Category Archives: Marketing

Falcons Debut ‘Halo Board’

Eye-popping 360-degree display highlights New Mercedes Benz Stadium

By Mark R. Smith from TV Technology

ATLANTA—After getting an eyeful of the massive main video boards that have been featured in new ballparks and stadia in recent years, sports fans had to wonder what the next step would be by the time Atlanta’s techno-cool Mercedes-Benz Stadium—which is billed as the most technologically advanced stadium in the world—opens this month.

The new Halo Board in Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta is a 360-degree, 62,000-square-foot circular
testament to technological fortitude.

The wonder was how much bigger a video display can get before it intrudes on the actual game that’s happening beneath it. But the crew and the contractors at AMB Group, the parent company of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, made that sentiment a moot point while going even bigger with a new idea.

For when the fans look toward the heavens when the Falcons need a dramatic score to win a game, they can send their prayers through Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s (here it comes…) “Halo Board.”

While video displays have been created in various shapes and sizes in recent years, this ensemble is a 360-degree, 62,000-square-foot circular testament to technological fortitude—under a roof that opens like a camera lens and is modeled after the Roman Pantheon. It will offer Falcon fans some interesting opportunities to share video and information, exercise the imagination and sell advertising.

NEW SENSATION
While the Halo Board in Mercedes-Benz Stadium isn’t the first circular-type screen—the outdoor board at Barclays Center in Brooklyn is similar, albeit much smaller and an irregular shape—it’s certainly something new.

“I haven’t seen anything of this magnitude,” said Tyler Jones, senior project manager with Daktronics, of the board that rests within the eight-section mega-circle of the roof that hangs under what’s known as the “Oculus.” He added that the company’s install outside of the Barclays Center gave it “something to draw on for the Atlanta project.”

That had to help the Brookings, S.D.- based company during the bidding process for the job, which commenced after the design of the stadium came back to the Falcons from HOK, a Kansas City, Mo.-based architectural firm.

“We were eventually awarded the job,” said Jones, “and there was a great deal of coordination with all of the people behind the team,” which included HOK Structural, then BuroHappold Engineering and IBM, the technical partner on the stadium that installed a passive optical network comprised of 3,770 miles of groundwork fiber cables.

The “Mega Column” vertical measures 101 feet tall by 71 feet wide. Jones said Daktronics had “almost three dozen” workers on site; for the sake of comparison, that’s about two dozen more than the company needed five years ago to install the flat board in rightfield at Miami’s Marlins Park.

As far the construction of the Halo Board is concerned, its shape wasn’t quite the challenge one might think. “We can make the boards about any shape that is needed,” Jones said, “since 14.4 inches per square is our standard and we build around that. Within the Halo, the squares run 48 high and 896 wide,” totaling more than 43,000 squares.

Within the Halo, Daktronics also developed a 277V power option specific to the board, in lieu of the normal 120V power supply. “That allowed the Falcons to forgo using a number of smaller transformers,” said Jones, noting that it is embedded within the display.

The manufacturing process for the Halo Board began at Brookings headquarters in mid-October and ran until early February, and required the talents of more than 100 people to build; the install began in May, with that type of lead time necessary when Daktronics “had 616 pieces to mount in the stadium roof,” Jones said.

IN THE CORNER
Not lost in the buzz about the Halo Board is the “Mega Column,” which rests in the east corner of the stadium, by the massive end zone window that gives fans a panorama of the Atlanta skyline. The vertical display, which measures 101 feet tall by 71 feet wide, wraps around three of the four corners of that column.

“The information technology staff told me that the column has more square footage than the main boards in 17 other NFL stadiums,” Jones said, and it is fully visible to passersby outside the venue.

There is no end zone board on the east or west sides of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which does include Daktronics ProRail ribbon boards on its north and south sides. They act as the railing for the upper deck and are topped with glass and handrails.

Mike Meglathery, senior project manager for broadcast systems integrator Diversified, described setting up the Halo Board as “technically challenging” for various reasons, not the least of which was obviously its size, which he termed “the equivalent of 12.5 video screens in a circle at 60 feet high, but it’s also a quarter-mile around.

