YouTube Puts Another Nail in the Coffin of IE6
Feb 25, 2010 by Victor Murygin | News, Web DevelopmentMany developers are familiar with problems of making a perfectly standard website display properly in Internet Explorer 6 browser. Usually a development process would consist of testing the site in Firefox or another standard compliant browser. Then, after opening it up in IE6, one would need to figure out why in the world it’s not displaying properly; trying to adjust the HTML/CSS code or applying some IE6-specific hacks to the code that have been known to work.
In years past, the most difficult part was to try to explain to a client why one should not use IE6. You would be lucky to find a client who is somewhat technically sound and would listen to you. But most of the time, they don’t really know or care what “W3C standard compliance” means for them, or what a browser is, in the first place. Microsoft made a genius marketing decision by putting the word “Internet” in their browser name, and to most non-technical people “Internet Explorer” is Internet.
Most importantly, the clients cared that IE has been the most popular web browser, and thus could not be ignored. At the end of the day this just meant extra time and headache for web developers (some horror stories have people spending up to 30% of their development time on IE6 fixes and adjustments).
Google has recently announced that it is dropping support for the Internet Explorer 6 browser on March 13. If you visit youtube.com in the IE6 browser you will now see a big exclamation message in red: “Your browser will be unsupported soon. Please upgrade to a modern browser.”, along with links to a few browsers to upgrade to. This is following a previous announcement of Google Docs and other Apps dropping support for IE6 on March 1st.
In the recent years, since the release of IE7 and IE8 there has been a push from the internet community to at least make the public upgrade their Internet Explorer browsers (if not switch from IE altogether), which included even tricking the visitors to upgrade their browsers.
Over the last two years the usage of IE6 has been dwindling down. But it still consists of 10-20% of the web usage depending on which resource you trust. So recently the problem has been getting better, but once in a while you still run into a client who is using IE6 and it is usually not a pleasant discussion.
Since now the developers have upgraded, and test the site in IE8, most don’t even care about IE6 anymore, until they run into a client who is using one; at which point the discussion begins of why the client is seeing weird things, and then eventually leads to developers trying to convince the client to drop the IE6 requirement. Some, after having learned their lesson, are even putting ‘No IE6 support’ in the initial proposal, to insure that no extra time will be spent on it after the development is over.
One of the biggest users of IE6 (besides old people) are many company employees who do not have permissions to upgrade their browsers at their work. This is a job for their IT department, and often times an IT upgrade of any kind for a company means spending money. In this case one really needs to push the ‘non-security’ aspect of IE6 to an employee hoping that it will get to the top. After all, no company wants to deal with viruses or potential data leaks. There is a speculation that the most recent hacking of Google by Chinese Government came from the security vulnerability of IE6. Thus Google’s recent announcements to drop support for IE6, does not seem like a mere coincidence.
So how does YouTube’s dropping support for IE6 help you and your developers? Well for one, it should be easier for you to convince the clients (or your bosses) to forget about IE6 and upgrade, if they still use it. Google and many other huge websites dropping IE6 really makes it legitimate. Before, it was just your word against theirs. Now you can cite examples of other companies dropping IE6 with Google being the biggest of them all. Another good stat to share is to show them how the usage of IE6 has been decreasing over the recent years.
During these discussions it is also a good idea to mention that they should always try to upgrade their browsers (especially Internet Explorer) to newest versions to avoid being outdated. People usually upgrade the things in their daily lives often, such as cell phones, gadgets, and even cars. Why should a browser be any different. Educating them to stay away from Internet Explorer in general may also be a good idea. IE7 has some problems with CSS rendering, especially with CSS dropdown menus (although not as many problems as IE6). Also, the fact that none of the IE browsers support HTML5 or CSS3 functionalities, really makes out IE to be the big anchor holding back the innovation on the web. After all, developers cannot fully build websites with new HTML5 or CSS3, if IE doesn’t support them and people are still using IE.
