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How Dippin' Dots Turned a Frosty Crisis with Press Secretary Sean Spicer into Social Media Gold Forbes My company, The Marketing Zen Group, is the social media agency of record for Dippin' Dots. Over the weekend, we listened and watched as old tweets became a new point of contention on social media. Before the workday even began Monday morning, we ... How Dippin' Dots Made the Most of Unexpected Attention From the White House Press SecretaryEntrepreneur all 88 news articles »

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How Dippin' Dots Turned a Frosty Crisis with Press Secretary Sean Spicer into Social Media Gold - Forbes

SOUTHINGTON Two Southington High School students put together a 30-page report on ways to better market the Apple Harvest Festival, ideas that are being put into practice by the festivals public relations firm.

Festival committee co-chairman Tom Lombardi said Emily Daley and Sydney Krolls suggestion about social media marketing in particular is being taken to heart.

Last year, the town hired Walsh Public Relations of Bridgeport to handle the festivals marketing. The firm was chosen in part because of its experience with social media marketing, an area where the Apple Harvest has had little reach.

From this section: Silver Alert issued for missing Southington teen

Lombardi said the festival has always had a Facebook page but has added other platforms such as Twitter to reach teenagers and a younger demographic.

Its going to be much more active this year, he said.

Daley and Kroll presented their report to the committee last week. They based their findings on nearly 170 interviews they conducted at last years festival, which helped them collect data on demographics and the reasons people come to the festival. The report was part of the students marketing studies.

Jim Champagne, the festival coordinator, said the girls suggested a presence on the social media platform Snapchat, which they said is used primarily by teenagers. Walsh Public Relations hadnt initially planned to start a Snapchat account but will do so after hearing the report.

Those two high schoolers felt that social media was the best place to catch that young demographic, Champagne said. Were going to take that information and use it.

He was impressed with the work the two had put into the study as well as their presentation to the committee.

It was nine months worth of work, Champagne said.

The festivals main demographic is families. Festival committee members are also hoping to draw more young people. Lombardi said the study and report was a great way to involve high school students with the towns signature event.

It was good to get the school involved with local government, he said.

jbuchanan@recordjournal.com 203-317-2230 Twitter: @JBuchananRJ

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Southington students provide input on Apple Harvest Festival marketing - Meriden Record-Journal

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Digital outlets have dominated conversations about marketing over the last decade, and are understandably a huge focus for marketers. According to the IAB, cross-platform digital ad spend grew to a staggering 4.8 billion during the first half of 2016 and forecasts estimate this is only set to keep increasing.

But television is still the biggest individual platform by ad revenue, accounting for a record 5.3 billion in ad spend in the UK during 2015 and its delivery is extending across new devices and platforms. Whilst the TV set still accounts for the majority of viewing, consumption increasingly extends to other screens, companion devices and digital platforms, driven in particular by the rise of online players and streaming services.

And as the world of TV viewing transforms, so too must the way in which it is measured.

As an international provider of TV measurement services, we have a holistic view of how the demands of TV measurement are changing. Our TV to TV report, compiled from insight from our business around the globe examines how measurement is evolving from measuring the TV set to measuring TV as a cross-device, cross-platform medium. In short, how its evolving from Television to Total Video.

Here are four examples of key changes in the TV industry and how TV measurement can and has responded.

Over recent years, broadcasters have embraced online services as an extended means of distributing content. Online video services not only enable broadcasters to extend viewing across devices, but also give consumers access to content whenever and wherever they choose. Far from being a threat to television, as a distribution method the internet has liberated TV content and the advertising that sits alongside it - to be available anytime and anywhere.

TV currencies have responded to this shift by capturing census data from tagged online players, which is then combined with panel data to provide people-level insights into audiences online consumption. In other words, sophisticated data integration has become critical. Today, its all about a hybrid approach to measurement, integrating census and panel data to ensure a complete view of the total audience.

Social media platforms have emerged as a complementary part of the broadcast experience and are playing a rapidly growing role in how the value of TV extends within and beyond the broadcast window.

Marketers are now able to leverage the engagement opportunities that span from broadcast across social channels. By understanding the social media patterns around specific programmes, broadcasters can extend viewer engagement beyond the TV broadcast itself, and brands can understand the best way to enhance targeting of more socially engaged viewers.

