Abraham & Harrison offers its clients
comprehensive Online Conversation Marketing campaigns based on the core
fundamentals of effective Marketing Communication techniques. We
integrate Online Publicity, Online Grassroots & New Media Marketing, Business Intelligence and Search Engine Services
to ensure that our clients’ message, the right message, is being
portrayed in every corner of the digital space. Additionally, we offer
our expertise in the areas of profiling, intelligence, forensics and
crisis management. Although Abraham & Harrison offers its clients
the ability to cherry pick the services that best suit their needs, we
strongly suggest customized, tailored packages of services for most
clients, as our experience has proven the power of an integrated,
comprehensive approach.
Please see our website for further information: http://www.abrahamharrison.com/
Abraham Harrison LLC Services
Online Publicity and Blogger Relations
Not unlike traditional public relations, the Abraham & Harrison
Online Publicity and Blogger Relations strategy not only identifies the
right people for you to be talking to, but also connects these people
with your brand and your message. In targeting the true online opinion
leaders, we are able to not only hone in on the demographic communities
that matter most to your brand, but also promote your products and
services in a favorable light. Online Public Relations is an ideal
brand awareness and brand promotion solution for small to mid-sized
businesses looking to increase their visibility online. In leveraging
the constant flow of online chatter, the Abraham & Harrison team
creates and fosters relationships based on like-mindedness, or
the opinion leader’s likelihood to be receptive to your brand and
messaging. It is the relationship building aspect of this program that
makes Online Publicity an optimal solution for prospective clients that
have the infrastructure to support and maintain relationships with
interested parties.
Examples of typical Online Publicity campaigns include: Event
Publicity, New Product Launches, Crisis Communication, Brand
Re-Information Campaigns, Overall Brand Awareness/Promotional Efforts.
Online Grassroots and New Media Marketing
Also referred to as Online Advocacy or Online Guerilla Marketing,
Online Grassroots and New Media Marketing is an integrated approach to
identifying and reaching your targeted demographic from the bottom up.
These programs are a quick and effect means of spreading news and
information to a targeted network of online influencers within the
blogosphere, message boards, video communities, social bookmarking
sites, listservs, etc. This strategy involves the development of key
creative and general messaging by the client and allowing our team of
Online Grassroots experts to run with it, determining the best way to
roll that up into what the demographic audience would be most receptive
to. As opposed to the much targeted approach of Online Publicity,
Online Grassroots Marketing allows us to capitalize on the “long tail,”
or the complex nature of online chatter in which dialogue about our
client’s brands isn’t always localized within its primary, secondary or
tertiary demographic targets.
Examples of typical Online Grassroots Marketing campaigns
include: Social Network Marketing, Asset Distribution, Social Media
Marketing, Viral Marketing.
Business Intelligence
Collectively, the Abraham & Harrison Management Team has over 5
decades of global branding and marketing communication strategy
experience. It is with these years of experience that we have learned
that for some clients, their bottom line is most affected by having
real-time, accurate business intelligence information about market
landscape, trends in their overall brand perception and valuable online
opinion about their competitors. The deliverable on these initiatives
is a comprehensive, detailed report, evaluating and analyzing trends
within the mediasphere; blogosphere; user generated content outlets,
message boards and forums. The Online Business Intelligence service
also gives the prospective client to determine which demographic
communities about which they are most interested in gaining
information. These reports can be delivered as a one-time State of the Union analysis or as an ongoing trend analysis, depending on the client’s needs.
Search Engine Services
Brand of the world, large and small, know that visibility of
favorable content within key search engines can make or break your
marketing and public relations initiatives. In addition to offering
tailored marketing communication and business intelligence solutions to
our clients, Abraham & Harrison is also a full-service Search
Engine Marketing agency. Programs falling within this department
include: Traditional Search Engine Optimization (Promotion), Defensive
Search Engine Optimization (Protection), Domain Name Protection and
Domain Name Services.
Online Reputation Clean-Up and Defense
Despite providing Internet users with a wealth of accurate
information, some brands have faced the hard reality of the adverse
affects that negative online chatter and mis-information can have.
Fortunately, the majority of these trends can be reversed, if treated
early and in the right way. By providing clients in need of Online
Reputation Clean-Up and Defense services, the Abraham & Harrison
team harnesses the power of an integrated approach to attach negative
opinions and misinformation from all sides. In combining our Search
Engine Services (including Domain Name and Defensive SEO), Online
Public Relations, Business Intelligence and our Online Grassroots and
New Media Marketing Programs, the Abraham & Harrison team is able
to deliver quick results. In the past, we have proven effective in
minimizing the visibility of unfavorable content online, countering
misinformation with real information and creating valuable allies among online opinion leaders on behalf of our clients.
About the Founding Partners
Mark Harrison, Founding Partner and CEO
Mr. Harrison’s unique history of professional experience blends
technology, education, business, and international affairs. Trained as
a diplomat, Mr. Harrison has worked with UNHCR, the IMF, and the World
Bank Group. He has served as a political functionary, technologist, and
journalist in the US, Europe, Thailand, Israel, Tanzania, and
Guatemala.
