Everywhere Agency Wins an AMY Award

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We are thrilled to have been recognized by the Atlanta chapter of the American Marketing Association during the 2016 Atlanta Marketer of the Year (AMY) Awards. Known for rewarding companies for innovative strategies and memorable campaigns that produced stellar results, we’re honored to be in such awesome company!

Everywhere Agency was a 2016 AMY Award finalist in two categories – “Integrated Marketing Campaign – General Market B2B” for our work with Domain.ME on influencer marketing and conference sponsorship, and “Social Media Campaign – Company Revenue > $1 Billion” for our influencer marketing activations and Twitter chats for the Macy’s Supermodel Emme campaign. We took the AMY Award home for our work with Macy’s and Emme.

We are incredibly proud of our team members who contributed to these campaigns. Our AMY Award winning work with Macy’s and supermodel Emme was absolutely award worthy, if we do say so ourselves. We integrated plus-size fashion influencers into runway shows, hosted several Twitter chats to promote the events, and spread awareness of Macy’s plus-sized department. Along the way, we engaged the plus sized community and encouraged a conversation around body positivity. With Domain.ME, we worked on a host of influencer campaigns throughout 2015, and had killer activations at 7 different blogging conferences on their behalf.

We are incredibly thankful to our clients Domain.ME and Macy’s for giving us the opportunity to show the community what a nimble agency like ours can do.

Video Marketing Tips Marketers Should Know

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Creating social media posts with visuals is a must. Brand strategist are not looking to increase followers on Twitter and Facebook, they’re looking for engagement on their posts. If you want engagement, add videos. Video marketing for social media is effective and can be an inexpensive option.

Videos are increasingly becoming the focal point on many social media platforms. Facebook and Instagram now auto play, while Snapchat, a video messaging platform is growing in population. Don’t believe me? Entrepreneur.com states that in 2015, YouTube was the second largest search engine after Google. And according to a Cisco study, by 2017, videos will take up 69 percent of the internet. For marketers, that’s great news. According to this same study, that means that people who watch videos are 85 percent more likely to make a purchase. Sounds good, right?

Creating the right kind of video isn’t hard, however, there is something to keep in mind: social media isn’t about throwing content online, it should be strategic and well thought out. Here are four tips for building a strong video marketing strategy.

  1. Keep the videos short. Know that many users are watching the brand’s video on their mobile device. More than likely, they can’t turn up the volume and are quickly scrolling through their feed. The thumbnail, title and start of the video should “pop.” Keeping viewers’ attention for longer than two minutes is nearly impossible. Make the video short and powerful.
  1. No pushy brands allowed. According to the New York Times, consumers see more than 5,000 ads per day. Videos are a great way to break through the clutter if it’s not too “adsy.” Make the video personable and engaging. Allow it to speak to the viewer; make them happy or inspire them while incorporating key messaging. They may not remember what was said, but they will remember how you made them feel. Give them a great big dose of “the feels” to remember the brand!
  1. Be personable. Social media is about communication. We visit sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to interact and engage with people, maybe even people we’ve never met. Being personable is important. If your video marketing efforts sound like a robot reading cue cards, people will run away…fast. Delete the pushy ads and salesy verbiage. Imagine your brand as a person. Who would it be? What would it sound like? How would it interact with its mom or best friend? Those are the types of questions you should ask as you brainstorm your video concept.
  1. Tell the (not any story, but THE) story. We are all storytellers and have some story we’d like to share. Video is the most powerful way to get the narrative across. Every video should have a beginning, middle and an end. Seems simple, right? Videos like “How To Highlight and Contour For Beginners” and “Single People Get Married for a Week” are two examples of completely different stories. However, at one point, both videos were trending and told a great story directed to a specific audience. While thinking of your story make it simple. Start with the title and break it down into three or four words. As you’re writing your video go back to those three or four words and make sure you’re in line with your end goal. “Highlight and Contour for Beginners,” “Single People Get Married,” those titles were thought out before the video was shot and you can tell by the way the story is told. It doesn’t matter if your story is sexy or not, it just has to have a clear beginning, middle and end.

The right video at the right time can push your brand to superstar status. One share can catapult a brand, making it a viral sensation. As a brand marketer, make sure you’re staying on top of the trends, and that you are creating content that positively push the buttons of your target audience. As video marketers, create videos that are short, not salesy, personable, and tell a story. With those four tips in mind you’ll quickly become an expert!