Second screen engagement can also be maximised via companion apps; for example, our SyncNow Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology helped Talpa one of the worlds leading TV format, production and media companies to enhance TV viewer engagement via a play-along app for their popular quiz show format What Do I Know. Thanks to the technology, Talpa were able to measure engagement and programme loyalty from over 500,000 active second screen users in the app during broadcast time.

Programmatics uptake in the broadcast sector, whilst slow, is steadily gaining traction as a new mechanism to trade advertising.

As the volume of user data available and number of channels and services on offer grow, we can expect the application of programmatic advertising methods in the broadcast space to increase. Sky, for example has been pioneering an ambitious data strategy through its Sky Ad Smart programmatic tool, with the aim of offering viewers a personalised advertising experience.

For marketers, the benefits of real-time measurement could present a huge opportunity. At Kantar Media, this is something weve been doing in Brazil for many years; providing the industry with information on their audience in real-time throughout every minute of the broadcasting window.

Whether offering regional linear broadcast content or providing interest-based short form content via YouTube, niche TV and video channels have proliferated in recent years, driven by greater bandwidth on cable channels, the transition to digital TV and lower barriers to entry for online only platforms. The move of BBC 3 to be completely online in the UK is an example of how broadcasters are opting to target youth audiences via on demand services rather than live channels. This is a golden opportunity for marketers to reach a readily engaged audience in a targeted and focused way.

Measurement is rising to the challenge of capturing niche viewing by integrating census level data and return path data or set meter panel data with traditional currency panels. At Kantar Media we are increasingly following content across platforms (something weve already got planned for Norway) rather than being led by a linear schedule.

There is a catch, however. The new, more complicated and nuanced, world of television measurement requires more active participation from both broadcasters and media platforms. In order to achieve a truly unified industry currency, content owners will need to provide better meta data and online video players will need to join broadcasters by ensuring they have transparent and auditable measurement systems in place.

TV is still king of content - whether it's watched from the comfort of a sitting room on the TV set or on a smartphone from the beach - and the opportunities it offers to marketers and brands are second to none. However, the transition from Television to Total Video means the industry continues to challenge ourselves to budget, plan, execute and measure brand campaigns to understand an audience holistically regardless of how, when and where they are consuming content.

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How TV measurement for marketers is changing: Social, programmatic, and more - Marketing Tech

In 2006, I set out to brand myself.I had an idea that I shared with the owner of the small company at which I was employed.I called it Publish or Perish, and despite the lack of originality,the idea was simple, but purposeful: We needed to elevate the name recognition of our company -- quickly.

The company had made a fortune working with a niche client, but unwisely, it chose to fly under the competitions radar. In other words, itdid the opposite of marketing for fear that if competitors knew how much money it was making from this niche client, itwould face stiffer competition. So naturally,after years of this guerilla obfuscation, the niche client business dried up and now left the little-firm-that-couldnt struggling to sell its wares to prospects who knew nothing of our work, history andvalues, or even if we could deliver on our promises.Rapid marketing needed to be done.

With publish or perish, I argued, our team of very talented organizational designers, trainersand safety professionals would publish articles and thus get our name out there toget it associated with expertise in our industry.Well, my idea fell flat.A mousey woman with no actual marketing experience, educationor aptitude had the top dogs ear and whispered sweet gibberish into it.Print publication was dead, she said, so were trade shows. The answer was social media.We needed a Facebook page, but most importantly we needed to blog.

Related:Why Your Small Business Must Start a Blog

I resisted, of course.I had no interest in blogging, which I still hold is, in the majority of cases, self-important dreck and a platform for those whose writing just isnt good enough for publication. (I feel even less beneficenttoward self-published books; if it isnt eligible for academic and literary citation, I dont see any value to it, but hey thats just me.) At this point I mightthrow out a conciliatory there are some top-shelf blogs out thereblah blah blah, but thats not my style. Good bloggers know when their work is good and dont need my validation. As for the rest of you, well if you read my statement about most blogs being dreck and thought I was talking about you, I probably was. Deal with it.

