Anniversaries resonate with people ­– they bring back memories of the past while recognizing a strong present and bright future. A variety of companies are celebrating anniversaries in 2012, and they’re reaching out to say thank you to those who have supported them along the way.

Let’s take a look at a few companies celebrating their anniversaries and how they are forming relationships with consumers through these campaigns.

To celebrate their 50^th, Tops Friendly Markets is incorporating the community by offering a wide variety of promotional events with the number 50 buzzing in every campaign. Tops also wants the community to be hands on in the brand’s future by incorporating the 50 New Ideas promotion. They invite consumers to share suggestions on their website on how Tops can better meet their needs.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery asked Buffalonians to participate in their 150^th anniversary by creating one elaborate portrait, comprised of 150 hand-painted pieces of art expressing the individuality of each participant.

Life Savers is marking 100 years, and their anniversary will celebrate with 100 charities. The campaign is called “Connect for a Cause,” incorporating a fundraiser “Share Ring” that gathers people around a charitable organization they’re passionate about. With each new person forming the ring, Life Savers will donate $1 to the cause and up to $250,000 for all 100 charities. Click here to be linked on a ring.

Anniversaries have a way of bringing back memories. Let’s take a look at a few companies tapping into nostalgia to celebrate.

 Oreo, Milk’s Favorite Cookie, marked its centennial this year and asked its consumers to submit photos of their favorite Oreo moments to an online scrapbook. Lean more about their celebration here.

 The Girl Scouts of USA also hit 100 this year, and is celebrating with the fundraising campaign, Year of the Girl. Within five years, the Girl Scouts are projecting to raise $1 billion for the next generation of Girl Scouts

Bacardi Rum started in a small distillery in Santiago, Cuba, 150 years ago. This family-run company is now international, and is celebrating its anniversary all over the world. The Bacardi family gathered together in Puerto Rico, with more than 600 members attending, to commemorate the last 150 years of a business that still values family virtues. Check out their website to read more about the various ways Bacardi is celebrating its rich history here.

Whether a company is marking its centennial birthday, or just a decade in the industry, allowing consumers to help celebrate these milestones deepens brand value and promotes the quality of your product or service. To read more about anniversaries, check out this article in The New York Times.

Now that you know what SEO (search engine optimization) is we’ll show you how to select the right keywords for your website. Developing solid SEO may seem like a daunting task, but it’s much simpler than you might expect.

From start to finish, here’s how to create the best SEO keywords for your website.

1. Become the Googler: Put yourself in the shoes of the person looking for your company online. Think about what they might type into Google to find you. Keep in mind people often search with phrases instead of generalized, broad words.
2. Explore your website: Go page by page through your website and see which words stand out.
3. Create a list of keywords: Make a list of the keywords you found in steps one and two. Organize them by webpage, so when the words are ready to enter, you’ll ensure the SEO keywords are placed on the proper pages.
4. Edit for clarity and accuracy: After compiling a list, try clarifying the words even more, not leaving much room for ambiguity. Have an extra set of eyes look over material to help with proofing. Consult your IT provider for more guidance.
5. Plug in SEO: Now that your work is proofed and ready, insert in your SEO. How to do this will vary based on website platform.
6. Keep it current: Be sure to update your SEO regularly. If you add new content to the website, make sure it is given suitable keywords for best results.

SEO is vital for your website to stand out and reach its full potential. If you have any questions, please comment below or shoot us an email. We’re more than happy to help!

Imagine using a textbook with vast amounts of information. In order to break it down and somehow make sense of it all, you’re likely to flip to the index. Without this organizational-friendly tool, you would spend unnecessary time navigating through the pages trying to locate information. SEO, or search engine optimization, works in the same way. It helps Google, the organizer of the web, refine searches while providing your website with increased visibility.

Web searches are ranked by their popularity, positioning most commonly searched keywords at the top through the use of mathematical algorithms.  This allows for words of the highest importance to lead all other searches. SEO also aims to ensure the answers it provides are relevant to what the searcher intends to find.

For example, suppose you simply searched the Buffalo Bills on Google. You would anticipate finding the Bills’ homepage as the very first site. What if a blog from a Bill’s fan written years ago came up instead? It clearly would not be the most relevant to your search. Take this same scenario and apply it to your own company. Your company’s web pages should be the first result that Google generates when someone searches for a term or phrase related to your business or organization.

