When selling candy, coupons, or tickets does not bring in enough fundraising money for schools or organizations, Schoola may be a fundraising service worth looking into.

It was created by Mamapedia and it helps parents, schools and local businesses team up to create deals with participating businesses. This, in turn, generates funding for schools. Schoola’s goal is to slow down educational budget cuts that are shortening school weeks and taking away the extracurricular activities that round out a child’s education, while simultaneously helping local businesses.

Schoola helps people connect with local businesses that create a weekly deal to run a promotion like “45% off a dozen cupcakes with 35% of proceeds going to the school participating in the fundraiser.” After the deal is set, the last thing to do is to let Schoola host the event, spread the word, and handle the payments and support for the fundraiser.

Schoola, in their words, is a “win-win-win” because parents save money on things they already do, local businesses benefit from authentic marketing, and schools or organizations in need receive funds to help them function effectively.

Using Schoola, Lakewood School District in Dallas, TX was able to connect with 6 local businesses and raise more than $3,000 in a week.  You can read more about that success story here.

Visit Schoola’s website at Schoola.com to start a fundraiser for your local school or organization, or even register your company if interested in being part of this new fundraising direction.

The 2012 Summer Olympics will be a bit different than in past years. Since the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the number of people that have access to the internet has increased by over 50%, from 1.5 to 2.3 billion according to the International Telecommunication Union. That’s a third of the global population.

Fittingly, the 2012 games in London have been dubbed the World’s First “Social Games.” Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube will be some of the biggest players in this social media trend, but also be on the lookout for content flooding Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, and Foursquare. With all the hype of the digitally focused games, here are we listed 7 places you can use to keep up with the chatter.

1. The Olympic Athlete’s Hub
This site will let you search for any athlete’s name, team, sport, discipline or event and find where to “follow” or “like” that result and has a news feed that compiles both Twitter and Facebook posts into one stream.

2. SportRightNow
You can find all the best Olympics news from the internet in one place organized by website sources, sports, and teams whether the news is from teams, journalists, media, fans or athletes. Also has the top hashtags being used on Twitter which is a bonus.

3. London 2012 Youtube Account
Not only will it be posting behind the scene footage from the games, exclusive interviews with athletes, and amazing replays, it also has links to the Official Website, Twitter and Facebook account of the 2012 Olympic Games.

4. Sociagility: The London 2012 Social Scoreboard
For the marketing buffs on the internet this site will be tracking the social media performance of the Olympics sponsors. The score is based on some highly complicated algorithms that look at brands popularity, engagement, receptiveness, reach, and trust.

5. London Join In App
This App for Apple and Android will help Olympic enthusiasts follow the travels of the torch and the location of events happening in London. It is made to help people in London, but also anyone who cannot make it to feel as close as possible to the games.

6. London 2012: Official Results App
Use this App to keep up to date with live news, schedules, and results from London which will also be available for Apple and Android products.

7. NBC Olympics Apps and Website
NBC will have full live screening of every Olympic event online but will also include two different Apps for people to enjoy. The first App is the NBC Olympics App where users will be able to do many of the same things as the London App’s but within a NBC-made App. The second App is the NBC Olympics “Live Extra” App where you can watch live video streams and full replays of every event.

The Olympics are always exciting, but with the recent growth of the internet and social media the competing nations will be closer together than ever before.

Microsites have been around for some time, but I still encounter quite a few people who either don’t know what they are — or how they can be a powerful addition to an advertising and marketing campaign.

This microsite was developed as part of our “Memorial ER Stories” campaign. The campaign was designed to extend the lifespan of the core message that Memorial’s ER was the number one choice of Springfield, IL residents.

For the uninitiated, microsites are exactly what they sound like: small websites that exist at a separate domain from your corporate website. They’re similar to landing pages in that they help with tracking and analytics, you can choose clever domain names and fun graphics — but there’s more.

Let’s take a look at the seven most important principles of microsites.

1. Each microsite should have a single purpose
Microsites tackle a specific segment of your overall market, a specific message, a particular important event, product or service, advertising campaign or geographic location. Basically they can help deliver a set of information quickly and more compellingly than your larger corporate website. The best microsites have a simple and engaging design, a highly focused message and no more than about a dozen pages (here’s a great example of a very small microsite.  So small it’s called a landing page). They’re an important spoke in the wheel of your overall herding (what’s herding?) campaign — which may involve print, social media, radio, TV, PR and online banner advertising.

2. A microsite should improve confidence
When you’re wading though search results and information online the water tends to get a little muddy. Sending people directly to your website doesn’t usually help either. Microsite visitors aren’t distracted with complex navigation choices and information that’s not directly relevant to why they’re there in the first place. By delivering only the most pertinent information — in an easily viewable way — you can promote confidence in your potential clients or customers — leading to higher conversion rates.