He has served as CTO and Technical Counsel to a companies ranging
from Fortune 500’s to start-ups, and has guided projects across the
globe. He served as a technology adviser to Primedia, the US media
conglomerate, Channel One, the world’s largest in-school education and
television news network, and largest minority-owned TV network in the
US. He has built systems and infrastructures for the afore-mentioned
organizations as well as a number of other major corporations including
Booz, Allen & Hamilton, and Bell Atlantic/Verizon. Mr. Harrison
currently acts as CTO and marketing adviser to Techcelerator, the
Silicon Valley venture development firm headed by tomandandy.com’s Tom
Hajdu. He is also an associate of Joseph Jaffe’s New York based new
media marketing company, crayon LLC.
Over the past 15 years, Mr. Harrison has taught at the secondary,
university, and post-graduate levels in the US, Canada, Germany
&Tanzania, and has developed curricula in business, academic
methodology, languages, and technology. Mr. Harrison has lived and
worked in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America and
speaks English, German, French, Swahili, and Spanish.
Chris Abraham, President and Founding Partner
Chris Abraham is an Internet analyst, web strategy consultant, and
adviser to the industries leading firms, specializing in web2.0
technologies, including content syndication, online collaboration,
blogging, and consumer generated media. Chris is a leading expert on
corporate and PR blogging with a focus on citizen journalism, new
marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO).
In addition to his roles as consultant and analyst, Mr. Abraham
currently acts as Chief Marketing Officer and technology adviser to
Techcelerator, the Silicon Valley venture development firm headed by
tomandandy.com’s, Tom Hajdu. He is also an associate of Joseph Jaffe’s
New York based new media marketing company, crayon LLC.
Mr. Abraham is one of the internet’s social media pioneers, having
entered the scene in the early 1980’s in the days of BBS’s via dial-up
over 200 Baud acoustic modems. Throughout the 1990’s, he was a core
member of the ground-breaking, Washington, DC-based Meta Network (TMN),
and its parent company, Caucus Systems where in 1999 what is today
known as "Web 2.0" and "Enterprise 2.0" was defined in colleague Tom
Mandel’s whitepaper "How Companies Think - Creating Collaborative
Intelligence Online" and executed on a daily basis for companies,
universities, and organizations via the seminal social media platform,
Caucus Software. For more than a decade, Mr. Abraham laid the
groundwork for today’s modern social media as an online facilitator
with Caucus Systems clients serving such clients as IBM and the US
Government, and teaching with the University of Kalamazoo in the
Education for the Arts project - the world’s first accredited online
high school course in creative writing.
Before moving to his current position, Mr. Abraham was a Senior
Account Supervisor and a member of the Interactive Team at Edelman in
Washington, DC, doing online public affairs. Before joining Edelman,
Chris was Technology Strategist for New Media Strategies, a pioneer and
industry leader in online brand promotion and brand protection. At NMS,
Chris directed the technology strategy for the firm, including the
development, deployment, and launch of client and internal corporate
blogs, marketing blogs, vertical industry blogs, PR blogs, promotional
blogs, public affairs blogs, social networks, and podcasts.
Prior to joining NMS, Chris was a Washington-based technologist for
over a decade. As Managing Director for Berlin-based beehive North
America, Chris focused on developing web applications and offering
training for corporate clients such as Pfizer. As GNU/Linux SA and
online facilitator for Caucus Systems, Chris hosted virtual online
events and communities of practice for clients such as IBM and eForum
2000.
Chris Abraham maintains the PR and marketing blogs, Because the Medium is the Message and Marketing Conversation.
The blogs were originally designed as a laboratories in which to
explore the media, the mediasphere, the blogosphere, marketing, PR, and
buzz marketing but has expanded to become a media filter, including
technology, blogging, pop culture, memetics, news, and analysis;
meaning just about anything. Chris recently spoke about the main stream
media and citizen journalism on the BBC World Service radio program
World Have Your Say during the We Media conference in London.
Mr. Abraham is an active member and attendee of former US
Ambassador Phil Lader’s Renaissance Weekend conference where together
with other industry leaders, US Senators and Congressmen, former US
Presidents, renowned artists and writers, and other cultural,
political, and business leaders he has spoken on topics ranging from
new media to technology futurism to virtual company management. He is
an experienced sailor with thousands of blue water miles to his credit,
an impassioned rower with his own single shell housed on the Potomac
River, an avid bicyclist, a trained and qualified dive master, and an
accomplished photographer with over 20 years of professional experience
and thousands of images with the world’s top stock photo agencies.
Abraham & Harrison Vision Statement
In the rapidly changing world of marketing and public relations,
the lines between traditional strategies and new media strategies
continue to shift as the line separating the two is constantly moving.
