Think About Construction

Think Agency has extensive experience promoting many varied areas within the construction industry. We have gained the skills to grasp the ever-increasing list of complex acronyms, understand the difficult and tedious building industry tasks, and turn that information into solid marketing fuel.

This can be seen with tools we developed for two of our clients that greatly helped them to connect with the contractors who install their products and the designers that specify their products to the owners.

Atlas ProAPP™

Think Agency developed the ProAPP^™, a free digital tool for roofing contractors to manage multiple projects for Atlas Roofing. This app provides contractors both input and access project management data directly onto an Apple iPad^®. That information can then be sent directly to the app’s estimating feature to generate immediate and accurate estimates on-site.

For the contractor, ProAPP^™ saves time and increases revenue by using a personalized profile to access, store, update, and track all data from anywhere 24/7. Operating on cloud technology, this mobile app has everything a roofing contractor needs to run a professional business, complete with Atlas products, literature, promotions, and training tools. Click here to watch a tutorial video about how to get started with the ProAPP^™.

WikiSTIK^™

Think Agency realized that all members of a build team need accurate product information and technical data. In the past, manufacturers provided this information in massive technical binders, or more recently on CDs or DVDs. Such tools may have been state-of-the-art in their day, but all suffered from one very large drawback. Specifically, they were immediately outdated at the time of delivery.

Architects, specifiers, and contractors who need quick access to building product information from manufacturers, like Kingspan Insulated Panels, can now have that access at their fingertips. Think Agency developed the Kingspan WikiSTIK^™, a flash drive that requires no special installation. It eliminates the need for the tedious updating and distribution of manufacturer notebooks.

WikiSTIK and WikiSTIK Mobile gives design and construction professionals immediate access to comprehensive product literature that is always up-to-date. Convenient links to other manufacturer’s web-based technologies and tools are accessible as well as. This includes all product marketing and technical materials, manuals, images, brochures, videos, case studies, and web resources.

Because Think Agency developed Kingspan WikiSTIK, design professionals no longer have to navigate dozens of manufacturer's websites trying to figure out how those companies archive needed critical information. With WikiSTIK there are no drill downs, no searching, no frustration, and no need to store or waste paper.

Think About This

Think Agency has assisted construction sector companies in every part of the sales channel both nationally and internationally. We have guided them through up and down markets, helping them grow their brand reach, better connect with their customers and increase sales revenues.

Get the information that will get your information to your customers. Fill out the introductory contact form on www.thinkagency.com and let us demonstrate how to better think about construction.

Why Live Posting Is Essential To Your Content Strategy

After scouring the Internet for the best tactics to optimize live social posting, there was completely nothing to be found. Even social communities with an active member count of over 60,000 were left clueless when asked, “Why is live social media important to their business?” For those of you that don’t already know what live posting is or how it can benefit your business, this is a much-needed entity implemented into your marketing strategies and social campaigns.

What Is Live Posting?

Live posting primarily refers to live streaming or live feed. This is the ability to transmit or receive videos and audio coverage from an event (for example) through an Internet connection that is taking place during the current time. Live streaming of events can be found on your computer, mobile device, or even through radio with more options on the horizon with technology’s innovation creation experiencing rapid growth.

When using live posting in regards to social media, this refers to when a user posts in the present moment. Posting can be as simplistic as replying back to someone who commented on a photo you posted, possibly resulting in a (continued) conversation. Too often the conversational aspect of social interaction are forgotten, due to being so caught up in the act of posting itself, not keeping in mind who we are posting … who our viewers are.

How Does This Benefit Me?

Through the use of live posting, engagement is created and impressions increase, ultimately developing the formula for useful methods to be applied in lead generation campaigns to incur revenues.

Twitter and reddit are two of the main live social posting platforms used most often. Engagement typically spikes before, during, and after an event of some sort. For instance, Khloe Kardashian hosted a live Q&A session on Twitter to promote the new television season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Fans were blowing up Khloe’s Twitter with a multitude variety of questions. Not all questions pertained to the show, but that didn’t matter because anyone that remotely mentioned Khloe’s name online boosted not only her following, but validated keyword searches for the celebrity.

Other celebrities or technology masterminds will partake in this seemingly worthwhile practice for promotional sake or to raise awareness. For instance, Bill Gates contributed to reddit’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) forum where fellow redditors could literally ask him anything. Some people find reddit to be more valuable than Twitter concerning live streaming, but that will soon change as Meerkat (the new live video-streaming app for Twitter released earlier this year) grows.

Is There A Downside?

Not necessarily. Even though social platforms such as Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, and other social networking sites do not overly benefit from live posting, it’s not going to hurt to post live before everyone else catches on. The problem of posting live on these sites is viewers and followers are unaware of when you are actually posting live, meaning they can’t really tell the difference between a live post, a post that is 3 hours old, or a post that was scheduled days before actually going live.

The differentiation difficulty between posts that are live and those that are not make it seem as though a high frequency of posts are simply spam or a plead for another follower to boost personal social fame. Users must devise a way for their social posts to be seen as actual live posts that are relevant and interesting, not a massive, in the moment, blast of spam.

Event-wise, there is no going wrong with live streaming. When hosting events and incorporating live streaming feeds of videos, audio, and photos, you can create a community of people with shared interests, located in the same place (an online community or website), all at one time. This is a great opportunity for a business to leverage and influence consumers, in addition to the added frequently overlooked benefit for data information retention and virtual focus groups.

