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Crowdsourcing, or soliciting services, ideas or content from a group of people or online community, is an innovation that has turned many traditional models on their heads. Advertising agencies and digital media shops are not immune to this new trend. This article posted by Cheryl Ross to MediaJobs.com discusses the trend as it pertains to advertising.

Two industry experts have shared their views about the future of advertising in a blog featured in the Harvard Business Review – and their ideas make for “disruptive reading” for any art director or account manager with an eye for innovation.media strategy

John Winsor, CEO of Victors and Spoils, and Wharton School Professor of Marketing, Jerry Wind, begin with the statement, “Much like newspapers, conventional advertising agencies are becoming irrelevant.”

No cages 

If this is causing a cold sweat to break out in the reading art director or account manager, relax. They’re far from pessimistic. Agencies, they say, need to capitalize on today’s new democratized creativity trends facilitated by crowdsourcing, open innovation and co-creation. When Windsor’s agency heard that Harley Davidson was dropping a long-term agency, it chose to steer away from the traditional pitch process. Instead, it posted a brief to its 7,200-strong crowd of strategists and creatives, comprising freelancers, brand and advertising enthusiasts and moonlighters from other agencies. All had chosen to collaborate on the new open working model (aptly called “No Cages”) at V&S. Read the rest of this entry »

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Stevens & Tate

Signs point that the era of mass media is behind us. Stevens & Tate invites you to read this article by John Villasenor of Forbes about the trends in digital media that are shaping its future.

The World Economic Forum is perhaps best known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which brings together heads of state, CEOs of some of the world’s largest companies, and assorted other movers and shakers for a week of speeches, panels, and workshops in the Swiss Alps each January. But the Forum also works year-round through its network of over eighty global agenda councils, which address a diverse range of topics including biotechnology, climate change, energy security, and youth unemployment.

Since last year, I’ve been a member of the Forum’s global agenda council on the intellectual property system. We’ve taken a careful look at the forces shaping how people are creating and sharing digital media today, and perhaps even more importantly, what the world of digital media will look like in the coming years. We’ve distilled these down to a set of six digital content “megatrends” that, translated from policy-wonk language into English, are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

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Stevens & Tate

DuPage Chamber of Commerce “Women With Vision” Seminar Social Media Keynote

WHO: Women who own their own business or are an executive in a small company with 5 or less employees

WHERE: TBD

WHEN: October 2, 2013 at NOON

DETAILS: Stevens and Tate Marketing Internet Marketing Director Nicole Wagner will be the keynote speaker for this year’s DuPage Chamber of Commerce “Women With Vision” annual fall seminar.

Nicole’s presentation Key Social Media Strategies and the Tools to Be Successful will help attendees gain hands-on working knowledge of essential social media techniques and how to use them most effectively. Participants will benefit from learning how to incorporate these strategies into their own social media program, and specific guidelines to help enhance the results of their efforts.

Be sure to check back here for more details as they become available. To learn more about Stevens & Tate’s expertise in social media, click here.

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Stevens & Tate

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Have you asked yourself, “What is responsive Web design?” Responsive Web design is an approach whereby a designer creates a Web page that “responds to” or resizes itself depending on the type of device it is being seen through.  That could be an oversized desktop computer monitor, a laptop, a 10-inch tablet, a 7-inch tablet, or a 4-inch smartphone screen.

Responsive Web design has become one of the hottest trends in 2013.  This is due in part to the  growth of smartphones and other mobile devices. More people are using smaller-screen devices to view Web pages.

In fact, Mashable even dubbed 2013 the Year of Responsive Web Design. Pete Cashmore wrote,  ”For those of us who create websites and services, all this leads to a singular conclusion: A million screens have bloomed, and we need to build for all of them.”

What Does Responsive Web Design Look Like?

The purpose of responsive design is to have one site, but with different elements that respond differently when viewed on devices of different sizes.

Let’s take a traditional “fixed” website.  When viewed on a desktop computer, for instance, the website might show  three columns. But when you view that same layout on a smaller tablet, it might force you to scroll horizontally, something users don’t like. Or elements might be hidden from view or look distorted.  The impact is also complicated by the fact that many tablets can be viewed either in portrait orientation, or turned sideways for landscape view.

On a tiny smartphone screen, websites can be even more challenging to see. Large images may “break” the layout. Sites can be slow to load on smartphones if they are graphics heavy. Read the rest of this entry »

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Nicole Wagner

So, you’re consistent with your identity; you’ve created a connection through an integrated approach; you’re using social media as a conversation between you and your followers-now what keeps fans and followers coming back?

The answer is contribution. There are so many social media sites and so little time. Internet users spend one-third of their time on social media sites. What are you contributing to the lives of your audience? Are you providing interesting content? Is your photography captivating enough that visitors come back for more and save the images for their own use? Do you offer resources that help you stand out?

Let’s take a look at some examples of social media efforts that provide a contribution:

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Nicole Wagner

Do you tune out when someone talks and talks all about themselves and never lets you in on the conversation? Well then it shouldn’t take you long to understand that your social media audience acts the same way.

The first mistake of many marketers is to talk about their product as much as possible on every platform they can; over-saturating every channel with information. With social media, as instinctive as it may be to use these platforms as a bullhorn, you can guarantee no one will listen if you’re the one doing all the talking. Social media needs to be a conversation. It sounds obvious, but conversations must have a give and take. If your brand is just blatantly trying to sell something, its fans and followers will easily see through the posts, and you can bet they will mostly ignore them (or no longer remain a fan or follower).

Try to re-imagine the main goal of social media as this: Develop a good relationship. Sales and loyalty will come after you have established a relationship.  When you share content that is related to your brand, the industry you are in, and other things you think your fans and followers are interested in, you build an engaged community. Keep them coming back for more by providing content that they can gain from.

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Nicole Wagner

When you create a social media strategy, it is important to integrate it across multiple platforms and audience touch points in order to create a connection. This helps to ensure that your message isn’t just overlooked by your audience, but is something that becomes familiar and attractive. So let’s look at a few ways you can integrate social media.

Connect: First, make sure customers can connect to all of your other social media and online efforts from each individual platform. Include links to each platform to effectively promote all of your touch points and channels.

Advertise your Social Media efforts: Let people know about your SM efforts and encourage them to visit. This can be as simple as including the logo of the platforms your brand can be accessed on products and/or physical advertisements.

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