Archive for July, 2008
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Get Over Your Technophobia With These Simple TricksJul 29 2008 | Design |
Modern blog platforms, like Wordpress, make it easy for anyone to write content for a website without much knowledge of HTML or CSS. You can simply use a WYSIWYG (the Visual part to HTML/CSS code) editor. It is definitely a great way for non-technical people to write and format content. Here are a few tips that will help you stylize and format your content, so that your posts really draw attention:
Image Sizing and Positioning
It’s no secret that images are an essential part of making a post interesting and visually stimulating. Patrick Winfield wrote an extensive post about finding images online.
After finding your image, it is important to resize it to fit your post. Here is an example of a guy who has some technophobia:
5 Comments » - Posted in Design by Victor Murygin
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Contests generate traffic, but will your business win?Jul 24 2008 | Contests |
Contests, especially user-generated ones, have the ability to drive significant traffic and links to a site. For example, there are many sites like Contest Hound and Contest Blogger, that share information about various available contests. Many participants connect with contest for the following reasons:
- Win a prize (monetary or material)
- Recognition
- Connect with the brand
In order for people to connect with a contest, the concept needs to be relevant to the target audience’s interests. Issue-based organizations have been extremely successful at drawing many participants and encouraging feedback, regardless of the prize. However, consumer goods struggle with contests, especially if the rewards are nominal.
Wells Fargo, the financial services company, is offering a contest that encourages users to submit a story of what they would accomplish if they had a certain amount of money. Some Day Stories is rewarding the winner with $100,000.
6 Comments » - Posted in Contests by Patrick Winfield
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The Ultimate Guide To Decoding Digg SpeakJul 17 2008 | Social Networks |
R U a Digg n00b that gets pwned by 1337 Digg Commenters? Well RTFM so teh next time ur comment won’t be an EPIC FAIL!
On Digg, having something to say is only half the battle, knowing how to say it is the other half. This guides you to dissect the jargon, people and memes used in comments on a daily basis. Each section is broken down in detail to help you boost your Digg cred the next time that you leave a comment.
3G - Third Generation of mobile phone standards and technology
AMD - Advanced Micro Devices (mainly a CPU competitor to Intel)
API - Application Programming Interface
APOD – Astronomy Picture of the Day (link)
BS – Bullsh*t
CCTV - Closed-circuit television (UK public surveillance)
CCFL - Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (Modern light bulb that uses a fraction of the electricity of regular light bulb)
29 Comments » - Posted in Social Networks by Greg Finn
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Video Optimization and Analytics: A closer look at YouTube Insight |
Have you ever wondered how videos show up in web search engine results? How do videos get hundreds of thousands to millions of views on YouTube? Who’s watching my videos? Well, with a little hard work on optimizing and networking your video content and a helpful tool called YouTube Insight, you can be on your way to working with video and optimizing it for real business results.
YouTube Insight is a handy analytics tool that displays statistics for YouTube Videos. By using Insight you’ll discover statistics such as:
- how many views your video has over specific periods of time,
- the demographic and geographic breakouts of the views and
- how people are finding the video content (web search, YouTube search, embed, etc…)
Though Insight’s data is not always 100% accurate (YouTube states this when you are working with it) and can use some further development in features and functionality, it’s a great start to gaining “insight” to this ever so important media.
13 Comments » - Posted in Analytics, Social Media Marketing, Video by Jake Matthews
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Rewind to Fundamentals: The 10 Best Ways to Find the Perfect Image for your Blog Post |
Images are an important way to add that extra kick to your blog posts. They are often the first thing that attracts visitors to read further. But where do you find good image?
After completing your masterpiece, you begin to search endlessly around the internet for an image that depicts the core message of your post. When you finally find that perfect one, it is locked up in licenses and conditions that require a lawyer or a credit card. You are obviously frustrated and find yourself spending more time looking for another image than writing that post. Let’s explore some resources that will help you find that image!
Stock photography sites require a paid subscription and offer many choices and sometimes the best results. It can also be the most played out, overused, politically correct looking fluff out there. However, there are so many sources available, from the super expensive sites like Getty, to the middle of the road places like Shutter Stock and iStockPhoto.