Despite my protestations I was ordered to blog.I fought and threw a tantrum to no avail, so I finally acquiesced, on one condition: I would write what I wanted without anyone else having a say-so.I also managed to convince my leaders to allow me to submit abstracts and begin a public speaking campaign.I soon learned how to become famous for nothing by using social media, key words, the Google Search algorithmand press releases. Quickly I became the Brook Shields of Safety -- shes always been famous andhas big bushy eyebrows, and no one can account for either -- I was famous for no apparent reason.

I quickly learned that the true power of public speaking is the press before the event, promotion during the eventand press after the event.At the time most of the major print magazines were scrambling for online content and had robots or interns using key word searches to get it.The Google algorithm leaned heavily on how many links a given post had (reasoning that the wider the distribution the more reliable and important the content).

By using a free press release site anda handful of key words carefully and artfully woven in -- words like aerospace automotive industry andwell, false modesty prevents me from giving away allmy secrets. Anyway, this site would blast my press release to publications looking for those key words and soon my press releases were on scores of pages, unread and unvetted. I was able to get my press releases, which had usually been run as articles,into minor and major business publications which I wont name because they are competitors of Entrepreneur (which by the way, never fell for this Machiavellian scheme of mine).

Related:4 Simple Steps to Creating Powerful Press Releases

Even today there are news outlets that arent as judicious as they had ought to be.Fox News routinely posted my Entrepreneur articles, assuming that I was a conservative business writer, until someone eventually got around to actually reading my work, and it was unceremoniously removed from the site.

The PR serviceallowed me to Tweet the press release, share it on Facebookand post it to LinkedIn.I used to post the links separately to LinkedIn because that way I could post it as a discussion topic in all 50 groups to which I belonged. For some reason,I keep getting thrown out of the groups on LinkedIn because many are run by the adult equivalent of the uptight high school girl who reached the pinnacle of her life and career by being voted third-runner-up for homecoming queen and alternate on student council. Such peopleain't buying what Im selling.

It wasnt long before I was an annual speaker at the National Safety Council, until I pointed out that in my obnoxious estimation several of their perennial speakers were nothing but snake oil salesmen, an embarrassment to the profession. I dont burn my bridges, I dynamite them and pelt the repaircrew with hot stones as they try to rebuild.

It wasnt long before my blog following grew: Ive always said Im a bit like watching an abandoned warehouse fire. Youre not glad that its burning, but it's fun to watch the spectacle and nobody really gets hurt -- or, if they do get hurt they should have known better than to have been inside itto begin with. I got a notice from http://www.wordpress.com that today is the seventh anniversary of my blog. Its actually olderthan that, but I put it on ice for a while when the owner of my company finally got around to reading it and insisted that I get it approved before publishing. As is my wont, I recommendedhe engage in congress with himself and offered interesting and inventive suggestions of where he might consider sticking his approval. This did not look good on my review.

On WordPress,I have posted in the neighborhood of 364,000 words, plus I have spoken at over a 100 international and local venues,including an address toan International Safety Conference on Mining in the Andes, in Lima, Peru. Thisdespite my only knowledge of mining safety at the time was to stay the hell out of one. I have 167 works in print, and I was named by the largest safety magazine to both its list of The Most Influential People Working in Safetyand The Young (or Relatively Young) Up and Comers in Safety. This despite the factIm not young. (I am often mistaken for being younger than I actually am because of my full head of hair, youthful skinand gross immaturity.)

Related:9 Practices for Achieving Emotional Maturity

The point I am yet again meandering aroundis that people try desperately and pathetically to use just one social network to build their personal brands when the true secret is to use allsocial media outlets as tools to get theirbrand out there, by using them holistically.Oh, and it helps if you can write, if your message and style are distinctive, and if your brand is of interest.Remember, you can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him think.

Phil LaDuke is is a Safety Transformation Architect atEnvironmental Resources Management. An author, he writes about business, worker safety and organizational change topics on hisblog. An avid user of social media for business...

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I Used Social Media and Blogging to Become Famous for Nothing - Entrepreneur

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) cannot be effective without well-executed content. And thats where social media marketing kicks in. SEO and SMM (Social Media Marketing) go together like peas and carrots.

Social Media Marketing helps you to get your content seen, which in turn can substantially increase your number of brand mentions on the web. Today marketers today are calling it top of mind. Which is the new way to say, brand awareness.

