AdChat Cafe was a advertising community site designed to position Palmer Advertising as a thought leader, and trusted adviser within the advertising community. It was separately branded as an open portal for anyone interested in learning or sharing their questions or expertise of advertising. Company employees each had a blog and were instructed & trained on best practices for participation.
As acting community manager, we pushed content and conversations through social media channels and drove interest and traffic to the site. Also, worked to develop relationships with industry leaders to contribute their blog content, etc. so we had a solid foundation of expert content.
Palmer Advertising also needed a way to have a flow of new content (mainly for SEO purposes) but to also reach a more socially active group, and position itself as an expert by using the blog to publish content related to industry news and helpful marketing tips. My role as new media manager was to develop social media strategies for our clients, and to implement them for the company as well. I was lead on driving the social charge within the agency and successfully developed a blog, content strategy, and social media outlets for engagement.
We also built a social network using NING’s professional service (with no ads, $60 bucks a month). For Palmer, the idea was that we would create an environment for the industry’s top leaders to come and share there experiences on advertising and marketing during a recession. Palmer then would be the site sponsor (for podcasts) and also a “featured” member that would provide valuable feedback, perspective, and advice. The goal here being to establish Palmer as the expert in the field, and ultimately attract leads by proving itself a worthy advisor through this space.