“The biggest challenge was driving an image that can go all the way around it with pixel accuracy and synchronously,” he said. “We had to get all of the boards in sync.”

The Halo Board also required a “first of its kind graphics system” from Ross Video, the Tessera platform, which was developed for the Falcons and designed to offer enhanced IP video routing and connectivity.

The two million square-foot Mercedes Benz Stadium can hold up to 71,000 football fans. Modeled after the Roman Pantheon, it features a roof that opens like a camera lens.

Gus Drosos, technical principal at HOK, Kansas City, also noted the unusual approach that all involved had to take at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. “We had a tall structure” to address, meaning the 14.5-acre roof “was 198 feet above the ground. It became apparent that if we used that real estate to integrate a smooth ellipse, we could create a ‘theatre-in-the-round’ to give the fans a full immersive experience.”

Drosos said that, initially, what became the Halo Board “was segmented, but as we worked with the Falcons, it became apparent that making it round would work.” Thus was the establishmsent of a 70-foot tall board, “with a 10-foot gap on top until you hit the flat roof would work.

“We saw the Halo Board as an opportunity to take the scoreboard out of the line of sight,” he said, and the Falcons “were excited about the possibilities of the board, because the team’s video operators can drive a car or bounce a ball around it. No one has done this, so there is an evolution of ideas going on. The potential for what they can do with this board is unprecedented.”

THE POSSIBILITIES
Drosos also mentioned a social media angle for the display. With a new stadium that features 1,800 wireless access points that allow 75,000 fans to stream concurrently, “wouldn’t it be cool if the team [and the NFL, which would have to set up a protocol] let the fans use social media and integrate them into the Halo Board, or offer them specials?” he mused. “What does this present for other activities? Can you play video games on it? Could you potentially put something on 3D on it and give fans special glasses, if the technology can allow that?”

Jones noted that “the most important thing I learned from this project was that the communication between the architects and designers, as well as the contractors and those who worked in manufacturing, was especially important. That’s what made this happen.

“It’s pushed us forward,” he added, “because there will be more interest in this type of video application. Stadiums are trying to push the envelope and we’re anticipating more interest in this type of design as we move forward.”

Meglathery agreed. “It’s stunning what it does and it will elevate the in-stadium fan experience. This the showpiece video board for America at this point.”

Instagram Marketing: Is It Right For Your Business?

For years, Facebook and Twitter have been the standard go-to’s for social media marketing. However, over the last few years there has been a palpable change in the digital landscape. The demographics of social media sites are starting to shift as new platforms begin to emerge. And as Facebook and Twitter invest more heavily in paid advertising, businesses are having a more difficult time getting organic exposure on these sites. All of this is leading many businesses to wonder if they should start casting their digital marketing nets a little wider. (Spoiler alert: most of them should.)

In a particularly telling sign of the times, in September 2015 Instagram surpassed Twitter in number of users, making it the second most used social media platform behind Facebook. Those kinds of numbers are hard to ignore and this stunning growth is part of the reason that people are starting to eye Instagram as the next great place to market their business. So how do you know if it’s right for you?

Instagram Marketing: Why It’s Awesome

While we’re firm believers that there’s no one-size-fits all answer when it comes to social media marketing, there are a few general rules of thumb that you can use to decide if Instagram is a good fit for your business. But first, let’s take look at a quick rundown of what makes Instagram marketing so great.

1. The Future is Mobile — and so is Instagram.

For years now the growing importance of mobile has been at the top of the list for every forecast of marketing trends — and we’ve finally reached the tipping point. As of 2015, not only is the time spent on mobile media (51%) significantly higher than that of desktop (42%), but there are now nearly twice as many mobile-only users (19.1%) as there are desktop only users (10.8%). Mobile is no longer just a growing a trend. It has become the primary way that Internet users are accessing online content.

This gives Instagram marketing a huge advantage over its top three competitors, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Unlike the other major social media platforms, Instagram was originally conceived as an app. Although the other social media heavyweights have invested heavily in their mobile apps, it’s difficult (if not impossible) for a platform that was originally created for desktop to have an app that functions as seamlessly and intuitively as a platform that is native to mobile. Just a quick side-by-side comparison of any of the major social media apps compared to the Instagram app makes this point abundantly clear. While other apps struggle with endless updates to more elegantly integrate multiple pages and menus, Instagram’s simple, stripped-down interface makes it easy and intuitive for mobile users.

