Proliferation

Sep 19
0

Social Progression or Social Status?

By | marketing agencies | No Comments

On August 26, Colin Kaepernick refused to stand during the singing of our national anthem, which is sung during the pre-game of every professional sporting event. Kaepernick also refused to stand, instead electing to take a knee, the following week before his team was set to play the San Diego Chargers. The reason Kaepernick is adamant about protesting the national anthem is because he sides with one certain aspect of social progression.

Kaepernick said, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”

The stance Kaepernick is taking is one several athletes across the sports world have taken. In recent years racism has been believed to be the motivation behind several shootings involving cops. Other athletes that have protested also have more at stake than Kaepernick. Marketing agencies target athletes because of the multiple generations they can reach. Even Lebron James, the owner of LRMR marketing agency has protested similarly in the past.

That is the power of sports. That is the power an athlete can have, not to mention marketing agencies. If an athlete can inspire a consumer to buy a certain shoe, can he or she help change beliefs and opinions?

The reaction from the media has been swift in both directions. The far leaning right-minded will point out Kaepernick was wrong, while left-leaning individuals will point out Kaepernick had as much right to sit as any of us have voicing our opinions. Despite this, Kaepernick has yet to be dropped by any major sponsors. On each side a different reputation and character of man is debated and tossed around.

One thing is certain, Kaepernick has had his reputation tarnished as well as strengthened. To some he is a cavalier standing for justice of those he believes were unjustly killed. To others, he is a disrespectful, spoiled millionaire. This begs the internal question we all must ask ourselves. Do we stay true to ourselves or go with the flow?

Sep 12
0

Marketing on Instagram Like a Boss

By | digital marketing, Video | No Comments

A new report shows that Fortune 500 companies have doubled their use of social media since 2013. Way to go, guys. The report shows that these big wigs still have room to improve. Where you might ask? Well, they could really do better on Instagram. Digital marketing firms are here to help.

It doesn’t matter if you are on the Fortune 500 list or a small start-up. All companies can benefit from the marketing field of opportunity that is Instagram. Starting something new, however, means there will be a learning curve, and some mistakes will be made. Here are a few tips to help you market on Instagram like a boss.

Aug 22
0

What Instagram’s Story Feature Means for Advertising

By | digital marketing, Instagram | No Comments

There’s a great adage from Oscar Wilde that speaks continually more truth as our society evolves: “Talent borrows, genius steals.”

Instagram has taken Wilde’s words to heart recently by releasing its newest feature, Instagram Stories. The app will now let you post videos and photos of your daily shenanigans that people can view for 24 hours. After that, the content disappears.

If you’re a Snapchat user, that feature probably sounds wildly familiar because the company implemented that same conceit into its app months ago and users and digital marketing companies alike used the feature to help broadcast their brand on a larger scale and a more creative way.

“Instagram is a follower platform where Snapchat is more of a best friend platform,” VP of platform partnerships at VaynerMedia said to Advertising Age. “Snapchat hasn’t encouraged brands to build up huge followings.”

Instagram Stories is a no-brainer, especially since the company is considered to be very brand friendly for companies who look to advertise on the app. Digital marketing companies are also looking to take Instagram Stories more seriously than Snapchat Stories because the audience base is so much larger. Snapchat revealed they have 100 million daily users, whereas Instagram has 300 million daily users.

The differences between the audience reached between the two users has already been notable. Within 24 hours, a video from Nike on Instagram Stories had 800,000 views. Nike’s most viewed video on Snapchat Stories has been 66,000.

For digital marketing companies and other businesses looking to make a name for themselves, it looks they’ll be better off investing their efforts into Instagram then Snapchat. Not only does Instagram have more users, but they tend to have a larger base of both millennials and people in their 30’s and 40’s, whereas Snapchat is almost exclusively a millennial audience.

Aug 15
0

7 Content Marketing Trends You Should Know About

By | content marketing | No Comments

At Fusion 360, we pride ourselves with being the leaders in content marketing. From our offices in Utah, we set precedent, make waves and basically make everybody wish that they were as cool as we are. Well, we’ll let you in on a little secret of how you can be: Set trends when you can and follow trends when someone else thought of an awesome idea first.

