Welcome to the Fathom Blog
News & analysis on digital marketing & analytics
Fathom Core Value Stories: November Edition
Every month at company meetings, a handful of Fathomers are recognized in front of the group for extraordinary manifestations of our four core values (“everyone a leader,” “be the consigliere,” “make order from chaos,” “reward sustainable results”). This space will immortalize their accomplishments for the world to see. I hereby present the 2nd edition of Core Value Stories:
- Everyone a Leader, Kevin Herendeen – For working tirelessly on securing new benefits for Fathom employees.
- Be the Consigliere, Abby Rossbach – For helping the writing team with setting priorities, making content recommendations and meeting client expectations.
- Make Order from Chaos, Jay Ketchaver (pictured) — For saving everyone countless hours by fixing/troubleshooting various computer/Internet issues.
- Reward Sustainable Results, Mike Perla – For continuing to successfully organize and promote the Fathom Founder’s Day Award program (in memory of Bill Fox).
To the victors go the spoils … huzzah!
Google+ is now open for business(es)!
Since summer businesses have waited patiently for the opportunity to join in on Google+ and yesterday Google officially opened the doors to Google+ business pages. Previously Google+ was only open for personal profiles. Google discouraged businesses from using the profiles for businesses and even shut down a few businesses trying to use Google+ profiles as business pages.
So what now?
Businesses who want to join Google+ should head out to https://plus.google.com/pages/create to create a page. The process is simple:
- First, it is important to decide what Google+ profile you want connected to this page. For now, Google+ business pages do not have admin rights like Facebook pages so the login used to create the page will be the only login with access to update the page. So make sure you are logged into a business Google account before creating your business page.
- Choose a category that best describes your business (Local Business; Product or Brand, Company, Institution or Organization; Arts, Entertainment, Sports or Other).
- Enter the basic information for your business and click Create.
- Next Google+ will ask you to customize your page a bit with a tagline and profile picture.
- Then you will be prompted to spread the word about your new page to your circles. Remember, this is all done through the Google+ profiles you used to create the page.
- Click Finish and you are taken to your Google+ business page. The Get Started page provides some useful information about how to update and promote your biz page. You can then easily toggle between your personal profile and any pages you have created.
- Once your page is complete you can add a Google+ badge to your website to connect your website to Google+.
- Don’t forget to also add a +1 button to your website to allow users to share your content on Google+.
Now start updating your page! The process from here is similar to personal profiles. Pages can share posts and add photos and videos. A few Google+ pages that have already been created are:
Macy’s
Angry Birds
Anderson Cooper 360
Have you created a Google+ business page yet? How do you plan to use it for your business?
It’s Official: Fathom 2nd-Largest Marketing Firm in Cleveland
According to Crain’s Cleveland Business, Fathom is the 2nd-largest marketing firm in the Cleveland area based on its number of full-time employees (120) as of June 30, 2011.
What strikes me the most about this list—published last month in the November issue of Crain’s Cleveland Business—is the fact that 14-year-old Fathom is paired up with several other firms that have more than a decade of age on it. In a couple cases, Fathom has 6 times the number of local full-time employees than that of venerable traditional marketing firms.
The 2nd thing I noticed is that the 3 other agencies on this list that topped 100 employees (pictured above) all have at least 8 years on Fathom, with one company winning the seniority trophy by a full 6 decades.
Taken as a whole, this list says two things to me loud and clear:
- Digital marketing is a boon to Cleveland.
- Fathom is good at attracting and retaining top talent.
Case in point: when I started working here 5 years ago, Fathom had 25 employees, mainly doing SEO. Sure, there was email marketing and paid search on the periphery, but the proportion of employees devoted to either of these activities was very small, certainly under 20%. Internet marketing as a whole wasn’t exactly mainstream. Facebook was just starting to get big. Twitter didn’t even exist yet.
But yet, through all those years (which might as well be eons in Internet time), Fathom found a way to grow … quickly yet sustainably. So, thanks, Crain’s, for recognizing our size. Based on the recent past, I imagine it won’t be the last time.
p.s. We may be #2 in this area for size, but we’re first on the whirlyball court.
Don’t Write Like You Multi-Task
I’ve noticed a change in my writing lately. And I blame October.
It was a chaotic month—a lot of detail work here, quick tasks there. The small but mounting assignments made for plenty of time-juggling, multi-tasking and inch-by-inching to accomplish everything on my scattered schedule.
Then I looked at my writing. Like my task management for the month, my writing seemed to jump around a bit more than usual. It was antsy, trying to communicate several messages to several audiences all at once.
My writing was multi-tasking like a master.
It wasn’t until I came across this article in Copyblogger that I realized what the problem was. The article talks about how to write more effective landing pages by taking on a fiction writer’s frame of mind. It seemed I needed to
S l o w d o w n a n d s p e l l i t o u t .
Fiction writers typically don’t throw all the plots and subplots at the reader on Page 1. They take their time to develop a solid story, engage their audience and reveal information as it becomes relevant. It’s good advice for landing page writing, as the article points out, but it’s also useful for any type of content task you’re approaching.
I started paying attention to the pacing of my writing and found that whether posting to a blog, developing content for a website, or writing up a news release, taking time to tell a story makes all the difference.
Don’t be afraid your readers will miss something if you don’t cover every single point in the first paragraph. It will only make for hard-to-digest content and bombarded readers. Instead, focus on telling your audience a story through your writing—one that remains centered on a main point and adds details to enhance that point as needed.
And if you’re thinking,
But online writing is different!
Then remember that the way we process what we read is not. Readers still expect organization; structure; and a beginning, middle and end in what they read online. Taking the multi-tasking approach to writing isn’t going to deliver this. But taking your time to clearly develop your points and present them in a logical order will.
How has the storytelling approach to writing worked for you in the past?
Image provided by Speculum Mundi on Flickr.
Category: Content Creation, Online Marketing
Infamous Social Fails
You still have time to join me and Rebecca Roebuck for tomorrow’s “Infamous Social Fails: What Your Business Can Learn from Celebrity Mistakes” webinar. We’ll take a sometimes light-hearted look at the Types of #Fail and what you can do to avoid them.
We’ll also acknowledge that none are immune from mistakes, and offer advice for the steps you need to take to recover from social media marketing errors if they do occur.
It is not too late to sign up! I look forward to your questions.
