Insights from Nebo

Business is simple. Buy low, sell high. Find a market opportunity and serve a need. Create the right processes, hire the right people, and utilize the best technology. Boom. You’re off and running. Work hard to keep your competitive advantages. Stay ahead of the competition. Hire the right agency. Retain the best employees. Listen to the right consultants. Stay true to your mission statement. Perform a SWOT. Listen to more consultants. Revise your business plan. Evolve your brand and mission. Continue to stay ahead of the competition. Try to not get swallowed up by the next disruption. Read business books. Hire your competitor’s employees. Buy a smaller, but more agile competitor. Think about selling. Layoffs? Restructure. Hold the fort. Listen to your attorneys. Listen to your finance people. Strategize.

It’s not simple.

We’re incredibly proud to announce that we’ve been honored with the Best Blog award by Ragan’s PR Daily!

It’s an amazing validation of our team’s hard work over the years.

See, when readers come to our blog, they just see a ton of great content (that's the hope, at least). But there’s a lot going on behind the scenes before we ever hit publish.

I recently received a thank you note that rubbed me the wrong way. It was from a job candidate I’d interviewed for a position at Nebo. The note could have been a nice gesture; however, I received it three weeks after the interview (and about three weeks after we made the no-go call). To make matters worse, the problems were plenty. There were spelling errors, it was sloppy and it reeked of desperation. The thank you note cemented my decision that this person was not right for our agency. But more than seal the deal on the decision, the card upset me personally because it felt so cheap and lazy.

Yet, I have to give credit when it’s due. At least the candidate wrote something.

The ChooseATL campaign started as a grassroots effort to change perceptions of our city. It was a completely volunteer-driven effort made up of several people that wanted to better tell Atlanta’s story. The original task force was comprised of the most talented people from Atlanta’s biggest brands, including other agencies, startup leaders, government representatives, non-profit partners and more.

The first phase was an incredible success. We drove more than 40 million media impressions, our social campaign led to thousands of photos and tweets shared using the #ChooseATL hashtag, and we even threw a flash-mob style lantern parade right in the heart of South by Southwest interactive.

But, one of the questions we’ve come across more recently was how will we build, grow and sustain this effort? Working with Metro Atlanta Chamber and their partners throughout the 29-county region of Atlanta – along with BBDO and Porter Novelli – we’re proud to announce the launch of the next phase of the campaign.

There’s an art to social media. You have to be purposeful. You have to be real. Which is why I’ve spent years shaping my Twitter presence. I’ve joined Twitter chats, tweeted interesting content and formed real relationships with real users.

But it was all destroyed in a blink of an eye.

It was April Fools Day. I logged on to Twitter, ready to continue improving my personal brand, when I noticed something strange. My follower count was growing. Not just by a few, but by thousands. Thousands of a new people were following me, and every single one was a spam account.

One of the best Moz Whiteboard Friday episodes ever features Rand Fishkin talking about content goals and how to map content to different phases of the buyer journey.

In it, one of the content phases he describes is what he calls “Viral” or “Super-broad”.