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How Google is Changing The Way We Do Search

Sun, 13 May 2012 19:36:55 +1200

Yes, it seems that Google is not yet done! They still have a few more changes up their sleeves to try to “level the playing field” so to speak. Matt Cutts say that they are trying to give their Googlebots the smarts, to determine real good sites with good content versus sites that are just overly SEOing.

So slowly but surely we are now realising that Google is wanting to ensure that websites that are showing up on their search engines are quality website that will deliver exactly what the consumers need and not just as a result of great SEO work from SEO experts even if the website’s content is not as good. So, it might be derived that websites with excessive keywords and with just tons of useless hyperlinks will have a harder time making it to Google search engines. Of course there isn’t an actual penalty for over optimizing with Google but most of the time, over optimising is also another term for spamming as others will consider.

There is speculation that the major change Google is planning will change the way we do search or the way their search engine understands what we are searching for so there will surely be a change on how we do optimisation and how results will come up on the SERPs, so it will surely change the way many of us do our online marketing which depends highly on google search results. It is one of the biggest changes ever and it can potentially affect millions of websites all over the world who depend on their Google rankings and many experts believe that if this is the case then it will make SEO irrelevant.

Google execs didn’t actually elaborate on what punishment they would bestow on a site that has been overly optimised, but one thing is for sure, for these sites, not showing up on Google SERPs first 3 pages might be punishment enough.

One Google expert noted that, websites should begin to focus on usable and shareable sites rather than looking to forego site’s usefulness for quick results, but as we have seen, quick results you may get but it doesn’t necessarily mean lasting results as well, so it should be better if websites begin to get on board with Google’s masterplan and make their sites a very good one.

There hasn’t been a set date as to Google’s changes but we know it's coming and it's here to stay, we have recently felt it with the recent deindexing of a lot of sites and we foresee a lot more to come. We will keep in tune as these changes happen and we will keep you abreast of everything that is happening with the SEO world. Stay tuned to learn more.

Announcing the Winner of our iPhone Competition

Tue, 08 May 2012 12:08:27 +1200

Hi everyone,

The results are in and we have a winner for our very popular iPhone competition!

The lucky winner is... drum roll please... Michelle Kemp!

Congratulations, Michelle, you've scored yourself an iPhone 4S worth $1049! You have an email in your Inbox already with the details on how to claim your prize. Get back to us and we will get that iPhone out to you ASAP.

Thanks to everyone who entered our competition! If you are a social media geek, a business owner or marketing manager, and you would like to get the low-down on our campaign, we have revealed all the numbers here.

If you are feeling lucky, our friends over at M2woman Magazine are giving away a stunning diamond ring worth $4,000. You can enter their giveaway here and get a sneak peak at this month's edition of the magazine here.

Our iPhone Competition Results

Tue, 08 May 2012 12:07:16 +1200

For all the social media geeks out there, or the business owners or marketing managers who are interested to know the stats behind our iPhone competition, here they are:

Duration of Campaign: 12 weeks

Number of Facebook fans when we commenced the campaign: 6,982

Number of Facebook fans at the time of draw: 18,282

Spike in Traffic to www.mintdesign.co.nz: 726% (not too shabby!)

Cost of iPhone: $1,049

Sure, we also had the internal costs of our wonderfully talented graphic designer, Nelson, creating the banner for the promotion, but he's pretty quick!

The Fallout: The Post-Competition Decline

Now, we are no fools, we know that our number of fans will drop, probably by up to 10-15% over the next few days due to the competition coming to an end and some fans "un-liking" us because they only wanted us for the chance to win the prize. We would be silly not to acknowledge this, but we are confident that our content will keep the majority of our "likers" engaged enough with our page that they will stick around.

And hey, we might just have another cool prize up our sleeve to keep everyone interested ;)

If you are interested in learning more about our Facebook marketing strategy, get in touch with us for a free one hour, no obligation consultation.

Galaxy S III – Making It’s Way Into Your Hands Soon

Sat, 05 May 2012 14:30:00 +1200

Samsung has been in hand to hand competition with Apple in dominating the smartphone market and this month, it is set to release the 3rd of one of its more popular models, the Samsung Galaxy S III. The Galaxy S series of Samsung is one of the most popular smartphones around 2nd only to Apple’s iphone and anticipation for the 3rd in its series has been building up for the last few months.