Now that mobile is the primary digital media being used by consumers, it’s likely that emerging social media platforms will be mobile natives as well. While Instagram is perfectly positioned to take on that new competition, the platforms that were originally conceived for desktops are going to feel increasing pressure. In short, if you’re looking to invest in a social media strategy that will continue to have an impact over the long-term, Instagram should be a part of that strategy.

2. Your posts are more likely to be seen.

The great thing about Instagram marketing is that as you gain followers you know that they are actually following you. While Facebook and Twitter give users the ability to prevent posts from certain accounts from showing up their feeds, Instagram has no such functionality. If a user doesn’t want to see your content anymore, they have to unfollow you. This means that you can be sure that your content will appear in 100% of your followers feeds, greatly increasing the chances that they will actually see it.

Ensuring that your posts are being seen has become particularly difficult on Facebook. Not only does Facebook allow users to have a high degree of control over the content that appears in their NewsFeed, but the Facebook algorithm automatically curates each profile’s NewsFeed based on their connections and interactions. This means that if your followers don’t immediately and consistently engage with your content, chances are they will stop seeing it.

To make things more difficult for marketers and business owners, as Facebook increasingly invests in its advertising services, business pages are finding it more and more difficult to reach their followers organically (i.e. for free). While Instagram has introduced ads on the platform, thus far there has been no indication that they intend to treat the content posted by business profiles any differently than they have in the past, making Instagram marketing still your best bet for getting your content in front of your audience.

3. Instagram leads the pack for engagement.

It’s not enough to just be sharing your content — it needs to make an impact. Shares, likes, RTs, and +1’s are all indicators of how engaged your audience is with your content. The more you have your follower’s attention, the more opportunities there are to get your message out, build brand awareness, and engage in some killer PR. If leveraged correctly, these social signals can even pack a serious SEO punch. That’s why engagement is the Holy Grail of social media marketing.

Instagram’s clean, streamlined interface, judicious incorporation of ads, and focus on visual content creates an intimate atmosphere that is optimal for social sharing. So it’s no wonder why, when it comes to engagement, Instagram is the industry leader. While the exact numbers can be hard to quantify, estimates suggest that Instagram users are 58 times more likely to like, comment, or share a brand’s post than Facebook users and 120 times more likely than Twitter users. Those numbers are huge and they can make an equally huge difference for your business.

4. Businesses can brand themselves through visual storytelling.

Have you ever heard of an elevator pitch? The general idea is this: you’re the CEO of a startup or a salesperson trying to drum up new business and all of sudden you find yourself in an elevator with exactly the investor or the contact that you’d like to do business with. Basically, you have 30 to 90 seconds to tell this person what your company does and why they should want to work with you and you have to do it in a way that is interesting and compelling enough that the elevator ride ends with you getting a meeting and not an uncomfortable brush off. It’s as tricky as it sounds.

It’s also a great analogy for building your audience online, only instead of an investor you’re pitching Internet users and instead of 90 seconds you have 2 — maybe. This is where the visual storytelling aspects of Instagram marketing become a huge advantage. They say a picture is worth 1000 words and they’re right. You could probably sum up why the company you work for is so cool in 1000 words, but no one would stick around to read it. Or you could post a picture of your latest rooftop office party or your “workation” in Mexico and tell the same story in an instant.

How to Know If Your Business Should Be On Instagram

So you get that Instagram is awesome, but you’re still not sold on the idea that it’s right for your business. The truth is that despite the many advantages of Instagram marketing, it still doesn’t necessarily make sense for every business. Here’s a few rules of thumb that can help you know if it’s time for your business to take the plunge:

Your target audience is young. Approximately 90% of Instagram’s 400 million users are under the age of 35. Compare this to Twitter (where 55% of users are over 35) and Facebook (where 65% of users are over 35). The truth is that it doesn’t matter how great your product and your message are if you aren’t using the right channels to reach your audience. Trying to connect with young people on Facebook is like trying to text someone with a fax machine — it’s just not going to work.

