Four years ago, our CEO at Saxum, Renzi Stone, had the dream of making a big commitment to a nonprofit in Oklahoma; a commitment that meant one selected nonprofit would receive $50,000 of service from our company. Saxum named the program “Step Up.” That dream came to fruition, and each year, a board of advisors selects either one or two organizations to become a client of Saxum and receive the benefits of public relations, advertising, marketing and social media/digital support.

Beginning last year, Saxum decided to step up for Step Up and selected two nonprofits for a total contribution of $100,000 in pro-bono services. The application process has begun for fiscal year 2012-13, and we already have great interest.

Beginning in July, the new Step Up grant will be awarded, and our team will have the good fortune of helping at least one, and maybe two, nonprofits make a difference in the lives of those they serve.

Our 27-person team is committed to helping the nonprofits’ missions succeed. So, when I think of changing lives, it is nice to work for a business that each year makes the promise of helping expand the story and the brand of organizations like Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Oklahoma, Community Action Project of Tulsa and The Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.

As our graduation time draws near for Leadership OK, we ask ourselves, “Are you the spark?”

Each of us is a spark, and innovative programs such as Step Up will continue to move our state forward.

Carol Troy

For many companies, gathering interaction and followers on Facebook and Twitter is the main focus of their social media strategy, and rightly so. But according to a recent study by HubSpot, LinkedIn generates the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate – three times higher than both Facebook and Twitter. As the study states, people join LinkedIn to showcase their professional experience and accomplishments. The user is more business-focused, resulting in businesses that target other businesses naturally finding a higher concentration of their target market on LinkedIn than on Facebook or Twitter.

Who is using LinkedIn?

An infographic published by Business Insider details who is really using LinkedIn. Some highlights include:

• 50 percent of LinkedIn members are 35 years of age or older
• Companies with 10,000+ employees make up close to 60 percent of those on LinkedIn and 90 percent make up companies with 1,000 employees or more.

The companies LinkedIn users care about the most are:

1. IBM
2. Hewlett Packard
3. Microsoft
4. Accenture
5. Google
6. Oracle
7. Deloitte
8. Apple
9. Dell
10. Cisco

So, how can you engage potential customers/clients/employees on LinkedIn?

Company Profile

Ensure your company profile is keyword-rich so potential customers, employees and target audiences who are searching the Internet or searching directly on LinkedIn can easily find your company profile. This is key in building your LinkedIn network.

Senior Leadership Profiles

Ninety percent of information in a LinkedIn company page comes from employee personal profiles. Even if the majority of your senior leadership have already created LinkedIn profiles, it’s essential their profile is linked to your company’s profile. These individuals should also make an effort to connect with others on LinkedIn in order to build their network and increase access to potential customers, employees and other target audiences.

Share Updates

This share feature on LinkedIn functions much like a status update on Facebook. By using this function, your company and employees can share company news, product/service offerings, as well as industry articles. It’s also a great way to share video, online newsletters and other multimedia content to stay fresh in the minds of your followers.

Quality Over Quantity

The key for a successful LinkedIn strategy is finding your audience. Having 10,000 followers is no more beneficial than having 10 followers if they’re not the right people – potential customers, employees or other key targets. It is not about the masses; it’s not about huge numbers. It is about reaching your target audience with your message and having them engage with you.

Instead of trying to sell and promote your company, be authentic. Provide your followers with news, tips and other relevant information about your industry. This will provide credibility and go a long way in broadening your audience.

Utilize Recruiting Tools

LinkedIn is one of the most effective online tools for recruiting new employees. As the world’s largest professional network, with more than 150 million members worldwide, you can be sure there are outstanding candidates out there looking for a career. The “Jobs You May Be Interested In” feature will recommend your job posting to the right candidates on LinkedIn. You can also see who’s viewed your job and submitted an application – the customized dashboard tracks views by title, company, region, source and more. Finally, LinkedIn has the technology to identify the best candidates for your job posting based on their profile information.

