Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Welcome: Valencia Community College!

Posted on: January 4th, 2011 by Purple Rock Scissors 1 Comment

Welcome Valencia!

Purple, Rock, Scissors is partnering with Valencia Community College to improve the user experience on their existing news website, ValenciaCC-News.com. Purple will provide digital consultation, design, and development services to make quality recommendations and streamline the content publishing process.

Onsite engagement is our focus, so we will look for ways to increase the website’s returning users, the time users stay on the site, and the awareness of Valencia News through an increase in social sharing by existing users.

Our process is rolling and we expect advantageous results for the Valencia brand and its social circle. Be sure to “like” them on Facebook and check out our homework!

Launched: Publix Sunday Dinners with 22 Squared

Posted on: January 3rd, 2011 by Purple Rock Scissors

Publix Sunday Dinners

22 Squared, a Tampa-based agency that works with the likes of Baskin Robbins & Toyota, recently called upon Purple, Rock, Scissors to work on a new national campaign for Publix Super Markets.

Publix Sunday Dinners is an extension of the family-friendly togetherness with which the brand is synonymous. Sunday Dinners uses the Web to reach out to the African American demographic, an audience that typically celebrates Sunday meals with the family.

Purple and 22 Squared collaborated on planning, production design, and all development aspects of this extensive project. At the foundation is the microsite, SundayDinners.Publix.com, chock full of fun, helpful features such as print-friendly formatting for recipes and shopping lists.

Facebook Connect allows for convenient bookmarking, sharing, and event creation systems to make the meal deliciously social. Users can create their own Sunday Dinner by building a menu using recipes from the site, then inviting friends and family with a Facebook event using their connected accounts.

The digital strategy of this campaign includes an upfront SEO campaign of over 200 unique on-site recipes and articles. Having conducted in-depth keyword research for dishes and ingredients of the recipes, Purple, Rock, Scissors ensured that the Sunday Dinners site would be easily accessed and highly ranked in top search engines.

The partnership between the two agencies produced an attractive campaign and a recipe for success. Purple encourages you to give it a taste!

Social Search and Sharing affects SEO:

Posted on: December 21st, 2010 by Purple Rock Scissors 1 Comment

Bad news for spammers and link farmers.

It’s our job as marketers to monitor the changing search engine optimization trends so we can apply them for our clients to keep them front and center. One development that is gaining momentum is the importance of social links when it comes to search engine rankings.

Bruce Clay, renowned search engine optimization pundit, recently said at this year’s PubCon conference, “Likes are the new links.” Just what does this mean, and more importantly, how does it affect business’s search engine ranking?

Internet search engines began with good intentions and methodology. The more links you have, indicating that your website’s content was relevant, the better your rankings in organic results. Over time, people have gradually been abusing this algorithm, striving for quantity of links and letting quality suffer. There became many roads and doorways to websites that simply did not deserve the attention of users.

Links bias search results, and the trust score of links are dropping. Link farmers and brokers will gladly sell you links, but doing that can hurt your ranking because they are not trusted, not organic and most likely not relevant.

Well the tides are turning, as netizens catch on to these spammy tactics. Social sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been in cahoots with search engines Bing, Google and Yahoo in order to improve the search experience for web-goers. These social media outlets have fostered the growth and importance of site “likes”, recommendations and referrals. This form of sharing is far more valuable than unknown sources linking to you, and the community (along with search engines) is likely to trust and reward these links over any other.

It’s said that within the next 6 months to a year, the “like” information and tweets will be heavily integrated into search engine algorithms. This will guarantee sites with the most social interaction, a higher position on the search results page. Ultimately, this means that SEO will no longer be about who can buy the most links but rather who can earn them. The way nature intended it to be.

Social Media Marketing Miami

Posted on: October 1st, 2010 by EJ

Ej Garcia at Social Media Miami
I was recently given the opportunity to speak at the Social Media Miami conference hosted by InfluencePeople. After reviewing several topics with the conference’s organizers I chose to speak about of leveraging search engine marketing with your social media campaign. The focus of the presentation was to educate the audience on how to efficiently drive traffic to your social campaign by sponsoring keywords related to the theme of your campaign through Google Adwords.

Facebook advertisements were the hot topic of the day, and at the end of the session we engaged the audience in a Q&A session about how to target your audience on Facebook.