3. Microsites should be small but meaty
One of the biggest mistakes some marketers make can make with a microsite is making it too light and fluffy. Microsites should be meaty — but lean. In most circumstances there should never be any teasers. Without enough information to satisfy a visitor they’re likely to leave.

4. Microsites should provide instant gratification
Build it for speed. After all, you’re creating a microsite so that viewers don’t get bogged down in the wealth of content on your full site. Give the viewer what they came there for, only what they came there for — and do it fast — but never in a Flash.

5. Microsites should allow users to find information on their own
Don’t be so controlling. Unless you have a very specific story or message to tell, “guided flow” site architecture can seem a little suffocating. Provide clear navigation choices to allow a user to explore on their own terms and at their own pace. This type of navigation has a secondary benefit. Studies have shown that users who discover things on their own through information foraging can develop an information scent trail. When users feel that they have found information on their own they take ownership of it, building an affinity with your brand and less like you’ve sold them something.

6. Microsite navigation should be intuitive
If there’s one tenet of a microsite it’s simplify. Offer a few simple, quick choices on the landing page, followed up with highly targeted information. Breaking your information into several subtopics makes it easier for people to consume what they need. Each navigation link should allow the viewer to explore and learn more — without forcing them to dig for the information they really want. A big, long, scrolling page of content isn’t useful.

7. Microsites should be economical and agile
Creating a microsite shouldn’t be an ordeal. Designing one should be only a little more work than a simple landing page. Because they’re part of your marketing message and not directly tied into your corporate website they can be deployed quickly, hopefully without committee after committee tangling it up in red tape. You can even create two microsites with  A/B versions so you can conduct multivariate testing to experiment with different content, presentation and conversion offers.

If there’s an 8th principle, it’s that microsites shouldn’t be reserved for special occasions. Much like that champagne in your refrigerator, what are you saving it for? Microsites can be created for just about any purpose, quickly and easily. If they’re created on an open platform they can be changed easily and updated at little cost.

Metrostudy (Houston, TX), the leading provider of primary and secondary housing market information nationwide, has announced today that they selected Demi & Cooper Advertising to create a new corporate website and to also create, manage and execute a thorough social media strategy, including blogs, eblasts, Facebook pages, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts for their company.

Metrostudy has developed an impressive reputation around the country for their consulting expertise on development, marketing and economic issues, as well as their in-depth research studies that evaluate the marketability of residential and commercial real estate projects.  Their clients range from all sizes of home builders and developers as well as Corporate and Retail companies that purchase land for their companies.

We at Demi & Cooper are excited to begin.  Metrostudy’s “product”, which is really well organized information collected by their own field researchers around the country and analyzed by industry leaders, is perfectly suited for social media in a professional presentation.  Selling information is all about spreading the news that you have the information — and social media is perfect for this goal.  Look for our blog posts and the new sites in the months ahead.  If you want to sign up to receive the eblasts and blog posts, just send us a note and we’ll include you on the list.

While establishing and managing Facebook pages for our clients, we discovered the advertising side of this social media that allows us to present messages for our clients to a very targeted group of people. What separates most social media advertising from traditional online advertising (such as banners on newspaper websites) is that you pay per click versus per impression. Facebook is a pay per click.

Those of you with vocal CFOs know the value of having hard data to support your advertising decisions. This is one easy way. Each ad on Facebook can be targeted by age, marital status, hobbies, interests and location to name a few so your ad will be seen by mostly those who fit your target market. So if 2,000 people see your ad, it’s a good chance that many of them are in your market and that exposure is good for your brand. What’s even better is that you only pay for those who click on your ad and get driven to your site (preferably a landing page, but that will be a later post).

Think of this as if you have a retail store in a large mall. If you place an ad in the mall directory, you pay for it based on how many people will see it regardless of how many people are led to your store. But if your ad were on a Facebook page in the mall, you’d only pay for it if the viewer of the ad actually came into your store. Makes sense, huh? And to keep your budgets in line, you can establish daily or monthly advertising spending limits so you’re not caught off guard by a large response.

The key to this type of marketing is what you make the viewer do once they get to your site. If you’re like most advertisers, your site is like a retail store open 24/7 without any salespeople allowing any visitor to look around, compare, and do whatever they want anonymously. But since you’re paying money through Facebook to get those people to your site, you must put more emphasis on capturing some information from that visitor.

Nowadays, a basic “contact us” form means nothing. It’s likely that most people don’t want to contact you either because they found what they want or because they don’t want to be bothered. So instead, we like to add other links for the viewer to “subscribe” or “stay informed” or “receive valuable web only offers”. Those links go to a basic email signup form which, when completed by the viewer, allows us to communicate with him or her on various subjects via eblasts and blogs in order to build a relationship toward a future sale.

With the sales cycle in most industries getting longer, building relationships and maintaining communication with prospective clients is critical. So while we recommend Facebook advertising for all its positive attributes, we also stress that the results will be weak if your website doesn’t work hard to capture contact information from those who click through the ads to your site.