Ms. Vella creates Search Engine Optimized (SEO) content for dissemination to news media, social networks, and organic search. She manages 30 different social media platforms that GCAI operates for public relations and advertising purposes. Ms Vella also monitors the company’s extensive Online Reputation Management system which assesses brand mentions from an influence, frequency, location, and sentiment perspective. She has a background in international digital marketing and has extensive experience with Google Analytics.

A resident of Hampden, Ms. Vella is a graduate of Bentley University in Waltham, MA where she holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and a Liberal Studies degree in Media Arts and Society. She is an associate member of the Public Relations Society of America and The Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts.

Ms. Duncan manages and ensures contract compliance for more than $1 million in financial transactions annually. She also supports GCAI’s online advertising and content management efforts. Ms. Duncan has over a decade’s worth of experience in business operations and finance.

A resident of Wilbraham, Ms. Duncan graduated Phi Theta Kappa from Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield, CT with an Associate of Science in Business Administration and certificates in both marketing and accounting.

Kelsey C. Vella
SEO PR Analyst

Jamie M. Duncan
Accounts Analyst

http://www.bizreport.com/2012/04/study-blogging-in-decline-as-social-media-takes-over.html

GCAI saw this post circulating the web, so we wanted to get the take of one cool content guy, our pal Tim Cigelski, a Senior Communication Specialist at Marquette University.  As usual, Tim’s insight is brilliant and he takes the discussion down a completely different path!

“I’m definitely not surprised. I’ve seen similar studies about blogging being in ‘decline’ for a number of years now. But I’d venture to say that it’s declining in quantity only and increasing in quality. Before Facebook and Twitter, more businesses blogged because that was one of the only social media tools available to them. Now quicker and easier social media tools are weeding out the blogs that previously only posted updates that were purely promotional and not very in-depth. Today, most consistent bloggers that remain are the ones that use the format for in-depth articles or personal stories that can’t be confined to a 140-character update.

A good example is Marquette’s Educator blog, which includes reflections on teaching and education: http://marquetteeducator.wordpress.com/. And in that case, social media compliments the blog by helping promote links and find a broader audience to drive people back to the blog. So they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.  Also newer platforms like Tumblr are actually blurring the lines between blogging and “social media.” It’s not exactly WordPress nor is it Twitter – it kind of marries the best of both worlds. And a lot of businesses are jumping on that rapidly growing bandwagon, which is quasi-blogging. So I’m not sure how that changes or impacts the findings of the study, if you consider Tumblr part of the blogging world.   ”

Note: Tim can also be found at:  http://draftmag.com/new/beer-runner/

If you feel behind, or haven’t had a chance to implement your strategy, GCAI can help! Here are a few tips to make the most out of Facebook Timeline and understand that with big changes, comes big adjustments to your strategy.

1. Let’s Look at the Data

A recent study of brands using Timeline found a 46% lift in engagement primarily driven by the emphasis now put on images and video, which increases connectivity with fans. However, Facebook has also decided to raise the incentive to pay for reach. For premium managed accounts, brands can purchase Facebook’s Reach Generator which allows you to regularly engage 75% of your fans.  Without the new tool, Facebook’s change in algorithm only allows 16% of fans at a time to see your updates in their newsfeed.  Therefore, it’s not all about the content anymore; it’s mostly how large your company’s wallet is.

2. Say Goodbye to Old Features

If you look through your brands Timeline page, you’ll find a few missing pieces. If you spent hours working with your design team to create a welcome page or promotional default image, they’re now gone.  If you strategically chose seven or eight tabs to show, they must be dwindled down to four. Also if you used 3^rd party apps to post, the content may now be displayed differently than directly posting to Facebook.

3. Picking a Cover Photo

It’s definitely important to use a cover photo that ties into the critical branding objectives of your company and while that image can be promotional in nature, Facebook does have restrictions (such as no calls-to-action) in that space.   So what can you use? Brand related artwork and photo illustrations give a more dynamic understanding of your company than simply choosing a photo to upload. You can also decide to utilize an image that syncs up in an appropriate way to some of the product offerings that your company is emphasizing during a specific period. Visit our gallery to  see some of GCAI’s favorite brand page cover photos.

4. About Section

The “About” section should display text which summarizes what your company does. This section has character limits between 100 and 120, so it should be short and concise.  This is also a good place to add your company’s URL if you don’t mind giving up valuable character space from your company description.

5. Profile Picture

Keep it simple and use your logo.  With Facebook’s downgrade in default size from 180 x 540 to 130×130, your logo is about the only image that can fit in the new size restraints without looking cluttered.

