We’re all rooting for America’s cities these days.  They’re coming back. Maybe it’s the sports, the aversion to lengthy car commutes or the nightlife, or a stubborn pride dating back to the classic 1970s the classic Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

After bouncing around several other American cities, Aaron Perlut settled in St. Louis with his family, and along with partners Brian Cross and Andy Barnett, headquartered their agency Elasticity there.

Perlut in particular believes wholeheartedly that the city doesn’t suck. The need to plant deep roots in the community to grow the firm and the fondness for his region spurred a Forbes.com column to fight against the notion of suckitude. With 158,000 views and counting, “St. Louis Doesn’t Suck” became  jumping off point for a not-for-profit crowdsourced and crowdfunded platform Rally Saint Louis to address the city’s reputation issues. The column begins as a rant and ends as an outline for an integrated marketing plan, complete with SEO kicker.

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A rising tide lifts all boats. If the tide is capital, and the boats are businesses, you want a steady rise and many boats of all shapes and sizes in your city. Good water for boating means more work for consultancies, eventually.

For Brian Cross, managing partner of new-ish marketing firm Elasticity, it made sense to build something to attract the tide. Cross founded Fund St. Louis, a crowdfunding site along the lines of Kickstarter, to address gaps he saw between the city’s economic development efforts, and the tech-focused angel investing groups.

Fund St. Louis is designed to raise a named, all-or-nothing amount for business projects in any sector as long as they’re in the city.  Once the kitty is full, the money changes hands.

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Facebook has been around for what seems like ages (in digital years), but there are always new improvements to learn about. Enter Edgerank, which has been around for a while, but may still be an enigma to many.

In today’s guest post Brian Cross, managing partner (and director of rocket science) at Elasticity untangles some of the mystery behind Edgerank and why it should be taken into account when laying out your Facebook campaign strategy.

“The art is to create compelling content people engage and interact with.  The science is working within the parameters of the algorithm to give that content every chance of being seen and discovered,” he writes. Click through to read on.

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A still from a video for Elasticity client Quicken, incorporating data from the American Mustache Institute.

PRNewser recently spoke with Brian Cross, managing partner and director of rocket science at Elasticity, about how to use humor in PR campaigns. Rather than going for the big belly laugh, Cross emphasizes the use of a clever tie-in and the ability to find the humor in yourself as a way to reach an audience.

“What you’re trying to do with a sense of humor is make yourself more human,” he says. “With that definition, we use [humor] with every client.”

And how exactly does one become “director of rocket science” at a PR firm? Cross says it had something to do with the fact that a lot of people were saying that social media isn’t rocket science. It definitely isn’t, he says, but “there is a little science behind it.”

Digital agency Elasticity added two executives this week. Notably, Andy Barnett, previously Digital Global Practice Lead for Fleishman-Hillard joined as director of digital strategy.

Christine Ryder, formerly of iVillage and AOL joined as director of conversation development.

Elasticity already employs a number of ex-Fleishman executives, including Brian Cross, former Director of the Digital Group in Saint Louis, and former VPs Dan Callahan and Aaron Perlut.

The agency’s clients include Monsanto, Capital One and Anheuser-Busch. One may also know the agency as the guys behind the American Mustache Institute. Read their tongue-in-cheek press release, complete with a plethora of social media jargon, after the jump.

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