Craig Agranoff, of gripd.com, gave a great presentation on the current state of mobile and geo-targeted ads and the list of speakers was awesome. I was honored to share the stage with the likes of John Chow, Jay Berkowitz, Murray Newlands, Greg Rollett, Pierre Zarokian and Jeff Sass.

The conference ended with all of the speakers engaging in panel discussion on the future of social media. The one un-deniable fact we all agreed on was that: Social media is media, and as another form of communication with your audience, it cannot be ignored.

Tebow Time!

Posted on: September 8th, 2010 by Purple Rock Scissors

Purple, Rock, Scissors recently launches the digital campaign for Tim Tebow, one of the hottest new quarterbacks in the NFL. The campaign launch marks a leap for Tebow, arming him a digital megaphone to reach out to his troops of die-hard fans and foundation supporters on social networks including Facebook and Twitter. Upon launch, Tebow’s official Facebook Fan Page is already at 200,000 users and growing!

Stay tuned for more things Tebow, and keep in touch with Tim @TimTebow and become a fan on his Facebook Fan Page.

Relevant Links

Facebook + Twitter + iTunes + Potential = Ping

Posted on: September 8th, 2010 by Erin Butler 3 Comments

Apple’s latest brainchild is the musical social network feature packed into the new iTunes 10. Serving as a music-related newsfeed and a vast suggestion source for discovering artists and tunes, Ping has captured immediate attention, good and skeptical alike. While some think it is the last nail in MySpace’s coffin, others believe it is solely a trial period, and a ploy for more iTunes business. In the spirit of avoiding a premature opinion, I will share what I have found so far, within the first week of its birth, with an open mind.

Beez Kneez
When I first heard of Ping’s concept, I geekily moo-ed, “Cooool.” The network has such potential, being directly connected to iTunes, which already has 160 million users. Talk about a populated platform to launch from!

Being able to follow all of your favorite artists in one place, from concert listings to daily updates, is super convenient. Only problem is that if you aren’t a fan of mainstream maestros, good luck finding anyone you care to follow in their database. Hopefully, the small catalog of artists is just a growing pain, and it will appeal to a wider variety of artists soon. (Like really soon, or sianara.)

But what artist wouldn’t want to take advantage of this opportunity to grow their band and brand? With the iTunes store tightly knit within the social frame, users become listeners, who become fans, who become buyers…all within a couple clicks. This one-stop system can take purchasing to a more personal level.

Ping Shming
A few aspects threw me for a loop, however. It definitely takes a little getting used to having the Ping app within a desktop app. Everything is conveniently in one window, but slowness and confusion can be issues. Besides the inevitable lack of artist profile participation, I also find it irking that you are directed toward the iTunes store rather than the profile page when searching an artist. Perhaps it’d be more convenient to have two search buttons: Store and Ping, because I’m not digging having to wait for the puny redirect tab to pop up.

Another weakness is the 30-second preview for listening. People may eventually use this network to find new music (if it expands its catalog), but to get to know a band, usually we listen to more than a couple of little baby clips of their songs. That’s the point when I’d scroll over to Grooveshark, Last.FM or even MySpace, who is now in hospice care.

What’s in Store?
Time can only tell what the future holds for Ping and its competitors. I really think it is a marketable initiative, but the network has a lot of maturing to do before users just give up. In only a couple of days, over 1 million people have registered and explored, but soon the wave of curiosity will wane, and time will shine a light on the true benefits of the model, or lack thereof.

The Social Network Movie Review – The Facebook Movie review

Posted on: September 8th, 2010 by Kristina Doyle

What do Trent Reznor, Justin Timblerlake and “the other Michael Cera” have in common? Nothing besides all having a hand in The Social Network and this is my review.

Last night I was lucky enough to catch a pre-release screening of The Social Network, a film based on the turbulent events and relationships surrounding the birth and rise of Facebook. The movie is based on The Accidental Billionaires, a (reportedly loose) nonfiction book by Ben Mezrich.

For those expecting a point for point re-enactment of Facebook’s conception, I advise to take this film with a grain of salt. Like all things Hollywood, there is a considerable amount of embellishment and an added layer of gloss (The creator of Napster is no Justin Timberlake in real life). But if you’re willing to accept the movie’s instances as sort of “near-fact,” you’re likely to enjoy it thoroughly. David Fincher’s direction is on par with his previous works (notably Fight Club and Se7en), and Trent Reznor’s stylistic yet simple musical score keeps the films emotions securely fastened to the scenes that evoke them.