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Breaking Down Design & Art Related Social Networking Sites
Feb 24, 2010 by Patrick Winfield | Design, Social NetworksSome niche social networking sites can seem tough to break into and become a part of the community. One of the best ways to get involved is to study what people in the community are doing and simply join in! Sometimes just hanging around and observing will give you a taste of the language or formalities that are normal for a specific niche or community.
For this post I looked for some specific design and art related social sites and tried to dissect what each site is all about, how they may be beneficial to use and how to become a contributing member with the community.
deviantART
deviantArt aims to provide a place for any artist to exhibit and discuss works. Works are organized in a comprehensive category structure, including photography, digital art, traditional art, literature, Flash, filmmaking, skins for applications, Furry and others. DA also has extensive downloadable resources such as tutorials and stock photography. Member submissions are known as “deviations.” The goal of the site is to allow artists and art lovers to interact in a variety of ways, ranging from the submission of art to conversations on a number of topics.
This site is a thriving community. The best way to get noticed and to have the community interacting with your work is to comment, comment and comment some more! Post replies and threads in the forums. Comment on peoples artwork and user pages, use the chat room and the shout box. Give out good and constructive comments, to stand out – many people will like to return the favor. You don’t get anything out of it if you don’t put something into it. In other words, you reap what you sow.
Although all the reviews and comments about deviantART are not favorable. Encyclopedia Dramatica has this to say about the community, “If the art community as a whole had cancer, then deviantART would be the biggest malignant tumor of them all.”
Concept Art.org
A lot of the members from deviantART migrate to ConceptArt.org if their work is of a certain caliber. There is drama here just like in deviantART and most of it seems to come from deviantART members that can’t take constructive critiques.
I like the layout of the site and how they feature certain artists and thumbnails of various artworks. The forums are pretty similar to DA and the heavier threads pertain to critiques and art technique suggestions and ideas.
Flickr
Flickr is a HUGE online photo and video hosting website as well as online community. There is an overwhelming amount of amazing photography and art to view. They have a great search feature and also offer users the ability to either release their images under certain common usage licenses or label them as “all rights reserved”. The licensing options primarily include the Creative Commons 2.0 attribution-based and minor content-control licenses – although jurisdiction and version-specific licenses cannot be selected. As with “tags”, the site allows easy searching of only those images that fall under a specific license.
Flickr groups are a great way to post your photos and get a specific audience. They even have local groups. There are groups for a variety of topics, velvet art is your thing? There is a group for that! Learn about other great ways to market on Flickr.
Flickr has entered into partnerships with third parties to offer printing of various forms of merchandise, including business cards, photo books, stationery, personalized credit cards, and large-size prints, from companies such as Moo, Blurb, Tiny Prints, Capital One, Imagekind, and QOOP. In addition, Flickr has partnered with Getty Images to sell stock photos from some users.
Flickr asks photo submitters to organize images using tags (a form of metadata), which enable searchers to find images related to particular topics, such as place names or subject matter. Flickr was also an early website to implement tag clouds, which provide access to images tagged with the most popular keywords. Because of its support for tags, Flickr has been cited as a prime example of effective use of folksonomy.
Coroflot
Coroflot is the creative world at work. It has grown to host over 1.4 million images of creative work, from the portfolios of over 150,000 creative professionals and students from nearly every country on earth. Coroflot users are industrial, graphic, fashion, interior, textile and interaction designers; 3D modeling and rendering specialists; architects, illustrators, art directors, design managers, and dozens of other disciplines.
There are no membership requirements, application processes, or invites. If you’re a designer or someone who avidly follows creative work, they want you. If your work is good, it will find its way to the surface; if you need inspiration or advice, the world’s most active professional creative community can show you what’s what.
Vimeo
Vimeo, which had the original HD internet video, is a respected community of creative’s that are passionate about the videos they make. Vimeo’s groups allow you to create communities within Vimeo around the things you like. Share and discuss videos, photos, music, and events with other people that enjoy the same stuff. The more you interact with the community, the more interest in your work there will be. Get involved and you will enjoy the rewarding experience that Vimeo can provide.