Samsung released the details of the Galaxy S III in a press conference in London last Friday and it seems that the best feature of the new Galaxy smartphone will be “smart functions” which is sought to compete with iphone’s “SIRI”. Here’s the nitty-gritty of the upcoming smartphone

The Galaxy S III will have a quad-core processor and a 4.8 inch super Amoled screen in Gorilla Glass. The good thing about Amoled screen is that they are bright and is functional even under the glare of the sun and Samsung says that it has a very quick reponse time of 0.01 ms. It’s also running on Android Ice Cream Sandwich. It’s also light at 133g and is only 8.6mm thick

It also boasts of an 8 MP camera, so you can be sure to take clear pics and starts up fast. With the quad core processor it’s now easier to multi-task including resizing your video to a smaller window so you if you need to work on other stuff within your phone, you can easily do it. It also has the latest Bluetooth and a wi-fi accelerator. It comes in 16, 32 and 64 Gig and the SD card slot can carry upto 64 Gig, not bad for a good smart phone.

There is also a feature called smart stay that makes use of the front camera to check if you are looking at it and its stays on as long as you are staring, this is especially useful when you are reading ebooks, emails, or web pages. It has a stiff competitor to Siri, that wakes up the phone when you say “Hi Galaxy”, a feature not available with Siri.

The Samsung Galaxy S III will launch in 145 countries, the biggest launch in Samsung’s history and it seems that New Zealand will get theirs through Vodaphone at the end of the Month that’s according to the company’s most recent tweets.

Ipad Mini?

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:14:48 +1200

Now, we can definitely say that Apple when it comes to generate rumours can compete with the most notorious celebrities! You will find a constant run of rumours about their products, which of course mostly turns out to be just that, rumours, but swirl they will and both apple lovers and haters mull over them regardless of the truth.

Now this week, we have seen the revival of the rumour a few years back about an “ipad mini” a smaller version of the much loved ipad. This rumour has been dispelled by Steve Jobs himself, before when denounced the rumour about a year before his demise. Although no one is confirming nor denying these rumours, it has been in the cooker ever since the launch of the first ipad.

The Good

A smaller ipad would help further Apple’s lead in the tablet market for sure. An ipad mini, with a lower price range would be the competition’s worse nightmare as it already has a hard time keeping up with the ipad2 and the latest release. iPad has made a killing of competitors on their current size but with the release of Kindle Fire and it being a big hit for many users perhaps iPad has realised the potential of a smaller tablet. iPod touch is sold at kindle fire’s price range but it’s screen is only about a quarter of the screen of kindle fire, so not really enjoyable for people who want to read ebooks, watch movies or play games. Kindle fire is at a sweet size so to speak, not too big – fits many handbags – and not too small – enjoy playing, reading or watching at a good size, although, many experts agree that the release of an ipad mini, is not yet imminent.

The Bad

An ipad mini will spell headache for developers, cramming an app meant for a 9 inch screen to a 7 inch one is a lot of work but for those who already adapted their apps to fit kindle fire or Samsung galaxy tab is already ahead on this one. So it might not be totally bad at all.

How Much?

Well, it might be around the $350 mark. You do have to keep in mind that Apple is less likely to release a product that will not profit them.

In the end, whether this rumour turns out to be true or not, only the consumers will benefit from it with the release of many options that each consumer can pick from to fit their needs and desires.

Instagram anyone?

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:38:06 +1200

If you ever owned an iphone then you will have installed instagram and may have used it to upload an image or two to your facebook or twitter pages. Guilty, right? Well you will realize though that Facebook has recently acquired the brand. After getting released on Android and generating a lot of usage from a lot of people, didn’t you realise that facebook will at the very least try to grab it? And grab it they did and for 1 Billion Dollars (reportedly), it made for a very rich previous owner don’t you think?

But what many users are now feeling is dread. Dread that instagram will become just another Facebook app, dread that it will start flooding up with unwanted ads and dread that the platform will change as they know it. But Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has belayed all these fears and said that instagram will remain as it is and that they just want more users to be able to use the app. Well for now at least, but who knows in a year or two. Many users like instagram simply because it has become an avenue through share their world, their views through photographs beautified through filters and also made instant photographers and digital artists of many of its users. It is Facebook minus the ads and the games as many would say. Although it is fast becoming an app of choice for a good number of users it is a long way from beating Facebook for sure and with it being acquired by FB you can be sure it won’t reach that pinnacle.

Although, I expect to see it move even more up the app ladder with Facebook backing it up, I believe though that there might be some changes implemented by the FB people for this app and they has been known to change things around from time to time, so I think we’ve yet to see what they are really planning for instagram, but for now, let’s enjoy it as it is right now and see whether Facebook will defile it or propel it more to the top.

Google De-indexing the Lot of Paid Blog Networks

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:27:56 +1200

During the last part of February we saw the launch of Google Panda 3.3, Google Search latest search algorithm and this most recent release will change the way many SEO experts do their marketing. In what sense you say? Well, the latest search algorithm saw a lot of the blog networks getting de-indexed and de-ranked by Google.

Google DeIndexing: So What's It To You?

