GeoMoment, a Zipwhip partner focused on digital strategy and engagement, recently launched their new SMSAD offering to unite online advertising tools like Google Adwords with Zipwhip’s landline and toll free texting platform. The end result is an offering that enablesconsumers to click on a Text Us Now link to seamlessly kick off a conversation with an actual representative from the advertising business, all on theirexisting business sales lines. In the first 60 days of trial, GeoMoment and their customer Warren Henry Automotive Group reported a 265% increase in click-through-rates on AdWords when changing the call-to-action from placing a phone call to sending a pre-canned message to text with a dealership representative. Furthermore, GeoMoment reported a 400-500% increase on traditional non-AdWords banner ads when adding the call-to-action for texting.      The details of the experience are as follows: When a consumer on their mobile phone enters a term into a search engine such as Google, GeoMoment embeds a hyperlink within clients’ AdWords display ads with the call-to-action “Text Us Now.” When the consumer clicks on the link from their smartphone, their native messaging app opens, and the business’s landline or toll free number and message body is auto-filled. The consumer only has to tap send, and the text is routed through Zipwhip and appears on the business’s computer. From Zipwhip applications, business representatives compose personalized replies. Marketing and advertisement channels can now leverage businesses’existing phone number to become a point of text message engagement.      Peter Quinones, Internet and E-commerce Manager of Warren Henry, saw a missed opportunity to connect with prospects. Previously using a short code to send automated texts from a 5-digit code, Peter expressed the desire to allow people to live text with his staff from their advertised toll free number. When the idea was brought to GeoMoment, Zipwhip was brought in to leverage their existing phone number. “The future of customer engagement is a dialogue, rather than a monologue. With text messaging being the preferred means of communication for almost every consumer, opening a two-way SMS communication channel on a business’s existing phone number is turning out to be more important than previously thought,” says Anthony Link, Co-Founder and CEO of GeoMoment.

With football season kicking off, we are constantly being reminded of the importance of being a team player as we tune in to watch the big game each Monday night. Whether it is out on the field, in the office or even in the classroom, being an effective team player is essential to any group’s overall success. Every team needs a strong set of players in order to perform well. But what defines such people? Sports teams are the perfect examples of how players working together can achieve so much more than one player acting alone. For example, you may not be the best at scoring, but you’re great at moving the ball down the court. You know that if you pass the ball off to the person who is a good scorer, the team has a better chance of winning. Everyone on a sports team plays a different role, according to their strengths, but this idea also stands true in the workplace. In a business context, what does the term ‘good team player’ truly mean? What do leaders want from their team members and how can you make more of a significant contribution to your team? In the world of psychology, there is a corporate diagram known as the Belbin model, which states how people naturally tend to assume ‘team roles’ within the workplace. Here is a more in-depth look into this model as well as helpful tips on how to make a bigger contribution to your team in the future. According to the Belbin model, there are nine main roles that underlie a team’s success: Strong team leaders use the Belbin model to identify people’s behavioral strengths and weaknesses in the workplace. This information can be used to: Build productive working relationships Raise self-awareness and personal effectiveness Build mutual trust and understanding Select and develop high-performing teams 3 Tips on Becoming a Good Team Player   Know Your Strengths Only you know what you do best. Maybe you’re incredibly organized, you’re a great public speaker, or maybe you are good at researching that hard-to-find information. Whatever your strength may be, you have something valuable to offer. Use the Belbin Model to find a role for yourself within your team that allows you to do what you do well. This will not only help you make a meaningful contribution, but it will increase your chances of doing a job well. It’s much easier and more satisfying to do tasks when you are naturally good at them. Teams usually come together to handle an issue that is difficult, if not impossible for a single person to do on their own, and when a group knows their strengths and works well together, creativity levels are generally higher, as people tap into the strengths of one another. Be Reliable We have all worked with people who have made promises they didn’t keep, or maybe that person was you. Regardless, it is frustrating when someone says one thing and does another. In a