COLOURlovers
COLOURlovers is an international community of designers and artists of all kinds who visit the site to get color inspiration, ideas and feedback for both their professional and personal projects. COLOURlovers’ loyal members create colors, palettes and patterns to nurture their ongoing love affair with color. They join color-inspired groups and forums and share the love by commenting on their favorite creations.
This community is very passionate about its… color or colour, whatever way you spell it. A lot of niche sites in design and art have a tight community feel already because of the content, that holds true with COLOURlovers. The few times that I joined a forum conversation I was overwhelmed at the amount of support it’s members gave. You can jump right in on the conversation at the forums by asking questions about specific colors or giving advice on already posted questions. If you need some simple color inspiration this is your spot, these people like LOVE color!
Art and design related social networking sites can at first seem foreign, but once you spend some time and get familiar with the language used and the correct way to get the most out of it – you are set. What are some social art/design related sites that have helped you?
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Identify Target Blogs, Networks and Communities in 5 Easy Steps
Feb 22, 2010 by Stephanie Weingart | Social Media MarketingRight now, as you are reading this, there is a blog being born.
There is a community about Fly Fishing with five hundred users and a “Work from Home Daddy” Blog Network with over forty-seven active blogs that have thousands and thousands of unique viewers. Say you run an online ‘Bait and Tackle’ company, wouldn’t this be very valuable information?
Here are 5 easy steps that will help you learn where and how to start finding these magic portals of consumer engagement and information.
1. Search questions, not terms – this is the easy part.
If you haven’t already, search all of the brand terms and sayings that are a part of your business and trade. You might be surprised what you find when you search for a question instead of a product name. By searching for “How To’s…” and action terms like; “Fishing in the summer” you will find a plethora of blogs and networks of people actively discussing your niche.
2. Social Network Searches – Analyze the competition and what your audience might be doing online.
Search your chosen terms and questions on Search.Twitter.com and http://www.facebook.com/search/ .
You are now able to search Facebook users status updates. This will help you to pinpoint who is an active audience and who you might want to target. Take some time and research the audience. What other networks are they a part of? How do they prefer to communicate? This will help you when you decide what Social platform to participate the most in.
3. Blogsearch – http://blogsearch.google.com/
By Searching Google’s Blog search engine you will be able to find sites that are hooked up to an RSS feed that match your query. You can set date range, specific searches and can omit spam blogs identified by Google.
4. Alltop – Alltop is a current list of Blogs/Networks/ Websites that are respected and popular.
All lists are broken down by category. This reference point makes it easy to find any possible types of blogs there are…. Even Fishing Blogs! New features of Alltop allow the user to login and make favorite searches and recommendations.
5. Social Search – Joongel.com
Using a Social Media search engine such as Joongel.com will pinpoint sites that are community based and social. The site is broken down searches based on the type of social site you are looking for; shopping sites, blogs, social voting and bookmarking sites, gossip sites, questions and answer sites, and more. It comes with a Web Browser Toolbar and is extremely helpful.
While searching these sites, create your list of sites, networks, blogs, and communities. After you have finished all 5 Steps, you will walk away with a few, if not hundreds of sites that pertain to your business. Hopefully this will expand your horizons and open up communities that your brand will be benefit from in multiple ways.
What are some simple ways that you identify your targets online?
By the way, you can follow the 10e20 Twitter account here.
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When your stock photography just isn’t cutting it and you need to bust out the camera and take some actual photos yourself, you will want those pics to look the best they can. Not everyone has a tool chest full of studio strobe lights, ring flashes or expensive lenses, but quality photos for use online can be obtained with minimal hardware and time. Taking better digital pictures takes practice and a little knowledge of the camera. For this example the subject to photograph will be flat artwork or posters too large to scan.