Your product is visually compelling. Instagram marketing is all about visuals. Maybe you’re a travel agency that books luxury vacations or maybe you’re a company that builds sweet custom bikes. Whoever you are, if you are selling something that people are going to want to see, you need to be on Instagram.

Your competitors are on Instagram. If you haven’t yet, you should definitely check to see if your competitors are doing Instagram marketing. Even if you still think at this point that Instagram isn’t right for your business, if your competitors are already there and developing a following, chances are that they know something you don’t. Poke around in their profiles and try to figure out what it is, then get to work building a better version in your own profile.

If you think you can tell a visual story about your business — or you are trying to target a younger audience — Instagram needs to be part of your social media marketing strategy.

Are you ready to take the plunge with Instagram market, but looking to outsource social media? We’ve got a couple of pricing guides you might be interested in, both for professional social media marketing tools and small business social media marketing.

5 Advanced SEO Strategies You’re Probably Aren’t Using

BY PETER ROESLER

These simple but overlooked tactics can help boost your site’s traffic and revenue.

A lot of businesses have had their current websites for several years and while they may be functional, they may not be optimized for SEO in the current environment. SEO is a fast changing field, and even a site that was perfect a couple of years ago may be out of date when it comes to strategy and best practices. Many articles have covered simple things a business owner can do to improve their site’s SEO and internet marketing, this article will focus on a few advanced topics. Here are five advanced SEO strategies you probably aren’t using.

Optimize PDFs for SEO
Many people don’t realize that Google treats the PDFs on websites like webpages. Not just indexing the title of the file, but the contents within as well. For a start, this means that businesses should use keywords as they would on any other page on the site. Also, the PDFs on the site to promote can advance the company’s content marketing and SEO goals. Marketers should include keywords in their headings, give the file an SEO-friendly file name, and include all meta description options available when creating the file. Since, the links within the document count when clicked, be sure to include links back to the website in the logo (like you would on the website) and links to supporting content on the site. Finally, be sure to include as much text as possible and not rely too much on images. Google can read a pdf, but it still can’t assign an SEO score for a picture other than the information in the alt tag. So be sure to include a description to go with your graphics if you want the information to be easy to find through search.
Use Paid Promotion on Social Media to Boost Traffic
Business owners often want to improve their SEO rankings so they can increase their website traffic, but in some ways, that’s putting the cart before the horse. Google and other search engine algorithms take into account how much traffic a page gets when determining its ranking. So increases traffic to a site will boost its SEO, which in turn, boosts the traffic even higher. Social media is a great way to get the ball rolling. Most social media platforms have some form of paid promotion or ads that can be used to increase traffic. Business owners and marketers need to take advantage of these tools so they can find their target audience and lead them to their site. So long as the content is original and interesting to the audience and the targeting is done right, business owners can send a large amount of traffic for a small amount of money. And if people like what they see, they’ll come back to see more and share the link with friends. This sort of activity will boost a site’s SEO ranking.
Continuously Create Quality Content
There are a lot of ways that website owners can improve the structure of their site and SEO-friendliness of the content, but the one algorithm-proof method to improve a site’s search ranking is to continuously create content that’s useful to the audience. Though it may take effort and resources, businesses should endeavor to create blog posts and other forms of content for their site on a regular basis. This benefits the site in several ways. First, the SEO visibility of a site increases with the number of pages indexed, so continuously adding content provides more content for search engines to index. Secondly, creating blog posts that are topical, interesting or that answers a question takes advantage in the changes in the way people search and use the internet. People are searching for the answers to specific questions or looking for interesting things to share with their friends. Creating this kind of popular content will serve a business better than the most SEO-optimized traditional About Us page. Just be sure that the created content is SEO friendly.
Use Niche Directories
Many website owners are guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. At one point, directories were a large part of SEO, but now being listed in the wrong kind of directory can lead to a Google penalty. Understandably, many website owners have avoided all directories to be safe. However, this is overkill and deprives businesses of a very useful tactic. Niche directories are small directories created to serve a very specific community. If you’re a maker of handmade goods or the producer of organic foods, there are people looking at niche directories trying to find these kinds of sites. As long as the directory is targeted and useful, it’s okay with Google. Do a local search for your industry and see what directories come up and submit your site.
Focus on Neighborhoods to Improve Local
Local businesses are getting better at using the internet to find customers and changes to the Google algorithm for local search rewards small local businesses. For example, Google now divides more cities into subdivisions instead of considering each city as one unit. This means that businesses that identify their location within the city can turn up in important searches for local businesses. Businesses should try to keep a consistent name, address and phone number. Changing the NAP of a business makes it harder for Google to accurately place the business in local search radii. Additionally, businesses should include their neighborhood in website copy and marketing. This helps if someone searches for something like “deli near Southside Pittsburgh”. Also, be aware of nicknames and other ways the neighborhood could be identified, such as the dozens of nicknames for the different areas within areas of Manahattan (e.g. The Diamond District in Midtown).