 

Game of Thrones versus Mad Men

The One True King of Social Media

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Five kings may have tried to rule Westeros, but in the land of social media, there is only one.

Game of Thrones, First of Its Name, premiered its fourth season Sunday, April 6th to some 6.6 million people. To put it in perspective that’s 1.5 million more viewers than its third season premiere and exactly triple its debut in 2011.

These numbers seem huge until you compare them with HBO-legacy The Sopranos who bowed out with nearly 12 million viewers, and AMC’s Breaking Bad who finished with a respectable 10 million. Yet for a show whose ratings haven’t broken any records, its presence in the media is nothing short of astounding.

As a former HBO brand ambassador myself, it’s true that I might be a little bit biased when I rave about the various HBO media campaigns over the years. But even if I am biased, it’s nice to know that I’m in good company. The network’s efforts and campaigns to promote Game of Thrones Season 4 were fantastic, but they weren’t nearly as important as what came from their audience on social media.

The night of the premiere brands flocked to Twitter to capitalize on the popularity and cult following of the show. Brand giants such as Delta, Pringles, Mentos, and even fellow political-drama House of Cards decided to pay homage. Some of these campaigns were relevant, several were clever, and most were silly; but they were all united in one thing: they all proved that there is a lot of digital traffic working for Game of Thrones.

In fact, the @GameofThrones Twitter handle proudly boasted that the fourth season’s premiere created the most social activity of any HBO original series episode ever, and I believe it. This stands in stark contrast to the premiere of AMC’s last (well, sort-of last) season of Mad Men, which according to Nielsen debuted to only 2.3 million viewers. In fact, it too got a shoutout from Delta on the night of its premiere, although despite having more favorites than Game of Thrones‘, people were curiously less likely to actually retweet it to their feed.

To be fair, Mad Men has done well digitally, just perhaps not as well as its peers. It’s been around longer than Game of Thrones and the Council for Research Excellence found that social media is proving to be twice as effective at attracting viewers to new shows than returning shows. Mad Men did manage to generate a trending topic on Facebook, which has been shown to be the most popular way of socially connected viewing, but it fell short of the buzz surrounding the shocking and now infamous “Purple Wedding” from Game of Thrones.

In Tweets alone, Game of Thrones saw 251,000 mentions while Mad Men brought in less than a fourth of that with 60,000. This might seem arbitrary until faced with the fact that, according to the same CRE study, 42% of viewers planned to watch a show after seeing it mentioned in a Tweet and 33% immediately change the channel to watch it live. So what does this mean? Being in its final season, Mad Men was surely expecting more hype from the digital stratosphere, but maybe it’s time to ditch the briefcase and invest in some dragons.

social media, new years resolutions, new year, resolutions, new beginnings, social media resolutions, blog post, 2014

Let’s Get Personal: Social Media New Year’s Resolutions from the Everywhere Team

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It’s nearly 2014 and I reckon each of us is having a hard time believing that the days of hoarding canned goods and gallons of water for Y2K are 14 years passed. A lot has happened in the last 14 years. The world battled and survived SARS, bird and swine flu epidemics. America saw its first African American president elected and reelected. Smart devices overtook the mobile market at breakneck speeds, and social media went from a foreign and novel concept to the primary means by which people around the world connect. As a company that specializes in this form of digital communication, we bear both knowledge and a burden and feel that in 2014 it is our duty to inform the masses of what we believe to be quintessential social media faux-pas. Each of us here at Everywhere wants to share with you our most desired social media New Year’s resolutions to stick to in 2014. But not to worry, they’re all things we’re working on too!

Danica Kombol

Pet Peeve #1: New-Baby-Info-Overload Syndrome. We love babies, really we do. But do we have to hear when they first pooped on the potty or had a little tinkle?

Resolve to: Keep a few more of those intimate moments to ourselves.

Pet Peeve #2: Unknown Linkers. If anyone knows me, they know I love to connect with people. But, when it comes to LinkedIn, it’s still strange when I receive requests to link to someone I’ve never met or even heard of.

Resolve to: Make an introduction through a mutual contact. No more ‘cold linking’.

 

resolutions, social media, social media resolutions, new years, 2014 Kelly Heisler

Pet Peeve #1: Foodie Photogs. I don’t care what you ate today. All it does is make me realize I’m not eating it. What do you want, a pat on the back for eating? Harsh? Maybe. True? Sadly.

