But, is the basic function of the clock—you know, to tell time—actually lost in the design? Can you tell what time it is at least as well, or preferably better, than a traditional clock? Or, do you have to think harder to get there?

Good design is seamless, unnoticed, natural. It makes the information you are trying to get at all the more available without the audience even noticing that it’s being presented in a different way.

Don’t make it harder for your audience to absorb the information you want/they need to get. Regardless of how flashy the design is, your audience will not stick around to figure out how to use it in order to get the information they are looking for. Beyond the initial ‘wow’ factor, a design that hinders usability will garner more negative attention (if any attention!) than positive reaction.

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Art Director // Strategic Insights

Therefore, it was only fitting when client Eaton Corporation, known worldwide for their power management solutions, asked the agency to develop a contest website to promote the concept of “Efficient Uptime” to its partners. Efficient Uptime has been a theme of Eaton’s for a while now—this was the next step in engaging the partners to become part of the message.

“The goal is two-fold,” says Eaton Global IT Manager Brooke Lang. “The Efficient Uptime contest not only reinforces our campaign message, it also encourages partners to share best practices with one another by documenting their success stories for everyone to see. We’re extremely excited about it.”

To enter the contest, a partner must describe what Efficient Uptime means to them and how they have delivered it for a customer, including the environmental and cost savings achieved. Not surprisingly, bonus points are given for stories that include Eaton Solutions. Stories may consist of documents, presentations, pictures and videos. Eaton will choose two winners who will receive $2500 each.

“It’s really more of a microsite,” explains Associate Creative Director Chris Griffin, “which is not to diminish its importance, but better describes its focus: it’s a website with one purpose. Over the course of three tabs, which serve as sub-pages, visitors can get an overview of the contest, its rules and can upload their materials right then and there.” Partners can then choose to direct judges to a URL or upload content, or a combination of both.

Eaton plans on promoting the contest through email blasts, through its distributors, an online campaign conducted by Everything Channel and through its partner portal, also created by Strategic Insights.

Of the portal, Lang comments, “We’ve seen great results so far. Since its launch, we’ve grabbed an additional share and a half, and have outgrown the rest of the market pretty significantly.”

This was no standard-issue “Depends” type spot, featuring “active seniors” living their “lives” to the “fullest,” moisture be damned. This was a surgically targeted and ingeniously structured niche campaign called “One in Three Like Me.” The celebrity spokesperson, Whoopi Goldberg (I know), directed viewers to a website, 1in3likeme.com. Whoopi didn’t pitch the product–she elicited empathy. It’s a brilliant tactic–get the problem out in the open, then associate it with a well-liked celebrity to nudge the target toward action. The website does all the selling, and even there, it’s hardly aggressive.

There’s a blog, a series of message boards, a survey w/results, well-shot testimonial videos (real women? actors? who cares), a Twitter feed, even an application for a free sample. They’ve even branded the problem itself: LBL (light bladder leakage). See what they’ve done there? By calling it “light” bladder leakage, it minimizes it without dismissing it. By giving it initials, LBL, you can talk about it in code, without using words like “bladder” and “leakage.” By giving the campaign the umbrella of “1 in 3 like me,” and giving the microsite the same URL, it instantly lets the visitor know they’re not alone–literally millions of women share this problem.

Poise is a Kimberly-Clark product, and they’re no stranger to massive ad campaigns or successful brands, but this one stood out for me for both its branding insight and in its effective use of social media–as opposed to being tacked-on, this genuinely starts a conversation and keeps it going. These message boards are being used! This blog gets updated regularly! They’ve even appointed a “resident LBL expert,” Marilyn (guess Whoopi was too busy).

Congratulations to the creative team and the client for taking a potentially boring or even off-putting product and turning it into something interesting and engaging. I’m sure they’re seeing results.

I ordered a sample kit. Just want to see how effective these things are during a 4-mile run.

Bill Cokas
Creative Director
Strategic Insights

What I found led me to tweet the following:

Within the hour, I was getting replied back by the @jasonsdeli account, promising an explanation from their nutritionist. This explanation did come later as an email and included:

1. Why the sandwich was over 900 calories
2. Recommendations for how I could alter my order next time to have a lower-calorie Tuna Melt
3. Suggestions on other more calorie-conscious choices that wouldn’t require me to customize my order at all.

Now, why am I sharing all this with you? Not because I care about sharing my diet decisions (or think you care about my diet decisions), but as a reminder of how negative customer feedback can be turned into a positive experience for the consumer – and have them remain a recurring customer.

We get asked all the time if WE the agency can manage our client’s social media presences on their behalf. Not only is that not a transparent way of using what is intended to be a direct line of contact with the person or company these profiles represent, but how would an advertising exec respond to a complaint about the number of calories in a particular menu item? Would their response have the same level of detail that YOU could provide? Likely not.

Communicating with your customers directly gives you the opportunity to control what is being said about your company – even after negative feedback has been shared. It can act as “damage control,” or help clear up a misunderstanding. It can even point the customer in the direction of what they may ACTUALLY be looking for, but for some reason haven’t discovered just yet. In short, having that direct line of contact helps make the company appear not only human, but appear to be truly interested in meeting their customers’ needs.

Not to mention, customer feedback and dialogue over social media is public domain. In regards to my Tuna Melt of yesterday, my Twitter network AND the Jason’s Deli Twitter network viewed the dialogue I had with Jason’s Deli (up to the email, which contained information I specifically was interested in, but might not appeal to their other customers). It turned my one declaration of fault into a conversation that was two-sided, and showed that the company cared about my concern over calories.

