Here at Firehouse, we have a deep passion for making a difference. Each year we honor Make a Difference Day by getting out of the office and into the community to lend a hand. And recently, we were presented with an opportunity that was bigger than ourselves – the opportunity to be a part of a historic event and change the trajectory of an entire country. Enter, The St. Lucia Project. As a part of the international service organization Global Volunteers, The St. Lucia Project is a demonstration project currently taking place in Anse La Raye on the island of St. Lucia. The goal? To raise the IQ of the village’s children and in turn reshape the future of this developing country. To date, Firehouse has developed a logo, helped create a new website, established a social media presence and begun outreach to build awareness of the program. And we will soon be rolling out two educational videos to help Read More
Welcome to the Furnace
Finely roasted musings. Burnt offerings.
Archive for Social Media
Meredith, Elizabeth, Ginny and I recently attended Social Media Club of Dallas’ February event, The Most Pinteresting Panel in the World. As a fan of Pinterest both for personal and business use, I was very excited to gain insight from four leaders in the Pinterest space: Michael Stancil of Buzzshift, Lauren Vandiver of Kendra Scott, Robert Freeman of Michaels Stores and Lisa Lantz of Tenthwave. A quick history lesson for those new to Pinterest: Launched in 2010, Pinterest is a photo and link-sharing site viewed through virtual pins that you place on pinboards. Users can organize their pinboards by categories like recipes, fitness, clothing, event planning and DIY tips among others. By December 2011, Pinterest was one of the 10 most popular sites on the Internet and today the site boasts more than 25 million users. Looking for tips on how to engage with these 25 million+ users? Here are the key takeaways from last night’s Pinterest panel: - Saturday Read More
Meredith and I recently attended CXMSummit here in Dallas to brush up on a few good practices when it comes to social media. Watch out for the term CXM, or Customer Experience Management: it just might be the new buzzword for 2013. The event consisted of numerous speakers with a background in customer service and social media including Mike Lewis of ILD Corp, Steve Ennen of Centris Marketing Science, Dennis Stoutenburg of SocialStrategy1 and Justin Dennis of ILD Corp. All of their key messages reinforced that social media is the ultimate customer service tool and if you’re not listening and participating, you’re losing money. The event culminated with a panel discussion featuring: Eric Swayne, Director of Insights at Golin Haris, Annette Hernandez, Social Media Customer Service Specialist at American Airlines, and Amy O’Brien, Senior Social Media Analyst at American Airlines and Dennis Stoutenburgh, President and Co-Founder of SocialStrategy1. This was a smart panel with great anecdotes on how they’re not Read More
This week, Ashley and I attended the January AAF-Dallas luncheon entitled “Social Media Marketing: What Are the Future Factors for Success?” The discussion was moderated by John Lee, who worked in various Dallas advertising agencies for over 20 years before starting his own consulting firm. We heard from Gabrielle de Papp, Vice President of Corporate Public Relations at Neiman Marcus, about the company’s overall approach to social media. Gabrielle oversees media relations, events, social media and charitable giving for the Dallas-based luxury retailer. A few key takeaways from Gabrielle that I think are important to keep in mind: A brand or company using social media has to take the bad with the good – For example: leave positive and negative posts on Facebook. Bloggers are journalists who expect to be treated with respect when being pitched for content. (Also interesting to hear how Neiman Marcus is activating bloggers in unique ways through events such as SXSW) Social media is HR, Read More
Last Thursday we came together as an agency to toast one and other on not only another month of great work but also a successful HouseGuests and Make a Difference Day. We all settled in to enjoy a round of toasts that celebrated accomplishments across all departments. Corks this month were handed out to Megan, for grabbing her new role by the horns and for her work on both HouseGuests and Make a Difference Day, and Evan, who’s been heading up several new Interstate Batteries initiatives. Ashley also earned a bottlecap for her blog post, 1 Billion Facebook Users Can’t Be Wrong. Stay tuned for the final Champagne Thursday of 2012. Cheers!
Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerburg recently announced that the social network now has more than 1 billion monthly users. What does that mean? That means 1/7th of the world’s population is liking, sharing and commenting on their friends’ and brands’ content every single day. Still think Facebook is just a fad? Unlike its social predecessors like MySpace and Digg, Facebook has continued to evolve and stay a highly-relevant and successful social network, not to mention the influence its had on marketing, how we get our news and day-to-day communication. In case you forgot, Facebook came to life in 2004, the same year Martha Stewart went to prison, Janet Jackson flashed the world during the Super Bowl and Apple introduced the iPod Mini. My how times have changed. In 2004, The Facebook was just a small network of college students who could upload a profile picture and share what their interests and views were. There were no brand pages, there Read More
In recent weeks, we have made a couple of new additions to the Firehouse planning team that are particularly exciting. Though we have been handling both SEO/SEM and social media for various clients, we invested in bringing in dedicated experts to handle both disciplines – Josh Lee joined as Digital Media Strategist/Search Specialist and Ashley Carter as Social Media Community Manager. It’s always fun to welcome new brains to the team, but it is particularly great to add those who are solid generalist thinkers and also bring a greater depth of expertise than we previously possessed. In both cases, their impact on the value we can add to our clients’ businesses has been evident and immediate. And both Josh and Ashley are natural fits with the Firehouse culture and the rest of the team. Keep on eye on them and what they can do. Big things ahead. Photo Credit: Awkward Family Photos
On Friday, brand pages on Facebook, including our new and improved Firehouse page, were forced to change over to Timeline, Facebook’s newest improvement that many users are already familiar with. Timeline was released to the public in January. The biggest changes from the old profile layout are the addition of a new, large header photo, called a cover photo, a timeline on the right side of the page that allows users to quickly look through a pages history, and reformatting of the way content is laid out on a page, including highlighted content from past months, years, and in the case of some brands, centuries. Without a doubt, my favorite new feature of Timeline brand pages is the ability to look at a brands story from the beginning. I chose to write about this topic after seeing an update on my newsfeed that Adidas Soccer had added 7 milestones to its Timeline. These milestones are what make brand pages so Read More
So I apologize in advance for my skepticism, but I’m starting to think SXSW is really just a well conceived ponzi-like scheme put on by Twitter. I admit I had never sent a tweet (that’s a lie, I sent one back in March 2010) until this trip and now I find myself walking around Austin with my head buried in my phone looking for the next clever thing to tweet. And like a ponzi scheme, the return on my “tweeting” investment will likely be very little, but I suppose it does support the theory that we all have an insatiable need to connect to one another without ever speaking a word. And that power of connecting people with content in such a simple way is an extremely powerful marketing tool. I just hope for Twitter’s sake that they continue to find ways to monetize their product and make it a useful tool for brands willing to spend marketing dollars. #dontbethenextmyspace
I recently heard that KLM, the Dutch airline, is trying to answer the question many frequent flyers ask themselves before boarding an airplane, “Oh my gosh, who am I going to be sitting next to? Please don’t let it be someone with a screaming baby!” And for those of us who don’t fly the friendly skies all that often, you’re saying the same thing to yourself. Admit it. Well, thanks to the power of social media, there might be a solution. In February, the carrier began letting passengers choose not just where they sit, but who they sit next to. Through a program called Meet & Seat customers can upload information from their Facebook or LinkedIn pages into the reservation system to share with other passengers. The passenger then scans a map of the plane; clicks on a seat and can see details about that passenger next to them. You can then reserve the space next to someone you find interesting Read More