Okay, if you are a serious SEO marketer, then it might change the way how you tend to market your websites, you know well enough that article marketing makes up a chunk of the back linking strategies many SEO experts use to ensure that our website rank high up in the search engines. What this did is effectively neutralise a well-established marketing practice used by many marketers. Although you may also realise that the Panda update’s task is to seek out low quality websites with poor content and penalise it for just being an outlet to create back links. Right now a lot of SEO marketers are having to re-think their schemes as to back linking strategies with the blog networks getting targeted by Google, they have to quickly find a new and better way to promote their websites, we are hoping that SEO marketers will play fair in promoting websites and ultimately that is what Google wants, a fair game where everyone has a chance of getting to the top of the ranks.

Of course we all know that it is inevitable that websites used solely for the purpose of back linking will be ‘caught’ by Google and will suffer by getting de-indexed or their page ranks removed, it is just a matter of time as Google seeks to make sure that all sites that come out of their search results are relevant and is a quality rich site for their users. Although, SEO experts also know that many website owners also take the risk by using these schemes to promote their websites and propel them to the top of the page, but ultimately you have to know that it is a risk and just like any other risk, you might find yourself at the bottom of the pack too. So keep in mind that as long as Google is making moves towards cleaning up their ranks so to speak, unnatural back linking schemes will always end up with some semblance of loss for those who use it.

And now as Google zeroes in on these sites, we need to recognize the need to do our SEO’s right. Let’s do it right the first time and follow the rules, so all our efforts will pay off and we will not be left out in the dark when Google finally catches all the schemers.

Internal Linking, What You Need To Know

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:07:47 +1300

Now that you have built your website you should know that it doesn’t end there, not when you want your website to be successful. One measure of success is getting listed on the top of the search engines most especially Google.

But you must also realise that SEO is one of the hardest tasks someone needs to accomplish with regards to website promotion. With each and every website owner out there wanting their shot at the first spot of the search engine, it’s really not an easy task and not many website owners know how to do this. Okay, there are a couple of things you can do. You can do offsite SEO which will entail linking your website to other websites around the World Wide Web. On site SEO which will entail optimizing your site so that search engines will love it by using keywords, keyword placement, title tags, meta tags, h1, h2 or even h3 headings as well as internal linking. Just what is it? Here’s your chance to find out.

Internal Linking?

Simply put, internal linking is the process by which you link a page of your website to another page in your website. You might have seen a couple of internal links from a website and not realise it. For example, you’re a site’s homepage and you see a link to the site’s catalogue page, then that link is an internal link, set up correctly internal links allow your visitors to navigate your website easily and learn about your site and its niche easily.

Internal Linking And SEO

For those who delve regularly with SEO, you will know how important back linking is and know that Google and even Bing take this incoming links into consideration when evaluating your website, this is the same for internal links although with a slightly different algorithm perhaps.

If your website contains a page that is critical for your visitors to visit to understand your site better then it is important to link that page to other pages on your site so that it will show the critical nature of the page. And as much as the internal link to that page is evaluated it shows the search engines that the page is important to your site and to the site’s niche as well.

In the end, the correct use of internal links will show your site users as well as search engines the importance of your site pages to particular niches you are working on. So use them wisely.

Building Quality Backlinks To Your Website

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:24:17 +1300

Perhaps the most difficult thing to do with SEO would be backlinking or link building, simply because it’s time consuming as well as requiring a great deal of research and you are not even sure you will get the ranking you want. You will realise this when you see many companies outsourcing their SEO work, use software for link building or leave it be and focus on on-site SEO which by far is the easier task, but you have to realise too that SEO will not be complete without backlinking involved.

So in order to get the best out of your SEO backlinking efforts, here are a few pointers to consider when doing your task.

Not A Quick Fix

Keep in mind that for it to be successful, everything should have a natural flow in your backlinking, so you shouldn’t try to boost up your backlinks quickly especially using tactics that boost backlinks quickly. Google knows this and knows when you are trying to fool it. So keep in mind that your backlinks needs to look natural.

Don’t Fool The System

Okay, so it is a given that by doing your own backlinks, you are trying to ‘game’ the system, but just make sure that you are not being overly aggressive about it. You need to know your niche and concentrate on it and not try to cover other niches no matter how much it may seem close to your actual niche. This will make your site more credible and will have more authority in the end, thereby giving you a higher ranking in search engines and even page ranks.

Do More Than Backlinking

Okay, I know I have said that link building is perhaps the most important aspect of SEO, but it will also be helpful if you would make sure that you have good on-site SEO as well as content building.

Relevancy: Key Factor

Okay, keep in mind that yes, you are doing back linking and yes you’re efforts are paying off but make sure that should visitors or target clients come to your site that they will find relevant content that compliments the anchor texts you have used in your back linking strategies. You may think that it is not relevant, but it is very important that your anchor text is related to the content in your site.

