Almost every integrated marketing strategy we’re developing right now at Hot Tomali involves Social Media components. However it’s a steep, new, learning curve for many clients as they absorb the changing marketing landscape. It’s difficult jumping into the deep end of a Facebook Fan Page strategy, when someone hasn’t used Facebook.

Our recommendation at the early stages of social media planning is to go out on the Web and see where customers are talking about your brand. Rule #1: Look, Listen and Touch. Work your way across the social media platforms, search on your brand and category terms, and see what people are saying. As an example I recently encountered a company that is participating at a simple level of social media, but already demonstrating great brand expression in a very connected way.

Two months ago I posted a YouTube  video of the trial of a bilge pump I’d installed in my sailboat: an obscure piece of content to say the least! I did take the time to keyword the video with relevant terms including the brand of the pump. A week ago the following comment was posted on my video:

(Simon) I am the designer of the Supersub Smart from Whale Pumps in Northern Ireland. The video is fantastic we are all very pleased. Can I recommend you add a Non-return valve to stop the water flowing back into the bilge. Whale part number is LV1219.

I was shocked! It looks like a company employee had been searching their product terms and came across my video. They then decided to provide some valuable advice. The power of the platform is now the radius effect that’s occurring: I posted this story and link on my Facebook Wall, so my boating friends are telling their boating friends about this great product and support from the company. In the last 10 days this video has garnered 58 views and seems to be gathering 4 new views a day. (And, I’ve purchased the recommended valve.)

As marketers, it’s not until you get out there and look, listen, and touch, social media that you start to understand the reach and potential of your brand. The conversation is happening: go find it!

Enter Microsite 2.0: the Facebook Fan Page!

Brands are charging towards the platform that is irresistible with its many hundreds of millions of potential customers just waiting to be with you. Unlike those microsite islands, Facebook is in the middle of the party, and provides huge advantages for brand participation:

• Engagement and ‘radiused exposure’ of brand messaging through the power of the Wall Post
• Automatic reach through its easy external push/pull of RSS, SMS, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr
• Developer control through FBML (Facebook Markup Language) that provides surprising openness to the look and feel of the Fanpage, and hooks into a Facebook users’ profile, and feed data
• Built-in Analytics that break down the walls of anonymity with access to fan data including demographics, habits, and contacts

Ironically, along with all the new faculties and connected potential of the Facebook Fanpage, comes the old challenge of how to create a truly engaging brand experience. The toy maker Hasbro has launched a large-scale broadcast campaign driving people to Facebook.com/cranium, but the experience rings hollow with what might be staged videos and Tweets. What looks easy, usually never is. Goodbye sweet Microsite; hello, same, old, marketing challenge.

If you’d like to talk about how to bring your brand experience to Facebook in a valuable way for your customers, drop us a line.

Way to go, team!

A big thank you to everyone who participated, to Max’s Donuts for the delicious donuts—the smell of their donuts wafts towards our office quite regularly—and to Karen for her amazing culinary skills.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s campaign.

1. The guys at Hot Tomali have very ravenous appetites, and
2. Making two pans of lasagne in one go is a real pain in the ass.

At the end of October, I created a team and convinced the boys of Hot Tomali to grow moustaches in the name of prostate cancer. Movember is a movement started in Australia, challenging men around the globe to start clean-shaven on November 1st and collect donations for their best ’stache attempts. Considering at the time we were elbows deep in a website launch promoting men’s health, it seemed a no-brainer for Hot Tomali to participate.

I’ve never been one to pound down doors in a fundraising attempt. As a girl in the choir and on sports teams, I hated the inevitable bake sale/bottle drive/chocolate-covered almond push that was required to raise money for our activities. But as an adult, I’ve come to learn that it’s pretty easy to whip up a plate of something tasty and sell it at the office for ten bucks a head. Last month, for the United Way, it was chili. For Movember, a good, hearty lasagne was in order.

Pasta, sauce, veg and cheese. What could be better?

