I’ll admit it.  I’m not the biggest Nascar fan. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a race from green flag to checkered, until last night. Maybe it’s because they normally race on Sunday afternoons and I don’t have the time to sit and watch 3,400 pound, 750 horsepower stock cars, drive 200mph and turn left for four plus hours (wait a minute, that does sound kind of cool). Or maybe it’s because I have never had a vested interest in any of the drivers/cars. That all changed for “The Great American Race” this Sunday…um, I mean Monday night.

We’ve been working with Kroger and the USO (United Services Organization) on a continued relationship to promote the Honoring Our Heroes campaign. In the infancy of the partnership, we developed a brand identity, a website (honoringourheroes.com) and the big ideas for promotion and marketing. At this years Daytona 500, a Kroger associate who serves in the military presented the USO with a check for $1.5 million. Also, as a tribute to the men and women who protect our country every day, the hood of this year’s #47 Kroger car, driven by Bobby Labonte, features the names of Kroger associates who have taken military leave.

All of this is fantastic, and we are proud to be involved in such a worthy venture. So last night I figured I would turn on the race and see how Bobby was doing. There he was, turning left, and low and behold so was our Honoring Our Heroes logo (to the right of the #47 with the four stars). Color me surprised! We had no idea that something we created would be seen by millions of people all over the world. I was now hooked!  I watched the entire race–wrecks, cautions, fires, and checkered flag–glued to the red, white, and blue Kroger car as it made moves on the outside, avoided catastrophic collisions, and ultimately survived to finish 14th. Good job Bobby! You’ve made us all proud, especially the true heroes on this long Monday night of racing, the men and women of our Armed Forces.

For all the latest project and other news from US Digital Partners, please take a few minutes to read our February 2012 newsletter Moving Day and More.

How can a parochial school system steeped in tradition expand and energize its Facebook presence and share its message with a new audience? By offering free tuition credits, of course!  This is the story of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati Catholic Schools Office and its recent Facebook Tuition Giveaway program:  $17,500 in tuition and other prizes, to be precise.

Launched in October 2011 and concluded earlier this month, the Archdiocese Catholic Schools Facebook page has become an effective catalyst for increasing families’ interactions with the school system and with each other.  The giveaway proved once again that the ability of social media to spread awareness of a mission-based organization is profound.

Back when USDP was starting this project, we brainstormed with the Archdiocese over all different types of new and creative social media they could employ to strengthen their presence on the web.  The idea of a “Tuition Giveaway” was the runaway winner, thus providing us the opportunity to devise a project for the Archdiocese unlike anything it had ever done before.

The rules of the giveaway were simple. Upon “liking” the page, participants were asked to provide contact information and to select up to three schools in the Archdiocese to which the prizes would be granted. In less than three minutes, you were registered.

The outcome has been impressive. Facebook followers increased by 30%, providing the page with over 14,000 “likes.” Over 4,600 people entered the giveaway. Additionally, we’ve seen over 1.7 million social interactions on the Facebook page since our collaborative work with the Archdiocese began in October 2010 (also see “From zero to 10,000 Facebook fans in 50-days!“).

Chris Pastura, Director of School Strategic Planning at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, commented on the giveaway results:  “The Tuition Giveaway was a tremendous success on several fronts. First, it helped our Facebook community to grow, allowing our parents and friends to share with us and each other the impact that Catholic education is having on their children. It also increased our future ability to spread the good news about Catholic education in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.”

Pastura further noted that the giveaway provided the opportunity to financially help some families that make enormous sacrifices to send their children to Catholic schools. The USDP team agrees.  Effective Facebook marketing is not just about attracting new people to your product or service.  It’s also about engaging and rewarding those who have long been ardent supporters of your mission.

The “Tuition Giveaway” is over but the success of the project continues to resonate. There is more Facebook activity than ever before, especially with the contest winners listed on the page. And the feedback continues with parents congratulating those who won, the winners thanking the Archdiocese for its generosity, and the growing number of fans gratefully acknowledging the benefits of a Catholic education.