The year 2016 has set a lot of amazing trends in content marketing. Here are a few top trends that we think you should be aware of and use to produce the most effective content.

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Aug 12
0

What Are the Different Types of Content?

By | content marketing | No Comments

‘Content’ is one of those marketing buzzwords that gets passed around more frequently than your weekly office bulletin. And for good reason — after all, what would content marketing be without the content? But too many people working in businesses from Utah to New England don’t seem to have a good grasp on what content really is — and all the different forms it can take.

Written Content

Probably the first thing you think of when you think ‘content’ is written content. Written content can be a lot of things, from the most basic copy on your website to the most intricately detailed how-to guide.

The most common kinds of written content are:

  • Blogs
  • Articles
  • Stories
  • Lists/listicles
  • How-to guides
  • EBooks

Blogs, when updated regularly, are great for building consistent readership, and provide a forum for addressing topics that may be relevant to the target audience. Articles and stories may cover current happenings in your industry, and lists (or listicles) are a format of written content that’s easily digested and shared — perfect for content marketing.

How-to guides and eBooks are a little more elaborate, but can act as powerful methods for sharing your expertise with your target audience. Work for an adventure sports company in Utah? A comprehensive guide to outdoor activities in Utah is sure to do wonders for your company’s authority within your field — and it provides value to your target audience.

Visual Content

Visual content consists of well, visuals. Visual content is usually created in the form of photos, graphics, infographics or even memes.

Infographics are the pinnacle of visual content in the world of marketing right now. Infographics are more likely to be viewed and shared, and some research even indicates visual information is significantly more likely to be remembered later on down the line.

Your average photo or graphic can be used to liven up your blog posts or company webpages, but they can also boost engagement on social media. As any content marketing expert knows, a Facebook post or Tweet with an image attached gets significantly more engagement than a text-only post.

Finally, memes, a relatively recent phenomenon on the internet, can be used for humorous purposes — and that’s pretty much it. Don’t overuse these (or try to use them when you don’t really understand them) or they may end up devaluing your brand.

Other Media ­– Video, Podcasts, Interviews

Besides text and visuals, other media formats such as videos, podcasts and interviews can be great ways to liven up your content marketing. Consumer engagement with video has grown tremendously in the past few years, and experts don’t expect its progression to slow anytime soon.

While video is great for the audio-visual audience, podcasts are best for the audiophiles. Invite an expert or panel to join you for an interview on a particular topic, update your podcast regularly and make sure you’re getting the word out. Your audience’s morning commute from Farmington, Utah will never be the same.

Optimize Your Content for Different Platforms 

As you can see, there are many different kinds of content, and we’ve only just scratched the surface. Whether you’re a content marketing analyst for a startup in Utah or a marketing director in the Big Apple, transforming your content for all different kinds of mediums is truly powerful.

Looking for an example? Just look at this infographic and video we’ve got to go along with this post.

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Aug 12
0

Facebook and Google Rule Mobile Advertising

By | marketing agencies | No Comments

While Facebook and Google fight each other to see who will reign supreme in mobile advertising, every other company seems to not even be trying in the ad space.

Mobile advertising is the fastest growing digital advertising format in the US, but there seems to be a hesitancy with businesses investing in it. Some marketing agencies are trying to get ahead of the curve by investing advertising dollars in apps, but some companies that dominate the mobile space like Twitter and Alibaba don’t take that as a sign that companies want to advertise on its mobile platform. Google and Facebook are betting that is what companies want, and the bet has paid off big time.

Together, the two companies own about half of the mobile ad revenue in the entire world, and that revenue keeps growing in the billions. The weird thing though is that Google and Facebook’s investment in advertising on mobile devices doesn’t seem like that big of a gamble to begin with. Twitter’s small investment in mobile advertising seems like a much bigger gamble.

Think about it: You can’t walk down the street without seeing at least a couple of people on their phones checking their social media, reading the news or playing “Pokemon Go.”

Google and Facebook have an excess of information on pretty much everyone — from your favorite type of music to what you’ve been shopping for online. Those analytics help marketing agencies understand what type of ads to place on your phone, which is invaluable information for them.

The biggest caveat to mobile advertising is the increase of actual purchases made on your phone isn’t increasing. Entering in your credit card number or buying plane tickets is just way easier to do on a laptop than a phone still.

