It’s the week of Interactive Day San Diego, and last week’s oddities at the conference venue are far from over. Since the original UFO sighting on June 10, we’ve come across all sorts of weird footage – however, none was actually seen firsthand by the Mindgruve team until now. As some of us Mindgruvers were out getting things ready at the venue, we started to get the sensation we were being followed. After ducking into the Gaslamp, we caught a fleeting glimpse of what one can only assume is the source of the happenings at the Hilton as of late. Fortunately, we were able to snap a picture before it dashed off to make sure our followers could be convinced – check it out below. As the evidence keeps stacking up, we’re becoming believers. The only question now is: What does it want with us?

If you have any tips surrounding this unusual situation, let us know on Twitter, or follow any developments at twitter.com/#aliensarewatching.

Even with the advent of satellite and services like I Heart Radio and Pandora, radio is still struggling to be the American entertainment staple it once was. In fact, more than half of Americans feel radio brands fail when it comes to pushing fresh, interesting content, while 35% have no opinion whatsoever. So what’s a radio-based brand to do? “Transform and disrupt radio,” says Mark Ramsey, President of Mark Ramsey Media and creator of Hivio. Read More

With Interactive Day San Diego fast approaching, there’s lots of activity going on around the Hilton Bayfront – some a bit more bizarre than the rest. It seems that the Hilton staff and guests have been seeing signs of an otherworldly creature popping up around the hotel and the Gaslamp area. We’ve included the latest news story to update you with all the details. With the event right around the corner, we hope whoever or whatever is roaming the Hilton comes in peace! Read More

As marketers, we’re all told call-to-actions (CTAs) are a must when grabbing someone’s attention. For example, did you know that including “please retweet” within your tweet significantly drives more retweets than not including it at all? Dan Zarrella from HubSpot presents an infographic (see below) detailing the stats on various common CTAs on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.

And guess what? Dan will be speaking at IDSD later this month so don’t miss out on one of the best digital marketing conferences in the west.

Source: MediaBistro 

Mindgruve has been named as one of the San Diego Business Journal’s Fastest Growing Private Companies. The honor acknowledges the 100 local companies making the greatest positive impact on San Diego in terms of innovation and contributions to the economy. Read More

2013 may be the year of mobile, but the majority of brands are leaving it out of their strategies. Take a look at this infographic from Uberflip, which delves into brand usage, ad spend projections, and tips on making apps stand out in the crowd. Is your brand ready for mobile?

These days, it seems like every major brand is getting hacked by one activist group or another. Recently, satirical news site, The Onion, was hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), who took over The Onion’s social media accounts. As The Onion explains in their blog, the compromise was the result of gullible Onion employees who fell for SEA’s phishing scheme. These phishing schemes (and other hacking incidents) are easy to avoid if you can identify them as suspicious. In order to avoid falling victim to a hack attack, there’s a simple Internet etiquette that you can embrace.

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Almost every brand will deal with some level of adversity during its lifetime, whether it’s an unhappy customer or a bad review that snowballs into a social media call to arms. While no company wants to deal with a crisis, there’s a way to show transparency, maturity, and move on quickly, and there’s a way to do… well, exactly the opposite. A prime example: Samy and Amy Bouzaglo, who own Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale, AZ, have experienced a great deal of backlash surrounding the unethical and downright crazy business practices that came to light when their episode of Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” recently aired. But rather than handling it in a productive way, they took to their Facebook page and went totally off the deep end. Read More

Let’s be real – Facebook Edgerank can be… tricky. That’s why this infographic from PostRocket is so great. It puts the ins and outs of Edgerank in plain English and harnesses the help of the Dark Knight himself – can’t hate on that. Read up and you’ll be an expert faster than you can say, “why so serious?”

Mindgruve is the proud winner of four silver Communicator Awards, which honor brands and agencies making innovations in the communications and marketing industry. Securing more than 6,000 entries worldwide, the Communicator Awards is one of the biggest competitions in its field and covers ten categories including Mobile & Apps, Websites, and Integrated Campaigns. Read More