We affectionately refer to our blog as “People are talking.” Suffice it to say, people sure are talking about Cincinnati’s Catholic school system through a new and positive marketing channel! Let’s keep the conversation going.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati is the 38th largest Catholic diocese in the country, with almost 500,000 Catholics, and has the eighth largest network of Catholic schools in terms of enrollment. The 19-county territory includes 214 parishes and 113 Catholic primary and secondary schools.

Over the weekend my cousins had a benefit bake-off in honor of their mother. The idea of the bake-off was to have either the best tasting or most creative baked good at the event. When I walked over near the tables with all the goodies, it was clear to me that I wasn’t the only one who used Pinterest as my inspiration for my entry. Sure enough, there were at least 7 of us that had used the popular social media site to find inspiration for our baked goods. Even more amazing was that none of us made the same item.

I recently read that Pinterest is driving more referral traffic than LinkedIn, You Tube and Google+ combined causing the online bulletin board to grab the attention of marketers as the next big business tool in social media. In January 2012, the site registered over 11 million unique visitors, up from 1.6 million in September 2011.

How does Pinterest work? The concept is simple: Pinterest is a way to organize and “pin” images on to virtual cork boards that can be separated into categories – Dream Home, DIY Crafts, Food – which can then be “liked,” “commented,” or “re-pinned” onto someone else’s profile. Each pinned image is linked back to a website. For example, if you pinned an image of a delicious dessert, the link would take you to that particular recipe. And just like with Twitter, Facebook and You Tube, your pinned image can easily go viral.

Why is this important for businesses? The majority of users on Pinterest are pinning items they love for their home, future parties for their kids and even brides-to-be are planning their weddings with images of wedding dresses and pretty cakes. Small businesses in particular will start to see the benefits of using Pinterest when their products are being pinned and then re-pinned on thousands of boards. Many users even have boards titled, “Products I love.” What a great endorsement if your product was pinned to that board with a link back to the product available for purchase. Whole Foods, known for being an active brand in social media, is using Pinterest to publish content to promote and reinforce its brand promise. According to Sprout Social, Whole Foods has pin boards related to food, recycling, green living, holidays, cool kitchens and food art making their list of Top 5 Brands that are using Pinterest Brilliantly.

How could a B2B company like US Digital Partners use Pinterest? I can see our company creating boards that are related to great design, latest technology, products our employees love and even pinning companies that we would want to work with in the future. Will your company add Pinterest to your 2012 social media plan? It would seem to make sense only if you have great visuals and if you are willing to participate in the Pinterest community.

Garbage and the internet. When you put those two words in the same sentence, you may first think of such negative terms as SPAM, tabloid gossip, or downloading illegal music and movies. But trash and the web can be positive terms.

Take a look at Rumpke, one of Cincinnati’s most recognizable companies. Founded in 1932 by William F. Rumpke, they have used technology to help minimize waste, promote greener practices, and capitalize on waste hauling and recycling innovations. So it comes as no surpirse that Rumpke would turn to the web to present themselves as a leader in the waste industry.

Rumpke dipped its toe into the web in the 1990s. Since then, they have been working with USDP for over 7 years on various web design initiatives. Together, the two companies have produced successful interactive websites for Rumpke Clean & Green, Rumpke Recycling, Rumpke Ballpark, Rumpke Restrooms, and Rumpke Hydraulics.  The most recent success has been the re-launch of Rumpke.com.

The re-development of Rumpke.com brings with it a good number of new features, content, and a fresh look (pun fully intended). One new feature is the ability to provide custom information tailored to where the visitor lives in greater Cincinnati. This customization allows for Rumpke to provide information on holiday and inclement weather delays, updates on services, and more.

So why the change?
Molly Broadwater, Corporate Communication Coordinator at Rumpke, had this to say:

“Pre-2012 Rumpke.com was overloaded with information. It was easy for a customer to become overwhelmed. When we looked at re-designing the website, we took a step back and took a hard look at what was currently on the site, and what information really needed to be there.”

After consulting with their website users and taking a look at their visitor stats, two things really stood out: online bill pay and checking on collection schedules.

