This year, we’ve ramped up our interactive capabilities in a massive way and have some great product to show for it–as well as many lessons learned. Most importantly, there has been a solidification of process. Our agency now applies best-of-class interactive production practices–learned from partners all over the country. Our projects are run methodically (obsessively), with tightly defined scopes of work, production requirements documentation, timelines, approval checkpoints and deployment processes.

A lot of these systems are borrowed from the software industry because web sites really don’t have a finish line. Think about it. Software development is known for versioning. Your site is no different. Your “launch” is just a starting point, with improvements made along the way.

Recently in Advertising Age, Rick Webb of The Barbarian Group described this mindset perfectly:

What [the ad industry] should have been taking away all this time–and have increasingly begun to–are the concepts of the constant beta and agile development. Marketers need to abandon the time-limited campaign online and start to think of it as a constant application of a rigorous discipline.

In other words, quit tinkering with the site and launch. Test in real time. Use the web as a place to experiment. If something doesn’t work, adjust. There’s no reason you can’t move quickly. If stuff does work, move anyway. Throw social media into your interactive mix, and change becomes a must. Remember, the shelf-life of content on the web is very short.

If you want to get real results (increased brand awareness, affinity, sales) out of your site, you’ve got to keep working on it. It’s like riding a bike. You can only coast so long. To make progress you’ve got to pedal.

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Yesterday was the first Tuesday of October. You realize what that means, right? You don’t? Well you best get with the program. It was Red Tuesday. This month we were lucky enough to have Greg Lawson of the New York Times Regional Media Group come down and speak to the brains who live and work here at the Square. The topic was behavioral targeting, and, trust us, there were many mystics spilled and tricks revealed.

Basically, we know what you are doing right now. Yes, you. In the snuggie. Watching Glee on Hulu. We know that you have been thinking about taking a vacation with your girlfriends in Florida. And now we are going to sell you a vacation in Florida. BOOM.

Now you know we know.

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There’s no question the Cash for Clunkers program sold cars. Lots of cars. But was it the automotive equivalent of a sugar high? A quick look at Google Domestic Trends can tell us a lot.

Google Domestic Trends track Google search traffic across specific sectors of the economy. Changes in the search volume of a given sector on google.com may provide unique economic insight. The indexes measure relative query volume compared to the total number of searches on google.com. Thus, an index that is decreasing does not imply that the total number of searches is decreasing; in fact the number of queries could be increasing, just not as quickly as overall search volume.

The Auto Buyers Index tracks car-related queries like blue book, car, Chevy Nova, SUV, you get the idea. The volume of search spikes and falls precipitously, indicating that the program may have been just a temporary shot in the arm.

Search as an economic indicator. Nice. Next up, Google will cook your breakfast and read your palm.

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In today’s Wall Street Journal, there’s an interesting article on small business utilization of social media. And (hey Mom!), Red Square Agency got a tiny mention. The focus is on entrepreneurs hiring agencies or consultants to handle social media on their behalf–and the cost/benefit of doing so.

Here’s what we think about the cost of social media: time is money.

Social media is not “cheap.” Sure, you are not going to outlay the kind of production dollars associated with traditional media, but once you start incorporating social media into your routine, you will notice that in order to get any benefit you will have to devote a good deal of time keeping content fresh and taking part in conversations.

You may manufacture and sell widgets for a living, but now you are in the content providing business. Serving up fresh content (content that builds a real fan-base) takes time. And that’s time away from making and selling those widgets.

We integrate social media into a larger branding strategy and keep the voice consistent across all media. That’s what we do, so you can keep running the widget factory.

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