Tripod
A simple to use, cheap tripod can drastically improve your photographs. A tripod can cut down on and even eliminate shaking of the camera during shutter release. By using a remote trigger to trip the shutter you get rid of shake.
If you do not have a tripod you can get creative and set up some books on a chair or step ladder. To get an angle you can use towels or soft material to tilt the camera.
Lighting
Depending on what your subject is that your shooting your lighting requirements will be different. If you are shooting artwork at home sunlight or natural light is best, when possible. Whether you are shooting photos outdoors or in a room filled with natural light through a window, this is the best choice for capturing most artwork.
When natural light isn’t an option setting up some directional lighting will be necessary. If you have 2 lights of somewhat equal brightness or strength set them up on opposite sides of the artwork to be photographed. The light is best when it is not directly on the artwork but bouncing off of something like a wall or ceiling first.
If you are shooting a 3 dimensional object then strong directional lighting works best. Try playing with the various angles of the lighting. Have one come from behind it and another softer and at another angle, the best option will reveal itself when you are experimenting.
This is a simple lighting setup I created using normal everyday lights:
Flash
Avoid using a flash to photograph your artwork. The flash can cause overexposure from the reflection and create white spots on the final image.
If your lighting just isn’t cutting it and a flash is needed then play with the flash options on your camera to get the best effect for your situation.
Sometimes taping a soft white paper towel overthe flash bulb can diffuse the light just enough to remove any glare from reflections on your subject.
Background
If you are photographing something other than flat 2 dimensional artwork, like a sculpture or a piece of jewelery, a background will be a good way to make the image unified. A neutral or grey background will be optimal to not distract from the subject. Pay attention to backgrounds. Walls are pretty boring; cluttered backgrounds distract. Images that contain many different colors and lots of small detail suffer most when compressed for use online. Plain backgrounds, especially behind faces, help an image reduce well without becoming confusing.
Here is an example of a clean white background versus a more busier looking background:
Simplicity
One of the best tips is to keep it simple! You can almost always improve your digital pictures by zooming in and cutting out all distractions and excess clutter. Also it is better to take lots of pictures than too few. With digital cameras, unwanted photos can easily be deleted.
Save for Web
After the shots are saved and loaded on your computer you may want to go into Photoshop or any image editing software and make some minor image adjustments. May you want to make the shadows darker or crop a photo tighter.
After your image looks good you want to save it for the web. In Photoshop this is an option under the File menu. This compresses the image and saves it at a resolution of 72 ppi for the screen. You can alter the settings to find the best compromise between image quality and file size.
3 Examples of Real World Social Media Conversion (and ROI)
Feb 17, 2010 by Jake Matthews | Analytics, Social Media MarketingEffective social media strategy and execution varies based on the type of business you’re in (B2B or B2C) as well as the particular business vertical. Many marketers wonder if social media marketing is “right” for them, if they can be successful in social and how they’ll measure ROI. These are important considerations for any marketer to ask before engaging in a new strategy or channel.
To help provide insight and answer some of these questions, I want to share a couple of examples of real world Social Media Marketing cases with conversions and success metrics we’ve seen first hand. And while these examples may not answer your particular strategic or tactical needs, they may provide ideas on success metrics for different types of businesses as well as inspiration toward getting started in and measuring your social marketing efforts.
1. Internet Marketing Company - Business to Business (B2B)
Social Networking and Group Participation / Development on LinkedIn
This situation actually involves me in my role of business development at 10e20. Recently I was on LinkedIn and a member of one of my professional groups posted the following message to group memebers: “looking to speak with companies with special focus on social news and bookmarking to help develop traffic to publisher website.” (Paraphrased) As soon as I saw this (about 2 hours after it was sent) I sent a private message to this member requesting a phone call.
The call was set up and several weeks later we were doing business together. It’s likely that without participating in LinkedIn Groups, I would only have met this person offline at some date in the future, if at all. And, because I was prompt in responding through the LinkedIn system, it gave me a leg up on competitors who may have only heard about this through second hand word of mouth. The business lead was really quite targeted.