My husband laughed at me as he saw me unloading the groceries. “THREE boxes of pasta? Are you kidding!??” He marvelled as he watched me layer not one, but two, casserole dishes with pasta, sauce, spinach, cheese, and more cheese, and questioned again how many I was feeding. Sure, it looked like a lot of lasagne—and maybe it was a bit excessive—but I didn’t want to be the gal who offered to cook for the team and then come up short. Besides, I thought I’d cooked way too much chili last month, and I watched that pot get licked clean.

My Italian creation was a huge success, despite a slightly overcooked crust. And, just as expected, both pans were quickly devoured. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to load up our developers on carbs and cheese and then expect them to hit their deadline four hours later—by 3 pm the air in the office was heavy and surprisingly quiet. But in the end, a few hundred dollars raised to further prostate cancer research is always worth a calorie-induced coma.

It’s not too late to donate to Hot Tomali’s Movember cause. If you would like to support our team, please visit our Movember page to make a donation to Prostate Cancer Canada. Any amount—no matter how large or small—is appreciated and has an impact.

For those of you who don’t know, Movember is an annual, month-long campaign that celebrates the moustache, with the goal of raising funds for men’s health—specifically, prostate cancer. Every November 1^st, clean-shaven men grow a moustache all month long, garnering support from friends and family in the form of donations. Read more about Movember here.

In celebration, we’ve decided to host a little competition of our own where you can submit photos of your moustache to win 1 of 3 sweet prizes.

It’s simple:

1. Become a fan of Hot Tomali on Facebook.
2. Post a photo of your moustache on our wall throughout the month of November (the more the merrier).
3. Win 1 of 3 Movember skateboard decks! (see below)

Download This Poster (PDF)

Contest details are as follows:

• Anyone is eligible to participate
• Photoshopped Moustaches will be disqualified
• Moustache shots must be current (e.g. not from last year)
• Moustache shots must be posted on Hot Tomali’s wall before November 30th
• Winners are chosen by a panel of Hot Tomali judges (no, Hot Tomalians are not eligible to win)

Join us on Facebook to participate today, and follow our contest updates throughout the month!

Happy Movember!

Halloween is on its way, and we’ve been relentlessly searching the web for some great costume inspiration.

So far, we’ve found stuff like transformers.

TIE Fighters.

Crayons, if you have a horse.

iPhones!

Glow in the dark stickpeople.

Disabled superheroes.

Birth.

Controversial illegal aliens.

And animal cruelty.

But what about costumes designed for those in the marketing industry? Costumes for the social media enthusiasts, the account execs, and the web designers?

Don’t worry. We’ve decided to share some of our own ideas with you.

Anyone have any more suggestions? Let us know.

On Friday afternoon, as part of Hot Tomali’s commitment to United Way, we all took a break from work for an hour and converged as a team in the boardroom for some home-cooked chili. This, of course, meant that on Thursday night, while my husband cooked hot dogs for our dinner, I was up to my eyeballs in beans, peppers and sirloin.

The Before Shot

This is what my tiny kitchen counter looked like before I started prepping everything. That’s two cans of red kidney beans and one can of white; garbanzo beans, plum tomatoes and black-eyed peas; two onions and a whole head of garlic; two jalapeños; one poblano pepper and two bell peppers, as well as a can of chipotles; a 2 lb sirloin roast with an extra pound of lean ground; and a plethora of spices. One and a bit of the two bottles of chocolate stout made it into the pot, as did two cups of freshly brewed coffee and two squares of unsweetened baker’s chocolate. There’s a reason the base for this recipe (which I have modified greatly over the years), is known online as “The Best Chili You Will Ever Taste”. (For the record, the glass of wine on the edge of the shot didn’t go into the chili. That was just for me.)

The After Shot

I pulled everything together into the crock pot and started its cycle around 11:30 pm. When I woke in the morning, I had a perfect pot of goodness on my counter. Getting said perfect pot of goodness from the counter to the office across the city… this was going to be fun. MacGyver style, I taped the lid on, wrapped the whole thing in a bath towel, secured it all with heavy duty elastic bands, and away we went.

