The 500/5000 list specifically measures revenue growth from 2006 through 2009. To qualify, companies must be U.S.-based and privately held, independent – not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies –and have had at least $100,000 in revenue in 2006, and $2 million in 2009.  Levelwing Media demonstrated a 447% growth over the past three years and had the second highest growth rate out of the 25 businesses represented from South Carolina.

Levelwing is honored to be included in this distinguished group of fastest-growing and innovative companies.  We share this achievement with both our team and clients,  without whom this honor wouldn’t be possible.

Read the Charleston Regional Business Journal’s story, “Charleston companies named to Inc. magazine’s fastest-growing rankings“  for more information.

This ad placement is among the largest in New York City at 225 Feet Tall and 75 Feet Wide.  It is a special AD – one to behold and relesh – The BLUEPRINT for GREATNESS.  The NETS are a client of Levelwing Media (a full service digital advertising agency) and we as many others are crossing our fingers at the prospect of LeBron “KING” James planting roots in Brooklyn for a long time to come.

Our office in NYC has also been a buzz in the last week.  We occupy the building next door to the ad and we see it on a daily basis from our nest occupying the 8th floor.  So, here’s to The NETS – get your season tickets now.

I travel a lot. I book a lot of travel online. It’s quick, easy, and I’m assured the last name on my airline ticket, hotel reservation, and car rental will be spelled correctly. A great online experience is after all, a great customer service experience. Recently, I attempted to book 3 rooms on one of the major hotel aggregator’s websites. The site however, was experiencing technical difficulties. I called the customer service line to complete the booking and over thirty minutes later (and two disconnections), I had my reservations (or so I thought). The next day my credit card alert settings let me know that indeed, I had my three rooms booked…and 13 additional rooms. After four days of repeated phone calls and more than 5 hours of phone time logged, this issue has been resolved. The whole experience has left me with a definitive directive: I will no longer book with a certain company whose name starts with an “h”, ends with a .com, and in the middle is a great big “otels”. It’s with sadness that I come to that decision as my online experiences with the company have been wonderful, but the offline experiences, not the same. The same could be said to be true for the disparity between online and offline experiences with most banking and financial institutions.

So how is it that companies that work so hard to get the online experience right, often fail so miserably on the offline piece? While the Internet has made price shopping available at the click of a mouse, not every product is a commodity and consumers prove time and time again that even in a crappy economy, they will pay more for important things like sound customer service and other things that add value to their purchases. Great companies and brands don’t have to compete on price alone. For companies and brands that don’t add value for consumers, they only have price to compete on.

Last night at the awards ceremony, we were further honored to be named the single fastest growing company for 2010.  While we are proud and humbled by this achievement, this is a shared honor – a recipe of equal parts: innovative clients with a hunger for data and accountability and dedicated team members with an uncompromising passion for the digital landscape in which we work and play in everyday.

To both, we thank you.

Yes, Super Bowl XLIV was the most watched television program in history, according to Nielsen with 106.5 million U.S. viewers, surpassing the M.A.S.H. series finale that aired in 1983.  But users weren’t just tuning into the television.  The simultaneous use of the Internet while watching television is growing at an astounding rate, especially during big events such as the Super Bowl.

A study conducted by Nielsen in 2009 shows that 12% of Super Bowl XLIII viewers also spent time using the Internet during the big game- almost 4 times greater than the normal rate – at an average of 24 minutes per user.  35.90% of those users that engaged in online activity during the game were using search engines, at an average of 2.5 minutes per users while the 32.7% of users who engaged in the conversation in member communities spent an average of 16.1 minutes doing so.

So what does this mean for brands? Well, for those brands that paid millions for a 30 second-spot during the Super Bowl, it demonstrates the need to have an online presence to maximize the return on investment during and following the game. Users are searching for you so make your brand – and your commercials – present in search and social media channels.  Not only are they searching but they’re talking too – monitor and engage in the social media conversation.

Check out the Bridgestone’s Super Bowl commercials on YouTube and vote in the YouTube AdBlitz program.  By extending the television buy with paid search and YouTube promoted video campaigns managed by Levelwing Media,  Bridgestone’s “Whale of a Tale,” commercial peaked at the #13 Most Viewed Video of the Day on YouTube on Monday, the day after the big game.

For more Levelwing Media Insights Follow Us on Twitter @levelwing

The Levelwing Blog will be included for Fuel Lines’s Blog of the Year.  Fuel Lines is considered a Power 150 Blog by Advertising Age.

We thank everyone for their votes.  Please enjoy the valuable insight we share on our our blog.

Read more at Fuel Lines.

Follow Levelwing Media on Twitter @levelwing.

See both Bridgestone Super Bowl Teaser Ads on the Bridgestone YouTube Channel.

Follow Levelwing Media on Twitter @levelwing

What makes a brand different in social media?

How does a traditional marketer use social media without sounding, um, traditional?

Panel Participants will include:

Tom Hoof of the Tampa Bay Rays
Stephen Linn of CMT
Brian Dresher of USA Today
David Martin of Mindcomet

We look forward to seeing you there.  Get your tickets now!!