The only caveat to this adequate depiction is that Mark Zuckerberg as a character is too ambiguous. The films depiction of Mark Zuckerberg is not far from many peoples love hate relationship of Facebook. Viewers may find it difficult to decide whether Zuckerberg is supposed to be the honorable hero or the notorious villain. He comes off as having the sarcasm and whit of the techie-Harvard grad to make him likable, but at the same time is also that jerk in High School who cheats off your test and gloats about their “A+”. Today with over 500 million users, Facebook is still going strong and this film will garner a successful outcome as well.

Ultimately, I can’t say this is a movie that I love but it is definitely one that I “Like” (Yup. Totally had to throw that in somewhere) and a film worth seeing.

Florida Hospital Goes Under the Scissors

Posted on: July 19th, 2010 by Purple Rock Scissors 1 Comment

What is a hospital to do when it needs some love and care itself? A little marketing medicine, if you will. Florida Hospital for Children, with its impressive new additions and renovations, recently approached Purple, Rock, Scissors to expand their online marketing efforts. In order to better publicize the recent unveilings, including the Walt Disney Pavilion at Florida Hospital for Children, as well as to ensure future success, there is a vital need to build a clientele foundation.

One facet of the campaign is the establishment of a social media profile in order to heighten brand equity and awareness. This consists of creating a holistic social strategy, as well as redesigning website funnels, for not only greater recognition, but also functionality. Since there are lots of branches of Florida Hospital to muddle through, the Children’s department must formulate an identity geared toward child comfort and parent convenience. With this department becoming readily available through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, each of the branding and positioning goals can be attained.

The Facebook page will resemble the hospital’s own website graphically: color schemes, pictures, and even font. Bobby Jones says, “It is important that images are kept consistent, and the Disney-themed environment certainly aids this purpose. Uniform imagery and identity amongst all interactive portals builds brand trust.” In addition, Twitter can distribute updates, events, and material from their newsletter to all followers, such as the recently featured “Free Asthma Screenings.” As for YouTube, videos embody endless opportunities, be it special stories on individual patients, physician introductions, or hospital tours that feature the one-of-a-kind lobby. These applied media hold the power to produce leads, on-site conversions, and in the end, more satisfied families.

The key to this power is in Campaign Strategy and Online Reputation Management. Purple, Rock, Scissors is helping profile administrators appropriately post and respond to their social media audience. Efficiency and recency. Responses to all interactions – wall posts, friend requests, and tweets – will make a difference to the mom trying figure out why her son is coating the carpet with puke. With Purple promotion, Florida Hospital for Children will hit the ground running with social media.

For those frantic and curious parents with more questions than they have Band-Aids, search engines prove to be a go-to source for a quick fix or often long term facility selection. Considering this, Purple, Rock, Scissors will also generate website traffic through Google, Yahoo Search, and Bing.com targeted text ads. With a facelift and some internal anatomy adjustments, the optimization of the webpage’s visibility and funnels will significantly increase the amount of leads from the site. The conversion funnel needs to be simple, quick, and informative to direct inquirers to where they need to go. More qualified leads will be born, and boy aren’t they just precious! The end product: improved functionality, convenience, and blood pressure for everyone.

No recovery is needed after our painless procedure. Florida Hospital for Children will soon be reassured that they came to the right team for online marketing help! Now…scalpel, please.

Tebow Work Recognized by OMMA

Posted on: July 19th, 2010 by Purple Rock Scissors


We’re pleased to share that our work for the Tim Tebow Foundation (see the press release about our work) scored the attention of MediaPost’s OMMA Magazine, a publication dedicated to covering the business of online media, marketing and advertising. In May, the magazine published a case study about our innovative digital marketing campaign for the Tim Tebow Foundation, quoting our founder, Bobby Jones, as well as our clients with the Foundation. 

“Only four weeks before the ad aired, the Tebow family hired digital agency Purple, Rock, Scissors. Its job: create a site for the new Tim Tebow foundation and craft an online campaign to channel all the attention from the TV ad into traffic to the foundation site.