6. Milestones

Milestones are a huge aspect of Timeline. It’s important to include milestones starting from the day your company was founded to its current updates and achievements. This helps paint an in-depth picture of your company’s history and values.

7. The “Pinning” and “Highlight” Feature

The purpose of these features is to put emphasize on certain content on your page.  You can “pin” a post and have it appear at the top of your page under your profile image.  A best practice is to pin items that correspond with your cover photo at the time.

You can also highlight a post which makes the item appear double in width wherever it would normally appear on your Timeline.  You can create ads for these items as well.  For pinned content you can upload a 404 x 404 pixel ad and for highlighted milestones you can create an 843 x 403 pixel ad.  These ads are free of charge so should be utilized by your brand.

8. Tabs/Apps

Now that your visible tabs are limited to four, it’s time to decide which are most important. The photos tab will always be one of them and is permanently set in the first position. Likes, videos, events, products, locator, and photo sharing sites are all possibilities to fill the remaining three slots – but such choices should be strategic to your company.

It’s important to remember that the key to a successful Facebook page is understanding all aspects of the new layout.  Utilizing these tips will set the foundation for your brands Timeline and ensure a successful Facebook strategy.

Eoin is a Freelance Communication Consultant and the Co-Founder of Knudger, a social media promotions platform. Eoin has over 15 years of experience in corporation communication with multiple degrees in public relations and marketing. He was an associate lecturer in Marketing with NCIR, a lecturer on Irish Times Digital Diploma in Digital Marketing, and the list goes on. To learn more about Eoin’s experience read his LinkedIn Profile. Eoin is also active on Twitter and writes his own blog, Thoughts on Communications in Ireland.

As Ireland continues to attempt to drag itself out of the economic mess caused by the banking crisis and the over reliance on a bust property market, St. Patrick’s Day once again serves as a reminder that there is more to the country than short term economic pain.

Once again this year St Patrick’s day will be celebrated with the greening of many iconic global monuments and sights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to the Niagara Falls. Now that the country is bust, the ability to have an international impact through cultural weight rather than cheap brash cash is more important than ever.

Much has happened since last year from the touchingly personal arrival of President Obama to the historic and healing visit of Queen Elizabeth which distracted from the daily grind of austerity measures demanded as part of the troika deal.

The traditional media landscape continued its decline with the landmark demise of the Sunday Tribune and the Irish Daily Star Sunday while news curation grew with Storyful and the continued expansion of breaking news sites such as The Journal.ie. The rapidity of these changes continue to pose challenges for the public relations industry as it grapples with the implications of less outlets and newer outlets relying more on social channels than the long established press release/media relations route.

Within social media circles in Ireland, Facebook continued on its predictable growth path while LinkedIn also expanded rapidly, but perhaps the most interesting arena impacting on the PR landscape has been Twitter. As a platform Irish media have rushed there to listen, chat, post stories, find spokespeople, discuss each other, validate articles and gauge attitudes but the most fascinating aspect has been the platform’s use as a catalyst for key stories especially political.  Almost every print and broadcast media outlet openly promotes their Twitter presence and liberally includes tweets in their programming.

From the media frenzies that erupted once the floodgates were opened following an opposition spokesperson tweet on our past Taoiseach’s (prime minister) apparently hung-over performance on a prime radio show to consistent tweet and run by other political figures, the disproportionate media trust in tweets was really highlighted during the presidential election. A tweet called out on a primetime debate show effectively ended the leading candidates challenge only to be proved bogus.

Other Twitter episodes have lead to the resigning of individuals but this is the first time that the media have been out on trial for their use of the platform and a return to slower journalistic cross checking of sources is expected.

A less cavalier attitude to using social media generated content by some press can only be good for better quality journalism and make the lives of some PR folk a bit easier.

All is not negative in the Irish economy and the digital/technology sectors are booming with recruitment shortages and a rush to retrain unemployed with the right skills. It turns out we did not need an endless amount of construction workers.

Despite the impact of extra taxes and up to 70% decrease in property values most people are philosophical and slowly focusing on the non monitory value of family, friends and culture.

Nothing like a recession to remind us about what St. Patrick’s Day was supposed to be all about – our uniqueness of being Irish, something that got lost in the obsessive chasing of homogeneous wealth.

However, the international celebration of the day also serves as a reminder of the forced emigration for many young people.

For me I will be celebrating the day in a rural part of the west of Ireland where I relocated to focus on a start up www.knudger.com.  Maybe this is reflective of a new entrepreneurial spirit spreading throughout the country.