As a final point, you have to understand that back linking is a very important aspect of SEO and you should always use it as a part of any SEO campaign, but just like with everything, careful and respectful use of such is of outmost importance if you want it to be a successful tool in marketing your site.

Waiting For The Facebook Timeline Rollout

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:17:50 +1300

Okay, so you now know that Facebook is getting another overhaul and they will replace their profile with the Facebook Timeline and it’s inevitable with the timeline going live for good in the next few weeks. But there are still some who have no idea about it, so for those who have no idea what Timeline is or what it will bring to facebook users, then here’s what to expect.

The Menu Bar

There’s a floating menu bar at the top of your screen. You can use this to add events to your timeline.

Now, events are divided into several categories, work and education, family and relationships, Living, health and wellness, milestones and experiences, and other life events. These are generally all self explanatory but the timeline allows you to edit these directly from the menu bar easily.

Adding An Event To Your Timeline

When you want to add an event to your timeline, you can easily do this by clicking a button and a pop-up window comes up and you will be able to fill up fields that are relevant to the category you have specified. You can even add photos and such to add to your timeline as well.

Privacy

By default your time line is open to “public view” but you may choose to limit those who will see your timeline by clicking the drop down menu at the bottom of the page and set up your privacy level. You can customise this setting by only allowing a particular group of friends to see your updates for a particular event.

Events in Your Timeline

The good thing about the time line is you can easily customise it to show up the most relevant events in your life and you can either let it go at the two-column space or decide to shrink it down to a single column. You can also hide or delete events as you see fit.

Recent Activities

Unless you otherwise specify timeline notifies your friends of any recent activities you may have completed. You can remove the alerts by hitting “x”. You can also update your timeline directly, you can do this by clicking the plus button that appears when you hover over the central blue line.

So you might want to fill your timeline with milestones of your life from the day you were born, or you can choose to just update recently, or maybe just leave it all blank. It’s really all upto you, but Facebook timeline is coming and its here to stay so brace yourselves folks!

How Your Header Can Drive People Away

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:19:04 +1300

As most of us probably do, whenever we visit a website, the first thing we give attention to is the header image of that website. So you will see that it is important to have a good enough header that your visitors will be impressed. It has been an essential part of the website for the longest time. Web designers have given a new twist and excitement to header images. In any website, it is the header image that introduces the mission and having a lifeless header image might probably kill the experience. Let's see how we can use headers to appeal to your target audience.

In With The New...

A rectangular header design is no longer good enough for a website like it used to years ago! If you have an established website with fans already following you, you might not have to create catchy header images. But if you are just starting up, you need to be unique and catchy so that viewers would be attracted to visit your website. We customers buys some stuffs because we got attracted to the wrapper or the cover without even sometimes knowing what’s inside right?

It is very easy for designers to come up with standard images because of the availability of plenty of default designs and plugins. But that alone will not work out anymore. Being part and staying in this kind of field for a long time means you have to be creative. You have to think outside of the box.

Unfortunately, most people do that. The image you see above a website has become the default website for those who are in a hurry. They don’t think of what to put in the website thoroughly, not realizing that having a good website especially a catchy header image will help attract more visitors. Instead they register a domain, pickup any template and header image so they can go live in just a few minutes.

So the question is how can we get out of the old ways and take the first step toward being creative? What can one really do with the default header sizes, shapes and designs? Yes it’s true that default header images are supposed to be what they are but a little editing and alteration can make a basic header image turn to a very catchy one. I have a few ideas how to tweak header images

Submerge!

Creating a simple and unique header’s image and make it look really different from the rest is actually easiest if you are into it. You will realise that you can incorporate your header with your entire design and make your website look great and appealing, even without a header.

Break The “Text Book” Definition of Dynamic Headers

Minimize using the iQuery codes to make your headers look compelling. We can actually make it a bit unique since it is a fact that most web designers are already using either flash header or iQuery based header.

Take a look at Raskulls’ header design. His website has managed to look well to proportion the image of a compelling header with a clean header. The end result polished looking header image that justifies Raskulls’ niche. I am not asking you to completely stop using iQuery or flash header as well. What I want to point out is that it’s about time that we use compelling header images and one that is unique from the rest. The header image should be able to stand out from the rest to be able to attract viewers or visitors.

Get rid of the header if you must! Who says that you have to have a header? If you don't want it, you are confused as to what you need to do with it, then by golly, don't use it!

In the end...

Header images have indeed come a long way. I have stumbled upon lots of website that have experimented with header designs with successful end results. But unfortunately for others, they go about building websites and creating header images without extensive thinking and planning. Bear in mind that you can maintain having a simple looking header design if your website is already well established and has already gained huge number of visitors. But if you are new in the business, you have to be meticulous in choosing designs for your website so it can make a very good impact with your target audience.

