RC Productions offers a variety of services beyond traditional advertising. One example is Neighborhood Network—a direct mail service that targets the neighbors of people who’ve purchased your products or services.

People prefer to buy from the same places as their friends and family—that’s why word-of-mouth advertising is so effective. Neighborhood Network generates leads from that same principle. Designed to reach highly motivated respondents, our targeted mail strategies promote your business to customers who are prime candidates for your product or service.

You can take this customization one step further by individualizing each piece. Variable data makes it possible to put every customer’s name or individual offer in the clouds, on the side of a building—even on the front lawn!

Many of our clients are already using Neighborhood Network and we’d love the opportunity to show you how it can generate leads for your business.

Cans From Fans will host their second food drive at the 2010 Muskegon Shoreline Spectacular. The event runs from September 3 through September 6 and the Cans From Fans semi-trailer will be on site all four days. There will also be donation bins located throughout the event.

Attendees of the Shoreline Spectacular are encouraged to bring non-perishable food like canned meats and fish, canned soup, juice, pasta, vegetables, cereal, peanut butter and rice to the Cans From Fans semi-trailer. Those who donate food or make monetary donations will receive free parking at locations surrounding the event. Signs will be posted indicating participating parking lots.

All donations will be distributed to local food pantries. Food distribution and volunteer coordination will be executed by Bethany Paterson from Ecclesia Church. Expired, dented or damaged items and those in glass containers will not be accepted.

Cans From Fans’ first food drive at the 2010 Muskegon Summer Celebration resulted in over three tons of food being distributed to area food pantries, and organizers are excited to give more to those in need.

The Muskegon Shoreline Spectacular runs September 3 through September 6 and will be located in downtown Muskegon. Learn more at www.shorelinespectacular.com.

Visit us online to learn more at www.cansfromfans.com or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/CansFromFans to get updates and information about future events.

If you or your company would like to donate prizes, please email info@cansfromfans.com.

Beginning August 23, Facebook Fan Pages will undergo a slight—ahem—facelift. The entire layout will be narrower, including the tabs, which will reduce from the current 760 pixels wide to 520 pixels wide.

Administrators are already viewing their pages in the narrower format. The preview allows them to make layout adjustments before Facebook applies the changes on the 23rd. In the meantime, if you’re the admin of a page you have through this weekend to update any customized banners or CSS that’s been applied to the page.

Source: Wildfire Social Media Marketing Blog

Melanie joined the creative team as Art Director in spring of 2010 and divides her time between design, copywriting, and social media. She has over thirteen years experience, seven of which were spent at a Chicago advertising agency. She recently returned to West Michigan after living in Mexico, where she worked as a freelance writer and designer.

Melanie is a graduate of James Madison University with a bachelor’s in Mass Communication, specializing in Visual Communication.

Facebook is a great way to market yourself or your business, but how do you spread your name to people who aren’t your friends?

Simple. You tag yourself.

Type the ‘@’ symbol, then begin typing your user name (or the name of your business page) and a drop-down menu will appear with all the names that begin with whatever you’ve typed.

Select the desired name from that list (in this case, Carly) and the name will appear as a blue link.

You can also do this on other people’s walls as a way to leave a signature. Since only individuals can post on walls (pages cannot), this allows you to post on your friends’ walls from your personal account and link back to your business page.

Finally, you can tag other people and businesses the same way in a status update on your page. The account you tag will receive a notification that you’ve tagged them in a post AND your post will appear on their wall for all their friends to see.

Help us welcome Brad Larabell to the RCP Account team! As a Project Coordinator, Brad serves as a liaison between clients, account managers, and creative to ensure timely project flow and completion.

Originally from the Detroit area, Brad graduated from Aquinas College with a BS in Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing. Prior to RCP, Brad was a Promotions Intern at 97 WLAV, where he was also responsible for their social media and web content.

We spend so much time focusing on our work that we sometimes forget to think about where we work. Small changes in your office environment can reenergize employees and add a bit of zing to your everyday tasks.

The Creative Center at RC recently made such a change: we installed colorful banners that run the length of the ceiling.

Source One Digital printed and installed four 3- by 33-foot banners. They even vacuumed when they were finished!

While the banners are visually stimulating — perfect for a creative environment — they also absorb noise, making it easier for us to concentrate on our work.

Social media is quickly becoming an important part of most business marketing plans, but just because the technology is free doesn’t mean success will be effortless.

Social Media Today’s recent post No Free Ride with Social Media by Roy Wells breaks down the cost differences between traditional and social media, while pointing out that businesses still need to work at developing relationships and client loyalties — just like they would with other forms of marketing.

He states:

Though I am sure that there are those businesses and individuals who became overnight superstars without an ounce of effort (I don’t believe this but I have no way of proving the non existence of god either), most of us have had to work at becoming successful. What is true in our day to day lives is also true on-line: It takes work to build relationships and to build businesses and organizations. To successfully use social media, you need to work at identifying, reaching out to, and building your network.

Have you seen success with social media? Are you willing to put in the effort it takes to build relationships online?

Social Media Today posted an article called Top Ten Ways Social Media is Teaching Us to Be Human Again that discusses exactly what it says: how social media is personalizing businesses. It highlights two recent national campaigns that rely on user input for its success, and how the risk of negative publicity outweighed the overall impact.

Top Ten Ways Social Media is Teaching Us to Be Human Again

The Cans From Fans food drive starts this week and both RC and Source One are pulling out all the stops to ensure this inaugural event is a success. While the staff at RC have kept busy orchestrating the details of actually running a food drive, Source One has helped with the biggest part of the food drive:

They wrapped the truck.

Wrapping the Cans From Fans truck at Source One Digital

Putting the final touches on the Cans From Fans truck

The Cans From Fans truck leaving Source One Digital

The Cans From Fans truck parked in front of RC Productions

The semi-trailer will be parked across from the main entrance for the Muskegon Summer Celebration starting Wednesday, June 23rd. Volunteers will collect non-perishables from Monday through Friday from 4pm to 9pm and Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 9pm, so you can drop off your donation on your way to the midway or before you head to a concert.