Conversion
- 1 new business relationship
- B2B Sale for ongoing consulting relationship
- Consulting revenue
ROI
By joining LinkedIn, joining several groups and being helpful to the community by answering some questions, this was one of the CHEAPEST new business leads I have on record.
2. Lifestyle Magazine Website - An online Lifestyle Magazine + Blog Website, Publishing
Social News & Social Bookmarking
With a start up magazine/blog website that monetizes on traffic, impressions and cost per click (CPC) advertising, this publisher was working to develop new traffic and awareness of the website and its great content. Traffic was growing but with active participation in social bookmarking website StumbleUpon, and several other social news/bookmarking sites the new blog site accelerated its growth by having the content achieve rapid viral popularity.
The publisher has since built a sustainable ROI on time and investment in social marketing of content against advertising revenue. Also, hundreds of new backlinks to the website have been developed as a result of social media content promotion. The compounding effect of social news/bookmarking for this publisher is paying big dividends.
Conversion
- Traffic: 10’s of thousands of visitors as opposed to hundreds.
- Clicks on CPC advertisements: thousands of dollars worth as opposed to pennies.
- Impressions for CPM advertising
- Links for SEO and site authority: hundreds of natural links instead of one “here and there”.
- Advertising revenue
ROI
Creating content is part of the publisher/magazine business model so the cost that has gone into social really comes down to time spent bookmarking and submitting content. The bookmarking efforts tally to a couple of hours per week. Advertising revenue from CPC ads tied to social visits far outpaces the time invested for social bookmarking. From this perspective the social media marketing is paying the business back many times over as most traffic is tracked to social media efforts. This is not even counting the link equity (for search value) being built back to the publisher’s domain.
3. Consumer Fashion Brand - Major Women’s Fashion Brand
Social Networking – Facebook, Twitter and more “profile” type sites.
A major national fashion brand with no social media presence worked over several months to establish a presence on social networking websites. Organic growth of their audience on these sites surged to 10’s of thousands of fans and followers; over 75,000 between 2 brands and 4 social accounts in just a couple of months.
Public discussion on social networking websites provided direct consumer feedback to the brands about how to improve their products and customer service. Additionally, social networking sites have provided a new channel to distribute deals messages increasing the foot traffic to key retail store locations for sales.
Conversion
- several hundred thousand dollars in new sales in three months of marketing
- new audience for the brand, reaching new, interested fans of the brand and engaging them
- more direct and effective Public Relations
- more direct and effective responses to customer service issues
- direct consumer feedback for product development. 1 new product is in development after only 3 months in social media
ROI
The equivelent of one mid-level employee’s salary to run a dedicated social media presence, strategy and management has yielded hundreds of thousands of dollars in return in positive online brand sentiment, consumer feedback for product development and actual product sales both online and offline.
These are 3 simple and real world examples of social media conversion and ROI. One could go on and on with examples of positive social media marketing case studies. It’s important to note too that for every success case there are likely an equal amount of social strategies that were fumbled and not properly executed. With that, take stock of your current strategy by conducting regular audits, competitive analysis and measurement through analytics and benchmarking. If not you can become part of the road kill and believe me, the road is littered with companies that fumbled their strategy.
We’re curious to know: what have been some of your experiences and cases with identifying, measuring and benchmarking social conversions and success metrics?
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Ever want to only update your friends with a wall post? Would you like to exclude our boss from seeing your status? Well this guide will show you how to pull this off so your co-workers won’t know you are a party animal and you’re ex-girlfriend won’t see that you are still heartbroken 
.
Here are some possible reasons to use privacy on your posts:
- Keep your work & industry related posts from your friends.
- Block specific users (or lists of users) from ever seeing a post. This can be great when looking to block competitive companies or workers from seeing your posts.