So where do you go from there?  John stressed that after your site is setup there must be a continued effort to refresh the content and keep it updated, and when businesses create this content they must do so with two audiences in mind, machine and people.  The content should engage a reader yet also have keywords that search engines value.

An important tool to utilize when driving traffic to a website is social media.  Mary emphasized social media is “just an add on to your website.  Your website is a home base and social media is a way to expand on that and have direct communication with customers and prospects.” John said that frequency in social media posts is important for algorithmic reasons and attaching media to posts increases its value. It also opens up a direct line of communication and engagement for business-to-client interaction, or in the case of LinkedIn business-to-business interaction.

Small businesses should also understand Search Engine Optimization (SEO). John and Mary noted that using social media is an effective way to drive your business to the top of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) so that your business is easily accessible by clients and customers.

Clients should be able to easily navigate through your site on their mobile phone which can be done by enabling the mobile setting on your website or using a website building platform like WordPress. Investing in a Smartphone will also allow a small business to constantly stay in contact with clients and update social media while they are out of the office or in the field.

Combining these tools to create an online presence and strategy is a valuable way to create a connection with your cliental and customers.  John said “there are tremendous audiences online and if you agree with that mentality then connecting with them through social tools becomes rather easy.”

To see John and Mary’s interview and get more tips on how to launch your small business online strategy visit: http://vimeo.com/38051594.

Thanks to WGGB ABC 40/FOX 6, I have been talking about the Super Bowl ads a lot this year. More specifically, before the great game and after the awful tragedy (disclaimer: I’m a Pat’s fan), I have been discussing the highly measureable buzz created by the ads on their nightly news broadcasts. The difference-maker this year was the battle for the second screen – that laptop, tablet, or smartphone that 40% of you were holding during the game.  This year, ads were released early, hashtags were employed, and even a QR code appeared in an ad. Also, Coke developed a website where you could watch the game with the bears (really? why?).

Certainly the effort to create buzz before, during, and after the game was enjoyed last year. This year though, it was a whole new ballgame (hint: lots of game puns coming). Comparisons: last year’s winning Doritos ad had over 1 million views on YouTube. This year, Matthew Broderick’s Ferris Bueller-like ad for Honday had generated over 10 million views before the coin toss (13 million as I write this two days after the game).  That’s quite a kick off. Just about every Super Bowl ad was released – some in long form – prior to the game.  Before the game, the metric which measured success was views and the clear winner was Broderick/Bueller.  There was one notable exception to ads taking a pregame warm-up: Chrysler’s ad featuring Clint Eastwood.

As Patriots fans now know all to well, what happens before the big game is all talk and it is what happens during it that matters.  A first look at “on the field performance” is offered by Bluefin Labs who captured online commentary in a 45 minute period immediately following the airing of the ads.  The winners:  H&M/Beckham with Chrysler/Eastwood following a close second. One can only wonder what would have happened if Clint stripped to his skivvies for Chrysler. The Voice/Betty White also made the top three of most talked about during the game.  What was the metric for success during the game? Mentions!

Another interesting look at in-game advertisement success is search activity.  Dan Zigmond from Google, and Horst Stipp from NBC Universal, suggest that high search volume related to a particular brand is a true measure of the potential to score sales points in the long run. So who were the winners of the search volume spikes?  Surprisingly, Kori Hill in Data Science reports that it is Bridgestone, Pepsi, and Budweiser.  One of the things that makes this analysis so fascinating is that the search spikes correspond to the relative time the ad aired – that’s a catch in my book.

BrandBowl 2012 used even another measure to determine game-day success: tweets.  Mullen and Radian6 teamed up for the second time to offer this interesting approach which not only suggests an overall winner but also most loved.  The winner due to a combination of tweet volume and sentiment scoring was the Doritos ad Man’s Best Friend which was produced for $20. Most loved was M&M’s Just My Shell which rocketed to a +41% positive in sentiment scoring (if I had tweeted on this one, I would have used the Hashtag #Ugh!).  GCAI has been using tools like Radian6 for a while now to measure mention volume and perform sentiment analysis on brands and trends we are following.  After a review of 40 such platforms including Radian 6, we settled on SM2 by Alterian. Recently, we blogged about the results related to Springfield’s June 2011 tornado and we served on an Online Reputation Management panel at Marquette University’s recent PR+ Social Media Summit.

Finally, there is the morning after measurement and two different analytics are available: USA Today’s highly subjective Super Bowl Admeter and the quite interesting Google Search Trends for 2/6/11.  Voting on USA Today’s Admeter was wrapping up and Doritos Sling Baby and Man’s Best Friend, Bud Light Weego, and M&M’s Just My Shell were all in the hunt for a top spot.  On the search trending side, Acura NSX and Chrysler Super Bowl Commercial were both trending as top five searches.  My winning vote coming out of the Super Bowl (aided by a full wrap of USA Today): Chrysler/Eastwood.  This ad was the talk of nightly news on Monday because of speculation on whether it might be pro-Obama and anti-Romney.