Everyone has a voice on the web; let your company’s voice be heard. Too often companies disregard SEO, forgetting the search mechanism is a critical part of your company’s success on the web. Keep up-to-date on SEO every few months, or at least annually. Search functions on the web are constantly changing because Google frequently updates its search engine.

SEO will enable your company to stand out from all the other information available on the Internet. Stay tuned for our next blog on how to develop your SEO.

Before I became a public relations practitioner in the “agency” world, I worked for a Fortune 500 company as an employee communications specialist.

Fast forward a few decades (just a few) and I’ve observed that employee communications essentials remain the same even though the channels companies use to deliver news internally are vastly different. Intranets, Facebook, blogs, email and even Twitter have made employee communications so much more fluid and dynamic. CEOs have embraced the roles of Chief Information Officer and Chief Marketing Officer and now see themselves as an integral part of the corporate brand. Employee communications is recognized by C-suites everywhere as an important piece of the corporate fabric.

Gone are the days of the paternalistic organization, where the only voice heard was that of the CEO. Internal communications has really become a two-way street, thanks to technology and our cultural demands for openness and transparency.

Yet employees are still vastly under-utilized as valuable communications resources. The notion of empowering employees as proactive communicators in the organization – otherwise known as an engaged workforce – has been somewhat slow to develop. A substantial body of knowledge has been built in recent years regarding how an engaged workforce can positively affect your company from the inside out, especially in regard to enhancing customer experience.

We’ve come to expect a great customer experience from every company these days but all too often most interactions fall way short. That’s because employees don’t receive enough training in the finer points of communication or managing the customer experience. Many executives haven’t quite connected the dots between communication and desired customer behaviors. So here are a few tips to consider if you’re thinking about new ways to engage employees in not just creating good customers, but customers who are absolutely delighted with your organization:

1. Empower employees or a team of employees to lead an improved customer experience program.
2. Involve employees intimately in customer feedback functions and customer surveys. Allow them to create strategies and actions that can respond to complaints or less than delightful customer experiences.
3. Broadcast your great customer stories: Make employee excellence in customer communications felt in every nook and cranny of your organization.
4. Encourage your employees to dig deep in delivering the “promise” of your organization. In order to deliver the promise, they need to hone their communications skills and make customer experience much more than transactional.
5. Look to your internal communications staff and outside communications consultants for their input. Because they are trained in public relations, which is defined as the art of changing or modifying behaviors, your behavioral experts may be down the hall or just a phone call away.

I actually had a rare but wonderful customer experience recently. Can someone say that about your company?

It sounds counterintuitive – invest more while the economy continues to flatline.

But if you’re running an organization or playing a key role in maintaining your organization’s competitive edge, we hope you’ve figured out that you can make lemonade out this sour economy.

The economy is cyclical, just like a force of nature.  It will inevitably get better. After 18 years in our marketing consulting and public relations business, we’ve witnessed just about every type of upturn and downturn. Our theory is: The bad times are preparation for the good.

Simply put, ramp up your marketing now.

What does this mean for you? A few thoughts:

1. If the C-suite or board of directors is focused on slashing and burning its way through the recession, it’s time to get them refocused on the future.  The best way to refocus is through the exercise of marketing planning – it provides solid strategy, a road map to the future as well as a spotlight on strengths and weaknesses.
2. A down economy gives you the opportunity to test market ideas and products, as well as interaction with customers or key stakeholders. It’s a perfect time to boost your brand the old-fashioned way, by having conversations with your audiences. Some of the best ideas emerge this way.
3. Have you done an audit lately? An audit carries a negative connotation to many business executives, but to a marketing professional it means a gold mine of information. Basically, an audit helps you analyze what marketing tactics have worked well and what haven’t. It’s often the perfect prelude to starting a marketing plan, as mentioned above, because audits are usually conducted with metrics. Sometimes numbers can tell an interesting story and can be the convincing factor to get your team involved in a full-scale marketing plan.
4. Invest in building and maintaining your brand now. If you delay, you begin to lose brand equity, which will have to be made up in the future at a considerably higher cost.

Position your organization now to prepare for the upturn (yes, it really will happen!). If you vow to keep one New Year’s resolution in 2012, put marketing investment at the top of the list.