The better you promote your content across marketing channels, the more referring domains you will receive.

Social media marketing can be tricky because you have to understand your audience, and the level of their sophistication, and familiarity with a channel before you can decide to market yourself on it.

For example the older generation, that is becoming my generation, are more familiar with Facebook and Twitter than we are with Snapchat. Therefore, if youre trying to reach generation X then you probably want to be on Facebook.

Understanding how to use that channel properly to reach your audience is also paramount. Facebook is very difficult for brands today to reach their audience because of the amount of money you now have to spend on advertisement. Twitter is a microblog and so every few seconds a new tweet goes out for something by someone, somewhere. You can see the stats on this at this link. Understanding the heartbeat of every channel and how to reach your audience is going to be very important otherwise your post will just end up in the ether.

One of the things about social media marketing is it has the ability to take a series of pictures and tie them together into a slideshow in order to craft and weave a story together for your audience.

Webcast, January 24th: The Science of Attention and Growth Marketing

Other platforms are adopting this as well such as Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. Video is becoming very popular and now we see live video becoming a trend.

The one caveat about all of this is using these tools well, versus just using them by the seat of your pants (ask us sometime about a cold cuts video). Strategy is a must when using video, or stringing pictures together to create a story. All this requires preplanning in order to actually become engaging and effective.

Protip: Consider the environment that youre in how you hold the phone as youre using it for live video and make sure youre always moving and showing people what is around you.

Protip: Dont use a hashtag (#) just for the sake of using a hashtag. Be purposeful about what you do. Also use images that are original as you tie things together to weave your narrative.

If theres an event thats exciting make sure that you have a smile. Its surprising how many people do videos, but forget this. So make sure that your face looks friendly and the people around you are having a good time.

No one wants to watch a video where everybody is sad and crying and sitting Shiva.

Invite people to come out to your event and let them know where it is. Also make sure you pan around to let them see who is there and what is going on and dont forget to tell them the exact address and time. Even though the videos can be done live, they can be replayed over and over again. And for now it seems the platforms are doing a very good job of letting people know that this is a pre-recorded video, but some people still mistake it for happening at the moment.

Again it goes back to your audience and how savvy they are with the technology. I find that Facebook and YouTube seem to be the primary places that you can actually go out and reach people if you make them aware of the channel that you were on.

Getting people to not only like you on Facebook but to follow you will help them be able to keep up with updates as you release them. However on YouTube things work a little differently.

On YouTube you can monetize your channel if you have enough subscribers that come to it on a regular basis. But most people dont do that and it is very hard to get those subscribers. You cant just create content and release it out on any channel and expect people to enjoy it watch it and it to go viral. The rate of content that is produced on the Internet today by one person is huge (see link below).

If you go on YouTube its going to be about the equipment you need. Good microphones, cameras, tripods and a good set up for a studio are required. And when it comes to sound its just not as simple as having a microphone you have to deal with echoes. Inevitability youll have to clean up audio and video mistakes, so good software, and skill, is needed.

For those of us that love movies and analyze them we can see the story arcs and how they occur theres always a beginning a climax and the ending. If youre interested you can hop over to our Nerd Brand podcast and listen to Brandon, the owner of Element 502, Bill Reynolds and me as we discuss it. Brandon brings in the structures of stories and how they are told. Such as plots of stories that are told like the journey and overcoming the monster. Bill and I point out in real life examples we love.

If youre using pictures make sure you lined them up correctly and it aligns to the store youre trying to tell. More importantly make sure your story is relevant to your audience youre telling to. Aligning your story to your audiences values can keep them connected to it, especially if its a story that is local.

Protip: The formula we use is Hook, Look, Took. Create a hook to draw them in (Once Upon A Time), then get them to look by further reading (or watching) and last, the took, or take-away. What is the value of this and how can I use it.

Which brings us to not forget your proposition value. This is the value of your story to your audience and how it can help who youre trying to reach. Or as marketers use to give a statement on the value of why customers should use a particular service or company.

If youd like to see stats on everything that is happening online from blog posts written, comments, Facebook users and more, head over to Internet Live Stats at the link below and enjoy the metrics!

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Why Social Media Marketing Is Still Important - Business 2 Community