Cultural Sponge Helps Phoenix Pride Celebrate it’s 30th Anniversary by donating over $10,000 in Services.

May 3rd, 2010

Cultural Sponge Helps Phoenix Pride Celebrate it’s 30th Anniversary by donating over $10,000 in Services.

PHOENIX, Arizona, May 3, 2010— Cultural Sponge Helps Phoenix Pride celebrate it’s 30th Anniversary by donating over $10,000 in Services. Thousands of people attended Phoenix Pride weekend on April 17 & 18. Phoenix Pride celebrates and promotes the history, courage, diversity and future prosperity of the metropolitan Phoenix LGBT community. Every year, Phoenix Pride holds its annual Pride Parade and Festival to commemorate the birth of the gay and lesbian rights movement, but this year was special, it was Phoenix Pride’s 30th anniversary. Cultural Sponge donated services in 2009 and continued to prove their commitment to the LGBT community by donating services to Phoenix Pride 2010.

Heather Brown is the owner of Cultural Sponge, a marketing, graphic design and social media company. After a successful 2009 campaign, Phoenix Pride chose Cultural Sponge again as their 2010 official graphic design company. This year Heather developed the 30th anniversary theme: 3 Decades, 1 Community, 4 Pride! Along with developing Phoenix Pride’s 2010 theme, all other art direction and art work was developed by Heather and her company.

Heather Brown quotes, “It has been a pleasure and honor to work with Phoenix Pride during their 30th year anniversary. I would like to personally thank Phoenix Pride for once again choosing Cultural Sponge as the official graphic design company for 2010. It has continued to be a wonderful experience working with such a positive team. Also, it has been an honor to work on a project that means so much to the community.”

Phoenix Pride relies on many volunteers for a successful festival. Brandi Sokolosky is the Executive Director for Phoenix Pride and quotes, “Heather Brown and Cultural Sponge has been an absolute pleasure to work with. Its wonderful to have formed such a strong relationship with Heather and Cultural Sponge, they really understand who we are as an organization and what Phoenix Pride’s message is to the public. Heather spends a great deal of time sitting in brainstorming meetings with the Pride team, she really listens to the customer and gives you exactly what you are looking for. Throw Heather a concept and she can run with it, she has a great imagination. I look forward to working with Cultural Sponge on future projects.”

About Cultural Sponge
Cultural Sponge is an established marketing & graphic design company based in Peoria, Arizona. Cultural Sponge specializes in corporate identity brand building, graphic design, website design, social media, lead development and much more!

About the owner: Heather Brown attended Arcadia University and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts concentrating in Graphic Design. She worked as a National Marketing Director for a well known company before opening her own business.

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How to Get More Targeted Followers on Twitter (by just using Twitter!)

April 25th, 2010

I know, everyone writes blogs about how to get more followers on Twitter, but this blog is different for a number of reasons. First, I want to explain how to get targeted followers (people within your target market) and second how to get these followers by just using Twitter. You may ask yourself, “well, how else could I get those followers?” There are numerous programs and applications other than Twitter that you can use, some you pay for and some you don’t. So to keep it simple, I would like to reveal some tactics that you can use to get targeted followers just by using Twitter.

  • Follow other people. Yes, the best way to get followers is to follow other people (unless you’re a celebrity.) On average, out of 10 people you follow, 3-5 will follow you back.
  • Use the search box. See that search box on the right? You can type in any keyword or phrase and a list of tweets will come up. Think of what your target audience might be tweeting about. Type in those keywords. Interact and follow those people.
  • Look at your competitors profile. See who’s following your competitors and follow them.
  • Promote your Twitter page everywhere. Place a widget on your website. Place a post on your facebook page. On all print put: “Follow Us on Twitter!” and your twitter url. Place a a signature line on your emails.
  • Tweet multiple times a day with quality content. Tweet often to get attention and tweet about things that your target audience will want to hear.