Facebook’s New TimeLine

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 18:57:48 +1300

Facebook has launched its timeline for brands and companies now have an opportunity to rehash their social media marketing strategies. It might sound overwhelming , more so for the newbie, but it’s easier when you have the basic understanding. So let’s take a quick peek.

Okay, so from last Wednesday, Facebook has had an overhaul for brands and you are now given more features and if you are not yet familiar, then you better start reviewing them now. The timeline for Facebook will be permanent fixture come March 30.

Perhaps the most outstanding feature is the cover photo that allows you to highlight features and update without going to a separate page.

Now, as a company or as a brand you will realise that this change allows for you to tell a more appealing and genuine story for your consumers. This might pose as a challenge for companies that don’t know how to engage their audience or a big company that has many modes of operation but it is a challenge that I believe many will face and overcome if they want to utilize the Facebook media successfully.

Here are a few of the earlier adapter of the timeline, check it out

1. Red Bull

Taking advantage of timeline looks so easy for this company, they even created a contest with prizes that allowed them for fan interaction.

2. Manchester United

This professional soccer team has taken advantage of their time line by filling their pages with biographical features that features highlights of the team from 1908

3. Madonna

Here Madonna showcase herself well

4. Coca-Cola

Coca cola was founded in May 8, 1886 and their timeline shows this by featuring a collection of stories of how people made Coke what it is today

5. Walmart

Walmart opened themselves to the public in 1962 and their timeline shows their old stores and how the company has evolved.

6. Coldplay

Coldplay’s timeline shows that the band’s first show was in 1998 and includes a lot of anecdotes about the bands early days.

7. People

You will see a lot of famous people in the People’s cover photo

8. Today Show

The cover photo shows the Today’s cast and the timeline explores the show’s progression for 60 years

9. Lexus

The company’s timeline shows a number of milestones for the company since inception in 1893.

10. Facebook

And finally, of course, Facebook will not be left behind in its own update.

Timeline allows you to do some tidying up of your Facebook page, it might be tedious as it also requires some knowledge of your own company, so a little research is required but in the end, the effort can prove to be quite beneficial. Will you decide to switch to the new time now or wait till the 30th to give in to Facebook’s Timeline?

Developing Your Brand In Mobile

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:28:23 +1300

You might have noticed that consumers nowadays are hooked on mobile. According to researcher Flurry, from June of last year, consumers have been spent more time on mobile apps rather than being online on the web.

A report by Mary Meeker, show sales of tablets and smartphones put together beat the sale of personal computers for the first time. You may be well aware of this as you, yourself has spent time on your mobile phone rather than on your pc as well.

Developing mobile websites may seem like a very simple and affordable way to do to continue being visible in this environment but there is another option however. And that is to develop your own mobile application. This may seem impossible a few years ago. But now prices are lower and the target market has grown and the chances that your competitors will offer mobile apps if you don’t offer one is pretty big. Let’s delve deeper

Go for iOS or Android?

Let’s take a look at your choices now that you have established expectations. Let’ say for instance that you have a budget that will suffice for only one version of your app, which one would you prefer then? iOS or Android?

Here is a thought for you to ponder on. First is that iOS is the basic and gives you the chance to develop a fancy app. Android, on the other hand has a more enormous promising market. You may realize that going android makes more sense in spite developers persisting disposition towards iOS.

Although you may realize that there is an option to develop for both. There are available tools in the market like Appcelerator’s Titanium platform for instance that allows you to convert your iOS app into an Android app at a very affordable rate and there are also available cross-platform app design tools.

Keeping it simple

So what should be on your apps exactly? That will depend of course to what type of business you manage. You need to make sure however that your app is capable of doing plenty of things and do them well of course. You have to consider how your customer would connect to your apps on their mobile phone. Will they instinctively think of using their phones when they need directions to go to one of your locations? Then a store finder or directions feature is needed. Just make sure that the app you will develop is something your users will find useful and something that easily connects the app to your company or business.

Fonts in Your Web, How Important Are They?

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:01:18 +1300

Typography, not many designers take this into consideration and as such some designs come out looking out of whack simply because of wrong font usage.

Comic sans was once a much used font for many designers who just simply didn’t know what font to use on their website. It looks handwritten, yet it was a font and it was easier than wracking your brain for a font to use. But then when people start to criticise your work, you will see how wrong you were in haphazardly choosing what font to use. It’s okay to make mistakes when you are still learning but in the professional field, it is important to make good decisions in all aspects of the design, even with a ‘minor’ detail like font usage.

Now, choosing the right font may not be so easy more so for the novice professional, so here are a few pointers to consider when choosing typography for your design, but one thing you have to keep in mind though is that, at the end of it all, ensuring that your design is aesthetically pleasing.