Resolve to: Keep breakfast, lunch and dinner where they belong…in your stomach.

Pet Peeve #2: The Mushy Oversharer. When people in a relationship use their Facebook walls as their main form of communication.

Resolve to: Use the message feature, that’s what it’s there for.

 

 

Lindsay Price

Pet Peeve #1: The Over-Enthusiast. No one is concerned with your “FiRst CoMMenT!!” comment on Mindy Kaling’s adorable picture.

Resolve to: Never make posts about which place your comment is in on Instagram photos…or any other photos for that matter.

Pet Peeve #2: The False Friend. Your automated Twitter DMs are counterproductive. I don’t feel thanked, I immediately begin to regret following you.

Resolve to: Share a tweet of mine that you find interesting. Don’t generically thank me for following you.

 

 

Lexi Severini

Pet Peeve #1: The Deja Vu Instagrammer. Didn’t we just see that picture? Oh, it has a different filter on it. Instagramming the same picture with slight variations doesn’t gain you any new followers. In fact, often times my finger will unfollow you before my brain has a chance to catch up.

Resolve to: Find the shot you like and post it once…and only once.

Pet Peeve #2: The In-Opportunist. Tweeting without hashtags or handles is the quickest way to dodge any potential attention you could otherwise have received from that witty or thoughtful tweet.

Resolve to: Use hashtags and handles. You worked to create that tweet. Now let it work for you a bit.

 

 

Molly Daly

Pet Peeve #1: The Digital Debater. Curb debates! Tired of arguing (or watching other people argue) when you should be enjoying your time on social media?

Resolve to: Unfollow if necessary. Simply unfollow a post after leaving your comment, or unfollow the friend who posted the controversy altogether. If there’s too much on your feed to handle, you can always install Unbaby.me and put it to good use.

Pet Peeve #2: The Build Em & Forget Em. So you signed up for Pinterest, but have you touched it since? You created a blog… but the only post is from 2011.

Resolve to: Log in to your social media accounts and see if they’re worth keeping. If someone’s googling you, it’s not a good look for your last post to be years old. Chances are, older posts aren’t a current representation of “you,” anyway.

It’s a new year, which means new beginnings. Let’s all resolve to make ourselves more efficient, more appreciated and more thoughtful social media users. Here here to a fresh and new year!

Facebook Teen Privacy Settings kids teens teenagers public content private content

Facebook Teen Privacy Settings Declared “Open for Business!”

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By: Lexi Severini

I remember the first time I was introduced to a desktop: It was 1995, I was eight and the Macintosh Classic that sat before me might as well have been Devon Sawa, adorned with a candy necklace and a mysterious smile – because, boy, was I intrigued. Aside from my early onset attraction to the opposite sex, I was also a dangerously curious kid who wanted desperately to unearth the intricacies of this foreign device.

With the office secretary’s assistance, we got it turned on and as I waited for it to boot up, thoughts of my next great (mediocre) literary masterpiece (one pager at best) swirled in my head. Would Jem – the perpetual protagonist in all of my stories – finally break up with Jake or become cheer captain? Oh elementary school problems, what I wouldn’t do to swap young adult problems with you.

It wasn’t long before I was typing away, in a world of my own, completely sold on the whole concept. I know hindsight is 20/20, but I still feel bad that I didn’t give the old office typewriter a proper goodbye. After all, she’d been a dear friend to me.

It’s pretty wild to think how far technology has come since I was eight. Nowadays, kids have an unsettling amount of access to the Internet and its vast nooks and crannies. Until Wednesday, Facebook’s privacy settings kept underage teens out of the watchful eye of the mega-popular social networking site’s general public.

However, now teens between 13 and 17 can opt to share their content publicly - not just with friends. This new option is keeping parents, caretakers and educators alike up at night. Sure, the new settings are such that a child between those ages would have to manually make the choice to share with a larger audience - but let’s not fool ourselves, folks. For most kids, the only thing better than five likes is five hundred.

So what does this mean for your son, daughter, nephew, or little sister?

Well, it means that advertisers, friends of friends and that 40+ year-old gentleman - with unkempt facial hair and a look of questionable intention on his face - could have Stevie’s post, picture or status update in their newsfeeds. But with great power comes great responsibility and Facebook knows that. That’s why Facebook now prompts those looking to change their settings to read about what exactly it means to have a public profile. At the most, it could be the reason teens change their minds and keep their info private. At the least, it’s an effort by Facebook to educate their young users on the impact of making their content public.