So those were five advanced tips for SEO you may not be using. I hope you learned something new. If you didn’t learn anything but read to the end anyway, thanks for sticking around. For a wide variety of services that can be helpful to your business contact Kelsey Media Productions.

Advertiser Survey Suggests Images Better at Driving Engagement than Text

Posted by Kelsey Media Productions | written by Peter Roesler

For SEO and internet marketing purposes, the content on a website is one of the most important factors that determines the success or failure of a campaign. No matter how people get to a site, it’s the things they read and see while on the site that will convince them to take action with the business. Good written content is essential, but a recent survey of advertising executives suggests that good imagery may be slightly more important.

Recently, TripleLift surveyed more than 100 advertising executives as part of their inaugural Visual Web Awards. These experts were asked to rank eight different publishers across all verticals to determine which sites were the most attractive/engaging. The response to the survey suggest that advertising executives felt that visually-appealing displays are far better at driving consumer actions.

The winner of the award was a Macheesmo, a cooking site that uses imagery heavily on the homepage and throughout the site to drive engagement since it was created in 2008. Macheesmo was chosen by more than 40 percent of the respondents of the survey as being the most engaging.

“Enabling publishers like Macheesmo to beautifully integrate a brand’s creative into their site’s aesthetic is why we’re in business,” said Dan Martin, TripleLift’s VP of Business Development in a blog post about the award and the survey. “Advertising is as much as an art as it is a science and when publishers can easily paint their own canvas with great content and complimentary advertising – consumers will ultimately reward the experience with their time and attention.”

Looking at the website, it’s easy to see the various ways that images are used to drive clicks and engagement. For example, on the right hand side of the page, there is a link for an e-book. Usually, marketers promote these things with text-based links. Macheesmo makes the book more inviting by letting people click the cover of the book. The company itself also credits image-based design for a lot of their success.

“I think visual design is an incredibly important part of the user experience on the web,” said Nick Evans, the Macheesmo site’s founder and publisher. “It makes everything easier if you have a memorable design. Your visitors will appreciate an easy layout and remember a unique brand. Investing in a good design that showcases your content and voice clearly is some of the best money you can spend in the online world.”

Business owners and marketers can learn from this survey and work to make their sites more visually stimulating and engaging. For sites running content management systems like WordPress, there are a lot of plugins that can be used to make a site more visually oriented. However, it’s vital that marketers ensure the site still works on mobile devices.

One of the challenges of using an image-heavy layout is that it usually means there will need to be an entirely separate site for mobile devices. Responsive design can make images fit on the screen, but shrinking the entire layout so it can fit on a mobile will usually render the site difficult, if not impossible to use. Make sure to take these things into consideration when designing a website or, better still, hire a web design company that can handle the tricky stuff for you.

Images are an essential tool for marketers because they can can easily be used to generate interest, tell a story or promote engagement!

Why & How You Should Integrate Online & Offline Marketing

Use online marketing to improve the effectiveness of offline ads. by Peter Roseler

It’s important for business owners and marketers to avoid the trap of binary thinking. Often, advice to business owners is given in black and white terms. For example, some study will show that email marketing is better than direct mail marketing or a business guru will write about why business owners should only use internet marketing. However, reality is rarely so simple. The truth is, most businesses will need a combination of multiple marketing strategies and tactics to maximize the potential of their advertising and marketing. This article will show why and how business owners should integrate their online and offline marketing campaigns.