End Result

Well, really this is self explanatory right? You need to look at your design and see the end result for that particular font. You also need to take into consideration at who will ultimately look at the design, the target market. You might want to make a quick research in order to get the feel of what your target market will like.

So, you’re seeing that its quite easy to learn your readers and follow what they will ultimately like. Since you’re just starting out, it might not be too obvious to you how wrong font selection can affect your design in particular and your website in general.

Whitespace

There has never been a lack of articles for whitespace and its importance. Whitespace is very important, that cannot be stated often enough. A font that doesn’t take into consideration spacing can create quite a mess for your site. Tight fonts can cause confusion and result in a message not clearly sent across. Using a font that will help readers read through your information as quickly as possible can surely help in sending that all important message across.

Overexperimenting

You can experiment perhaps with other graphic elements of your design but never experiment with fonts is generally what is important here. Fonts with uneven shape or size can look artsy but may just become another graphic element and not send any good message across.

Headline Fonts Are For Headlines

It’s self explanatory right? Avoid using headline fonts for your paragraphs. Know that header fonts are designed specifically for that. Remember just because a font looks good on your header, doesn’t mean that you should use it in your paragraphs.

Okay, in the end, as was mentioned in the first part, what is important is how good it looks on your design and how readable it is that you get your message across without compromising your design aesthetics. For a newbie, it might not be that easy, but as you gain experience in this field, you will surely find yourself with a few choice fonts to be your favourites and use them in much of your designs for sure.

4 Characteristics of Social Media Strategies

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:51:03 +1300

You might realise that social media strategies have become a forefront for many companies in marketing their brand. You might also realise that the value of such is very simple when you think about it. It simply lets the consumers get closer to their brand and gives them an avenue to voice their opinion whether good or bad and encourages better buying decisions. For many companies this trend also allows them to realise the trends, what their customers want allowing for better customer service and maximize their sales potential by opening new channels for selling opportunities as well as improve satisfaction on the employee level. Making use of social media is still a baby in the industry of marketing so to speak with many not being able to leverage the system as of yet but many are realising the potential as well and not taking action right now can mean you paying a high price for such neglect later.

You may realise though too that each company may have a different approach to their strategies but in the end there are 4 top considerations that you have to consider when taking in this strategies, they are:

Social Media Marketing is Both Internal and External

Connectivity within an organization is important. You may realise that improving communication within the organization itself is beneficial regardless of the size of the company.

Internal social networks allow for communication and collaboration internally thus facilitating idea sharing and conversation between peers. A forum that allows for asking and answering question can also be a good avenue to realise problems and seek for solutions within the realms of the company and knowing how employees feel at the onset can foster solutions to problems before they can balloon into a bigger problem.

External social networks on the other hand allow the company a face and a name on the public realm. In establishing your company within Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other popular social media networks allows your company to reach out to the target market or your consumers and allows for them to have an avenue to communicate with you and know about you or your company.

Personal recommendations also comes into play in this regard as a consumer who “knows” you will recommend you to others and recommendations has become a great influence in buying decisions these days.

Social Media Marketing is Personal

In this day and age of social media and social networks, you might realise that the consumer finally gets a voice and many companies are given the chance to address their consumer’s needs proactively instead of reactively

You will see a company’s social page filled up with comments, questions and even opinions from consumers about their products and the company is given a clear picture of how the product, and the company in general is perceive by their target audience, and they can even tap in to the demographics of their consumers, tapping into these data allows them to realise the needs of their consumers and they can identify concerns of the consumers and resolve them on the onset and create brand advocates rather than brand suppressors.

Social Media is Relative

You must also take into account that social media is relative, meaning your consumer might be looking for information that is relevant to what they are doing, and for customers to make an educated decision, they must be informed with relevant data given at just the right time, if they can’t find the information they want, they will move on, you can be sure of that. So you need to be smart and build a good solid customer social network base.

A good contextual interaction between you and your consumers and even your employees mean that you make your target audience feel valued and significant, by allowing their voices to be heard, get assistance when needs or allow for their knowledge to shine through by helping others within your social network gives your consumer a sense of loyalty that only these moves can bring.

Social Media is Mobile

Social media is indeed mobile, to think otherwise is unrealistic. With the advent of mobile devices like the android phones, iPhone and iPad and other such mobile devices, you cannot assume that your audience is sitting at home or in an office at a desk. You should learn to embrace mobility and establish a strategy that is meant for mobile devices more so for the principle of social networks as these sites are embracing mobility and adjusting their networks to such, doing the same thing will mean a larger captive audience.

On paper, social media is an extremely simple task but in practice, you might be surprised at its complexity but knowing what to do will surely bring you back in check. Also, you might note that a truly social company knows to adopt various strategies and create a balance approach to social media marketing and thus each approach will be aptly suited to what you need at that precise moment.