1. “Content is the atomic particle of all digital marketing.” — Rebecca Lieb 2. “When you start with what’s at stake for the buyer, you earn the right to their attention.” — Jake Sorofman 3. “SEO is not something you do anymore. It’s what happens when you do everything else right.” — Chad Pollitt 4. “The key ingredient to a better content experience is relevance.” — Jason Miller 5. “Your website is your greatest asset. More people view your webpages than anything else.” — Amanda Sibley 6. “People share, read and generally engage more with any type of content when it’s surfaced through friends and people they know and trust.” — Malorie Lucich 7. “Increasingly, the mass marketing is turning into a mass of niches.” — Chris Anderson 8. “Focus on the core problem your business solves and put out lots of content and enthusiasm, and ideas about how to solve that problem.” — Laura Fitton 9. “If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing.” — Guy Kawasaki 10. “You can’t expect to just write and have visitors come to you. That’s too passive.” — Anita Campbell 11. “Word-of-mouth marketing has always been important. Today, it’s more important than ever because of the power of the Internet.” — Joe Pulizzi & Newt Barrett 12. “As you’ve noticed, people don’t want to be sold. What people do want is news and information about the things they care about.”— Larry Weber 13. “To be successful and grow your business and revenues, you must match the way you market your products with the way your prospects learn about and shop for your products.” — Brian Halligan 14. “Marketing is telling the world you’re a rock star. Content marketing is showing the world you are one.” — Robert Rose 15. “Not viewing your email marketing as content is a mistake.” — Chris Baggott 16. “The media wants overnight successes (so they have someone to tear down). Ignore them. Ignore the early adopter critics who never have enough to play with. Ignore your investors who want proven tactics and predictable instant results. Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision, and make something for the long haul. Because that’s how long it’s going to take.” — Seth Godin 17. “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” — David Packard 18. “What you prefer or what your designer prefers doesn’t matter if it’s not getting you conversions.” — Naomi Niles 19. “If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.” — Jay Baer 20. “The key is, no matter what story you tell, make your buyer the hero.” — Chris Brogan 21. “I don’t care much for best practice. I care about conversions. That’s why I test.” — Michael Aagaard 22. “Don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with your marketing.” — Mike Volpe

School and soon the holidays are looming right around the corner and the days of the kids being on their lazy summer schedules will soon come to a close. Whether back-to-school season means getting the children back into their early morning routines or running the neighborhood carpool, your home is going to need to get organized! We have all muttered this phrase all too often: “This is it! This is the year I get my act together, stay focused and get organized. This will be the best year ever!” Back-to-school season brings out the organizational bug in us all, yet it can be overwhelming far before it is satisfying. These helpful ‘Do It Yourself’ ideas will ease everyone into the back-to-school season with simple ways to organize your home and lifestyle before the hectic school year is underway!   Do a Purge Don’t be afraid to grab a garbage can and get moving. When faced with the challenge to declutter, simply enter a room and quickly toss everything away that is obvious trash. Try to move as fast as you can without over thinking your decision. Broken toy? Toss it. Last year’s invite to your son’s best friend’s birthday party. Toss it. These are items you don’t need. Once you have filled your can, tie off the top and bring it outside immediately and move on to round two. Grab a new garbage bin and return back into the same room for the second part of the job. The next pass through may not be as easy so try to keep it simple and tell yourself: -If you don’t need it, toss it. -If you can’t remember what it is or where it’s from, toss it. . -If you don’t know remember when the last time you used it was or when you will use it again, toss it. It’s just taking up space. Release the excess clutter and reclaim your home. The less ‘stuff’ you have lying around, the less time you will have to spend on cleaning in the future.   Make it Family Fun If kids feel as though organizing the house is a boring job exclusively for parents, they will be cranky when asked to help. Show them it can be fun! Instead of basic clear bins and wooden baskets, invest in some colorful storage bins with fun patterns, or better yet, have the kids create custom, DIY boxes for their belongings. Several organization and container stores have color coordinated hooks, shelving, bins and even labels. This is a great way to creatively organize everyone’s school and play items. Not only will they make cleanup time more fun for the youngsters, but they can also prevent siblings from fighting over who’s cleaned up and who hasn’t! To continue this lifestyle throughout the school year, follow a similar routine. Ensure that homework areas are always filled with school and educational amenities that allow for the creative minds of your children to organize their schoolwork and artwork. Before