It didn’t take long for the smell to permeate the whole office. By lunchtime, all of us were tortured by the aroma calling to us from the kitchen. I knew the boys in the office had some mean appetites, but I honestly believed that I’d be packing up “to go” containers to get rid of the leftovers. Not so. I think just about everyone went back for seconds, and all I had to carry home was an empty crock pot.

Adding the $10 bowls to the other fundraising we did during our 2009 campaign, Hot Tomali raised more than $1,600 for United Way of the Lower Mainland. Knowing that such a small effort from me could make such a difference was heartwarming. Wait, maybe that warm feeling was just from the chili. At any rate, I’m currently trying to come up with excuses reasons to feed the team more often. Any ideas?

With the goal of simplifying Google’s standard search advertising model, Google announced that they would begin testing a new fixed pricing system, which is a model much more familiar to local businesses.

Essentially, whether you’re a hair salon, car dealership, or restaurant – for a fixed monthly fee, you will be able to place an ad with Google, much like how you would in the Yellow Pages. This is a huge opportunity for any business that isn’t familiar with Google’s current advertising model, which involves bidding for keywords (something that can be quite a complex process).

Along with this new pricing system, Google Voice will allow ads to feature a unique phone number that can be associated with your business. So when a customer see’s your ad and calls you using the unique number provided by Google, you will receive a “This call brought to you by Google” notification, allowing you to track and measure the success of your ads. With Google’s newly simplified system, any local business with limited online advertising knowledge will be able to run fully measurable targeted ads quickly and easily. And if customers are sent directly to your business phone number, your business may not even require a website to advertise with Google.

However, a nice website is still strongly recommended.

On June 15th Hot Tomali officially moved into our own building at 1441 E Pender St. This move was a big step for the little agency that I started in the living room of a one bedroom West End apartment in the summer of 1998. Since then, we’ve upgraded our work spaces a few times as necessitated by growth. The first big move came in October 2008 when I took a flying leap and hung out a shingle at Homer and Helmcken in Yaletown, above what used to be the swanky Century Grill (now the Blue Water Cafe). That 1,200 sq/ft space saw us hire our first employees, land our first big contract, and win our first awards. Ah, memories.

Three years later (2001) we were in the middle of the dot bomb crash and the once lucrative office space in Yaletown was now plentiful. Rather than renew the lease on our cozy little studio, we opted to move across the street into a bigger space that had previously been home to notable organizations such as Vancouver Film School and Stratford Internet (a big victim when the dot.com bubble burst). Things were good—we had high tech wiring, built in modular workstations, and air conditioning that “usually worked” in this amazing brick and beam construction office space that had been converted from an old warehouse. More contracts, employees and awards soon followed.

A couple of years later our neighbours, Network Productions (makers of the “Bell Making The Cut” reality series) moved out and we opted for further expansion. We blew through the wall and added more office space and a production facility with two HD editing bays. Our already bustling studio now felt like a real agency, with departments, separate offices, and even a kitchen sink.

Now you might ask, if times were good, and the space was great, then why move? Well, being the principal owner of Hot Tomali, I was always a little bit dismayed with the fact that we’d spent a great deal of money to work in all these trendy buildings over the course of a decade, yet aside from some great memories, we had nothing to show for it. We were also faced with the need to expand again, and I was reluctant to invest a huge sum of money into a space that we might outgrow in a couple of years.

I had been passively following the commercial real estate market for several years with a sense that when the time was right we would make a move. About a year ago there was all this inventory coming on the market and it was just sitting there, often dropping in price by hundreds of thousands of dollars, as anxious owners tried to instigate a sale in a stagnant market. The media was talking about the real estate bubble being burst, and everyone was speculating about where the bottom might be. As with any market downturn, you had your doom and gloom guys trying to scare the pants off of everyone by saying we faced a recession worse than the great depression. What were we to make of it?

Sub-prime mortgage crisis be damned, I wanted my own space! I ramped up my search efforts and we looked at several offices in Yaletown, Hot Tomali’s home for the last 10 years. The thing that held me back was mainly the fact that most available spaces for sale were the same size or smaller than what we were already in, and the only ones that were bigger had big strata fees to go with those big mortgage payments. It just didn’t feel right—I just couldn’t justify the commitment.

