What is the Harlem Shake?

Last Friday members of the GannettLocal team briefly turned one of our Think Tank meeting rooms into an oversized phone booth party that would make Mardi Gras patrons jealous. OK, maybe that’s an embellishment, but we did do a decent rendition of the popular Harlem Shake meme that has taken the Internet by storm.

Today’s consumer is elaborate, quick, unimpressed and on to the next deal or site within seconds. If we step out of our roles of trying to capture the consumer’s business and become the consumer, which of course we often are, we can have a better understanding of why consistent branding online is so crucial. Because, as consumers, we are so easily distracted online—ads and marketing efforts are everywhere, they clog up our newsfeed, our email and jump in front of us on our favorite sites. So, how do you reach new customers and catch their attention?

There’s more to be thankful for this year than pie and turkey this Thanksgiving. Last week, Facebook launched the “Pages Feed,” which will provide a separate feed of updates from the pages a user follows. This is an ideal solution to the “news feed issue” that many businesses have been unhappy about, where their posts are drowned out by a user’s busy feed.

A recent study by BIA suggests six out of 10 small to medium-sized business (SMB) websites in the U.S. are missing either a local or toll-free telephone number on the home page; 74.7 percent of SMB websites lack an email link on their home page for consumers to contact the business; 65.7 percent of SMB websites lack a form-fill option to enable consumers to request information; 93.3 percent of SMB websites are not mobile compatible and will not render successfully on mobile devices or smartphones.

Paid media, at times, can be confusing; how do brands and businesses use paid media to grow their business? In an effort to explain how paid media drives new customers, we thought it was important to discuss the various forms of media that play a role in today's marketing mix. 

Blogging? Really, do I have to? Yes, yes you do!

Geico has been around since 1936, but 10-15 years ago very few people had heard of the insurance giant. However, with consistent messaging that went from "A 15 minute call could save you 15 percent or more on car insurance." To now, which is "15 minutes could save you 15 percent," Geico has slowly but surely worked their messaging into our brains and made the messaging very easy to remember. Not only that, but they have killed us with laughter during the Superbowl, and they're working on another genius campaign right now.

Last week, I wrote a post about the importance of context when distributing content online. Although the majority of that piece revolved around providing value to potential online customers or Internet users, I briefly touched on sharing through social media platforms.