What was once viewed as impossible, is now quickly transforming into
more and more of a science, with the Internet emerging as a unique and
remarkable platform for consumer and business communication. Faster
now, more than ever, people around the world are able to communicate
with rapid fire quickness. Formerly “untappable,” obscure word-of-mouth
is now a medium that many brands are leveraging to disseminate
information; promote their products and services; as well as protect
their namesakes. In this day and age, we don’t need to remind you of
the Internet’s effects (be it favorable or dismal) on many popular
brands. It is this phenomenon that has made Online Conversation
Marketing an ideal solution for a variety of notable brands, ranging
from Internet start-ups to public interest groups to major consumer
brands.
Abraham & Harrison is comprised of a trained team of media,
marketing and public relations experts working together to drive
positive online presence on behalf of our clients. Operating in a
“virtual office,” the Abraham & Harrison team is spread across four
continents, representing more than 10 time zones and almost a dozen
languages. This dispersion has given us a notable competitive edge,
allowing us to quickly and effectively employ comprehensive Online
Conversation Marketing Campaigns within more than 50 countries. Despite
its benefits, the “virtual office” does not provide for the ideal
environment for rapid response communication, in a traditional sense.
Though Abraham & Harrison has proven its ability to provide crisis
communication and react to changes in campaign strategy and messaging,
we do not operate in a newsroom and are unable to collectively stop on
a dime and refocus in the same way that traditional PR houses are able.
Online Conversation Marketing grew out of the increasing importance
of relationships as it relates to effective branding via the Internet.
Despite the wealth of information and opinions “out there,” Abraham
& Harrison understands that an elite few lead sweeping trends in
Online Conversation tone, volume and reach. These Online Opinion
Leaders or Influencers continue to break news and share opinions that
reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions of consumers everyday.
Thus, the overarching strategy of Online Conversation Marketing is
influencing the influencers – much like securing online endorsements on
behalf of our clients. Unlike the formalized world of traditional
marketing and PR, an effective Online Conversation Marketing Program
takes much longer to develop, as Abraham & Harrison is in the
business of securing positive relationships with often busy Opinion
Leaders. We have been able to complete campaigns on behalf our clients
in as little as 6 weeks, however, the turn around for the majority of
brands is generally several weeks, if not months, longer. The “public”
that we relate to is not the mainstream media, whose relationships can
often be bought and sold; the “public” that we do relate to are the
online influencers, who oftentimes, are no more than regular Internet
users with a well crafted, interested blog or website that has drawn in
its own audience. Although Abraham & Harrison already has a sundry
of these influencers in pocket, we often have to develop new
relationships on behalf of our clients, given their diverse demographic
targets and needs.
Abraham & Harrison leverages email to conduct the majority of
relationship building with online influencers, however, we are not a
direct or email marketing agency. Often times, the opinion leaders that
we contact on behalf of our clients are being reached “blindly,”
meaning that they have not opted into any particular program. In order
to effectively carry out these campaigns and still remain CAN-SPAM
compliant, we pick and choose our targets carefully, ensuring that we
provide them with relevant messaging and “gifts” or promotions or
information that would be of interest to them. At the end of the day,
much like traditional PR, a poorly thought out Online Outreach campaign
(the facet of Online Conversation Marketing most like traditional PR in
which we build relationships with popular bloggers and influencers on
behalf of our clients) can result in little to no positive outcome for
the client. It is for this reason that the ramp up time on these
programs typically runs anywhere from one to three weeks, as we prepare
lists of appropriate, likeminded targets that will likely respond well
to our clients’ brands as well as development of appropriate, effective
“messaging.”
All things to considered, it is also worth highlighting that unlike
other Online Marketing and Advertising agencies, Abraham & Harrison
does not thoughtlessly disseminate links and off-topic messaging
throughout the user generated corners of the Internet. We value
relationships and act as persuaders, storytellers and attractors on
behalf of our brands. In working individually with online influencers
and Internet users as both a macro (Online Outreach) and micro (Online
Engagement, Grassroots Marketing) level, Abraham & Harrison builds
relationships and drives favorable, organic conversation in a compliant
fashion. The Abraham & Harrison methods reflect the natural
progress of organic word-of-mouth – starting small and progressively
growing to reach a larger and larger audience. In respecting the online
community, the Abraham & Harrison team stands firmly against online
solicitation (SPAM) of any kind. Both in Online Outreach and Online
Engagement, we are fully transparent, or “open kimono.” We have found
these methods to be the most effective when working with the “online
public.”
As common conceptions of marketing relate to Online Conversation
Marketing, Abraham & Harrison does operate neatly into the bucket
of branding, as our methods are a combination of Search Engine
Optimization, Grassroots Marketing and Online Public Relations. Clients
in the past have likened us to online brand ambassadors. Such being
said, we do not fit any pay-per-performance or CPM model. Our metrics
are based on conversation and relationships rather than conversions and
impressions, much akin to tradition grassroots and brand ambassador
strategies.
To conclude, Abraham & Harrison is pleased to offer its unique
Online Conversation Marketing services to an array of brands and
organizations. Our past clients have found the mix of SEO, Online PR
and Grassroots Marketing to be exceptionally effective in achieving
their overall marketing objectives. Millions of people are talking
online everyday – are you listening?