Pre-roll advertisements or “in-stream” advertisements are shown on a website before a music video, video tutorial, or any short video. Most pre-roll ads have a “skip” option after the commercial has played for five seconds, making this five-second period crucial for your brand. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the average person has an attention span of eight seconds, another reason why the first five seconds of your advertisement is imperative to intrigue your viewer. At first, Pre-roll ads may come off as a nuisance to the user; however, the main point of in-stream advertisements is to reel in potential customers.     According to Convince and Convert, LLC three main statistics point to the positive impact and growth of pre-roll advertising, which is why our team at Ternary believes it is here to stay: Video advertisements showed the most potential for product outreach as of 2012. Viewers retain 85 percent more information shown in videos than in print advertisements. Consumers are 52 percent more likely to purchase a product online if they have previously seen it in a video advertisement.   A company trying to push their product through pre-roll advertisements via YouTube or another popular domain will want to adhere to five simple tips in order to reach their target audience and yield more sales: Make sure the advertisement is not too long. As mentioned earlier in the article, the average attention span of consumers is only eight seconds long. Once the eight-second window passes, you either have the viewer engaged, or they are eagerly awaiting the “skip” banner at the edge of the screen. Emphasize how your product will enhance the viewer’s life. For the most part, humans are selfish creatures. The viewers immediately want to see how your product will make their daily life better. Stray from the typical commercial format so your viewers do not feel bombarded by another monotonous advertisement. No matter how interesting your product content may be, if the viewer has seen the same cheesy layout a million times over, they will frantically anticipate the five-second mark. Be unique in your presentation to reiterate your product’s value. Choose the right audience who will appreciate your advertisement. A health insurance advertisement will resonate more with an expecting father than with a pre-pubescent teenager.     Pre-roll advertisements serve many purposes for our clients, but ultimately are used to improve the brand’s awareness and direct customers to your client’s websites in order to produce sales.

My time with the team at Ternary Triangle was incredibly varied, from researching and writing editorial for online syndication, to walking the team dog, and performing the “low man on the totem pole” jobs like re-staining all the outdoor deck furniture. In my summer here I learned quite a bit, but here are a few key things I am walking away with from my experience at The Triangle.    Press releases are very helpful. Press releases are a great, cost affective way to get your company exposure, they can also immensely improve your SEO and send traffic to your website. Content is the key, so you have to write a title and an article you think people would be interested in. Ternary triangle recently distributed a press release for Lust Vodka that got traction at media outlets like Huffington Post and Fox News, because it was an interesting topic, and it also increased Lust’s social media activity by up to 1000%, compared to a normal day of activity. They also gained over 500 followers every few days…all because of a press release.   Work hard no matter what you’re doing. No matter what you are doing, always work hard at it. Even if it is something small, still work hard. It will help build good work ethic and improve the activity you are doing. People will recognize the effort you put in, and you will be cast in a good light.   The importance of social media. As a teenager, I am always on social media whether it is occupying myself during a boring day or interacting with friends, I have become very familiar with social media. However, I never realized how important Twitter and Facebook could be in the business world. With more consumers online than ever before, social media is very important in business. Whether its sharing the release of a new product, or an article on a blog, businesses are constantly using multiple social media platforms to get the message out.   Learn to navigate Microsoft Excel.  I learned the importance of excel spreadsheets. Whether it is administrative work, media lists with hundreds of contacts or media trackers, Excel makes calculations of complex math problems easy, and it is used in just about every field of work, so it is extremely important to be familiar with the program.   Prepare for anything: In any business related interaction, whether with a co-worker, client, or customer it is important to know everything you want to say, and think of what the other person might say in response. Collect your thoughts beforehand. Write notes if you have to. This way, you present yourself as a more confident person. Preparation will also enhance your charisma and public speaking abilities- two things that are very important in both the real world and business.   Don’t wait for the work to come to you. If you finish a project, ask for another. The only way to prove to your co-workers that you are cut