Follow Levelwing Media on Twitter @levelwing

Over the last three years Bridgestone has sponsored the Super Bowl Halftime Show, aired two commercials in each of those years (including this year in Super Bowl 44).  Let us be the first to tell you – the NFL and the networks want to get paid – and paid they get, to the tune of millions for a single 30 second commercial spot.  So, after all those millions are spent on one spin of the proverbial roulette wheel where do you go from there?  Well, there is an answer – but it begins prior to the game with strategic planning for digital media elements.  Therefore, let’s take a step back…

November 2009:  We begin digital Super Bowl strategic planning.  The regular season is in full swing but one big event is on our minds.  We begin by considering how much to spend digitally to support the offline campaign, what platforms to use, how to engage the consumer and most importantly how to measure and track the success of those initiatives.

December 2009:  The elements begin to take shape.  The budget has been confirmed, the elements to be executed are decided and the engagement metrics determined.

Early January 2010:  The playoffs are going strong but unlike Jim Caldwell, Peyton Manning, Dwight Freeney, Sean Peyton, Drew Brees and Reggie Bush – we are looking forward, past that next playoff game, to the Super Bowl.  Final media negotiations take place.  IO’s are signed (you know those of us in the digital world loath paperwork, yet it is a must).  Research studies are signed-off.  Paid search campaign elements are built and approved.  Video search elements are completed in similar fashion.  The YouTube Channel is double-checked. The Facebook Fan Page is readied for launch.  The Super Bowl commercial rating sites are mapped, and so on…

Mid-January 2010:  Press hits the wires;  Super Bowl commercial spot “teasers” hit the Internet as well as all social media platforms;  we launch the Facebook Fan Page, YouTube Channel elements, Twitter discussions as well as research and social media monitoring.  In addition, paid-search and video search support launches as well as other paid digital media elements.

Today – February 3, 2010:  So, here we are, a few days before the game.  All media elements are running smoothly;  social chatter and message board postings are being monitored on all the likely candidates as well as unlikely ones.  Our job is not complete – far from it.  We have a team of folks measuring, monitoring and executing various digital elements each day up through the game, as well as a few days after.  The point here is that The Super Bowl may be a fleeting few hours and those commercial spots a minute in total, but digital pre/post game elements are 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for three weeks straight – and that does not take into consideration the strategic planning and ancillary elements.  Therefore, it should not be a fleeting thought.

There is a great case study from a few years ago, or let’s just call it an epic fail, of Ford spending millions on the Super Bowl to promote a new hybrid launch, including licensing Kermit the Frog.  Ford spent all that money on in-game commercials and didn’t support the campaign digitally.  The result:  GM bought keywords in paid-search about hybrid vehicles and that little green friend, Kermit, to benefit on the digital end of all those millions Ford spent on television on those few seconds.  So what’s the moral of the story?  “It’s not easy being green…apparently”  A similar issue plagued AT&T that very same year with another fail.   Read more about these fails at InsideFacebook.com.  With the propagation of stories such as these, most Super Bowl advertisers have stepped up their search efforts in recent years, but now it is social media’s turn in the spotlight.

A lot has been made of social media in the last year, but now it’s time to play ball.  The keys to success are in smart strategic planning, execution and detailed measurement.  Accountability and cohesiveness is what will determine if your brand fails or succeeds.  Importantly, never assume social media is defined as only Twitter and Facebook.  There are other players on the field, and they include YouTube and other video sites, photo and image sharing sites, community sites such as Linked-In, among many others.  YouTube for example is a great social media platform.  Just last week both our Bridgestone Super Bowl teasers reached the Top 20 Most Viewed Videos of the day. So far, this week both are ranked well for the week with over 1 Million views of each in aggregate, including the #2 and #3 most viewed in Sports.  2010 is likely to be the year Social Media Goes to the Super Bowl.  Watch, click and learn.

Stay tuned in the days after the Super Bowl for updates on the results.  Follow Levelwing Media on Twitter @levelwing.

So, what does this mean in the future for non-profit fundraising moving forward?  According to Giving USA, online giving has grown year over year. While numbers for 2009 have not been released yet, 2008 experienced a 44% increase over 2007’s online giving and accounted for 5% (over $15 billion dollars total) of all charitable giving for that year.  According to research by Blackbaud,  a leading non-profit software company (and finalist with Levelwing Media as one of the fastest growing companies in Charleston according to the Charleston Business Journal), it seems that online giving is not replacing offline giving – in the sense that a traditional offline donor rarely switches to giving online, while those that first give online will also give offline.   So, online is effectively a new market for non-profits.   Further Blackbaud research indicates that online donors are younger and have higher incomes than the traditional direct mail donor and they donate, on average, larger individual donations than the small offline donor.

But it is not just about adding a donate now button to your site and the ability to accept credit card donations securely.  It is about cultivating the online donor.  It is about using social media to interact with your donor base.  It is about segmenting and customizing your email messages to your audience.  It is about providing your base with non-traditional giving opportunities, like text donations.  It is about keeping your contributors up to date with the latest news and information regarding your cause.

But beyond the various online tactics you can use, and almost every online marketing channel can be used effectively to solicit donations, at the end of the day it is about connecting with your donors in all the ways that they interact with the larger world.  And as so much of that interaction is moving online, the successful 21st century non-profit must move online as well.  While your charity may not have a major global disaster to catapult giving opportunities to the front page of every major newspaper and every social networking site, you can still get your message out there in effective and compelling ways, each and every day.

Follow Levelwing Media on Twitter @levelwing