These are the top 5 ways I have found to get Twitter followers by just using Twitter. Of course there are several online applications and programs out there that may help you as well. If you need help getting targeted followers on Twitter, we are the experts! Contact Cultural Sponge for a consultation.

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Social Media Mistakes When Advertising Your Business

April 19th, 2010

Is a business or person annoying you on Twitter or Facebook with their spam-like posts? Pay attention to what makes up their posts and take note not to repeat these annoying tactics:

  • USING ALL CAPS – When email first became mainstream, it was well known that using all caps meant screaming. More and more people are jumping on the social media wagon that never knew the ground rules. Take note- ALL CAPS MEANS SCREAMING (did you hear me?)
  • Repeating the same posts over and over and over and over and over again – In print and TV, repetition does equal results, but not if the commercial plays over and over again with no break. If you keep posting the same thing, you will surely annoy your audience and be dubbed as spam! Be creative, try saying your message different ways or tying it into a campaign. Here are some great twitter campaign ideas.
  • Over saturation – Yes, you can over saturate twitter and facebook. When I look at my home stream on twitter and facebook, I expect to see messages from a plethora of people and businesses. I get very annoyed when all I see is posts from the same business. Try to time out your posts. A good way to time out posts is by using an automated system. Hootsuite is a great tool to help you automate and track tweets.
  • Profile page – There are many mistakes when it comes to your profile page. Placing your logo as your profile picture is a no-no. It’s simple, people relate to other people. Post either your picture or a picture of your team. Place your logo as a background image.  Also, another big mistake is leaving your profile page incomplete. Make sure to fill out as much as you can, especially your website address.
  • Stale automated messages – Automated messages are great, but keep them fresh and up to date.
  • Posting personal information – Keep your personal and business accounts separate. Your clients don’t want to hear what you had for dinner or your weekend plans.
  • Too many followers in a short amount of time – Yes, people notice when you have thousands of followers over night. An account that builds thousands of followers in a short amount of time can be conceived as not genuine and spam. Focus on getting followers within your target market. Remember it’s the quality, not the quantity of followers!

These annoying tactics could get your followers and friends to unfollow or remove themselves as your fan. Worse, some just hide your profile posts or ignore you every time you post. Cultural Sponge offers strategic twitter campaigns, social media classed and consulting for businesses. Contact us and get your business heading in the right direction when it comes to social media!

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Classes

March 3rd, 2010

Classes

Owner, Heather Brown, has been teaching classes for economic development departments, real estate companies and other businesses. Customized classes are available, but here are the most popular classes.

  • Marketing I – Learn how to grow your business. Learn about the importance of  branding, logos vs. branding and marketing tips.
  • Marketing II – learn how to strategically create marketing plans, leads, farms, postcards, overview of social media. Students will create a 6 month marketing plan.
  • Do-it-yourself Marketing – Learn marketing tips and tricks you can do yourself on a budget, learn what directories get the best results, how to get free leads and more!
  • Cold Calling Class – In this market, we all need to do everything possible to get business. In this class you will overcome the obstacles of the infamous “cold call.” Practice making “fake” calls in class and learn some pointers –
  • Publisher beginner class – learn the basic foundation of publisher and how to make flyers and postcards, comes with a cd of templates
  • Publisher intermediate class – learn how to make publications and some short cuts, comes with a cd of templates
  • Publisher advance class – learn about html email newsletters, style sheets and publication design, comes with a cd of templates
  • Twitter Basics – Learn what Twitter is and the basics. Students will learn how to set up an account and twitter lingo.
  • Twitter for Realtors – learn how to strategically use twitter to connect with clients and list homes. Learn common mistakes that Realtors make while tweeting.
  • Twitter Professional Tips – What the big marketing companies don’t tell you. Learn how to find genuine followers, track results, get more followers quickly and more secrets!

Contact us to book a class or to learn more!

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The Twitter Stats Are In!

February 17th, 2010

Here are some interesting twitter statistics according to worldwide comScore who releases figures today.