- Deliver more targeted messaging to your segmented groups of friends. You could write a social media oriented wall post and send to a social media list, and dial the copy down when just posting to a general internet marketing list. Having targeted posts can help boost click-throughs by increasing relevancy.
- Block personal posts (and content) from co-workers and other colleagues in your industry
How to Apply Privacy To Your Wall Posts
The key to targeting your wall posts/information is to segment your friends list. By creating detailed lists of your friends, you will have the ability to block specific lists, or show posts to specific people. Here’s how:
Click on the “Friends” link in the left column:
Next, you want to create a list. This list will be how exactly you will segment your friends (and display information).
Making them relevant (high school friends, college friends, co-workers, etc) will help you target your messaging. My personal lists are:
- Friends
- Not Really Friends (you know those people that add you but you haven’t talked to in 10 years)
- Industry
This is what a sample list would look like when completed:
Now that you have your lists set up, you can start segmenting your wall posts away! Let’s look at an example of a wall post for an update that I might want some people in my industry(and my bosses) to see:
Now that I have the blog post typed up, I would click on the “Customize” button. This would then take me to the following screen where I can choose who can and cannot see the post:
With this update, none of my friends will see the message … only the people that are on my “Industry” list will see this.
Now, if I wanted to show my friends what I am realllyy doing (while blocking from people in my industry,) I would do the following:
I blocked all of my “not really friends” along with “industry” as well as my boss “Chris Winfield” (he is listed as a friend, not an Industry person) so only my real friends can see what it is that I am doing.
So that is how you can make wall posts that are custom tailored to your audience!
Here are a few key tips to remember:
- Make your lists segmented how you would like to deliver your posts (work, recreation, school, etc)
- You can also block (or add) specific people to a post
- Be careful with your default settings – if you accidentally set this, you could exclude a section of friends from seeing any updates
How to Apply These Settings To Other Facebook Info
Now, while we are on the subject, lets talk about how to block other information from specific people – again, those targeted lists will be a huge help!
Firstly, click on the “Privacy Settings” link underneath the “Account” dropdown in the upper right:
Next, you need to select what you would like to restrict the privacy of. For this exercise, we will restrict the privacy of a photo gallery, so we would click on “Profile Information”:
Now, the next thing to do is to select which section should be changed. Figure out what you would like to change, then click on the customize button:
I ended up choosing “Photo Albums” section and was able to customize the privacy on an album-by-album basis. Just like wall posts, you can customize specific elements by lists and/or by person. Do do this, you just need to show the section to “Some Friends.” Then you can choose which friends will see it based on the list or profile of that person. Here is an example of what I might choose for one of my albums:
This would show the specific album to anyone that I have listed (because I selected all of my lists) but will not show the album to anyone who I haven’t added to a list yet. This can be done with all of your personal information (age, interests, videos, etc) so organize yourself today to make sure that the wrong people are seeing your private information.
Setting up these lists and privacy settings is simple, and can save you a good deal of grief if you are a Facebook fanatic. So create segmented lists and ensure you deliver specific messages & information to the correct people!
Starting on March 2nd and going through March 4th – search, social media, affiliate & just about everyone else in our industry will be invading Santa Clara for SMX West 2010. Greg and I will be heading out there to speak on a couple of really good panels. We’re both going to be presenting on Day 2 (March 3rd) on the social media marketing track. First up will be Greg dropping some serious Facebook marketing knowledge on this panel:
- Panel: Free Ways To Market On Facebook
- Date/Time: March 3rd at 1:30pm PST
- Description: Your Facebook pages – your wall, groups and fan pages — are a parallel universe to your public web pages. Just as you implement search engine optimization tactics to improve web page rankings, Facebook features many opportunities to enhance your visibility. Viral distribution via Facebook’s social tools is an example, but there are many, many others. Expert SEOs on this panel will share field-proven tactics that reveal how to leverage the power of Facebook.