Speaking With The Design

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:00:00 +1300

Graphic design is something that should speak to you in very clear tones. Imagine walking into an art gallery with me for awhile and you see the works of the artists on display. They are a smattering of color and patterns that were born out of an imaginative and creative mind. People look on and pretend that they get what the artist is saying; they pretend that this is this and this is that. People say oohh and Ahhh a lot and those who are with them nod their heads in silent approval pretending to understand as well.

Well the truth is most people do not understand art and since a lot of people who work in Graphic design have a background in the arts in one way or the other some of them carry this sort of vagueness in their work which should not be the case at all because the subject should speak in very distinct lines and in tones that can be very well understood by someone who didn’t have to go and have an art degree to appreciate it. It can be bold and imaginative but it should be something that everyone can get or at least something that the target audience can get for the product that is being endorsed or featured.

Graphic design should invoke something from the viewers and that something is a feeling that they have not felt before when looking at just art. The goal is lost sometimes because the space is cluttered with too much detail when a minimalist approach is needed to begin with or sometimes there are too little details. There should also be a good sense of balance when it comes to works such as these since people won’t bother looking at something that does not grab their eye for at least 10 seconds or more. There are ads that do these and most of them do not involve women in various states of undress. Since this is an art form in itself it does offer a lot of diversity and different approaches when it comes to its actual presentation. Those creative enough do not need shocking images right away to sell something, it should border on the sublime, it should be something that people will remember and it should be something that will sell the product in question regardless of the time and place that it was put on.

Building Your Presence through Facebook Marketing

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:26:47 +1300

You have to realise that Facebook is used by over 500 million people worldwide, that’s a lot of people to expose your business to, so you have to know the value of using Facebook as an internet marketing tool to grow your business and find success.

The Demographics

Most of these Facebook users are within the 18-35 age ranges and as such most of them don’t have heavy responsibilities of family yet, not buying a home, not paying mortgage or looking for a serious career so you may realise that they are open to buying consumer stuff and augmenting their lifestyle. So you can be at the very least sure that you will pique some interest in the buying public.

Facebook has grown to be more than just a social network but a lifestyle among peers and a means to communicate and stay in touch with each other as well as show off businesses. Here are a few more factors you can consider if you’re considering doing Facebook marketing.

Lifestyle Infiltration

The thing with Facebook is that it has grown into the skin of so many of its users with many professing to check their Facebook page at least twice a day. Imagine exposing your business to people more than twice a day with very little effort? An updated Facebook page will be seen by your market everyday and as you remain in their sights so does your product remain in their mind. You have won half the battle in advertising, making your audience aware of your existence.

Budget Friendly

Well, its true, creating a page on Facebook is FREE!!! You just need to be a little creative in designing your page and letting people know what you are offering. You also need to be a bit active on your page and there you do, a free online advertising machine without spending too much on it. So you can seriously cut your advertising budget and still get a successful campaign running through Facebook.

Targeting

Another plus factor about Facebook is targeting, aside from the fact that generally people who will like your page are people who are generally interested in what you are offering. You can also target specific demographics in order to get the bull’s-eye on your target. If you have the budget then you can use Facebook advertising, again to target a specific audience on Facebook, so your ads will only be exposed to specific people you target.

With all the advantages being offered, you will be hard pressed to find a reason not to go to Facebook for you marketing efforts. So make sure that you take advantage of what this social media has to offer before you get left behind in the band wagon that is social media marketing. Stay tuned for more on Facebook.

Marketing Lessons To Learn

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:36:30 +1300

Way before iPhone took over the mobile media and even before Google dreamed of getting into the mobile industry, the blackberry has been on top of the game with everyone waiting in line to get their own blackberry phones.

But now, not many want a blackberry, everyone is hankering for an iPhone! So where do you think Research in Motion has gone wrong? Come, let us count the ways.

Great Products

So you should make great products, in what sense? It should be something people will be passionate about, it has to be something people will talk about and people will want. Well, many wanted a blackberry and many was hankering for one. But the problem is RIM stopped developing them and concentrated on another product that didn’t really hit the mark.

Creating great products that is user friendly, aesthetically good looking and make people feel good about owning such product will really help in ensuring you stay on top of the market.

Build On Your Strengths

It is always better to build on your strengths instead of working on your weakness to improve it. Like for example, Blackberry was RIM’s strength and they left it to develop something that they have no strength on and what happened is that they got left behind on both areas, the smartphone industry and the tablet industry as well.

So it is good to identify your strengths and give focus on that so that talent, resources and funding will go to that and give you marketing strength instead of dividing your resources into various stuff and in the end you just lose out on everything.