So, while LinkedIn may not be the best venue to share comments about award shows, it’s definitely an important social network to consider in your business’s social media strategy. Who knows, you may get recognition for your company’s performance on LinkedIn in the future.

Chad Backus

Public relations professionals and copywriters painstakingly wordsmith the perfect product description or emotional appeal to the public, only to have the graphic designer request to trim the word count to make way for their innovative layout. Fortunately, this can be avoided by taking an integrated approach to marketing that brings writers and designers together from the beginning to brainstorm concepts and create a solution.

Think about this when forming project teams, whether internal or with an agency. Both perspectives are equally important to an effective final product, so the team must work to find the middle ground for marrying impactful copy with eye-catching design and avoiding what author Sam Harrison calls “creative junk food.” When using an integrated process, keep the following tips in mind to help writers and designers better understand one another.

For the copywriters:

• Divorce your AP stylebook. (Keep reading…it’s only temporary.)  Even before “Web site” was officially changed to “website,” there were times when it needed to be one word. I’ve also seen cases where correct punctuation is altered for readability on a billboard for drivers on the interstate. This isn’t a reflection of your editing skills; it’s purely a readability issue. Plus, symbols like % take up less space than “percent.”
• Think about the medium before you write the first word, then trim whatever you write by 20 percent.  Really challenge yourself to make every word count. Your copy may be riveting, but if it’s buried in too many words, nobody is going to read it anyway. Use active tense and remove superfluous terms.
• The image is most often the strongest aspect of the design. Photography, infographics and typography are compelling and can express emotions or messages to support what you’re articulating in the copy. Don’t use words to emphasize what’s already being shown visually, it’s redundant. Instead, use the copy to spark action.

For the designers:

• We all know the grid reigns supreme, but most people don’t take action just from looking at a picture. Please allow for a call to action, and the writers promise to keep it concise and free of widow-makers.
• We realize you’re an artist, even if your tools are a mouse and Mac instead of a paintbrush. That said, marketing collateral is about a business objective so it’s important to infuse your style and expertise while also considering the overall brand and emotion you’re trying to evoke or action you are trying to drive.
• The logo and/or URL need to be bigger. This is a common client response  to designs for anything from a brochure to a billboard. Designers sometimes minimize a company’s logo or website URL because it distracts from their vision (or is plain ugly…but that’s a different discussion). The client isn’t trying to take over the design, but they often have a brand standard and have to answer to their bosses about the readability of a company’s logo or contact information.

Taking an integrated approach reveals that while a brand is impacted by design and copywriting, it’s also so much more than that.  A brand is not just a logo or a tagline, it’s a combination of a product’s quality, customer service, community relations and more – it’s the experience that a customer has with a company. This is why an integrated approach is critical to success. Our team at Saxum provides integrated services to our clients, combining advertising, marketing, public relations and social media to enhance our clients’ brands and reputations among key stakeholders.

When you find yourself torn between copy and design, remembering the overall brand and original business objective behind the project can help you stay the course. While winning awards and creating portfolio pieces is fun, creating an integrated plan to achieve your business goals is a more effective metric for success.

Lindsay Vidrine

Randi shared some valuable insights that I’d like to pass on the Saxum blog readers, so I’ve compiled my notes below. I give full credit for this information to Randi and her presentation, which was insightful and informative.

She spoke about the success of Facebook, but more specifically about three things Facebook did right:

• Facebook adopted a demand-led marketing approach.

First, they were only open to Harvard, then other schools, then the military (need for communicating with families back home), etc. The demand led to the expansion, and Facebook grew exponentially.

When Facebook launches in a new country, they ask certain residents to serve as beta translators to convert everything into their language. Sometimes, she said, the site is completely translated within 48 hours. Facebook is now available in 50 languages.

• The company culture at Facebook is what they call a “hacker culture”

It may not sound good to be a “hacker,” but Randi pointed out that in the world of the Internet, hackers take risks and think outside the box. At Facebook, they believe good ideas can come from anywhere.