- Panelists: Greg will be joined byJon Fougner (Facebook), Bill Parkes (nFusion), Tony Wright (WrightIMC) and the panel will be moderated by the conference chair, Danny Sullivan.
- Panel: 60 Minutes Per Day For Social Media Success
- Date/Time: March 3rd at 4:45pm PST
- Description: Got a small staff? Just don’t have a lot of time? This session looks at how to succeed with social media marketing by spending an hour per day — or less! Tools and techniques to keep you from feeling swamped in the social media quagmire.
- Panelists: I will joined by Jennifer Laycock (Search Engine Guide) and Matt Siltala (Dream Systems Media).
For the past several months I’ve settled into the role of Director of Social Media here at 10e20. I got to work with and get to know an exceptionally talented group of people, and I’ve worked with some truly pleasant clients. It’s been a challenging and rewarding environment, so it’s with some sadness that I announce my departure from 10e20. My new gig isn’t nearly as follicly awesome as Chris, but it should still be exciting nonetheless.
Since joining the 10e20 team in July, I’ve been so impressed by 10e20’s professionalism, work ethic and encouragement to each other and to our clients. Greg and Jake are two of the hardest working people I’ve ever met. Patrick’s design skills are so fantastic that I’ve threatened to clone him on a regular basis. Victor and PJ pretty much define “cool as a cucumber” and never seem to get frazzled or overwhelmed. Rody is like the Wolf from Pulp Fiction — she always seems to get everything done and make sure all is in order. Steph is very smart and headstrong, and in my short time working with her I can already tell that she’s an invaluable addition to the team. Danielle is nurturing and encouraging, never being too busy with the baby to make time for her employees. And Chris has by far been one of the best work mentors I’ve ever met. He’s straightforward, tough but fair, expectant but encouraging, and knows when and how to get the best possible performance out of his employees.
So why would I leave such a tight-knit family after less than a year? Believe me, the decision was a tough one. While I loved working with everyone, as is the case with many people in this industry, I wanted to transition away from client consulting. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked with some great clients at 10e20, and I hope some of the friendships I’ve made extend far into the future. However, after doing some variation of client work for the past four years, I wanted to change things up and bring my strengths to a different table.
I bet you’re wondering what that table is…well, I can’t really divulge too much because the company’s in “stealth mode” right now, but basically I’ve accepted the role of Director of Marketing and Community Relations for a start-up that’s working on a soon-to-be launched media website. There’s no more client work; instead, I’ll be working diligently on testing and improving things until the launch date, and from there I’ll be marketing the site and building up its community. I’m very excited about it and can’t wait to share more with you all, but for now you’ll have to wait until we get our beta rolled out.
If I could take the entire 10e20 team with me, I would in a heartbeat. Our clients would probably be bummed, but I would selfishly keep them all to myself if I could. I really couldn’t have asked for a better work environment and group of coworkers. I’m really going to miss working with everyone — hopefully I’ll get that New York Marathon entry so I can visit NYC (yes, I still live in Seattle, and no, I never relocated) and run with Jake while our peeps cheer us on. Until then, I’ll still be contributing to the 10e20 blog every so often, plus there will still be great content courtesy of the rest of the team, so keep checking the website and the 10e20 Twitter account for updates.
As for me, I’ll still be around on Twitter, Facebook, email, and my personal blogs (one of which I promise to resurrect and update on a semi-regular basis), plus I’ll continue to guest blog on various industry sites every now and then, so don’t think I’m going into stealth mode along with this new gig. I’ll also be speaking at Searchfest next month alongside Matt Inman (and by “speaking,” I of course mean rushing through my crappy presentation so everyone can hear how awesome The Oatmeal is), so if you’re attending or will be in the Portland area, be sure to say hello.
That’s it for now. Keep 10e20 in your hearts and minds, as they’re one of the best (if not the best) social media marketing companies that exist today. I’m going to miss everyone, but rather than say goodbye, I’ll settle for a “See you soon.”
