2020 July Newsletter
Optimism Through Change…
Good Afternoon,
Fun fact to start things off — and because I’ve heard my letters haven’t been very Optimistic lately: Online Optimism has always been busy, but hasn’t actually given out a promotion to anyone in 3 years.
Okay, maybe that’s not the most fun. Though it is unique, particularly since we’ve grown from 7 employees to 14 during that time. However, with all of our Director positions filled, we’ve been adding Strategists, Associates, and Coordinators to build out our team, and haven’t felt the need to add more layers.
The work of two of our Strategists, though, has changed that. We’re extremely proud to announce that Lauren Walter and Meara McNitt are our first ever Senior Strategists. If you’ve worked with them over the past several years, you’ll surely agree it is well deserved. If you haven’t, you can read more below, about their careers here and enjoy some of the fun things we did to celebrate our first promotions in a while. Spoiler alert: it includes a song about Animal Crossing, and a cameo appearance from one of my favorite Parks & Rec characters.
In addition, we’re excited to unveil one of the programs that I’ve been meaning to roll out for years: Our new Donation Matching program for employees, which we’ve come to call Donate, Elevate. It’s a 200% corporate match, with a twist. The first 100% match will go to the non-profit that our employee chose, and the second 100% will go toward an organization, chosen each year, that we believe most achieves our value of Better Our Community. For 2020, that organization is theInnocence Project New Orleans.
Of course, COVID-19 is still top of mind here. To focus on the Optimistic side of things, we began looking at how businesses are adapting and thriving. Our first three interviews are a fascinating look into what organizations are doing around town: check them out and get inspired!
For those that don’t constantly F5 our homepage, there’s lots of new exciting website content as well! We’ve added two new case studies detailing our latest projects for The Ogden Museum and Crescent City Schools, and a beautifully redesigned Values page.
Lastly: no surprise here, but we’re still growing. If you know a great content marketer (or a particularly strong writer interested in deep-diving into SEO), please consider asking them to apply for our new Content Strategist position.
That’s everything from our team for the month. As my weekend Disney Plus plans indicate, it’s time for us to get back to work, work.
Best,
Flynn Zaiger,
CEO
Our Team: Meet Our Senior Strategists!
Meara McNitt
Our social media strategist Meara McNittt received a promotion this month as she continues to encompass our Be Exceptionally Helpful value. Her work with our clients Central St Matthew and Crescent City Schools has meant that both of their campaigns have continued without a hitch despite COVID-19 throwing us a huge curveball. Not only has Meara been a great AE for our clients but she’s also infectiously Optimistic! Congratulations on becoming our Senior Social Media Strategist!
Lauren Walter
Our content strategist Lauren Walter continues to impress by running mutliple successful SEO campaigns for our clients. By embodying our Make Work 💯, value, Lauren has made sure that even our most complex clients receive exceptional content. Whether it’s cybersecurity, cryptocurrency or medical practices, Lauren can write about it all. As well as providing our clients with great content, we can always rely on Lauren to make anything that we write at Online Optimism sound that much better. Congratulations on becoming our Senior Content Strategist!
New: Case Studies
Our team has been working hard to Optimize our client’s campaigns. With new case studies, you can see exactly how we work with our clients on their projects and the tremendous results we’re able to achieve for them!
Ogden Museum
The Ogden Museum reached out to Online Optimism as they wanted to improve their SEO and rank higher for key terms in their industry. Our content/SEO team provided Ogden with expert guidance and assistance to tackle the challenges that they faced with regards to SEO. With help from our team, the Ogden is now able to rank on the first page for the search term “New Orleans Art Museum”!
From Their Team:
“Online Optimism’s team provided our staff with important guidelines to better incorporate SEO into our current content strategy. By providing us with instructions to follow going forward and assistance setting up easy-to-read reports, Online Optimism has helped us take our digital marketing efforts to the next level. Their team is always accessible and helped us find new ways to measure the success of our online initiatives.”
– Melissa Kenyon — Director of Marketing & Experience at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art
– Melissa Kenyon — Director of Marketing & Experience at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art
Crescent City Schools
Crescent City Schools reached out to Online Opitmism as they wanted to build upon their social media presence in a way that was cohesive with their branding. Our social media team worked with them to get some impressive results — their impressions rose by 122% across all networks and their Facebook reach increased by over 96%!
From Their Team:
“Online Optimism’s team has taken our social media to new heights, bringing a professional voice and appearance to our accounts while saving us time and effort. Our staff and families are delighted to see how we have been represented on social media. Online Optimism has been a partner with a genuine interest in helping us reach current and potential families, staff, and supporters.”
– Christopher Hines — Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, Crescent City Schools
– Christopher Hines — Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, Crescent City Schools
Culture: Donate, Elevate
In line with Bettering Our Community and in keeping with our commitment to improving policies around using our profits for good (which you can read more about here), we’ve set forth, starting in 2020, a 2:1 corporate donation match policy.
This allows employees to donate to their favorite non-profit with an added donation from Online Optimism. Not only will Online Optimism match the donation and provide it to the employees chosen non-profit but we will also provide the same donation to an organization of leadership’s choice that we believe matches Better Your Community. For 2020, we’ve chosen the Innocence Project New Orleans.
Each year, our team will review which non-profit we will be providing the added donation to. You can read more about our Donation Elevation Program below as well as further information regarding the Innocence Project New Orleans.
The Innocence Project New Orleans
The Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO) works to free and exonerate people who have been convicted and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. IPNO provides free legal help to their clients and works each case from start to finish. Since 2001, IPNO has freed or exonerated 35 innocent prisoners who have served over 830 years in prision between them in either Louisiana or Mississippi.
New on the Site: Values Page
Our values page has had a huge revamp! Though our values remain the same, we wanted to share what each value means to us and the steps we take to ensure that we fulfil those values to the best of our abilities. While our value Screens Will Not Replace Handshakes is still on the side of caution due to COVID-19, we continue to try our best to stay connected in the safest ways possible.