In order to inspire new ideas and creativity, Facebook hosts what they call Hack-a-thons. All employees participate, from interns to the janitor, and the only rule is you have to work on something that’s completely different than your day job. The hack-a-thons are all-night events, complete with food, music, etc. At the end of the night, everyone gets equal time to present their ideas.

As proof that good ideas can come from anywhere and anyone, she pointed out that the idea for Facebook chat and Facebook video came from summer interns.

• Sharing aspect

The ability to share everything on Facebook has contributed to its massive growth and reach. Facebook is now bigger than every other photo-sharing site combined, and Farmville surpasses all other games on any other console in popularity because it can be shared.

In her role with Facebook, she developed Facebook Live to host live events on Facebook. The service famously was used by President Barack Obama to host a town hall meeting with America.

Randi also hosted an eight-hour live debate moderated by Diane Sawyer, which came to be nominated for an Emmy – the first online broadcast to ever be nominated for that award.

Part of the reason Randi decided to leave Facebook and move on to her own ventures was not only the success of the two events mentioned above, but she also became a new mom. She pointed out that new moms are the biggest Facebook users, spending an average of two hours per day on the site.

She also pointed out there are 1.8 million Facebook users in Oklahoma; about half the population.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Randi’s presentation was her discussion of the top social media trends in 2012, detailed below.

• Sharing economy

Even in a down economy, people don’t want to give up luxury. Airbnb is a site that allows you to rent out your house if you go out of town or you have an extra room. ZipCar lets you rent a car just for a short period of time and return it so you don’t have to actually own a car. Fashion sites will rent you designer dresses or handbags, and textbook rentals are growing in popularity.

• People as platforms and media brands

Randi pointed out that everyone who has followers is essentially a media outlet and can share information with their fans. This is important for businesses to keep in mind when identifying influencers on social media.

• Gaming meets health and fitness

Companies are developing products that keep people accountable to their health, fitness and weight loss goals. She mentioned a scale that posts your weight automatically to your Twitter account, and an alarm clock that syncs with your credit card so that every time you hit snooze, it gives a dollar to charity.

• Crowd-sourcing

Increasingly, fans want to and expect to be part of the action and the decision-making process for brands. She cited Sports Illustrated, which crowdsourced an entire cover of their magazine, and Vitamin Water, which crowdsourced an entire flavor. Target also decided to let their fans choose which nonprofit would receive their donation.

• Statement cover photos

This trend deals with the rise of art and visual appeal. So often, social media users are drawn toward images, which is part of the reason Facebook’s new Timeline format relies so heavily on custom artwork and banners.

• Mobile first/mobile only

Brands are creating content that can only be accessed on mobile devices. Banks have apps that will allow you to take a photo of a check to deposit to your account, Starbucks allows you to load money onto your smartphone to pay for your drinks.

• Return to intimacy

While the goal of some social sites is to get as many friends as you can, Path is a social network that limits your friends to 50. This encourages users to be selective, but users feel more comfortable sharing personal information with those friends.

• People as curators

In the past, experts were people who authored articles and created original content. Now, being a curator and filtering through all the information that’s out there to select what’s relevant and important can position you as an “expert” in your industry.

Randi referenced her sister, Donna Zuckerberg, who has thousands of followers on Pinterest. Donna finds recipes using different food items and posts them all to her Pinterest boards, curating the content and filtering through to find the best recipes.

• Subscription and appointment

People have limited time, and there’s so much noise out there that they want businesses to be able to cut through it, choose the right products and deliver it to directly to them.

Delivery service websites like BirchBox, Manpacks and Citrus Lane will choose products for you and send them to users on a regular basis or as one-time gifts.

• Create social moments

Everyone wants to create a social moment with their event, brand or cause. She challenged attendees to get their followers to tune in online for an event or announcement.

• Consider charity

People care about charities and how businesses are giving back to the community. Social media is a great tool to generate support for a cause.

Randi shared some great insight for attendees. I’m sure we can expect to see great things from her R to Z Media in the future.