Working with our realtor, Mario Felicella over at Sutton, we started to venture out a bit. We checked out some live/work studios in Coal Harbour that were funky, but too impractical for a company of our size. We investigated some big lofts in Gastown and the Cambie area, which were super cool, but required a full on gutting and reno before they would be suitable for us. Then, we finally ventured over to the Commercial Drive area to check out this building on East Pender St. that I had found on the Internet.

It was love at first sight. Upon arriving to look at the building I was immediately impressed by the stunning and awe inspiring facade of the place. My initial thought was that the building almost seemed out of place—a structure of this nature would surely belong in a chic-modern European setting such as Copenhagen or Barcelona.

The building’s developer, and current occupant, Randy Lim of Revolution Designs met with us and gave us the tour. Randy’s appreciation for fine design is apparent in his passion for every detail in the space. Everything was custom fabricated—there are no Home Depot finishings to be found here.

The building exterior is comprised of structural concrete block that has been finished with expert precision. The facade is finished with galvanized, custom fabricated paneled soffits and downpipe, and custom exterior trim.

Arriving at the 11 foot tall entrance doors makes visitors feel as though they’ve arrived at the residence of some gigantic being. These towering doors provide a touch of grandiose in an otherwise minimalist modern design, and often times when entering through them I’m reminded of the feeling a child might have entering an intentionally oversized theme house at Disneyland.

The main office at the front of the building provides retail worthy storefront, with floor to ceiling windows and a fantastic concrete feature wall that runs up the entire height of the building. (This space is currently occupied by our tenants, Mango and Aloe Designs.)

The staircase to the second level is comprised of powder coated, checker plated metal stairs, a 15-foot feature wall, and railings with custom fabricated powder coated steel pickets and thick commercial glazing. These touches provide a futuristic design element that would be worthy of a setting in a Phillip K. Dick novel.

At the top of the stairs, visitors are greeted by a lush garden deck that houses a large bamboo planter. This cedar decked patio is surrounded by floor to ceiling glass on three sides, providing natural illumination to the second floor offices and the stairwell below.

The offices on the top floor are furnished with built-in millwork, consisting of white laminate storage and custom fabricated workstations with powder coated metal frames and larch counter tops. The view from the north side of the building provides a stunning view of the North Shore mountains and the Vancouver shipyards.

The backside of the building features a mezzanine level, which sits halfway between the ground level and the second floor of the building. This space overlooks an additional 1,000+ sq/ft of broadcast production and photo studio with 16+ foot ceilings.

Shortly after arriving on the top level of the building for the first time I said “this is it”. It was essentially a turn key solution that provided ample space for our staff, a great studio space for us to aggressively expand our production capabilities, and the entire building in itself was inspirational.

Although I had some hesitation to move away from Yaletown after 10 years, the Commercial Drive district is a thriving creative community with great amenities. With local hot spots like Stella’s, The Reef, and Havana Cafe all within blocks of the agency, there are a ton of options for lunches and client meetings.

All in all, the benefits of having a place to call our own simply outweighed sticking with the status quo and paying through the nose to lease for another 10 years. Some people cautioned that we were buying during a time of incredible uncertainty. I believe the best opportunities to be found are really only available when you’re willing to take a risk. This step in our evolution holds many similarities to that fateful “flying leap” I took 11 years ago when I leased our first office space. The difference this time around is that I jumped into something we can take pride in and call our own.

Ultimately, you can put the right creative people pretty much anywhere and have success. The space doesn’t define the agency so much as the agency defines the space. That being said, smart agencies are realizing that they need to make good business decisions to grow and prosper for the long haul. Wise investments provide valuable equity and resources for future expansion and growth. It’s not all about drawing pretty pictures, and making people laugh—it’s about setting goals and executing a plan to get you there.

As much as I love our new high-end digs, I will never forget the experiences I learned by bootstrapping an agency in my one bedroom apartment in 1998. Many agencies try to sell themselves as “new age” because they keep their overhead down by using IKEA furniture and buy their boardroom tables at garage sales. My question for them is what will you have to show for your leased office space 10 years from now?