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.

In our last post, we highlighted the art of driving traffic to a website. Contests and micro sites are both effective ways to do this, but here are three easy steps to simple search engine optimization.

1. Find

Locate useful keywords using the Google Keyword Tool. You can find keywords based on a number of criteria, such as related site content or geographic location. Once you enter the words or phrases you think your audience is searching for, check out the results. Similar keywords show up, noting popularity, competition, volume of traffic, etc. Choose which keywords you think will work best for you. Avoid ones that might have a negative impact. 

2. Tag

Take those keywords found using the Google Keyword Tool and put them to use. These can be distributed among blogs, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, and more. This way, your online presence will be easier to find when people search for any of the keywords you use. For example, The Cyphers Agency Flickr photo stream is tagged with keywords like “Maryland advertising” or “Annapolis ad agency”. If someone searches these terms in Flickr, our photo streams appear.

3. Track

After putting your keywords to use, keep an eye on their impact. A tool like Google Analytics can keep this kind of detailed information. It helps keep track of where the visitors are coming from, how they reached your website, etc. Overall, this tool makes it easy to keep updated and informed on online activities you wish to track.

Driving web site traffic is an art. An art that we at The Cyphers Agency have worked hard to perfect. Sometimes driving traffic involves more than using social media and search engine optimization. In addition to those tools, building micro sites is a great tool to use to increase web traffic. Those micro sites often become host sites for contests, which we have recently done for two clients. Contests are another win-win. Participants get entertainment and the opportunity to win a prize, and clients get traffic to their web sites and increase their potential clientele.

We created the “Warman Fuzzy” Photo/Video Contest this spring for Warman Home Care, a home care service provider. We asked participants to submit a photo or video showing what warm and fuzzy meant to them. Once we received all the submissions, we uploaded the photos to flickr and the videos to YouTube, and turned the voting over to the participants.

More than 100 contest participants were trying to win an iPod Touch and iPod Nano, and were spreading the links to friends and family trying to get them to vote for their photo or video on these sites. The result was thousands of photo/video views, hundreds of comments and increased traffic the Warman Home Care web site. And if those contest participants (or their acquaintances) are ever in a position to find a home care provider, who will pop in their head first? Probably Warman Home Care.

With the first contest deemed a success, the second round of the Warman Fuzzy  contest has started, this time in honor of Grandparents Day. With a quick upload and description of a favorite memory with a grandparent or senior, participants can be one step closer to winning an iPod.

Another contest we created for our client, Patrice & Associates, is the “My Job Sucks Contest,” which is hosted on the micro site “Did You Get That Memo.” For this contest, all that participants have to do is submit a story about why their job sucks, and they will be entered to win a cruise!  Entering the contest is just one of the many things that site visitors can do on the site. They can complain about their current job on the “venting wall,”  kill time watching funny office videos, or even get in touch with a Patrice & Associates recruiter, who can help them find a better job.

We don’t suggest contests to clients simply because it would be fun to look at Warm and Fuzzy pictures or because reading the venting wall on didyougetthatmemo.com is simply hysterical. Although we enjoy looking at Warm and Fuzzy photos and laughing at the funny stories on the venting wall, the bottom line is that contests are effective.

Not only do contests help drive traffic to web sites, they are also a way to reach out to new potential clients or customers. Even if the participants don’t need your product or service, when they do, they’ll be likely to remember your name. Contests are also another way for a business to show some personality on the web outside of it’s corporate site.

In a year of joblessness and disheartening economic conditions, Julianna Wittig was among many individuals who were laid-off and forced to begin the job search.

In her search for a new job, Julianna, who is now The Cyphers Agency’s newest Account Executive,  headed straight to her computer. In her online search, however, Julianna didn’t rely on typical job search sites such as Monster and Indeed.  Using social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, Julianna took a proactive approach to finding a job. She kept her profile updated and her eyes open for any opportunities she found on those sites.

While Julianna was searching, Darren Easton, Vice President and Creative Director for The Cyphers Agency  was using social networks to find a candidate to fill an Account Executive position. For the position, Darren wanted to find a social-media-savvy individual, who could handle several accounts in the agency’s Push-n-Pull division.

Julianna saw the posting on LinkedIn and began researching The Cyphers Agency–checking into the culture, environment, clients and other employees. Darren was researching too. He asked others online if they knew of Julianna and if they thought she would be a good fit for the Account Executive position.

Thanks to word of mouth and social networks, Darren told Julianna in the interview that he “already knew everything he needed to know about her.” It was clear that Julianna knew how to effectively market herself online, therefore, Darren knew she would certainly be capable of marketing clients online.

Social media has impacted so much of our daily lives. It changes the way we do businesses, network, communicate and even find jobs. The days of faxing resumes and mailing resumes on crisp resume paper are done.

Job seekers can use social networks to search for jobs, interact with potential employers and create online profiles that display their skills. Employers can social media to post jobs, find qualified candidates and ask others about these candidates.

We’re glad social media enabled us to connect to Julianna. Welcome, Julianna, we’re happy to have you here at The Cyphers Agency!

In our last post, we highlighted a study that revealed a correlation between social media and financial success. Some of these companies deemed as social media “mavens” in the report included huge companies such as Starbucks and Nike. With a global presence, enormous budget and millions of brand ambassadors, it’s not too shocking that these companies are successful at social media.

That doesn’t mean that small businesses don’t have the potential or resources to be social media wonders themselves. Small businesses typically earn their customers through traditional word of mouth. Twitter, which allows users to exchange quick 140 character messages, is a perfect model of  digital word of mouth. And small business owners across the U.S. are beginning to recognize  its WOM power.

Curtis Kimball, who opened a crème brûlée cart in San Francisco, knows how powerful Twitter can be for word-of-mouth marketing. With more than 6,000 followers, Kimball can Tweet where his cart is,  and customers can easily locate him and purchase crème brûlée. According to this New York Times article, the crème brûlée became so popular that Kimball had to quit his day job to manage the demand.

Restaurants are among small businesses that are taking advantage of the digital word-of-mouth opportunities that Twitter provides. There are tons of ways that a restaurant can use Twitter, from Tweeting specials, posting pictures and even getting feedback from customers. Myers and Chang, a restaurant in Boston, talks to its customers on Twitter, as you’ll see below.

Feedback is valuable, and it is among the many ways that businesses can use social media to work for them.Think of it this way, if one person with 200 followers posts to Twitter that they had a good experience dealing with your company or brand, it’s likely that 100 people were exposed to that message. So, one Tweet is equivalent to 100 (or way more) word-of-mouth recommendations.

The worst thing to do is to sit back and let the global companies get all the attention. Jump in now, even if you are a small business. Remember, we’ve done this a time or two, so we’re here to help!