“We wanted to make it easier for customers to find these answers. ‘Pay your bill’ is now a main line navigation item and ‘changes in collection schedule’ are quickly found on the homepage by a ticker feature,” stated Molly.

By listening to their customers and adapting to the customer’s needs, Rumpke has been able to provide not only the right type of information, but the right types of service that its varoius customers need. Be sure to check out the re-launched Rumpke website, www.rumpke.com.

Moving from one office to another can be a chore. Everybody loves moving, right? We managed to capture the entire process in this short video. Wish you could have been there to do the heavy lifting!

All comments welcome.

Moving Day from US Digital Partners on Vimeo.

It’s always good to cast a light on those who do good in a community.  For this blog post, we wanted to highlight The Kroger Co. who makes such a large contribution to our city and also to our country.  In case you missed it, Kroger was just recently recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the most generous companies who give back to their communities.

The Kroger Co. contributed more than $200 million to local communities and nonprofit organizations in 2010 as part of its Neighbor to Neighbor charitable giving program. Over the past five years, Kroger has contributed $830 million to charitable causes around the country.

These contributions included donations made by The Kroger Co. family of stores, the company’s charitable foundation, and funds raised in partnership with customers, vendors, and associates. Local schools, hunger relief agencies, youth programs, and nonprofit organizations in communities where Kroger operates stores or manufacturing facilities received support from the company.

According to Janet Ausdenmoore, Director of Corporate Affairs at Kroger: “Kroger’s family of stores has a long history of giving back to the community, not just during the holidays but throughout the year.  We share our core commitments of feeding the hungry, fighting breast cancer, supporting our military and helping our neighbors in need in traditional media and in-store promotions.  But the impact of those messages is even stronger when we leverage the Internet, mobile and social media.”

US Digital Partners is proud to be a partner in this effort.  In fact, over the past couple of years, several websites created by US Digital Partners have been at the forefront of Kroger’s efforts:

Sharing Courage (Breast Cancer Awareness) www.sharingcourage.com
Kroger’s Facebook Page –  www.facebook.com/SharingCourage
Honoring Our Heroes (USO & Kroger) www.honoringourheroes.com
Bringing Hope to the Table –  www.bringinghopetothetable.com
Community Gifts (Donation Requests) www.communitygifts.com

Congratulations to our friends at Kroger on a well-deserved award!

To view the full article by Forbes Magazine, click here.

How about a little inspiration for the new year? US Digital Partners has just designed and built a new iPhone app for SparkPeople.com, one of the worlds largest health and fitness websites. The app offers an inspirational quote each day, cross promotes some different products from SparkPeople, and is also integrated with the Apple iAd system.

Downloads of the app have be great so far, and with more than 11.5 million SparkPeople.com users world-wide we expect the number of users to go through the roof. To take this new iPhone app for a test drive, please visit the iTunes store. It’s free to get inspired.

To learn more about what makes SparkPeople such a successful Cincinnati-based company take a look at this recent article on the Cincinnati.com EnterChange website.

One of our favorite things to say to people we meet is, “Why don’t you talk to a few of our customers about their web projects, to see what they think of the work we did for them?” Usually such conversations yield good results and, as a consequence, we gain new clients because of positive feedback from our customers.

Along these lines, we decided recently to ask a few customers to share with us some thoughts about working with US Digital Partners.  The feedback we got sure made our team feel great.

Sometimes a business doesn’t really know what customers think 0f them until the business asks!  We are certainly glad we asked. Testimonials like this sure beat one-time industry awards. Some of these customers have been working with us for years–and we thank them for their trust in us!

Tis’ the season to celebrate! And with the warmth of holiday cheer comes the many thanks we give for all that we have. We want to take some time to thank our families, clients, co-workers, and other supporters for a great 2011.

This year has been a great year of new growth. We want to take the opportunity to share our good fortune with others. The employees at US Digital Partners will be giving their financial support to some local organizations. We have taken the money we would normally spend on client appreciation and holiday cheer, and we have made donations to these local charities who serve those in need.

We hope that our efforts this season will provide some much needed relief.

Click here to view our full holiday newsletter.