Internet Marketing and Television
Though television advertising and marketing were unrivaled ways to reach consumers for decades, the growth of internet video demands a change in tactics from marketers. A business owner that only uses TV ads to reach their target audience may be surprised to learn that many members of their target audience watch far less TV than they think.

According to some estimates, 84 percent of internet users worldwide watch videos online. More than half of millennials watch TV shows on a tablet, desktop computer, or smartphone. Recently, comScore reported that nearly half of households with three or more people subscribe to Netflix. The report also found that 17 percent of millennials watch no original TV series on traditional TV sets. And that Americans aged 18-34 are 77 percent more likely than average to live in households that have never had pay TV.

These statistics show marketers can’t depend on TV ads to be catch all advertising channel it was in the past. In fact, no form of advertising medium is anymore. In order to reach modern audiences, need to integrate internet marketing tactics to reach more of their target audience. For example, millennials watch more YouTube than any network or cable channel. So using banner or video ads on YouTube is an effective way to reach people who don’t watch as much TV programming as others. Similarly, advertising on social media can help business owners reach targeted audiences with their marketing message.

Internet Marketing and Radio
Though it’s one of the oldest forms of mass media still in use, radio remains a useful and profitable tool for marketers. According to a recent study from Nielsen, 59 percent of US music listeners listen to traditional or online radio. Even in the digital age, there are advantages radio gives that are difficult to duplicate digitally. For example, radio remains the best way to reach consumers as they commute. Which makes radio marketing a great way to reach local consumers with relevant ads. This has been borne out by recent data. In a different study, Nielsen reported that radio ads drive 5.8 percent of US retail sales. Keep in mind that more ad dollars are spent on TV, internet, and print ads than on radio ads, so 5.8 percent represents a pretty good return on investment. Put another way, each dollar of radio ad spend generates an average sales return of $6.

Internet radio exists, but it’s not as widely used as traditional radio. Even among millennials, traditional radio is extremely popular. According to one report, 70 percent of Americans ages 18-34 listen to network radio each week. Additionally, about 71 percent of them have annual household incomes over $75,000. Internet radio apps are used a lot, but they aren’t pulling these kinds of number yet. This gap will likely shrink with time and it illustrates why marketers need to integrate their campaigns.

Running ads entirely on radio will give marketers a good portion of the local commuter audience, but a growing number of people will get their morning music and news from an app. Using banner ads that are available on generic apps or the specific audio and visual apps possible on internet radio apps helps to ensure that marketers reach a larger percentage of their target audience. .

Internet Marketing and Print Media
Newspaper and magazines have suffered a lot due to rise of internet technology. While some commentators are quick to declare print media dead and that our grandkids will consider a physical newspaper as strange as a scroll of papyrus, the truth is that there remains a value to print media that digital sources can’t completely replace. According to Harris Interactive, 69 percent of US adults trust their local newspapers. This trust in the medium can translate into action. According to Nielsen, 54 percent of consumers are more likely to buy a new product when learning about it from a newspaper or magazine ad. Even national businesses recognize the usefulness of print media for local advertising. About 43 percent of national businesses use newspapers for local promotions.

Integrating internet marketing with print media is relatively simple. This can be as simple as including websites and email addresses in print ads or including print coupons for specials that are available online. Just because people use the internet doesn’t mean they don’t use of the sources for infromation A study from Shop.org also found that 63 percent of US internet users have used a coupon from a newspaper or magazine. It also helps to include traditional media sources when distributing press releases, instead of solely relying on online distribution. Though it’s easy to get a press released published somewhere online, if the intended audience is local, it’s beneficial to get the news, product, or event covered by the local news media as well. As the Nielsen study showed, people would be more receptive of the information, which can help when introducing a new product line or brand.

The growth of various forms of media have created an environment where there is no longer a catchall form of marketing that will reach every audience, not even the internet. In order for business owners to get the maximum reach and effectiveness of their marketing tactics, they will need to use an integrated campaign. Merging online and offline marketing strategies in the ways mentioned above, is a good way for businesses to increase revenue.

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Falcons Debut ‘Halo Board’

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Advertiser Survey Suggests Images Better at Driving Engagement than Text