But before you uproot your child from her desk chair and lock her away in a tower, consider this: a recent Pew Research study shows that 51% of teenage users are concerned with sharing too much personal information via technology.

It’s true that kids say the darndest things and now, everyone will see that. For the time being though, we’re not jumping to any conclusions about how this will impact the younger generation of Facebook users, but we’re certainly keeping our eyes and ears opened. Stay tuned.

Social Media Creeper

Confessions of a Creeper and Other Reasons I’m Single

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My name is Lindsay and I’m a creeper. Specifically, a social media creeper.

In this day and age, I view social media creepiness as more than a weird compulsion- it’s a survival tactic. I can very efficiently discover if ‘what’s his name’ from the bar has a girlfriend, or if ‘so and so’ actually graduated from college. And let’s not even talk about the seemingly commonplace act of catfishing.

This compulsion has been fairly longstanding, but it really came to a head last month. I’d met a very cute guy at a concert and everything was rosy until I lost him in the crowd. Armed with just his first name and college alma mater I used the mighty powers of Facebook Graph Search and found him in a matter of seconds.

Did I feel like a terrifying person? Yes. Did I stop there? No.

Due largely to peer pressure and my inability to forget this boy, I friend requested him. It was in this moment that I realized I had a problem.

Our ability to have someone’s entire internet personality at our fingertips has broken down a very important reality: We don’t actually know these people. I can look at your LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all day long and, yet, I’m no closer to knowing who you actually are.

This infinite information presents a real problem in relationships. We feel as if we know all of these little facts about people without even having a conversation with them. “Oh, I don’t need to ask you about your siblings on this date, I looked at their Facebooks yesterday.” We’re forging opinions about people and stunting the longevity of potential relationships. Instead of finding out about past relationships on date 3, we’re creeping on their exes after date 1 and canceling date 2 based on our findings.

Very recently, a Tinder chat (a story in itself) grew into an actual chance to grab drinks. I fought every impulse to creep on this guy.* I wanted for once to go on a date without any extra information. And believe it or not, it went well. I didn’t prompt him with questions based on his Facebook interests and yet we still had plenty to talk about. The freedom of a clean slate helped me gain actual interest in this person and who knows, maybe there will be a second and third date.

I’m Lindsay. And I’m trying to get better.

[jwplayer mediaid=”4029″]

*Okay. I admit it. I looked at his Facebook. I don’t need some catfish swimming into my life.

 

 

 

 

Vine: Will Instagram Kill the Video Star?

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By Meredith Lorch

Photo Credit: Gizmodo

All the foodie photos and selfie snapshots on your Instagram feed are about to be brought to life. Vine has largely dominated the video-sharing world in recent months, but Instagram has just added video features to its iPhone and Android apps, creating quite the buzz. The question is clear: does Video on Instagram mean the downfall of Vine?

Only time will tell whether Video on Instagram will outcompete its rival. Some continue to see real potential in Vine. Gary Vaynerchuk, a brand consultant and industry thought leader, is even creating a talent agency for Vine stars, called “Grape Story.” Despite this, it’s hard to believe that Vine will amount to anything more than a fad. While its novel six-second looping video format is initially charming, Vine’s brief, repetitive nature quickly becomes overwhelming. Add in the effect of camera shake and erratic Vines can be dizzying.

Photo Credit: Tech Crunch

Both Vine and Video on Instagram employ a simple tap-and-hold-to-record feature, but Vine fails to capitalize on post-production features. The beauty of Instagram lies in the 13 brand new filters created exclusively for video—not to mention an image-stabilization tool called Cinema for capturing crisp, shake-free video. Users can also browse Instagram videos on a website—unlike Vine, which solely allows for video exploration within the app. Overall, Instagram’s new 15-second video capability allows users to share the adventure and splendor of their worlds unlike ever before, posing a serious threat to competitors.

Photo Credit: ABC News

So what’s on the horizon? Rumor has it Instagram has potential for Google Glass integration. The possibilities are seemingly endless. With its latest update, Instagram has solidified its place as a classic sharing tool that is here to stay—and not just for the foodies.