Continue Developing Your Products

So you’ve attained a measure of success towards a particular product. It might be better to improve your product, services and marketing in that area, because you can be sure that the competition is doing the same thing, if you leave your product of strength and let it rot there, you will surely find yourself on the end of the bandwagon instead of being the leader of the band. Keep in mind that you need to be consistent as well as aggressive if you want to continue gaining success in your chosen industry and to maintain such success.

Know Your Market

Identify who you want to sell to. In that essence you will know how to effectively market your product and what services you need to develop for them. If you don’t know your target market, then you will never be able to successfully market your product.

Set Your Marketing Tone

You should always set the marketing tone, if you are a big company then your top executives should set the tone, the marketing tone. Watch Steve Jobs talk about the ipad and you'll see what I'm talking about. The very same words he used to 'market' ipad are the very same words used by his marketing team as well as the media and the market themselves when talking about ipad. Train your marketing team to talk about your products in the same way and in this way, you will see that the market itself, and even the media will market your product the same way as well.

Avoid Unforced Errors

Try not to do something that will jeopardize your product. Ensure that what you have been doing and what works, you will do continually and take steps to improve it and not abandon it in the wild. Ensure that everything you will do, you have researched and studied for. And if you do something different, make sure that you know how to back it up and get ready to face the consequences so that you can contain the backlash and keep your consumers placated.

Talk To Your Customers

These days there are tons of ways you can communicate with your consumers. If you’re planning something, you can get a poll going on your website, a contest on Facebook and stuff like that. You will get the feel of your consumers this way and you can focus on developing products and services that your consumers want and advocate.

In the end, you need to learn these marketing lessons if you want to make some measure of success in any marketing effort for any product in any industry.

Google Adwords and You

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:07:27 +1300

Okay, so you want to drive traffic to your site, and the best recourse you are seeing is to make use of Google Adwords. Great idea, one might say, but you have to have an understanding on what it really means to use adwords to generate traffic lest you might find you’ve lost the very shirt on your back and didn’t generate any sales at all.

So let’s learn a bit about Adwords and what it takes to generate some real good traffic with it.

Before we get started with adwords, you have to prepare your website first, make sure that your website is ready to convert. Meaning your site needs to be optimised and everything has to be in order, images needs to be loading correctly, your site needs to be loading correctly. You need to make sure that all important elements are there and that everything in your site is working accordingly.

Next, you need to make sure that your keyword is the best one for your business. Make a research and keyword analysis in order to come up with the best keywords for your site. Long tail keywords are usually known to make the best conversion in terms of sales. You may not want to use generic keywords as they also send generic traffic so to speak and as such, you might not find a lot of conversions with these types of keywords and you might end up spending more on your ad campaign than what will come in, in terms of sales and conversions.

It might also be wise if your ads clearly indicate that you are selling something, if they are too broad, then people might think that it’s only an information site, they will click your link and you will pay and in the end they will not be buying anything, you just wasted some ad campaign fund on lost causes.

What I have mentioned above is a good place to start but you have to realise that you need a lot of information before you can begin to spell success on any ad campaign and a Google Adwords campaign is no different from any other marketing campaign you may start. It requires research and a lot of information for it to reach any measure of success. Remember “knowledge is power” and once you have it, you know you’ll find success.

Developing Your Concepts And Overcoming Blocks

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:49:11 +1300

If you’re a writer then you probably know about writer’s block, if you are a designer, you probably know about designer’s block. Now, for regular folks, they might not realize what this is all about, but this ‘block’ is for real. Well this is when a writer or a designer feels uninspired and cannot do any decent work. I think it will be fair to say that we all have experienced this ‘block’ at one point or another. Whether it’s a full block or just a partial block it’s always a nuisance when you suddenly feel that you can write a decent sentence or draw a straight line.

So what should you do in case you have writer’s or designer’s block? Well for one you can always do mind exercises to get your creative juices flowing. If you having a hard time creating concepts in your head then you might want to try a few of these strategies to get ‘em going.

MIND MAPPING

This is a diagram used to represent ideas into words and graphic links to a central idea. This one is a brainstorming idea and this also helps in planning and categorizing tasks on hand.

STORYBOARDING

This is most effective for graphic designers and illustrators who want to visualize animation or even a motion picture. Illustrations are organized in sequence and as such the story progression is seen and plans on elaborating design is constructed as well.

FREE HAND WRITING

This is a good exercise for writers. You get a piece of paper and write down everything that’s on your mind. It can be sentences, a word, a collection of words perhaps even some drawings. This will help you unclutter your mind so new ideas can pop through.

LAYOUTING

You can sketch layouts from all your inspiration, mix and match colours and fonts until inspiration strikes and you are directed to where you want to go.

You can use the methods noted above to get through a block and formulate your concepts when inspiration is lacking. The idea is to create a variety of choices before choosing the most feasible one for you and for you client of course. So after you’ve come up with your design concepts, talk them through with the client and so you can pick a few that you can develop further.