Lisa Lloyd

1. Don’t rely on the grapevine. No matter how much you love Marvin Gaye, relying on the grapevine to share information with employees is never a good idea. When you do not control the message, the message will control you. Your employees want to hear from you, and when they do not, rumors and misinformation will spread quickly.
2. Tell employees first. Do not let your employees find out company news by reading it in the newspaper or watching it on the evening news. Nothing is more disheartening than finding out from an outside source about what’s going on in your company.
3. Share the company vision. It is difficult to get employees jazzed about what they are doing if they do not feel invested in the end result of their labor. Perhaps no one did this any better than Steve Jobs. He harnessed the power of his employees by sharing his vision with the entire company on a regular basis. Do you have a company vision? If so, great. How are you communicating it to your employees?
4. Encourage two-way communication. We’ve all heard of top-down communication – management communicates to employees. But the best companies also adopt a bottom-up communication style in which employees can communicate directly with management, and it’s encouraged.
5. Utilize the communication toolbox. There are several methods available to communicate with your internal audience. A few examples include a company intranet, video, webcasts, email, e-newsletters, social media, companywide meetings and the traditional printed pieces such as memos and newsletters. Be aware of communication limitations with employees who may not have access to a computer or those working off-site. Most companies have to employ a number of methods to communicate to every internal audience.  

Employees should be your company’s biggest ally and advocate. Help them feel valued and connected to the vision by communicating with them frequently and through various channels. 

Lindsay Laird

As an example, when McDonald’s launched their #McDStories Twitter campaign in January, they set out to hear stories that were uplifting from the 1 billion served. What started out as an idea rooted in inspiration quickly turned into an effort of exasperation as McDonald’s raced to McManage unexpected customer tweets.

So, how do we all learn from this experience and others like it? Here are just a few things to think about when planning your next social media brilliance:

Timing is Everything

Determine the pros and cons of launching into a crowd-sourced social media campaign. Speak with your customer service and public relations teams to better understand any recent issues that are trending about your brand. They hear complaints and compliments regularly and can give you a wealth of insight into some of the feedback you may receive through your crowd-sourced social media effort.

Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say

Clearly communicate the outcome you’re seeking, especially if you’re soliciting input from the public. As you launch your campaign, tell your audience what you’re looking for and highlight good examples. Transparency is an important component of framing the mindset of your targets and driving feedback in the direction you’re seeking.

Get On Your Mark

Make sure you are set for the launch of your campaign. Remember that social media is an open platform where all messages are on display. Closely monitor feedback so that you may address issues in real-time. You won’t always be able to control the message from the audience. But, you can control how you respond, which is equally important.

Expect the Unexpected

Be sure you have a contingency plan in place to help you and your team deal with less-than-welcome responses.

Don’t Go It Alone.

Hire a fantastic communications firm who can develop a successful social media strategy. There’s no reason to test the waters without a life vest. Many firms can write the book on the do’s and don’ts of successful social media and have established social media campaign best practices. Take advantage of their expertise.

Social media is an amazing, insightful and honest tool that, when used wisely, can be rewarding and revolutionary. However, strategy, planning and preparation are the keys to transforming a mediocre campaign into an exceptional one.

Erica Hollis
Account Director, Marketing

It’s the 10^th most popular social media site, but have you gotten your invitation yet?

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that allows users to gather inspiration from all over the Web, “pin” them to a “board” organized by topic and share everything with users who have similar interests. The “pins” can then be “repinned” by other users, reaching all of their followers. Users can also “like” pins or comment on them. For almost two years, this social media channel has helped users “plan their weddings, decorate their homes and share their favorite recipes.”

But the board themes are as endless as your imagination, and big name brands are beginning to work out how they can use the site to their advantage.

The key to using Pinterest as a marketing tool for your business is to create and share content that is relevant to your target audiences, thus making you relevant to them. Almost 60 percent of the site’s visitors in a recent 12-week period were women between the ages of 25 and 44. If that’s your target market – pay attention.

As an example, Whole Foods Market utilizes Pinterest to promote their products and build brand loyalty. However, if they only pinned photos of their products, they would not have the nearly 12,000 followers that they have today.