Almost overnight, the shop created the Tim Tebow Foundation Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages, and reached out to influential blogs. The goal was to establish the Foundation’s authenticity and accumulate a big fan base. "The idea was to go where the people were; people were already out there talking about the ad," says Bobby Jones, agency CEO.”

Check out the full story HERE.

Facebook, OAuth, & Open Socialism (a rebuttal)

Posted on: April 23rd, 2010 by Mike

Here at Purple, we’ve been trading emails back and forth the past few days about the announcements at F8 regarding Facebook’s adoption of Open Social, as well as what it means for the future of the internet (I’m too busy to link any of this, go Google it). Today’s emails focused on Chris Messina’s blog post.

I’m not sold on his rant. Below is a quick synopsis of my personal (and contrasting) opinions on his post.

As a disclaimer, I have no beef with Chris Messina, and according to others I may be apathetic and offensive when it comes to the Open web. I’m sure plenty of other open-advocate developers out there will readily disagree with me. I may be the only one in the internet who thinks this way, so IMO it’s worth sharing.

In bold are pull-quotes from Chris’ article, with my personal opinions below (if you missed it, it’s probably worth reading his blog first)

…Oh, and anyone that wanted to be part of the Google index, well they’d have to add additional metadata to their pages so that the content graph would be spic and span…

We actually do that already, and it’s what half of our marketing business is based on. Well-researched Titles, Keywords, and Descriptions are intended to help index content and determine what any given web page is about.

…Except — shucks — there’s one problem with this model: it’s evil…

It’s not evil, at least not any more evil compared to any other business model. It’s obviously a sound idea for Facebook to seek realistic ways to monetize a web product that’s been free to end-users since day one. No one twists anyone’s arm to sign up for Facebook. Since a huge portion of the world is already connected on Facebook (rather than through only basic open protocol) it just makes sense to use this as a gateway for social graphing and (realistically) connecting trends and data.

…When all likes lead to Facebook, and liking requires a Facebook account, and Facebook gets to hoard all of the metadata and likes around the interactions between people and content, it depletes the ecosystem of potential and chaos — those attributes which make the technology industry so interesting and competitive…

Just like Google hoards page rank so Yahoo and Bing are screwed? No. Google is just more widely adopted, but it has its competitors. When the (global) feds need to step in and regulate an unchecked Facebook monopoly, they will. Until then, there should be no impediment to progress.

…(and not just because that provider becomes a single point of failure)….

This late in the game, this is only analogous in the same sense that a catastrophic volcano would be a “single point of failure” for humanity. If the service is widely distributed (which Facebook is) and widely adopted (which…Facebook is), it won’t be an indefinite point of failure. Facebook is larger than many tangible nations on the face of this earth, in terms of both population and revenue.

As I and others have said before, your identity is too important to be owned by any one company.

If it’s open protocol, then it’s shared. It may be tangibly “owned” by Facebook, but that depends on your definition of ownership. At some point, everyone will have access. The only thing regulated on Facebook is their advertising platform that harvests this information, but that really doesn’t make them any different from Apple with their iPhone and iPad market, does it?

Thus I’m looking forward to what efforts like OpenLike might do to tip back the scales, and bring the potential and value of such simple and meaningful interactions to other social identity providers across the web.

The blind scales of some internet justice system? OpenLike, while egalitarian and altruistic in nature, will fall by the unchecked wayside because (chances are) the majority of humanity will not find an inherit interest in it. We as developers forget that for most citizens, everyone’s family linkage, photo albums, birthdate reminders, and favorite things are all uploaded and connected through Facebook. As useless as our development community seems to think it is, people still use it. It’s a slim chance that anyone outside of the “open web community” wants to be burdened with a clone feature that holds no inherit value to their personal lives, lives that are already catastrophically being consumed by this social media behemoth.

I’ve mentioned this in passing to some and I’ll mention it here: when both Facebook and world governments are linked through an open standard, your government will have unchecked access to your online identity, your wants, your “likes”, your ideas, your medical records (ahem, government regulations on health care) and all of your distributable digital content.

You think things are weird now? I can’t wait to see it in two years, you know, around 2012. Maybe it’s my totalitarian Roman heritage, but I for one welcome our new Facebook overlords. OpenSocialism is a wave that can only be ridden.