Alhan Keser’s crack marketing team has been honored yet again for their fantastic work with the ROI Factor Blog.

The ROI Factor earned “Best in Class” honors from the Interactive Media Awards in the “Blog” category.

On a scale of 100, the distinguished judging panel scored the site:

Design: 98

Content: 98

Feature Functionality: 100

Usability: 96

Standards Compliance & Cross-Browser Compatibility: 95

As the judges wrote: The Best in Class award is the highest honor bestowed by the Interactive Media Awards. It represents the very best in planning, execution and overall professionalism. In order to win this award level, your site had to successfully pass through our comprehensive judging process, achieving very high marks in each of our judging criteria – an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn each year.

Blue Fountain Media was also honored in the “Advocacy” category, where the Cook for Your Life Website won an “Outstanding Achievement” Award. Congratulations to all involved in the project.

Click Here to see the 2012 IMA Winners

Blue Fountain Media has now won 35 awards since 2011, a remarkable achievement.

On April 26th, Blue Fountain Media’s CMO Alhan Keser presented an overview of SEO fundamentals at the New York Public Library.

During this time, Alhan highlighted 5 actionable tips to help websites improve their rankings and increase exposure on search engines like Google and Bing through onsite optimization and link building.

Click Here to watch the video presentation

The Communicator Awards is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from acclaimed media, communications, advertising, creative and marketing firms. IAVA members include executives from organizations such as Airtype Studio, Big Spaceship, Conde Nast, Coach, Disney, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Estee Lauder, Fry Hammond Barr, Lockheed Martin, MTV Networks, Pitney Bowes, rabble+rouser, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Time, Inc, Victoria’s Secret, Wired, and Yahoo!

According to the IMA judges:

“The Best in Class award is the highest honor bestowed by the Interactive Media Awards. It represents the very best in planning, execution and overall professionalism. In order to win this award level, your site had to successfully pass through our comprehensive judging process, achieving very high marks in each of our judging criteria – an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn each year.”

To win an award your entry had to successfully pass through our comprehensive judging system. Our judges utilize a points-based scoring system which allows each entry to receive a maximum of 500 points. By adhering to the specific guidelines and criteria of this system our judges are able to maintain the highest degree of fairness, accuracy and integrity; competently and effectively evaluate entries; and, deliver clear results.”

Your project was scored using five specific criteria, with a score from 0-100 awarded for each criterion. The total of these five scores established your overall score up to a maximum of 500. Websites receiving an overall score between 460 and 479 receive our Outstanding Achievement award. Websites receiving an overall score between 480 and 500 receive our Best in Class award.

Design: 96
Content: 99
Feature Functionality: 98
Usability: 95
Standards Compliance & Cross-Browser Compatibility: 92

This was the fifth time Blue Fountain Media has earned Best in Class honors from the IMA. In the past 16 months, the Blue Fountain Media team has earned over 30 awards for design, marketing, e-commerce, social networking and public relations.

The ROI Factor Blog includes  contributions of numerous Blue Fountain Media team members and reflects the collective expertise in areas of web design and marketing.

The competition attracts many of the biggest brands and agencies in the world. Other category winners include Disney, A & E, Wendy’s, the Cartoon Network, J. Walter Thompson, and Razorfish.

Click here to see the award

Gabriel will be speaking between 11:30 AM and 12:30 PM during the panel’s discussion and Q&A.

During this time, the panel will be addressing the following topics and questions:

• How are B2B brands using content strategy and content marketing as valuable currency to attract and retain customers and prospects?
• What are specific examples of how B2B marketers provide better customer service through social CRM?
• How do leading B2B organizations use and integrate social data to shape and refine their marketing and communications strategy?
• How do leading brands organize themselves to integrate social with their overall marketing, communications, and customer service platforms?
• What are the leading platforms and technologies being employed for B2B social communications?
• How do you leverage organizational thought leadership to power social communications?

Click Here to register for this event.

Blue Fountain Media has won two platinum and three gold awards in the AVA Awards competition:

http://www.avaawards.com/home

The Ava Awards is administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP).

According to their site:

“Ava Awards is an international competition that recognizes outstanding work by creative professionals involved in the concept, direction, design and production of media that is part of the evolution of digital communication. Work ranges from audio and video production- to developing websites that present interactive components such as video, animation, blogs, and podcasts- to interactive social media sites- to other forms of user-generated communication.”

The Winning Sites Were:
MotorSportWorld.TV: Platinum for Portal
The ROI Factor: Platinum for Blog
BFM Website: Gold for Design/Website
BFM Website: Gold for Website/Professional Service

The series pits some of the hottest up-and-coming companies against larger, more established firms in the same industry. Business reporter Elaine Pofeldt cast Blue Fountain Media as the perfect “David” to take on industry mega-firm Digitas, a veritable  “Goliath” in the digital space with over 3,000 employees and offices in more than 15 countries.

Of course, the article highlights one of Blue Fountain Media’s secret weapons: bigtime talent. That along with a growing roster of blue chip clients including the NFL and Procter & Gamble have made Blue Fountain Media a viable contender versus any company.

We couldn’t agree more with Ms. Pofeldt.

This coverage is just the latest in a series of highly positive articles written about Blue Fountain Media. For a list of other major coverage, please visit our press page.

Following the initial public offering (IPO) for Groupon, Reuters sought out Blue Fountain Media’s CEO Gabriel Shaoolian for his predictions about the future of Groupon and where the stock price was heading.

Shaoolian, citing several key flaws in Groupon’s business model, thought the stock price might drop by as much as 50%.

“There’s a lot of rising competition coming up,” Shaoolian told the Reuters audience. “Google’s coming up and Google’s going to be a very serious player. And there are a lot of small town coupon sites that target niche audiences.

The Platinum Awards were for “Online Placement”- for Gabriel’s contributions to The New York Times and for “Social Media Site” for inthepowderroom.com.

In The Powder Room

The Gold Awards were both won by the Blue Fountain Media website for “Website/Small Business” and “Website/Professional Service.”

MarCom entries come from corporate marketing and communication departments, advertising agencies, PR firms, design shops, production companies and freelancers. The competition has grown to perhaps the largest of its kind in the world. A look at the winners shows a range in size from individual communicators to media conglomerates and Fortune 500 companies. The competition is so well respected in the industry that national public relations organizations, local ad clubs, and local business communicator chapters are entrants.

Winners were selected from over 200 categories in seven forms of media and communication efforts- marketing, publications, marketing/promotion, public service/pro bono, creativity and electronic/interactive.

Other Platinum Award winners include HBO, Hilton, MetLife, Aflac, and Toyota.