The Bottom Line

This untapped market will move neighborhoods online in the near future. Don’t underestimate the significance influence of talking to people in the moment. Acknowledge what live posting can generate and lend insight to. Live posting creates a culture of people that gathers together. Being unified is a vitally important and powerful movement.   

Three Habits of Successful and Happy Professionals

Getting tied down by the burdens in our daily lives, especially when we ignore the opportunities to file away stresses as they arise, will eventually push you past your breaking point and over the edge. The little things accumulate until we self-inflict ourselves to the point of panic attacks or hitting up Happy Hour regularly after work hours. This is not how life should be lead. Happiness is a choice, not to say an easy choice, but an attainable choice for anyone if he or she actually wants to smile.

Try doing the following on a weekly basis, aim to be consistent for a month to start your lifestyle change, and we can guarantee you will be not only a happier person, but a happier person with a lot more energy! 

Enjoy Your Weekends

Instead of spending your time cleaning, doing laundry, or other chores, try to complete these chores during the week for personal freedom on the weekends. Think of it this way, there are five weeknights to separate tasks … dust one night, vacuum the next, with one load of laundry each night, and voila! Freedom at last to do whatever you please for two entire days!

Be Active

An active life is a happy life … and that’s a fact! Dopamine (the chemical substance that plays a large role in happiness) depletes as we age and it becomes more pertinent that we exercise regularly. Exercise will increase the volume of Dopamine in your body, making you less stressed, more energized, boost your confidence and ease anxiety.

Often, people are discouraged by the thought of “working out” because, well, it is indeed work. If the gym isn’t your thing, partake in a less labor some activity like hiking, swimming, or play a sport. The point is to move around and get your blood pumping.

Create Your Schedule

People who routinely make it a point to get to bed at a decent time, wake up early, spend time with loved ones, and don’t work more than you have to are proven to live happier lives. People who get enough sleep are less affected by negative emotions, making them less sensitive while also improving focus and productivity. People that surround themselves with good company have more opportunities for laughter and people that close an excel file until tomorrow have more time for themselves.

Overall, being happy boils down to a healthy lifestyle. Eating well, getting enough sleep, staying active, focusing on what needs to be done to be productive by eliminating interruptions and creative killers is something we have been taught since elementary school or even prior. These are not hard to accomplish if you try; eventually, second nature will take hold and old habits will die easier than you think.

3 Social Media Tactics Everyone Should Know

Not to give away all of our tips and tricks, but there are tactics to gain followers quickly. There is only so much we can do to gain a following online. From timing to quality content, everything you do is judged by your viewers, resulting in opinions about you or the company you represent.

Let’s start with the fact that timing is everything. Why do you think there are certain times that work best for posting? This is because there are people on one network over another at different points during the day. Take for instance, Pinterest is more popular on the weekends because people have the time to sit on a photo site all day; same goes with Tumblr’s popularity increase later in the evenings.

Quality always matters, always! Don’t post a photo of Kim Kardashian in a political section, as your viewers will categorize you into the ever-lurking SPAM folder. If your viewers think you are posting for the sake of posting instead of for the general amusement of sharing, you will be banned and your reputation will flounder.

Be consistent. Post during hot times every day or every other day. People will start to see your profile photo and remember your look and name. Eventually, it will become habitual to look for your posts if he or she deems your posting worthy of a reshare or knowledge intake.

Be relevant, be you, and have a voice. Have fun with social media! Inside tip: when your personality shows through your social outlets, people feel connected. Make your viewers want to follow you! Now get online and post, post, post!

Link Building For Small Business

Building quality links takes time, patience, and relationship building skills. You need to be able to develop content that will be interesting to those you pitch, and pitch it in an engaging way. It’s also a time saver to be able to identify which sites will be the most relevant and willing to engage you. When considering a possible site, you will want to consider the following criteria:

• Relevancy
• Your Resources
• Feasibility

Is Their Site Relevant To Your Site?

You will want to look for non-competitive domains that link to content and resources similar to yours. Not only will this allow you access to your target audience, but Google looks for relevancy as one of the prime ways to differentiate between spammy and legitimate links. Furthermore, a quality site won’t have much of an incentive to link to or publish content from your site if it won’t be interesting to their readers.

Start by sharing the content of your target site, and working to build a relationship via social media or their blog. Once a relationship has been established, offer to write a relevant piece of content for them or help develop a resource guide. Ensuring that the link will be mutually beneficial is the best way to go.

Do You Have The Resources and Prominence to Attract Quality Sites?

If you are a brand new site with just a couple of pages and only a few social media followers, you may not have the clout to attract a site like, say, CNN. As previously mentioned, quality links are built when said link is beneficial to both parties. They will need to know that you are interesting and engaging to your own audience before they will want to introduce you to theirs.

Work hard on building you own site, adding quality content, and building your social media following and engagement. When you have a lot to offer, it will be hard to turn you down.

Is This A Site That Will Feasibly Show Interest?

If you have found a site that is relevant and you have built up your own website to be interesting and engaging, you should still ask if this site is worth spending time on? Is this a site that is frequently pitched? Do you have what it takes to stand out from the crowd? Do they have already established rules about links? Are they known for being open or closed?

Your time is best spent on building relationships with sites that you have a strong chance of connecting with. Instead of shooting out a pre-packaged pitch to anyone with an inbox, be strategic and make a plan. Save time, and increase your success!

photo credit: bloeise via photopin cc