SUBWAY® Restaurants in Springfield Raising Funds for Grief Support Programs

Springfield, MO – SUBWAY® restaurant is a proud sponsor for Lost & Found Grief Center’s memorial activity to raise funds for families who have lost loved ones. The community wide event will be held on May 26th at Jordan Valley Park.  A 5k run and walk, as well as a balloon release will take place to remember lives that are missed. This year’s event will be celebrating Lost & Found’s 10 years of support to Southwest Missouri.

“SUBWAY® is honored to come together with the Springfield community and the Lost & Found Grief Center to celebrate lives that have been lost. We feel like this is a great way to raise funds for grief programs that help families get through these difficult times,” says Melissa Richey, Public Relations Director at Mason and Moon Advertising.

Pick-up and sales for the environmental friendly balloons will begin at 5:45 p.m. on May 16th. The release will be at 6:30 p.m., with the 5k run/walk will start at 7 p.m.

All proceeds will benefit grief support programs that will be available with no charge to families who have had a death in their family.

The Subway® restaurant chain is the world’s largest submarine sandwich franchise, with more than 32,000 locations in 91 countries. Headquartered in Milford, Connecticut, and with regional offices in Amsterdam, Beirut, Brisbane, Miami, and Singapore, the SUBWAY® chain was co-founded by Fred DeLuca and Dr. Peter Buck in 1965. For more information about the SUBWAY® restaurant chain, please visit www.subway.com. SUBWAY® is a registered trademark of Doctor’s Associates Inc.

SUBWAY® RESTAURANTS, JARED FOGLE AND MAYOR MICK CORNETT LAUNCH 12 WEEK WEIGHT LOSS CHALLENGE

Oklahoma City – Jared Fogle with SUBWAY® restaurants is joining forces with Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett in his fight against the obesity epidemic by launching the 2nd Annual Oklahoma City Weight Loss Challenge, presented by SUBWAY® restaurants. The contest, scheduled to begin April 22nd, will allow anyone in the Oklahoma City metro and outlining areas to track their weight loss through a 12 week period. Nine winners will be announced by Fogle during a scheduled event in August.

“Oklahoma City is experiencing a culture shift,” says Mayor Cornett. “This Weight Loss Challenge furthers that conversation and also continues our goal of losing weight as a community. This effort will give us another boost as we shed pounds and choose healthier lifestyles.” “Eating healthy and exercising obviously helped me lose 425 pounds almost 13 years ago,” says Fogle. “I am very excited to be apart of an event with Mayor Cornett that could possibly help someone else lose weight and eventually lead a happier, healthy life.”

HERE’S THE SKINNY
Participants are asked to register and weigh-in at any participating YMCA locations starting Friday, April 22nd through Monday, May 9th. The day the participant weighs-in marks the 12 week start of their weight loss progress. To be eligible to win participants must weigh-in 12 weeks after the initial weigh-in. Winners will be announced at the City Arts Center Midnight Streak Run on August 13th at 9:00 p.m.

PRIZES
Three winners will be chosen in each category: Total Weight Loss and Total Inches Lost. Prizes will include:

FIRST PLACE: $300.00 SUBWAY® Cash Card (worth 52 FREE lunches), $150.00 Gift Card to Academy Sports and Outdoors, Tissot Watch from Samuel Gordon Jewelers, Style Makeover from Schardein and Company and a gym bag/water bottle from Chesapeake

SECOND PLACE: $200.00 SUBWAY® Cash Card, $100.00 Gift Card to Academy Sports and Outdoors, $100.00 Gift Card to Samuel Gordon Jewelers and a gym bag/water bottle from Chesapeake

THIRD PLACE: $100.00 SUBWAY® Cash Card, $100.00 Gift Card to Samuel Gordon Jewelers, $50.00 Gift Card to Academy Sports and Outdoors, and a gym bag/water bottle from Chesapeake Participants of the Oklahoma City Weight Loss Challenge will receive a discounted registration rate in the Midnight Streak Run. Proceeds go towards City Arts Center to provide quality arts programming to the community.

The Oklahoma City Weight Loss Challenge will be supported by a local advertising campaign. Local broadcast will feature :30 second radio spots across all time slots. Additionally, the launch will be supported with social media, TV, and Public Relations. For more details visit www.okcweightlosschallenge.com.

The SUBWAY® restaurant chain is the world’s largest submarine sandwich franchise, with more than 32,000 locations in 91 countries. Headquartered in Milford, Connecticut, and with regional offices in Amsterdam, Beirut, Brisbane, Miami, and Singapore, the SUBWAY® chain was co-founded by Fred DeLuca and Dr. Peter Buck in 1965. The SUBWAY® brand was ranked the number one Franchise Opportunity and the number one Global Franchise Opportunity in the 2010 edition of Entrepreneur magazine’s ‘Annual Franchise 500’ survey, an honor that the SUBWAY® chain has received 17 times in the past 23 years. For more information about the SUBWAY® restaurant chain, please visit www.subway.com or www.subwayfreshbuzz.com. SUBWAY® is a registered trademark of Doctor’s Associates Inc.

We at Mason and Moon were so honored to receive 5 awards at the 2010 OKC ADDY Awards Gala. Most of the staff attended and we all had a great time. We look forward to next year!

