Tag Archives: david greiner

Google Fiber: And the Winner Is…

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For those of you who haven’t heard yet, Google has made its decision regarding its broadband fiber initiative. Here’s a hint: it’s somewhere in Kansas, and its initials are KC…

Read all the details here:

Ultra high-speed broadband is coming to Kansas City, Kansas

From all of us at Agent X (formerly Steketee Greiner and Company) to all of you out there who put in all the time and effort and devotion at the local level around this initiative, we just want to say, in case no has or ever does, we were sincerely impressed, and you’re ALL winners in our book.

David

Passion for Advertising is Becoming Passion for Social Media

Posted on by Andrew Rushmore

I want to begin by greeting our readers, as this will be the first post I have had the honor of contributing to our company’s blog since I came to Steketee Greiner and Company (SGC) almost six months ago. It’s been an amazing journey and I’ve been thrilled to be a member of such a dedicated team of professionals.

In my professional development, before being an employee with SGC, I joined a local organization called Ad 2 West Michigan; in a year I was elected to the role of Chair of Public Service, where I have worked with my friend and professional club associate Ray Cashbaugh (Chair of Creative), as well as the handful of dedicated, to build our charity campaign for the Wealthy Theatre (located in East Grand Rapids).

Ad 2, a division of the AAF (National), is a club for young professionals in Advertising, Marketing, and Public Relations between the ages of 18 and 32. In light of my involvement, I had planned to join the AAF and Ad 2 for their National Conference in Orlando, Florida, as a representative of Ad 2 West Michigan even before my employment with Steketee Greiner; imagine my pride to represent not only Ad 2 West Michigan, but also a rapidly growing company driven by an innovative spirit. The passion I have for my relationship to SGC allowed me to network with professionals in the Advertising industry with a vigor that perhaps Seth Godin would be proud of. Continue reading →

In the End, Google Fiber is About More Than Just Google

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When Google announced they would be taking applications from cities interested in receiving free fiber optic broadband, there was a surge of interest from cities across America – it grew into over 1,000 responses to Google’s request for information (RFI) – and, with some unspoken encouragement from Google’s RFI around community spirit, many of the cities involved in the initiative began to leverage digital media to raise awareness for their efforts, to drum up active support from community members and to show Google exactly how excited they are to be considered for the “grand prize.” In most cases, the people responded. Many who had an interest in bringing Google’s promise to their city acted as brand champions, spreading the story everywhere through both traditional and non-traditional channels. For many of these champions it became a highly competitive race to get Google’s attention, showing the vested interest participating cities have with Google’s fiber broadband technology.

As we began to monitor conversations around the initiative and the participating cities in the digital landscape, several cities stood out as clear leaders. These leaders had over ten thousand Facebook fans alone, with some breaking twenty and even thirty thousand. Pictures, tweets, blog posts, videos and more all supported the digital media presence of active cities, showing how very hands on participants became – fiber became a catalyst for community growth in cyberspace and beyond. And I say beyond, and this is a key learning for everyone, because the cities that controlled the largest share of digital voice were those that not only pulled together strategies for deploying digital media but carried it through to PR and experiential activities as well.

As Google’s March 26th deadline loomed closer we monitored even more excitement online as many cities saw last minute increases to their fan bases. This was likely tied to the flood of nationally recognized events various cities used for promotion, as well as the effect of word of mouth and the variety of media coverage that backed the buzz around Google’s fiber initiative. Continue reading →

The Next Google Fiber Report

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First off, congratulations and good luck to all the cities that have applied. It’s been amazing watching what everyone has pulled together so far. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a very unique perspective.

On that note, and based on Google’s post on its official blog that it will be making its selection “…by the end of the year,” we have decided to take a step back from our weekly reports, evaluate the number of cities participating in online efforts around the initiative to make sure that we have the most inclusive list possible and then resume our efforts on a regular basis until Google makes its final decision. Again, we’re not saying in any way that Google is using online share of voice as a factor in its decision making process, but we still want to make sure that everyone knows who the top contenders are around this metric and what they are doing to try to get Google’s attention online. And given Google’s tip of the cap to Topeka today, the question has to be asked: does it hurt to go out of your way a bit to stay top of mind in the digital world?

So, look for our next report sometime in April, and thanks to everyone who continues to send in insights and requests on behalf of your city – we are taking as much relevant information into account as we can. In the meantime, make sure you continue to include your city in your tagging strategy, as we’ll continue to base our search for data on the participating cities, and please don’t hesitate to email me at david.greiner@sgandco.com with questions, concerns and anything else I should know is going on in your world.

Finally, and this is way past due, thanks to Martin at Zettaphile for his efforts in compiling the original list of Google fiber cities on his blog. It was our starting point.

Thanks and again, best of luck to everyone!

David

Google Fiber Initiative Report – Round Two

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Below is the second in our series of reports ranking the online share of voice for the cities participating in the Google fiber initiative.

This report updates our initial metrics based on the insights we’ve collected from our research, which includes all of the direction submitted through blog comments on our first report and emails we’ve received directly. And on that note, thank you to everyone who took the time to contribute to this research on behalf of your city. As we hope we’ve shown in these reports, active participation is essential to any good online efforts, and yours is much appreciated.