Conclusions? Pre-game release means nothing for game day. Long-form ads might generate considerable hype during the weeks before kickoff, but the boost does not last. Sex seems to sell to the ladies during the game – as H&M/Beckham won that distinction with women weighing in 80-20 in comparison to men. The boys made Clint’s day though, bringing him in at a close second and commenting 60-40 in comparison to women. Interestingly, men did not seem to go for the GoDaddy approach this year. Is it getting old or are we?  Like every good game, there will be some surprising plays.  Chrysler gets two-thumbs up for another well-played effort.

What’s next? Think about this….remember the popular Volkswagen ad of the 2011 Super Bowl?  Well,  The Force garnered over 49 million views over the course of the following year.  That’s more than twice as many as Rebecca Black’s Friday video – incredibly (I am smiling as I write this).  This year’s ad “Dog Strikes Back” has come close to doubling its predecessor only days after the event! Social media has arrived at the big game and will continue to dominate. Bluefin Labs tracked 12.2 million social media comments and suggests that it is a 578% increase over the previous year.  Twitter stated that during the final three minutes of the game tweet volume was up to an average of 10,000 tweets per second.  Clearly for social media and the Super Bowl, it is game on.

- By John Garvey, with research help by Mary Fallon.  Thank you to Harlan Spots, Ph.D. for the information on ad/search related data.

GCAI and Western New England University recently co-hosted a Google small business seminar and we thought it would be a great place to debut our first Search Story for our client FieldEddy Insurance.  Created by GCAI Social Media Assistant Kaitlyn Bigica, the FieldEddy Search Story takes the viewer through a calamity of sorts and finally arrives at the obvious solution. We did not expect it to set the world on fire, and it didn’t, but it did prove to be a useful case study of sorts on how to use this fun, and important, tool.

The only limits on Search Stories are your creativity, the available music beds, and 30 seconds.  Small businesses can use the tool to promote services, locations, good news…just about anything – again, the biggest limit is your creativity!  Once you have the video, the link becomes your method to share it on the platforms you wish.  Try the tool and play around with it, draw from personal experiences and you can have your very own Google Search Story in minutes.

Care to see our GCAI Search Story?  Click here.

Here is the FieldEddy Insurance Google Search Story we debuted at the Western New England University Google Day.

When the school moved out of their 100 year old building and into a new facility a couple of miles away, GCAI brought the program to them – with some new twists. While traditional media remains a big part of the program, digital marketing is increasingly playing a bigger role in the presentations.  Television, radio, and print news will all be covered, but so will the mobile wave, social media, and online advertising.  Most of the eighth grade students participating have Internet access in their home and are active on Facebook. Many of them already have Smartphones and all of them have iPads, thanks to a grant written by their teachers Tonya Claiborne and Wendi Meunier.

Along with John’s introductory presentation, the 2012 speaker lineup is as follows:

1/17 – Brenda McGiverin, Digital Sales Director, WWLP.com

1/31 – Elysia Rodriquez, Anchor/Reporter, WWLP 22News

2/7 – Craig Swimm, General Manager, WMAS 94.7 FM and  “The Hall” 1450 AM

2/14 – Elizabeth Romàn, Reporter, The Republican

2/21 – Mary Fallon, Media Director, GCAI

Thank you to all our speakers and stay tuned for more reports from the classroom!

The seminar will introduce Google’s free tools for improving business operations and sales. Google product experts will also talk about what is new in online and mobile advertising.

Join us to learn how to create an effective standard and mobile web presence for your company as well as track your efforts through advanced analytics.

You will learn about:

Google Apps: A web-based hosted solution. Access anytime, anywhere you have an Internet connection.

Google AdWords: Allows users to advertise their businesses, products, and services online.

Google Analytics: This free enterprise-class web analytics solution gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness.

Google Places: Update and manage your physical business location and information online.

January 24, 2012

1:00 – 4:00 p.m. Interactive presentation

Western New England University

Rivers Memorial Hall, 1219 Wilbraham Road, Springfield
Parking: Free parking next to Rivers Hall

The seminar is free, but attendance is limited to 125 professionals and 75 students. To register, visit Eventbrite. After registering, print and bring your ticket to the event.

Don’t pass up this opportunity to learn about how Google can help your small business by making great use of their free online services!