Category Archives: Uncategorized

Backbone’s Greg Williams and Brian Kinslow explore the fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization and how they relate to PR and Marketing.

Five Key Takeaways

• Be authentic
• Design for users and readers
• Organization comes from a relevant, authentic, and targeted set of keywords
• Web pages need a technically correct foundation first. SEO is then primarily driven though coverage, 3rd party links and digital/social conversations.
• Social media (all channels) is important and can drive SEO

Resources

• I Want to Be #1 On Google
• Google Keyword Planner
• Smartwool Press Release Example
• SEO Beginner’s Guide
• 15 Steps to Power SEO with PR
• Google 101 and Google’s SEO Overview
• Article on SEO, Content, and Marketing
• SEO and Link Building
• SEO 101 Resources (dozens of links to more info and tools)

Slideshare link to download powerpoint presentation.

For more information please contact Brian Kinslow at brian.kinslow@backbonemedia.net

Last week Backbone hosted a Big Idea Day (BID) in SLC.

We met with 7 top media outlets to discuss trends and opportunities in multimedia.

Here is a quick hit from Outside’s Michael Roberts, the first in a series summarizing what people are talking about.

Last week, Nate, Greg and I attended the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen.
Fortune Brainstorm is an annual conference hosted at the Aspen Institute, with speakers including big names like Katie Aronowitz, Design Director at Facebook, Neil Ashe, CEO of e-Commerce at Wal-Mart, John Donahue, CEO of eBay and Jennifer Dulski, President of Change.org. The conference also included some emerging voices in the tech world such as Ben Elowitz from Wetpaint.com, Alex Ljung from SoundCloud, Steve Stoute from Translation Advertising and Ryan Holmes from Hootsuite.

See Rogues Gallery here

Attending conferences can make your head spin in terms of new learnings as well as reinforce the obvious. It is amazing how central themes such as authenticity, (important, yes, yet not so easy to execute) and mobile continue to dominate the topline discussion.

Here are three highlights we left with:

Greg:
1 – Nothing ground breaking, it is all about MOBILE. Even Walmart, the largest brick and mortar retailer globally, sees mobile as a central and key driver of new customers and additional revenue with existing customers.

2 – The largest potential impact to retail is the very real possibility of Amazon same day delivery. It is currently in beta and working in Seattle. Once the model is perfected, it will be a game changer.

3 – Everything comes back to a quality consumer experience end to end, which includes content to ecomm. Even today there are relatively few brands getting it all right.

Nate:

Authenticity, authenticity, authenticity.

(When Nate was prodded – dude, c’mon you gotta do better than that…)

1 – The distinction between social media and social networks. Social media is the shared content. The network is the infrastructure to share.

2 – The fact that even in a room full of tech icons, representing huge brands and leading media, everyone is still struggling to mine actionable, real-time data from the social web. Many are working on it and making progress (including Adobe which surprised me) but no one seems remotely satisfied with where we are today in terms of analyzing and leveraging social insights.

3 – To paraphrase Jeff Zucker from CNN “we want to be more essential to more consumers more often.”

Penn: the hardest part about going last is not copping out and agreeing with what has already been said.

1 – Art and music are pure forms that shape society and culture. People aspire to adopt cultures that resonate with them personally. The best brands understand this and realize the rate of product acceptance is tied to brand relevance from a cultural adoption and community perspective.

2 – From a marketing standpoint collaboration and the need or lack thereof is directly related to the size of the opportunity.

3 – To paraphrase Steve Stoute, ‘Samsung did not care about Jay-Z holding their phone they cared about his content flowing through their phone.”
See you out there.

It’s no secret that mobile is shaking things up for consumer brands. The proliferation of tablets and smartphones is fundamentally changing the way that consumers behave and search for information. The implications for brands are enormous.

We spent some time digging into the mobile world and identified a few trends that brands, marketers, advertisers, PR pros, and even web designers should be aware of. Check it out:

Three important take-aways:

• Mobile has incredible scale: Nearly 50% of the U.S. population expected to be mobile internet users by 2015
• Speed and convenience are the main drivers of mobile activity. Is your mobile presence optimized to be fast and easily accessible from a phone? Is the user experience seamless and consistent across a desktop, tablet and phone?
• Mobile search is a key part of buyers’ decision making and buying process

Since people rarely ask we figured we’d just tell. After all we are in the business of story telling.
15 years ago, on the verge of starting a company with little more than an idea and some energy, Backbone needed a logo.

Being Colorado based and being that the continental divide is right out our backdoor we started playing with the idea of the using a stylized version of the continental divide – the backbone of the Rocky mountains – as our symbol.

Pretty simple really. Take the state of Colorado and smooth out the edges of the divide – and voila’

Whoever said the nike swoosh was a steal at $35…

Strip to your SmartWool: Inspiring, funny, and sometimes, downright scary.

We’re privileged to work with a number of brands that have large and enthusiastic social media fan bases. When it comes to media planning, orchestrating social campaigns, and even daily posting, an engaged fan base makes everything more fun and interesting. Case in point: SmartWool. With almost 100,000 Facebook fans, SmartWool enjoys an incredibly strong social following. SmartWool fans love engaging with the brand by commenting on posts, sharing their experiences, and submitting photos (which can be inspiring, funny, and sometimes, downright scary. Check out “Strip to Your SmartWool” to see what we mean).

