Creative Concepts

There’s nothing like a sweepstakes or contest to get people talking about your brand! When you offer a prize through Facebook, Twitter or blog, you not only increase your fan base but often times these new followers ramp up the conversation as we have seen with client Bigelow Tea on their Facebook page and client Ecover who showcased a fantastic contest called 30 under 30 which garnered hundreds of mentions on all channels.

With numerous client prize winning adventures under our belt, we at Creative Concepts, are supporting The Children’s Aid Society Recipe Contest which helps to promote one of their missions: healthy eating for kids and their families. Submissions for original and healthy recipes are being accepted on Facebook only until July 24th which is just one way The Children’s Aid Society is hoping to expand their online community to those who care about needy kids and their families in the New York metro area. Winners will receive gift certificates at some of New York City’s hottest restaurants like Four Seasons, Gramercy Tavern, PRINT, Mae Mae Cafe and Al Di La in Brooklyn. We’re also using this opportunity to tap into the powerful mom blogging community, by asking the Meal Makeover Moms to be on our panel of judges in addition to Julie Negrin, Erica Wides and Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez of PRINT. And the final fun detail: on July 29th, we’re announcing the winners at New York City’s famed Union Square Greenmarket, where local and organic fare is the name of the game.

A successful contest in today’s social media landscape not only helps draw new fans, but it also solidifies a brand’s core values so please help support The Children’s Aid Society and enter your recipe today!

You should follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

You may know actor Ed Norton from films like Rounders, Red Dragon and American History X.  What you may not know is that Ed Norton is also one of many celebrities who’ve embraced the power of social media to create real, tangible change among real people, from America to Africa.

And it just so happens that one of Norton’s ventures is directly benefiting one of our clients, the Children’s Aid Society, all because one person decided to make a difference.

Earlier this year, Ed Norton helped launch Crowdrise, a crowdfunding site that allows individuals to raise money for charities.  This armchair activism (or “slacktivism,” as author Malcolm Gladwell refers to it) lets people make small donations to the cause of their choice.  Individually, these donations may not seem significant, but when added together, they can raise the profile of a worthy cause, or help turn the financial tide for an organization that doesn’t have its own massive fundraising apparatus in place.

For example, one Crowdrise member is currently raising money for the Children’s Aid Society.  Her goal is to raise $1000 and, at the time of this writing, she’s more than halfway there.  And while the Children’s Aid Society certainly stands to benefit from any funds raised on their behalf, the knowledge and experience that the donors and organizers glean from taking part in the effort can’t be overstated, either.

In other words, if your supporters are using their own crowdfunding initiatives to raise awareness of all the wonderful things your organization does, aren’t those the kinds of supporters you want to empower?

And if helping your favorite charity raise money becomes an experience that helps you understand the true value of a cause, doesn’t everybody win?

To learn more about crowdfunding, or for help promoting your own cause, come follow us on Twitter or Facebook!

(Thanks to Eric for catching a hiccup in the comments; I’d originally said Ed Norton was in Hannibal.)

If you’re just beginning to use social media, Twitter and Facebook may seem very similar.

And while it’s true that both services…

• Are built around publicly shared “status updates”
• Enable users to “follow” or “friend” each other
• Can be simultaneously updated through third party services like HootSuite

… you’ll soon realize that the audience for each service has very different goals and expectations.

Broadly speaking, Twitter is good for…

• Connecting with peers and industry professionals
• “Water cooler” discussions of breaking news & pop culture
• Real-time information-sharing, research, Q&As, etc.
• Technology-focused and business-driven discussions
• One-way broadcasts, with occasional commentary

… while Facebook is good for…

• Connecting with people you already know “in real life”
• Threaded discusssions (where all comments are collected)
• Personal opinions
• Photo albums
• Videos

Twitter, while offering less robust features than Facebook, is also (paradoxically) considered to be the more professional and business-oriented platform.  Meanwhile, Facebook (like MySpace before it) is the more visually-driven sharing platform among friends, family and acquaintances.

This means that the users of each service have different expectations for their experience on each platform.  And if you’re piloting a brand across both channels, you need to be aware of those differences.  (Dan Zarella writes frequently, and well, about how to do this.)

For example, in December of 2009, we at Creative Concepts were helping The Children’s Aid Society promote their annual Miracle on Madison fundraiser.  Most of the news about that particular event — celebrity sightings, fashion updates and high-end sales — differed from the vast majority of The Children’s Aid Society’s traditional topics (children’s health, education, foster care and family services).

We quickly learned that the charity’s followers on Twitter remained open to the Miracle on Madison messaging, but their fans on Facebook chilled to the idea.  While they may be interested in the actual work being done by The Children’s Aid Society, that must seem at odds with more “commercial” updates about a high society Manhattan fundraising event.

So they made their voices heard – some abandoned The Children’s Aid Society Facebook page.