Instead, Whole Foods is a great example of how to promote company expertise. They offer users interesting content that extends beyond their store walls, such as gardening tips, recycled craft tutorials, kitchen remodeling ideas and other “pins” that might appeal to their target audience. In doing this, they maintain engagement with current shoppers and, as their content is shared, extend their reach to potential customers.

Your business will gain more followers if you pin items that extend beyond branded content to also reflect lifestyles, trends, tips and ideas.

Brands are also using Pinterest as a crowdsourcing tool, soliciting feedback on new products. Giveaways are popular on the site, like Land’s End Canvas, which encouraged users to create a pinboard of their favorite Land’s End products and then gave away 10 $250 gift cards. Pinterest has an aspirational tone for many, but showing how your brand makes luxury accessible will increase its popularity, like vacation rental service HomeAway.

Another good practice to observe as you build your social media presence is to direct your devoted followers to your other social media sites for different engagement or more in-depth content; however, you must then deliver on the promise for diverse content.

When used correctly, Pinterest can increase a business’ online presence and help drive traffic to your website. But more than that, each pin can also earn your business a meaningful impression with followers by providing memorable and useful information that entices users to return for more information and plants the seed for growing their loyalty to your brand.

In the business world, we are results-driven and depend on data to illustrate the success of our efforts. On Pinterest, like many other social media sites, we can measure a number of items, including your followers, shared or “repinned” content, likes and comments, to reflect your fan engagement.

Pinterest has seen a tremendous amount of growth, with an increase in estimated unique visitors of 429 percent from September to December 2011. The site is so far proving to be an effective engine of social commerce. Is your brand Pinteresting enough to engage?

Rachel Hinderman
Account Executive

Twitter Chat

Online chats have come a long way since the original AOL chat room. Today, creating a Twitter chat can be a very useful and instant way to stay in touch with your audience. These chats can help you measure your audience’s attitude toward a given campaign, cause or product.

Hosting a Twitter chat is as easy as picking a unique hashtag, or “#,” that describes your specific topic and letting your followers know when the conversation will be active. When they search for your hashtag during your designated chat time, they see a live, streaming discussion, which creates a forum. Search Marketing Weekly provides an example of what a search chat looks like with a summary of the most recent #SEOchat.

Make sure you do your research before launching a hashtag. If someone is already using it, your conversation will be cluttered with unrelated messages. Also, make sure your hashtag is unique and not too long. #Usingexcessivelylonghashtags can make it difficult for people to tweet their full thoughts since you’re limited to 140 characters. Check out these popular Twitter chats for marketing and public relations professionals: #smbiz, #brandchat, #socialchat and #commschat.

Facebook Tagging

To make your brand more social, tag your fans and partners in status updates on your Facebook page by using the “@” symbol in your update. This will link to their Facebook page, letting them know you have mentioned them and strengthening relationships. Next time they post about you, they’re more likely to use the “@” symbol themselves. Tagging is a great way to highlight partnerships, promotions, sponsorships and clients or to highlight an article or interview with a specific media outlet.

Facebook posts with tags also are displayed on the person’s or business page’s Wall. You can use up to six @ tags per status update anywhere the publisher (the box where you write posts and updates) appears on Facebook. A blog post on Inside Facebook gives a visual of what @ tagging looks like to a user.

Geotargeted Facebook Status

Let’s say you’ve got a national or international brand, but you still want to provide customized updates to audiences in specific countries/states/cities. Facebook offers geographically targeted status updates that can be shown only to those likers in that specific location. That way, you aren’t cluttering your national page with specific updates about what’s going on in Tulsa, Okla., for example. You can simply enter your localized status update, click on the drop-down box at the bottom right next to the “Share” button (default is usually “Public”), and select “Target by: Location/Language.” You can choose the country, state/province or city. You can also select a different language.

Each social media channel offers a number of ways to connect with targeted audiences, and is really a marketing toolbox of its own. Make sure you are taking full advantage of all the features those platforms have to offer. A little “@” can go a long way.