Please note that if your city did NOT make the top 10 in our report, it is no indication that you are in any way not competitively positioned in the initiative. Again, Google has multiple factors in their decision making process, including how interested a community is in working with Google, community support, local activities, needs and resources, approved construction methods, local regulatory issues and area broadband speeds. And though most participating cities assert that online interaction in their campaigns will increase the chances of favorability in their selection, ultimately Google will decide which factors are most relevant.

The second report is available for download here. Just click on the image below.
And please reach out to us through the comments below or by email to david.greiner@sgandco.com if you have any questions or comments on the information and insights we’re presenting.

Download Media Kit (6MB ZIP)

Google Fiber Initiative Update (Not a New Report Yet, but Some Thoughts Nonetheless)…

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We’re receiving a number of inquiries from supporters of cities that weren’t included in our report, and the bottom line is that in order for these cities to get on the digital radar, they need to organize their approach by relevant search terms that supporters can find easily and, once connected, more effectively contribute to the campaign. That’s the value of these reports. This is an exercise in demonstrating to viewers the value of developing organized, measurable digital (and social media, etc.) campaigns in order to get the greatest value for the time and spend. The cities that tend to have a more fragmented social media approach (for example, Ann Arbor titling two separate Facebook pages “A2 Fiber” and “Ann Arbor for Google Fiber”) are making it more difficult to be heard as a single voice on a national level and are running the risk of going unnoticed. The way to get noticed beyond your local efforts is to get organized and create a unified, holistic digital/social media strategy of relevant, searchable content. Continue reading →

Are you content with your content plan?

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Content is the Key

Question: In this developing world of social media and digital marketing, we all know that we need to reconsider the way we’re delivering content to our audiences, but do you feel like you have things under control? There are threads everywhere discussing how we’re losing control of the conversations going on around our brands and how we’ve entered into the age of transparency in messaging. The rage today seems to be around monitoring and measuring and conducting damage assessment and control once a conversation is made public. But let’s consider content in the context of measuring and monitoring and think about how brands can move from “reactive content victim” to “proactive participant in a meaningful conversation.”

So then, how are you developing content in the new media age? How are you planning to update all the social media channels and blog(s) your company is launching, or has already launched over the course of the year? These are big questions, and unless you know the answers to them, you may want to consider scaling your digital media plan to accommodate your ability to create content that will effectively represent your brand effectively in a two-way conversation with your audiences. The key word there is “two-way,” because you’re entering an environment that is built on networks and opinions and transparency, and if you’re merely in a position to launch messaging (even if you’ve spent millions of dollars testing its relevance) into the digital space without being able to measure its effectiveness and, more importantly, without having a strategy on how to respond if a conversation erupts around your thought, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable.

As we get into it, here’s a little background on where we are and where we’re heading:

Web 2.0 has enabled a two-way dialogue. Audiences have become “search savvy,” information flows and, most importantly, the line between professional and amateur content has started to blur. The challenge isn’t finding information, it’s knowing what to do with it…

The new age of Web 3.0 is about semantics. It’s enabling a new distribution relationship around content/data centered around Filtering (information and content) and Context (delivering the right message, at the right time, to the right person, with the right device). This approach to content is creating an open source social structure that will allow databases to talk to each other and encourage social network content that urges audiences to use snippets of content as they please and where they please to reach new levels of meaning between brands and audiences.

These changes are creating a MARKETING STRATEGY SHIFT…

Web 2.0 asked us to build massive sites and drive traffic to a place where we could try to control messaging. Web 3.0 is asking us to create content that can travel throughout the digital world via conversations with multiple participants, creating connections that drive content consumption, data collection and new content generation.

So, here’s the rub, and it’s a simple “if/then” proposition: if we’re now in a position that requires us to create content that will enable and respond to conversations about our brand, then how do we generate content plans that aren’t simply focused on feeding information and stories out to audiences, trusting in their ability to run with it? The answer’s simple: plan. Build a plan that maps out your entire content strategy across all your channels for the entire year. Of course, you need to leave some room to be reactive, but if your marketing plans are aligned with your business objectives, you should be able to create a conversation that you can feed to your audiences and interact with in an organized, ongoing basis throughout the year. And if you do this well, you’ll be able to measure not only the sentiment of what’s going on around your brand, but also the effectiveness of your content (for good or bad). Once you know that, you can create a content baseline that allows you to generate planned, targeted content year after year that is valued internally for its measurable effectiveness and externally for your contributions as the subject matter expert around your brand.

Success!

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It took 10 days, 14 hours and 22 minutes, but someone finally called out our claim that marketing is dead. We’ve been waiting to see how long it would take for people to raise a hand and engage us in a conversation about the claim. The over/under was set at 30 days. It took less than two weeks. I won $5.

The marketing landscape is changing. It’s about open conversation and innovative ways to create new communications opportunities. We’re working hand in hand with our clients to help define where marketing goes from here. So, as the edit to our title post now says, marketing actually isn’t really dead. It’s just reinventing itself for the new age of Communications 3.0.

- David -