You might have heard mentions of our sibling company, OttoPilot Media, through the Twitter grapevine, but perhaps you’re wondering what OttoPilot Media is all about.  Make sure your tray tables are in the upright position– here’s the rundown:

In short, OttoPilot Media helps fly your business to a higher level through non-traditional marketing… but that’s more than just a catchy tag-line.  We work with companies to determine which social media platforms will be best for what they want to achieve.  Once that’s defined, we enhance and customize the necessary tools (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare, and more) so each social media platform accurately reflects the brand or business.  We want our clients to look like the experienced pilots they are.

Plus, we take care of the hard part: effectively managing these platforms.  Signing up, refueling and applying a fresh coat of paint to these social media accounts isn’t enough– so we generate content, schedule posts and tweets, and make sure you’re always up-to-date, knowledgeable, and engaged with your online communities. You won’t have to worry about a thing– it’s like sitting in first class all the time!

Now, we all know that if a pilot got distracted while flying, the results wouldn’t be too favorable.  To avoid this, we stay focused and alert while your company runs on its familiar schedule (we know that can be a big distraction)– in order to deliver the best in-flight service and turbulence-free ride for you and your clients.

Moreover, we are specialists when it comes to helping our clients develop ideas and get people talking about their brand (and saying good things, of course).  We work with companies to define a manageable flight plan, and then implement our revolutionary tools  (i.e non-traditional marketing) to ensure our clients are visible across online platforms, and consistently sharing their unique brand with others.

Are the skies a little clearer now?  We hope you’ll get in touch to learn more about how OttoPilot Media can help your business fly to new heights!

Find us here:  and here:  

The 4th of July not only marks an important date in history– America’s birthday–  but it’s also the perfect occasion for spending time outside and enjoying good food, beverages and company.  This 4th of July, the Gibson Design Management team will be celebrating another birthday, too: the newest member of our company wolfpack, OttoPilot Media, which helps to propel businesses using social media and non-traditional marketing.

In honor of Independence Day, the GDM team has compiled some of our favorite festive recipes:

Patriotic Fruit Pizza (from Lolly)

Ingredients

• 1 (18 ounce) package refrigerated sugar cookie dough
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).  Press dough flat into an ungreased cookie sheet or pyrex. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until lightly browned. Cool. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese with 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla until light. Spread on cooled crust. Arrange desired fruit on top of filling, and chill.

Panzanella (from Alexandra)

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons good olive oil
• 1 small French bread or boule, cut into 1-inch cubes (6 cups)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 large, ripe tomatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 hothouse cucumber, unpeeled, seeded, and sliced 1/2-inch thick
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1/2 red onion, cut in 1/2 and thinly sliced
• 20 large basil leaves, coarsely chopped
• 3 tablespoons capers, drained

(for the rest of the recipe and directions, check it out on the Food Network website!)

Martha’s Fresh Guacamole (we hear it’s pretty famous!)

Ingredients:

(Makes 4 cups)

• 4 ripe avocados
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tomato, peeled & chopped
• 1 fresh, mild green chile, chopped
• 2 green onions, chopped
• coarse sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
• garlic salt to taste

Directions:

Peel, seed and lightly mash avocados, so that they are still chunky. Add lemon juice, tomato, green chile, onions, and season to taste with salt, pepper and garlic salt.  Fold together gently.  In order to prevent the guac from turning dark, place the avocado pits on top (to be removed upon serving), cover and refrigerate no more than 4 hours.  It’s best when it is freshly made!

We hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend!

I can already hear the rumblings of controversy based purely on this title.  Over the past few months, our social media division at Gibson Design Management and our subsidiary media company, OttoPilot Media, have been discussing objective ways to measure our social media efforts for our clients.  This has included discussion of customized metrics for each of our clients based on business and marketing goals.

I’m going to say it, so argue away: having more people “like” your Facebook business page is better.  This does not mean that you can just stop there.  You still need engaging content and someone consistently monitoring and responding so that it is a conversational platform.

When I first graduated from college and worked in sales and marketing for NVR, we were taught that a large part of sales is a numbers game.  If you don’t speak to anyone, and you don’t set any appointments, and then you don’t write any contracts, you’re not going to make any sales.  However, the (qualified) leads that you generated and the more appointments that you had meant that statistically you would be more likely to achieve your sales goals.

Don’t get me wrong- it did matter that these leads were qualified and that I was good at my job.  I wasn’t sitting down with 15 year olds who wanted to buy an $800,000 home.  However, these interactions were one-on-one.  It does not cost you any extra money on Facebook to reach 100 or 1,000 additional people via your page.

With Facebook, every time that you post, the number of people that post reaches is purely the number of people who “like” your page.  If that number is larger, you have a greater reach and reach is an important metric.  If your objective is brand awareness, having more people know about and like your brand is important.  If your objective is more sales, you are more likely to sell something with a greater audience.