Truth be told, the companies who take the time to respond to a complaint, in addition to those who respond to a praise, are the ones I end up recommending my networks without provocation. It’s a win-win.
Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Art Director // Strategic Insights

At the end of the day, things like website visitors, community engagement, or number of people submitting employment applications means absolutely nothing unless you can assign a monetary value to the data. However, connecting the dots can sometimes be convoluted.

Ask yourself, “So what does all this non-financial data mean?”

For any business, cost reduction and revenue growth are the focus for all short-run and long-run activities. Thus, if you can show that your social media activities directly affect one or both of those two performance indicators, you can justify using social media for your business.

How to Justify Social Media for Your Business

To justify using social media, you must establish a baseline for comparison. What are your current monthly sales? How many hours per week does your customer service department or representative spend on issues? Taking the time to gather these metrics will make showing ROI easier. Moreover, they actually give you something to show a correlation to your social media marketing activities.

For example, instead of just showing an increase in the number of hits to your website since you began your social media efforts, show the correlation between an increase in sales and the number of people visiting the website. Have you had more sales inquiries? What is the total for net new customers? Assign a dollar amount to those potential sales and then you’ve got something.

The Bottom Line: Use trend analysis to make correlations with your social media activities. You must assign dollars to the data you collect.

Have you used or seen good examples of trend analysis to justify ROI for social media activities? Tell others in the comments.

Josh Gibbs (@jkgibbs) // Social Media Consultant // Strategic Insights

While it may slow down the process at the start to make sure every phase of the project is explained thoroughly, it can save a project from going south due to assumptions and misconceptions made when clients need to “fill in the blanks” as to what happens next. Most importantly, communication is an essential tool to make sure we are providing the best experience during the project, and the best solution when it is complete.

So often, those on the designer end of the relationship assume the process is second nature to both ourselves and our clients. Some clients may be ones we have had a long-standing relationship with; some may have recently turned to us after working with another agency; others may be brand-new startups who are new to the process altogether. No matter which category a client fits in, they ALL benefit from clearly outlining each step the project will work through, AND explaining why we are asking the questions we are during each phase.

The next time you feel a client has reduced your roll to pixel pushing, review the communication you’ve had up to that point. Instead of just sighing and obliging, ask questions and get further feedback. Often times, a client’s desire to take over the roll of the designer is because there has been an assumption along the way, instead of an open dialogue.

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Art Director // Strategic Insights

Can you spot the error? Congratulations--you give a rat's.

I’m using a blog to vent about social media. Can you handle the irony? Are you LOL? Perhaps ROFL? You would think that with the rise in computer-based communication over the last 10+ years that people would become better typists, more aware of grammar, more conscious of spelling. After all, in conversation, these things don’t matter, but when they’re written down, all your ignorance is on display. But here’s the catch–social media has trained us to think that all communication is disposable, and errors inevitable and forgivable. Everyone’s in such a hurry to “push out content” that the accuracy–indeed, the basic structure–of the content is secondary. The internet–and blogging in particular–has turned everyone into writers. This is not necessarily a good thing. Like being a parent, there’s no test one takes to “qualify” for blogging, much less tweeting. If you can enter a username and password, you’ve earned the right to spout off to the world. Don’t worry about proofing, just get it out there! So what happens when those standards infiltrate huge ad agencies and venerated literary magazines? This, which appeared in the New Yorker late last year–on the inside cover, no less. I doubt anyone got fired or even yelled at. After all, it happens every day.

Bill Cokas
Creative Director
Strategic Insights

I think most people aren’t getting the point of Google Buzz. Yes, right now it may seem annoying because everything is just popping up. People are asking “Doesn’t _______ already do this?”

The answer is yes, but what Buzz does do that nothing else does is aggregate everything together AND allow you to pick what you see.

With Twitter and Facebook, you get everything with no filters (aside from Twitter Lists). Google Buzz learns what you like and don’t like. After a while, even though everyone’s posts are constantly updated, you only get things you find relevant. So, Twitter, RSS, and other posts are made visible to you ONLY if you actually find them relevant.

Furthermore, the innovation of Google Buzz will drive other social networks to better organize content within their platforms. I believe that it is still overwhelming right now. That’s why “non-techies” view it as a time waster. Once there is an easier way to sift through the noise, I believe social networking and content sharing will boom with other audiences.

Will Google Buzz stick around? Probably not or at least not in its current state. Will it make a difference? At the very least, we will know what NOT to do.

What are your thoughts on Google Buzz?

Josh Gibbs (@jkgibbs) // Social Media Consultant // Strategic Insights

“Google introduced a social networking tool called Google Buzz Tuesday that allows sharing of status updates, images, and videos via a new Gmail tab called Google Buzz. The Google Buzz features will also be available on Android based phones as well as the iPhone (via a Web-based application) allowing for real-time updates to your Google Buzz feed that can show up on a new version of Google’s mobile maps.”

Read entire article »

With everyone from your mother to your boss to your middle school BFF being available on social media these days, it’s getting harder to keep your separate lives, well, separate. Not only is nearly everyone you know IRL (in real life) logging on to connect online as well, but there are several networks you – and they – can belong to. Before you know it, your company’s CEO and your high school sweetheart are tagging each other’s Facebook photo albums.

With transparency and open communication ruling the day, how much do we REALLY want to cross-network between our various social circles? The business side of social media sings the praises of finally connecting as individuals while still representing the companies we work for. Our personalities are recognized as having value inside these circles, and accounts who are run by ghost writers are looked at as being dishonest.

On the flip side, is actual value being created by sharing your weekend hobbies with the people you professionally associate with?

So, where do you draw the line? Take our poll, and please elaborate your thoughts in the comments:

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Art Director // Strategic Insights