So when SmartWool approached us for help launching its new PhD product line, we were thrilled to take on the challenge. It was an incredible opportunity to leverage its enthusiastic fan base and drive foot traffic to promotions occurring at over 130 retailers across the country (see map below).

In fact, the PhD launch campaign that Backbone/SmartWool ran through Facebook was such a success that Facebook wrote a case study on it. Take a closer look at the awesome work:

A big thanks to SmartWool for making great products and giving us this opportunity!

In the early days of New Belgium Brewing, an Airstream trailer affectionally called the Abbey was commissioned to travel the country to educate and ultimately convert people to New Belgium beers. In a time before social media, the whimsical and majestic Abbey was an excellent way to amplify word-of-mouth advertising and create buzz around the brand. Today the Abbey sits as a center piece at the New Belgium Brewery dedicated to teaching the history of the beer factory.

The New Belgium Abbey

As a nod to the history of New Belgium Brewing and the progressive nature of live streaming and amplifying word-of-mouth content, Backbone and New Belgium worked together to create the BeerStream.

The BeerStream is a live video feed that allows New Belgium’s Facebook fans to engage in real time with New Belgium hosts, Michael Bussmann and Matty Smooth. Monthly BeerStreams feature virtual beer tastings, details on new beers, events, culture and more. BeerStream allows New Belgium to bring the personality of the brewers and the brewery to their fans while encouraging them to take part in the tasting by purchasing a beer and following along – essentially driving an online action (virtual beer tasting) into offline activation (purchasing a beer and following along). The New Belgium BeerStream has gained momentum each month with an increase in viewership and engagement.
Stay tuned for our next BeerStream in February – grab a beer and join in the fun.
Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/nbbstream

A common misconception in public relations is that you can get media to cover what the media has already covered.

In other words – that a great placement will be newsworthy in other media.

Yet with the right story you can see a ripple effect. This has happened recently with a few pieces where Backbone partners have seen feature coverage that has spurred more feature coverage.

The first example is with MIPS.

MIPS is a Swedish manufacturer of multi-directional impact systems – a safeguard in helmets that helps mitigate concussions.

A feature in December’s Popular Science written by Tom Foster, titled Helmet Wars, highlighted this technology and the reticence of major sports leagues (NFL, NHL and Lacrosse) to adopt new technologies which may greatly reduce an athletes exposure to brain injuries.

The Pop Sci feature spurred a hasty retort from Sports Illustrated online which in turn spawned a thoughtful response from the bleacher report a leading national sports blog. From there commentary ensued with the end result being MIPS establishment as a central piece in future helmet innovation discussions.

The second example is less product-centric and more causal. In this case it was concurrent media in Outside Magazine Powder Dreams by Gordy Megroz and a feature in SKI magazine written by Chris Solomon titled Utah’s Big Hook Up, both which discussed the controversial Ski Link, a proposed lift expansion by The Canyons resort that would connect the Park City resort with Big Cottonwood canyon.

Proponents of Ski Link call it a transportation solution. Opponents call it a real estate masquerade that hopes to raid well-used recreational public land for the benefit of a private company.

These pieces in turn brought about a Saturday Night Live Point-Counterpoint style op-ed on Outside Online with Black Diamond Inc. CEO Peter Metcalf and Ski Utah’s Nathan Rafferty facing off.

Again, commentary followed and the media ripple effect led to thought, discourse and social interaction.

At Backbone we like snow.

Ullr would be pleased

Of course we love to ski and ride deep powder, but equally important is the impact snow (or lack thereof) has on our business partners in the winter sports world. Brands like SmartWool, Polartec , Eddie Bauer, Black Diamond, POC, La Sportiva, and Kastle all thrive when the snow flies.

The same holds true for the destination resorts we collaborate with: Sun Valley, Snowmass, Taos, Bachelor and Telluride. Even our more summer-based brands feel the impact of a bad snow year— in terms of watershed, river flows and outdoor retailers coming off a slow winter season are less likely to submit big orders for the next season.

Protect Our Winters recently released a report in collaboration with the National Resources Defense Council that focused on the economic impact of climate change to resorts and tourism. The results are staggering—an estimated $1 billion loss and up to 27,000 fewer jobs over the last decade because of diminished snow fall patterns and the resulting changes in the outdoor habits of Americans. The story went mainstream with pick up in USA Today, New York Times (three times), Time, ESPN Freeskiing, Outside, TransWorld Business, Adventure Journal and pick up on Al Gore’s blog and twitter feed

Major television and radio coverage ensued including a FOX News Business piece with an interview of the NRDC’s Bob Deans.

Part of Backbone’s charter is to give back to the outdoor industry and our local communities. We proudly work for 1% for the Planet, Big City Mountaineers and Protect Our Winters (POW).

When one of our non-profit partners scores major international news coverage, it’s a win we’re especially excited about. Thanks to the NRDC’s Hastings Group for their exceptional efforts in driving the process and read the NRDC report for yourself here.