  • 73.5 million unique individuals visited Twitter in January 2010, up 8 percent from December
  • Twitter has an amazing growth rate of 1,105 percent!
  • 2009 was Twitter’s best year ever!
  • It is estimated 1 billion tweets were tweeted in December and 1.2 billion tweets in January! (information provided by Crunchbase)

Keep in mind that comScore configures these number from twitters own site. These numbers do not record usage from mobile phones and other applications like the popular hootsuite and twillow tools.  Numbers from those apps may be twice as large.

With almost 75 million users tweeting over a billion tweets a month, it  makes sense for you to use twitter strategically to grow your business! Read more about strategic tweets and how to make twitter work for you!

Cultural Sponge develops strategic twitter campaigns to help businesses brand, create a buzz and grow.  Contact us today for a free consultation!

Posted in Twitter Campaigns | 2 Comments »

10 Twitter Campaign Ideas

February 16th, 2010

From reading our last post, 10 Things To Do Before Launching a Twitter Campaign, you learned a Twitter campaign consists of strategic tweets that produce intended positive results.

Here are 10 twitter campaign ideas. Each campaign should be composed of a series of tweets. Time the tweets to be posted appropriately.

  1. Blogging campaign – post a title from your recent blog with a link tracing back to your site. Track your results. If more of your followers are clicking on certain blog topics, blog about that topic more. Driving traffic to your blog will increase you SEO.
  2. Word of the day – Post a word of the day. If customers know the word of the day, they get a discount. If you have a storefront, post a sign saying, “Follow us on Twitter, get the word of the day & get discounts!”
  3. Hold a fun contest – think of fun ways to have your followers interact with you on twitter and hold a contest. for example, give away a gift card to the most creative answer to a question that you post.
  4. Get local followers – tweet about local events and attractions.
  5. Niche marketing – tweet about things pertaining to your target market. For example, if your target market is Realtors, tweet about up to date news about real estate.
  6. Holiday – create a campaign around a holiday.
  7. Piggy back an event – For example, for a coffee shop: “Winter Olympic Special: Hot Chocolates and Hot Mochas half off!”  for a clothing store: “Go Team USA: All Patriotic Clothes 50% off!”
  8. Quizzes – people love taking quizzes!  Post quizzes on your website and tweet about them with a link. For example, for a weight loss drink, “Is food controlling your life? take our quiz to find out!”
  9. Friday Fun Reads – Every Friday post a fun read and call them the Friday Fun Read. I try to find something wacky, but pertains to my business. People love these stories and Friday is the perfect day to post.
  10. Youtube instructional series – teach your followers something they will enjoy learning and has to do with your business. Break each tip down into one short video. For example, a jewelry store tweets about the proper way to clean pearls and links back to an educational video on their website.

Remember a good campaign creatively intertwines your business with a consistent message. Be sure to follow through with your campaign, time out tweets, follow up with responses, track results and have fun!

Cultural Sponge offers customized Twitter campaigns! Contact us for more information!

Posted in Twitter Campaigns | 3 Comments »

Tip for Getting Business from Facebook Friend Requests

February 15th, 2010

Getting a lot of friend requests from people you don’t know, but are friends of friends? I always accept those requests (if the person does not seem like they are spammers.) Recently, I tested out a reply message to this type of friend request. Here’s my reply message:

Hi,
Thanks for the friend request! I see that we have some friends in common and thought I would tell you a little more about myself. I own a business called Cultural Sponge specializing in graphic design, websites, marketing and strategic twitter accounts. I am the official graphic design company for Phoenix Pride and other local organizations. You can check out my work at www.culturalsponge.com
I would love to know more about you and your company!
Have a great day!
Heather

This is a non intrusive way to say- Hi, since we are now friends, let me tell you what I do and how I can help you! I received several positive reactions and learn that my new friends are either business owners or know business owners that I can help and I even got a few appointments.

So, next time you get a friend request from a friend of a friend, don’t ignore it, use it to your advantage!

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