanted a spot in the Yellow Pages? It was one of the best tools to use in any print campaign.

We don’t mean to continually beat it into the ground, but times are changing. Web 2.0 is happening. It’s no longer the way of the future. Need a number? Google it. Need to find a company? Google it. Advertisers need to step up and embrace new mediums to really meet their customers.

We also don’t mean for you or your company to jump the metaphorical traditional advertising ship. Not at all. Print media is still relevant and can have a place in an advertising campaign. We’re just saying that it can’t be the only weapon in your arsenal. And more than anything, we believe in integration: using the right tools for the right audience, mixing necessary mediums.

So if you are one of those people or companies that is stuck in that traditional mindset of only using print advertising, you better step up your game and embrace new ways of communication. Because if you don’t, you’ll get left behind, just like the pile of untouched phone books sitting on the cold, hard ground outside of our office.

Our Director of WOM, Andrew Krebs-Smith, recently went to the Blog World Expo in Las Vegas. Below are notes from a session on Social Media for Business to Business (B2B) clients.

Often B2B companies find it hard to enter the social media space, because they see it as a direct-to-consumer method of communication, which doesn’t help their corporate client audience. But social media has something for everyone, and this panel underlined the value of social media for B2B companies.

Most of all, social media is valuable for B2B companies because it is all about creating and strengthening relationships. As most salespeople in the B2B world will attest to, making a sale involves much more than just having a product that people want to buy. When B2B client relationships can involve multi-million dollar deals, and long-term relationships, the purchases/agreements are not made on a whim. Rather, they inv0lve creating a relationship, not just between companies, but between people.

So how can social media help? Teach your salesforce to leverage social networking tools (LinkedIn, Twitter to name a few) to create and maintain relationships with clients, prospects, and anyone in-between. This also lets all the salespeople within a company know what each person is up to, so efforts aren’t duplicated and networks are maximized. Make sure to track these efforts through your CRM tool so that you can assess return on invesment (ROI), cost-per-lead (CPL), and other key metrics.

So how do you get the ball rolling? Bring together interdepartmental team to hash out differences, get everyone on the same level, talk about situation, etc. Talk about best policies, talk about what is recommended, allowed, and how social media can help achieve your business objectives. You don’t want employees neglecting these powerful tools, but they need to have specific goals and training on how to use them so they aren’t spinning their wheels trying to figure everything out.

And please, PLEASE don’t just use these tools for blatant promotion. These tools can be harmful if you abuse them and see them as just another place for your corporate message. Someone on the panel had a great analogy: “[you] don’t walk into a cocktail party and say ‘hey! buy my book!” Instead, give your prospects value. Share your resources with customers. Use these tools to keep in touch with customers and give them support.

The question is no longer IF B2B companies should be using social media, but rather HOW, WHEN, and WHERE. Any questions? You know where to find us.

Speakers on this panel: Kipp Bodnar, David B. Thomas, Kyle Flaherty, Mica Viehamn

A few days ago, Julie (our Word of Mouth Manager) came into work eager to share a story and a picture she had taken over the weekend. Not surprisingly, it was about advertising (because we really do live and breathe it here). She was out in Annapolis over the weekend and saw an ad for a pre-natal massage… in a BAR bathroom. Its placement was so compelling that she just had to take a picture.

Talk about horrible ad placement! This could be advertising the best pre-natal massage in the entire world, but its placement is a total non-sequitur. Its impact was enough to make Julie come in and tell us all about it, even sharing the picture. And here we are, writing about it on our blog. Now that is word of mouth (and not the good kind)! Because most people have camera phones, this sort of negative word of mouth can spread quickly, and can harm a brand that much faster.

Advertising goes above and beyond the message and the creative. Placement is key, too. If not in the right place at the right time, your audience can simply bypass the intended message and walk away with something else entirely: a negative image of your product or service.