When we noticed a drop in Facebook numbers that coincided with an increase in Miracle messaging, we followed our instincts and dialed down the Miracle mentions on Facebook.  And when their fans’ behavior subsequently returned to normal, we chalked that up as a lesson learned — and one we believe is worth sharing:

Facebook is not Twitter is not MySpace is not a blog.  You may have one message, but you have multiple audiences.

Listen, and then adjust your pitch.

Want to hear our various voices? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

On the web, video works wonders.  It’s fast-paced, personable, entertaining and informative.  And since production time is always a factor, it helps to have a solid plan in place to make sure you stay on track and under budget.

But if there’s one thing we’ve learned here at Creative Concepts, it’s that our best-laid video production plans often need to be scrapped once the camera starts rolling.

Here are three examples of the ways we’ve adapted our original video ideas to suit a client’s newfound needs — or to accommodate the limits of reality.

“What Do YOU Know About the Children’s Aid Society?”

That was the question we expected to ask people on the streets of New York.  And their answer?

Well… as it turned out, not much.

Although nearly everyone we spoke with had heard of The Children’s Aid Society, most of them weren’t quite sure what the charity actually does.  Despite operating in NYC for over 150 years, we quickly realized the organization was still “under the radar” for most New Yorkers.

When we recognized this disconnect between public impact and public image, we adapted our video’s premise and used our “man-on-the-street” style Q&As to educate the the viewers about the charity’s multitude of programs.

The First Rule of Live Event Planning: Something ALWAYS Goes Wrong

Ruth Ridgeway is a veteran event planner in the New York City market.  As such, she’s unflappable in the face of any challenge — including having her entire event crew videotaped during one of their signature two-day location transformations.

But when the wrong furniture gets delivered and there’s no time to revise her designs, Ruth switches from “management mode” to “problem-solving dynamo” in seconds — and our video capitalizes on her shrewdly-solved conundrum.

Have A Cup of Tea with (Windblown) Wally at Fenway Park

Even when everything goes right, there’s still no way to control the weather.

As proud sponsors of the Boston Red Sox, Bigelow Tea was thrilled to have a chance to shoot a quirky video with Wally the Green Monster.  The idea was to have Cindi Bigelow herself teach Wally how to make a cup of tea.  But the weather refused to cooperate, forcing Cindi and Wally to race through the process before their props blew clear across the field.

The lesson?

No matter what happens, find a way to make the most of every unexpected, inconvenient and downright blustery situation.

This past week, we wrapped up a short social media campaign we’d been involved with for a client, Bigelow Tea.  As is often the case, what didn’t work is just as valuable (if not more so) than what did work, and we thought you might be interested in some of our observations.

1. Facebook and Twitter Are Not the Same Tribe. When Bigelow Tea was preparing to announce their new spokesperson*, together we spent a week dropping clues on Twitter, followed by a one-hour window in which participants could guess the spokesperson’s identity.  But fans of their Facebook page were upset that the contest wasn’t extended to Facebook as well, and some of them made it very clear that they didn’t (and wouldn’t) tweet.  Ever. Lesson: Don’t expect users of one platform to naturally migrate to another.
2. Private Twitter Accounts Can Complicate Contests. In the same Bigelow contest, participants were provided with a hashtag — #GuessWhoBigelow — to include with their guesses.  But not all of the hashtagged responses showed up in a search for that hashtag.  Why not?  Because some guesses came from Twitter users whose accounts are set to “private” (AKA the ones whose tweets are preceded by a padlock icon), and “private” tweets don’t show up in general searches.  Lesson: When planning a public contest, take into account whether (and how) “private” people can easily participate.
3. Your Interested Audience Is Not Always Your Target Audience. One respondent to the contest complained that “all these sports-related clues are pretty useless to some of us on the Internet,” which we found to be an interesting — and, in this case, unresolvable — objection.  Since Bigelow’s new spokesperson is a sports legend, the contest naturally leaned in that direction.  We therefore presumed anyone taking part in the contest would use their Googling skills to find the answer.  Unfortunately, non-sports fans felt left out of both the contest and any means of finding the answer.  Lesson: You can’t please everyone.

The knowledge we’ve absorbed from this campaign will pay off as we apply it to future projects.  And while social media may have a never-ending learning curve, it doesn’t mean we can’t all keep getting smarter, one lesson at a time.

* If you were wondering, the answer is Wayne Gretzky.

On December 6, The Children’s Aid Society (our client) will have their biggest fundraiser of the year: Miracle on Madison.  Every year, stores up and down Madison Avenue donate a portion of that day’s proceeds to help provide health services and other crucial necessities to children in need.

We’re proud to be a part of this year’s Miracle on Madison, and we look forward to seeing hundreds of holiday shoppers chipping in to help those most in need of a happier holiday.

If you’re taking part in this year’s Miracle on Madison, use the hashtag #ShopMiracle on Twitter and Flickr, so The Children’s Aid Society in New York can find your photos and feedback!