In the year 2010, it is safe to say the brands who are NOT using Twitter as a communication tool have either decided it is not for their product or they just don’t get it. It is so wonderful to see brands embracing social media, and it’s even more exciting when they embrace the culture and community. Not every brand is comfortable communicating with their community on their community terms. However, speaking to your audience in their own language and adopting their culture is very important to be able to properly get the message delivered. By doing this, brands have acquired the sense of being “tangible” and “friendly,” making the consumer comfortable to engage and participate.
Hashtags are tags used in short messages that are either a single term or multiple words concatenated. They are a very important staple within the Twitter culture.
When to Start a Branded Hashtag
1. When you have a clever tagline or question for a campaign. For example; ”Relax in bed and read a book #SlipperTime“
2. When you have a question the audience will want to answer.
When NOT to Start a Hashtag:
1. If you are trying to start a trend by creating a hashtag that will have no value in being used multiple times.
2. If the hashtag would be valuable for competitors’ brands.
When to Use Popular Hashtags:
1. When your brand can contribute to the community or be humorous. For example: “Don’t Forget The Mayo #4wordsaftersex“
2. When your brand can contribute to current and popular events.
Where to Begin
There are a few sites that analyze trending topics and hashtags.
Because hashtags within Twitter are typical meta tags, they can be collected and analyzed after a campaign. This will be really helpful in determining the success of a campaign that exists within Twitter.
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Infographics are visual elements such as signs, charts, maps, or diagrams that aid comprehension of a given text-based content. You see them everyday and possibly interact with them in the way of subway maps, crosswalk and bathroom signs, and website navigational icons.
Why are infographics useful? A picture is worth a thousand words! Infographics are a useful way to present and communicate large amounts of information in a condensed space. A successful infographic helps a viewer understand a complex issue.
1. Why Should an Infographic Be Created?
Defining the goal of the infographic is the first question that needs to be answered. Is it for data collecting, research or simple discovery? When this question is answered, you can then begin to collect and find the most relevant data. When the data is refined and collected, you then need to find the most effective visual metaphor.
2. Elements
The data or knowledge that the infographic presents is the main element. Secondary elements would be a key which can define the visual elements. Sometimes a scale is used to show relation or reference and also labels for clarification.
Typography is an extremely important element in any design project, and when used correctly it can convey feelings of emotion and emphasize objectives within the layout. If an infographic is about street art in the 21st century, maybe it would be wise to use a font that has a bit of that ’street art’ attitude and is not a sans-serif font such as Helvetica.
Color and contrast help to show emphasis on what is important. Saturation can be added on points that need the most attention drawn to them, while more subtle color can be used in less points of interest. Color is quicker to process than shape, so highlight what is important.
“Paper Trail” by Hannah Fairfield (data from 2005, World Resources INstitute, UN) – Multivariate scatterplot. (Paper consumption per capita x GDP per capita, with total paper consumption and change in paper consumption.)
“The Largest Bankruptcies in History.” A collaboration between GOOD and Always With Honor.
“Who is Coming to America?” A collaboration between GOOD and Timko & Klick.
3. Keep it Simple
Eliminating any elements that do not contribute to showing off the relevant data can sometimes be the best idea and helps to solidify and condense the infographic’s initial appeal and/or ability to communicate. Use simple diagrams that respect precision, accuracy and proportion. What is the nature of the data? If the goal of the graphic is to represent change, show change. If the goal is to facilitate comparison, display a comparison, don’t do a map.
Infographics have been around for ages. Some maps were being created before a written language was even considered. Infographics can help communicate your data effectively and spark further interest in specific knowledge, and with their current rise in popularity, they can make a viral concept even more successful. The key is to create something visually interesting and well designed. Successfully composing an effective infographic is an art form and requires design principles as well as research and data skills.
Based on your personal experience with infographics, what strikes you immediately about successful graphics? Why do you like some as opposed to other styles?
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