Regional or National TV – Single Consumer Outlets
Silver Award
Subway Restaurants BBQ Sandwich 30 second TV ad

Local Entry: Television – Best Use of Humor
Silver Award
Thunderbird Casino “Want Better Odds – Doctor”

Television: Single Local
Silver Award
Thunderbird Casino “Want Better Odds – Doctor”

Local Entry: The One That Got Away
Bronze Award
Subway Restaurants $2.49 Sub of the Day 30 second TV ad

Specialty Advertising: Apparel
Bronze Award
Bedlam Food Fight T-shirt

For the complete 2011 ADDY Winner’s Book, Click Here

You’ve heard of SEO, the process of improving a website’s ranking and visibility in search engine results. But, SMO (Social Media Optimization) is a much lesser used term that many businesses can overlook the importance of.

Attracting clients to your website from avenues other than search engines (blog, social news, discussion groups, social network profiles, etc.) can take a lot of time and energy. But it’s well worth it to establish a following of people who have a strong connection to you and your brand.

“The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.” -Rohit Bhargava

There are 16 “rules” for SMO that are widely used. The list was compiled by several social media authors, including Rohit Bhargava. The 16 rules of SMO are as follows:

1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage the mashup
6. Be a User Resource, even if it doesn’t help you
7. Reward helpful and valuable users
8. Participate
9. Know how to target your audience
10. Create content
11. Be real
12. Don’t forget your roots, be humble
13. Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh
14. Develop a SMO strategy
15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely
16. Make SMO part of your process and best practices

So, how can you follow these rules? These are my SMO tips:

Never Underestimate Content – Be poignant, informative, and interesting. Focus on helping your readers increase their knowledge of your industry and brand. The more your customers understand about you and your industry, the more they will value what you do.

Lists Have It – Online readers love lists! They read fast. One of the best ways to keep the momentum going is by putting your information in the form of list. Make your article easy to skim and they will keep coming back to you.

Stand Out – If you can pull it off, write something controversial. Get your audience buzzing. If you’re unable to go bold, write something new and fresh, inspiring, exciting, or thought provoking – anything to get your audience stimulated.

Network – The interesting thing about Social Media is that you have to be social. You must have conversations with people and interact, even if they’re not your ideal client. Networking is a huge part of Social Media and people are always looking for ways to connect or help others’ connect. Your no-so ideal client could be best friends with your ideal client. If you are unable to invest the time into making connections, hire someone to do it for you. Otherwise, you won’t be successful and it could backfire on you by leading people to think you have something to hide or are untrustworthy.

Give, Give, Give then Receive – Start digging or stumbling stories that genuinely interest you. Make connections with those Stumblers and Diggers and invite them to join your network. The more involved you are in a social network’s community, the more likely you are to find success.

Target Your Audience – Every industry has their own target markets. Tap into them! There are social networking sites for just about anything imaginable. Connect with the ones in your industry and reach out to individuals who you know buy the products or services you offer.

Titles Are Your Best Weapon – How do you catch the attention of readers and convince them that your article is worthy of their time? Create an appealing title. Catch their eye with a catchy, fun, thoughtful, or interesting title. Really think about it from the user’s perspective. What would catch their eye and get them to click it?

In general, keep the end-user in mind when posting information online. Be interesting and make your objective clear.

What would you add?

On the fence about social media? Not sure if you should get a Facebook Fan page? Do you have a Profile page for your business and think it’s good enough? Here are six compelling reasons why you should take the plunge and sign up for a Fan page.

1. Qualified leads. People who “Like” your Fan page also like your brand. They are actively seeking you because they want to hear about your business, learn about new products, or take advantage of specials. They want to hear from you and they look forward to hearing from you. 

   If you have a business Profile page,  “friends” don’t necessarily want to know more about your business – they’re likely trying to increase their friend count.

2. Fan pages are public and indexed by search engines, unlike Profile pages, which are private. This means your Fan page is another doorway to your business.

   When you post updates, use keywords that people are searching for and you’ll be picked up in searches more frequently. Search engines like Google and Bing have started using recent social media posts often in search results.

3. Measure success of your Fan page using Facebook “Insights,” which are statistics about your page. Facebook will send you weekly updates telling you how many times your posts received comments, and “likes,” as well as how many fans you added or lost. You’ll also be able to view charts showing facts about your Fan page. This data is imperative in helping you judge your success or failure and allows you to adjust your activities as needed.  This is not possible with a Profile page, leaving with you with no information to judge how you’re doing.
4. Unlike profile pages, you can create custom pages on your Fan page.  The possibilities are endless with these customizable pages. You can create pages that welcome visitors, provide product info, company info, promotions, videos, and more. This feature is invaluable, especially from a marketing standpoint.
5. Fan pages are personal. Your website provides information, but your Fan page provides a way to communicate. You can express yourself, give advice, share stories, information, and share interesting articles. You’re able to create a relationship that can’t be achieved through your website.
6. As you share information with your customers and potential customers, they are able to comment. You can respond and have a two-way or group conversation about the topic. Conversation builds rapport with your visitors and they will enjoy interacting with you.

Facebook created and designed Fan pages with the business owner in mind. Fan pages are intended for businesses to interact with their customers and build relationships. It’s a perfect (and free) way to reach out to your customers.

As social media gains more momentum, it’s important to be ahead of the curve or else risk being left behind. Many of your competitors are already utilizing social media to build rapport with their – and possibly your – clients. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to recover those lost relationships.