But there’s hope that the problem will still be fixed. According to BI intelligence, Marketing agencies and companies alike are expecting to spend nearly $42 billion on mobile advertising.

Aug 08
0

Navigating Advertising and Cancer Treatment

By | advertising, marketing agencies | No Comments

Advertising and marketing agencies are known for having a wide array of clients. They say it takes all kinds, and we prove that statement right. Sometimes our clients can be just plain weird, but hey, there’s a client for everybody. Our job as marketing agencies is to help our clients reach their clients. You might be interested to hear that there is one industry that comprises 86 percent of all the advertising dollars in the United States, and it is not the industry you might think.

In 2014, cancer centers in the United States spent $173 million on marketing and advertising. Research by Indiana University School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh shows that in the nine years between 2005 and 2014, advertising costs for U.S. cancer centers increased more than three times over.

The study was conducted to take a deeper look into how advertising created by marketing agencies affects how cancer patients select treatment centers. The Universities’ research shows that the cancer centers that spent the most on advertising focused large amounts of their budgets on national media sources.

National advertising allows treatment centers to attract patients outside of their typical regions. However, the Commission on Cancer does not accredit more than half of the cancer treatment centers with the highest advertising budgets in 2014. So, what can marketing agencies do on their part to serve their clients and help to ensure patients get the best treatment available?

First, marketing agencies should be selective with their clientele. Running a business with integrity means taking on clients you feel good representing. Even if you wouldn’t use the product or service yourself, would you feel good about recommending it to a friend or family member?

Second, do your best to represent the facts. Most advertising for cancer centers relies on emotion. Emotion is an essential part of advertising, but try your best to present an equal amount of factual information. In this way, your agency can do its part to help those in need and give your clients the best product that you can.

Aug 08
0

What’s Your Mad Men Marketing Style?

By | marketing agencies, Millenials | No Comments

As one of the most popular, critically-acclaimed programs in the history of television, Mad Men hit the ground running for its premiere in July of 2007 and charmed millions of viewers until its last episode aired on May 17, 2015. A period drama series set on glamorous Madison Avenue in the 1960s, Mad Men focused on the owners and employees of an advertising agency who built the brands of many famous products we recognize today.

From the fashion to the character development, and the set design to the dialogue, cultural events, and drama, Mad Men inspired many a millennial to make their way into advertising and taught viewers how different components of marketing agencies work, and how they work effectively and ineffectively to gain and retain (or lose, if you’re Don!) clients.

 FA_madmen

Aug 03
0

How Snapchat Memories Will Change Content Marketing

By | content marketing, Utah | No Comments

Snapchat is one of the most popular social media channels today, especially among younger markets. Some content marketing agencies in Utah think it may even overthrow Facebook’s long-held supremacy on the social world.

Well, this news may add support to those opinions: Snapchat just announced changes that will allow content marketers to use the social media platform in new and, frankly, kind of awesome ways.

Snapchat Memories

Snapchat Memories is the newest feature on a social media site known for the fact that it is always evolving. Snapchat is still discovering its identity in the social world. Memories is an evolution that seems small but could drastically change content marketing.

The Snapchat blog explained Memories as a way “to create new Stories from Snaps you’ve taken, or even combine different Stories into a longer narrative.” Why is it such a big deal? Snapchat’s notoriety came from being a service that operated in real-time. Users have to post content as it happens, with no way to create content and post it after the fact. Memories changes everything.

What Content Marketers Can Do

With Memories, a content marketing company in Utah could create pictures and other content and then publish that content at a later date. Without the pressure of real-time publication, the quality of produced content will most likely grow. Content can be created and edited outside of Snapchat and then uploaded. This same Utah agency could even stitch together Snapchat Stories made of content that was originally published on other platforms.

Essentially, Memories allows for greater content sharing between Snapchat and other platforms. The possibilities for marketers to use Snapchat more extensively and efficiently are endless, but every new movement has its challenges (like Taylor Swift’s transition to pop music…haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate…)

If marketers start publishing tons of high quality content while the average Snapchat user is publishing in real time, snaps could lose the feeling of authentic interaction that makes them an effective way to reach audiences in the first place. In the end, will Memories move content marketing for better or worse? Time, and snaps, will tell.