Everywhere has a robust internship program and we invite our interns to participate by writing on our blog. Meredith Lorch is an intern from Emory University. She authored this blog post.

guy wearing google glasses

Keep It Glassy

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By: Lexi Severini

In case you haven’t turned on a computer this week, we will brief you on what has dominated Mashable, Read Write Web and many other social news sources. Google Glass is taking over. Okay, we’re exaggerating. While it could be argued that the introduction of this futuristic device into society has the potential to change human interaction altogether, we’ll save that heavy discussion for a later date. As the curious bifocals make their way into the public’s hands (or onto their faces to be quite literal) the community has taken to the World Wide Web to share their experiences with this avant-garde, wearable interface. Here are some of our favorites so far:

Have a beer with an (Australian) Irishman.

See the world through the eyes of a 2 year old.

Document everyday interactions and special moments.

Entertaining to say the least, incredibly innovative and revolutionary to say the most. All of this commotion then begs the question, if you had Google Glass for a day, what would you do?

Twitter Cartoon Birds

“Will Work for Tweets”

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By: Lexi Severini

The saying goes, “words have power” and as purveyors of messaging there is no one that believes that statement more than we do. Whether your preferred platform is Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube or Google + you can rest assured that if you’ve done your due diligence, the intended audience can and will receive your message. However, if the message doesn’t communicate anything of interest, no one is going to listen. For those of you active on Twitter, consider these case studies of companies effectively using custom hashtags to not only promote product, but ‘fuel’ live action events.

Mercedes Benz ‘Tweet Race’ - #MBteamCL

For the luxury auto brand’s 125th anniversary, they decided to launch a socially interactive campaign. Creating a hashtag to represent an event was nothing new so they had to come up with a fresh angle. They opted to host a 2-day real time event where tweets would ‘drive’ Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Let me explain. The cars were essentially being fueled by tweets containing the #MBteamCL hashtag and would drive 1 mile for every 4 tweets that came in. Those interested in watching the progress of the race could tune in on www.mbtweetrace.com. When all was said and done, the campaign reached almost 25 million people on Twitter, generated over 150 thousand tweets and garnered nearly 78 thousand new Twitter followers for Mercedes-Benz. (Mercedes Benz)

The Weather Channel - #TornadoWeek

If you haven’t already checked it out, this week’s Weather Channel site is especially amusing. In honor of their cultishly popular Tornado Week, their interns have created a livestream of a tweet-powered win tunnel. The strength of those gusts depends entirely on you. The more you tweet mentioning #TornadoWeek, the more the man behind the curtain turns the dial. While the week is wrapping up and they are still far from their lofty goal of 1 million mentions, we’re still impressed. 2 points for originality, 3 for entertainment.

So whether you’re fueling a car or parlaying a tornado watch with a severe case of windblown hair, consider what implementing a hashtag campaign like these could do for your company’s overall engagement.

 

Twitter bird on the red carpet

When the Twitter Stars Align

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By Lindsay Price

Twitter is the house that celebrities built. From Ashton Kutcher to Charlie Sheen to the ever-active Little Monsters, fans and spectators have long flocked to the platform for a chance to interface with their favorite celebs. As a twenty-something social media professional, I am no better. For every social influencer I follow on Twitter, I have about 2 celebrities or entertainment reporters. I know, it’s shameful, but if loving celebrity twitter accounts is wrong- I don’t want to be right. Whether it’s Amanda Bynes’ bizarre implosion or a Twitter beef between Patrick Carney and Justin Bieber- I’m there, right alongside the rest of the crazies. In the spirit of all things celebrity and Twitter, here’s a run down of a few of my favorite celebrity accounts. Although the list could go on, I’ve decided to curtail my shallow tendencies and give you a sample of just 5 favorites (in no particular order):

 

Bethenny Frankel @Bethenny

The queen of snark and a textbook oversharer, this Bravo star was made to tweet.

Retta @Unforettable

Not only does she play Donna on Parks and Rec, but this funny lady live-tweets only the best television.

Chad Johnson @Ochocinco

This former NFL star uses Twitter to reach fans like no one else. I mean, the man sends followers on trips. All. The. Time.

Mindy Kaling @MindyKaling

This incredibly smart television actress and writer efforletlessly articulates the thoughts of single girls everywhere.

Conan O’Brien @ConanOBrien

This self-proclaimed voice of the people is always good for a140 character one liner.