Aran Coleman

In addition to being the biggest football game of the year, the Super Bowl has also become the biggest game for advertisers. This year, you can expect to see several major advertisers returning to the “big game,” plunking down 3.5 million dollars hoping to become the fodder of water cooler talk the next day. Why not? Isn’t this the real reason people watch? It’s all about the commercials.

But something else happened along the way to the water cooler. With the advent of social media, these ads have a far longer shelf life than the 30 or 60 seconds that appear on television. Now, more than ever, people are not just sitting down with a slice of pizza and cold one. They are sitting with their smartphones and tablets, anxiously waiting to tweet about their favorite ad or post their opinions on Facebook. So many of the ads we now see have gone viral, and those benefiting the most are the advertisers themselves.

In 2011, the ad that took the nation by storm was the Volkswagen Darth Vader commercial. It certainly gave its 6-year-old star Max Page his 15 minutes of fame. The commercial not only went on to be named Adweek’s top commercial of 2011, it continues to flourish on YouTube with nearly 50 million hits. Volkswagen says “thank you,” by the way.

Not only are these social media outlets becoming standard for companies to showcase their brands, they are offering the opportunity for people to become engaged. Brands are taking interaction so far that some are actually offering the public a chance to create the ads. Doritos is once again sponsoring the “Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Ad Contest,” where anybody can create and submit their own commercial with the hopes that it’s chosen to be one of the spots aired during the Super Bowl. The spots are loaded onto the Doritos website, and people vote for their favorite. The winning commercial becomes one of the super elite and will be seen by billions of people. If the commercial takes the top spot on the USA Today Ad Meter or USA Today Facebook Super Bowl Ad, the person who created the commercial will win one million dollars.

So, it’s game on. Advertising has become much more integrated, and advertisers are taking advantage of this ever-growing new media. For the brands themselves, the best part is, we are all eager to play.

Dan Martel is senior vice president and chief creative officer of Saxum, an integrated communications agency in Oklahoma City and Tulsa offering public relations, marketing, advertising and social media services to clients nationwide.

Martel brings experience and proven senior leadership to Saxum’s advertising group, which is one of the fastest-growing segments of the agency business. He will serve on the leadership team and will direct Saxum’s advertising department focusing on the explosive growth of its production and video teams. He will report to Saxum President Debbie Schramm.

“Dan’s 25 years of experience in advertising allows us to take our creative offering to a new level,” said Renzi Stone, Saxum chairman and CEO. “You can’t help but be impressed with Dan’s keen creative vision for clients like ONEOK, Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Dept. and the Oklahoma Lottery.”

Martel started his career with the William Cook agency in Jacksonville, Fla. and worked on various projects for Saatchi & Saatchi, J. Walter Thompson and Tracy Locke. He joined Jordan Advertising in 1993 as director of broadcast production and was promoted to associated creative director two years later. In 2006, Martel was named vice president and chief creative director where he oversaw the creative for such clients as ONEOK, Oklahoma Natural Gas, Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Dept., Blue Cross & Blue Shield, AAA and Anthony’s.

He has won numerous industry awards including Addy, Telly and Clio awards in addition to a Best Screenplay award for a children’s film called “Lil Buccaneers.” He currently serves as president of the Oklahoma Media Network and sits on the board of directors for the CARE Center and Girl Scouts of Western Oklahoma.

“Dan’s experience leading branding and advertising strategies and campaigns for national clients combined with the talents of our creative team has positioned Saxum to provide the highest level of advertising services to Saxum clients,” Schramm said.

Saxum’s advertising department has implemented successful video, brand and Web projects for clients since the firm was founded in 2003. Saxum currently serves as agency of record for all public relations, social media, advertising and marketing services for clients such as First Fidelity Bank, George Kaiser Family Foundation, GlobalHealth, Variety Care and Kimray Inc., to name a few.

About Saxum
Saxum is an integrated communications firm offering strategic communications across all channels with expertise including public relations, marketing, advertising and social media to help clients elevate their brand and reputation. We are a bold, thoughtful and creative partner you can trust. For more information, visit www.saxum.com.