Welcome To The BHW1 Newsroom

Tony Hines, our Creative/Social Media Director, be speaking at the inaugural Ignite Spokane tonight (www.ignitespokane.com), a growing movement that began with Ignite Seattle in 2006. That, in turn, grew out of Japanese Pecha Kucha. (Not the first fun idea we’ve stolen from Japanese culture—Karaoke, anyone?)

Basically, the Ignite talk is five minutes in length, governed by 20 slides of 15 seconds each. Quick “nuggets” of information, easily digestible in an online format (most videos eventually make it onto YouTube and other video sharing sites). Worldwide, the Ignite movement has grown to more than 50 cities around the world, and it continues to expand.

Ignite is a perfect model and example of where we’ve been moving with social media in the last few years. In the early days of the Interwebs (and social media specifically), the lure was the fact that you could interact with people across the world. Geography no longer mattered. And certainly, that’s still true to a great extent. But we’ve also seen the greatest recent growth in activity among localized social media. People are interacting among niches within their own, physical communities. That’s what powers Foursquare, Yelp, Gowalla, BrightKite, and the location update feature on Facebook. That’s what powers Meetup, Gather, and thousands of spontaneous Tweetup gatherings in venues across the world. And that’s what powers one of the newest darlings of online commerce: Groupon.

So the question is: does this intersection of social awareness and localization power part of your social media presence?

Business implications:

• If you are a retail business, a portion of your online strategy should be devoted to courting “socially aware” local groups and meetings. Offer your establishment as a venue for tweetups, meetups, and other gatherings. Create special prizes and offers for people who check in at your location on Yelp, Foursquare, and Facebook. Create your own events and gatherings designed to attract heavy users of social media tools.
• If you’re service-oriented or business-to-business, you should be a part of these previously mentioned “local social” gatherings. Participation extends beyond the online world, and you’ll invariably form personal and professional relationships.

Wired magazine’s September edition trumpets that the “web is dead,” and goes on to explain how the world wide web’s share of overall internet traffic has dropped by about half in the past decade. From its high point in 2000—when it accounted for more than half of all internet traffic—the web has since shrunk to 23% of internet activity.

We point to this for a couple of reasons. First, in the minds of many, it seems, the world wide web = the internet. The two are one and the same. This has never been the case, except in perception: for years, the web has been the poster child for the internet. And even though its share of traffic has decreased, its share of mind hasn’t.

Perhaps knowing this will open eyes to new opportunities.

Topping that list of opportunities (and the truly interesting part of the article’s graphic, if not its content): video. We’re a visual species, and internet video now accounts for more than half of internet traffic, according to the Wired graphic. (Cisco’s VNI forecast puts the current figure for video traffic at 40%.) This also flies in the face of some long-held conventional wisdom that interactivity trumped passivity in online content: we were told for so long that the “web” would kill TV because it promised a new level of active involvement.

Not the case, folks, as the internet now moves more video than anything else—whether that’s through the web itself (via browser or a web-based application), or through native apps (Android, iPhone, download boxes from NetFlix, Vudu and others). More eye-opening data comes from Cisco’s forecasts for 2014:

By 2014, the various forms of video (TV, VoD, Internet Video, and P2P) will exceed 91 percent of global consumer traffic….Global online video will approach 57 percent of consumer Internet traffic (up from 40 percent in 2010).

And while the Wired graphic (and accompanying article) are puzzlingly silent on mobile as a total portion of internet traffic, Cisco’s report also emphasizes the importance of the mobile platform:

Globally, mobile data traffic will double every year through 2014, increasing 39 times between 2009 and 2014.

That’s 3900% increase in four years for mobile traffic. Increasingly, we’ll see people pulling content to themselves via mobile devices, rather than going out and finding that content via the web.

Business Implications:

• If internet video isn’t a major part of your content plan, it should be. Whether you’re biz-to-biz, biz-to-consumer, a wide-ranging consumer product/service company, or a niche-oriented business, video should undoubtedly be one of your core offerings.
• At the very least, your current web site should be optimized for the mobile platform. But now is the time to begin planning content that lives specifically on mobile platforms, pushing data to your customers/fans/clients through specialized apps, widgets, and SMS.

BHW1 has hired Tony Hines as Director of Creative and Social Media Services. As director he will manage the creative department and oversee social media marketing strategy.

“Tony is both a world-class creative director and a guru in the social mediasphere,” said BHW1 partner Greg Birchell. “His strengths further position the agency for the exciting direction in which our industry is headed.”

Hines has a 20-year career in advertising as a writer, creative director and agency principal working on accounts such as Intermountain Healthcare, OneEighty Communications, Sun Valley Resorts, Weider Sports, Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau, Montana Tourism and GlidePoint. His work has garnered regional and national recognition in both advertising and public relations including Telly Awards, Golden Spike Awards, Silver Microphone Awards, inclusion in the Print Magazine Design Annual, and others.

“BHW1 has an established track record of solutions that are both strategic and creative,” says Hines. “We all share that vision for both traditional marketing and social media, so I think this is a perfect fit all around.”

Hines’s social media experience has earned him interviews and coverage with Publishers’ Weekly, Media Bistro, and dozens of radio stations, blogs and social sites. Capitalizing on his social media work, Hines launched Social Media Scout in 2009, a company which helps businesses monitor and manage their brands through online interaction and conversation. His company was a strategic partner with BHW1 prior to his hiring.

Hines is also a multi-published author, writing what he calls “Noir Bizarre” fiction in the books Waking Lazarus, The Dead Whisper On, The Unseen, Faces in the Fire, and The Falling Away. His fiction has appeared on the annual “25 Best Genre Novels of the Year” list compiled by Library Journal.

2010 BHW1 Summer Hours Video from BHW1 on Vimeo.

As keynote speakers, BHW1 presented “The State of Social Media in Higher Education” at the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District VIII Social Media Bootcamp on April 23.

Over 50 representatives from West Coast colleges and universities attended the all-day workshop for lessons and tips using social media tools to market higher education institutions.

The conference was held at the Washington State University Riverpoint Campus in Spokane, Wash. CASE District VIII is the largest of the eight North American geographical districts of higher education institutions.

To request a copy of The State of Social Media in Higher Education, email Rachel.