Recent Posts
16 November 2011
Creating a Google+ Brand Page: Experiments and Tips
On Monday, Google+ rolled out its brand pages for businesses, and while the social network has lost most of its steam since the initial hype, marketers are still rushing to create branded profiles.
Google+, despite its slowed growth and lack of interaction, is hoping to make a comeback with the introduction of branded pages based on the (very true) premise that marketers love content creation and social interaction; basically, that marketers see the use in creating as many online resources for brand information as possible.
It also doesn't hurt that Google+ will play a large role in real-time search results.
But, the greater implication of Google+ brand pages remains to be seen, so for now let's concentrate on the first step: creation.
"Yep, we're on it, are you?" (click to enlarge)
Setting up a Google+ brand page is incredibly easy. You simply sign in with your personal profile and set up a page. The interface will walk you through a series of steps to establish the company, add information about services, location, and contact information. From there, you have to look at individual aspects of the UI to add value to your profile. Below are a couple tips for creating a better Google+ brand page.
1. Adding to Your Circles
Facebook has "friends" and "fans," Twitter has "followers," LinkedIn has "connections," and Google+ has "circles." Google+ doesn't let brand pages add personal profiles to its circles unless that person has already added your brand to his circles. However, this shouldn't deter your initial circle-building efforts. Add other brands to your circles that you interact with in social media. Some of ours include HubSpot, Mashable, and TechCrunch, as well as local companies and brands.
Also, make sure that any employee who currently has a Google+ account adds your brand to their circles, and then have them post about it. This is also an option when you publish your brand page; whatever personal profile it is linked to has the option to share its creation with their followers.
2. Add Photos and Videos
Photos always add value to a networking site, no matter what the industry. In Google+, they can be added in three main areas:
1. Profile photo
2. Scrapbook
3. Photos tab
Your profile photo should be your branded logo, as is customary on any social networking site. And the photos tab is almost identical to Facebook: it houses "albums" that you can specify by adding photos and captions for specific events, services, products, etc.
The "scrapbook" section is where Google+ tries to differentiate itself in terms of design and put creativity in the user's hands. This is a series of five photos that are featured at the top of your profile. You can use this section to display whatever you want: portfolio work, office and employee photos, event photos, or create a series of interactive images that work together to create one larger design.
3. Add Useful Links
Your "About" section should be optimized from the get-go, meaning you should always have an introduction, contact, and website listed on your page. But Google+ has also included a helpful are here called "Recommended Links." This is the perfect place to link to other brand resources, pages, and networks. Looking at RainCastle's, you can see we've listed links to our blog, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages.
This sort of integration of social networks and web pages is beneficial in optimizing each page for search. You are strengthening each site with inbound and outbound links, and increasing credibility with Google when they crawl for your company name.
4. Connect your Google+ Page to your Website
Google gives you a simple one-line code to incorporate into your website that automatically links to your brand page. Linking your site is an important step to increase credibility, but also makes you eligible for Google Direct Connect, which hooks your Google+ page to search.
Basically, this gives people the ability to search for your Google+ page by typing into the search box "+[Company name]" ex: "+RainCastle Communications." Because this feature allows your Google+ page to appear at the very top of the page, it has a jump over Facebook and Twitter, and will automatically outrank any organic search results.
5. Share on Other Areas of the Web
Google provides you with your page's URL in a "tell the world" section, so take this and spread it like wildfire. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, Gchat; anywhere you communicate with employees, customers, and friends, quickly let them know that you've created a Google+ page and ask if they would like to network with you.
Categories: Brand / Marketing · Web / Interactive
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 9:00 AM | 2 Comments
10 November 2011
Steve Jobs' Legacy: Phase 1, Flash Finale
"Adobe
Bows in Office Feud," so reads the headline of the front page article in today’s Wall Street Journal in the Marketplace section. The gist is that Adobe will no longer attempt to push Flash for browsers that come with smart phones and tablet computers and will increase its support of HTML5.
The WSJ article is a great recap of the genesis of the Adobe/Apple feud, which began in 1999 when Adobe refused to create a Mac version of their program "Premiere," which taught Steve Jobs that he never wanted to be in a business where he did not control both the hardware and software.
While Flash will still be supported on current Android devices, future development will not happen. Flash will be relegated to gaming applications and premium video services. Basically this is the formal acknowledgment that Flash is history on the web.
We will be recommending to our clients and other businesses that currently have Flash components in their websites, to replace the Flash — sometime over the next year, with a better supported technology, which is currently Javascript, and subsequently the emerging HTML5 standard.
Categories: Brand / Marketing · Web / Interactive
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 11:48 AM | 1 Comment
02 November 2011
Turn down the noise. Pump up the volume: Where is the content in content marketing?
Perched in the hills overlooking Pasadena is a great setting to study design. When I went to Art Center in the early 80’s, I was surrounded by all sorts of interesting and highly accomplished influences, not just in graphic design but in product design, automobile design, photography, illustration, and advertising. Some of my instructors were industry leaders who provided many visual references of what was considered great design. I soaked it up, like the California sun I happily found myself under on those shivery, 65 degree January days in LA.
Being pre-web, these references were books on all the great design movements like the Bauhaus, gold standard magazines like Communication Arts showcasing the best the design world had to offer, exhibits fusing architecture, design and the environment, minimalist ads by modern masters, exquisitely crafted displays of the cars of tomorrow, etc. And we talked a lot about design, what constitutes great design, what makes a great designer, what is the role of design in business, why design is valid to the CEO, what separates design from art, and so on.
When I got out of school, I was one heck of an educated visual designer. I also carried with me an impressive collection of reference material—books, magazines, scrap files, etc., so I could continue to stay “in the moment,” aware of every trend and expert practitioner in the field.
I wouldn’t trade my design school experience for anything, but I have to admit that looking back, all of the powerful influences also served to cloud the innovativeness, trust and intuition that had landed me there in the first place. Starting my own business is when those characteristics began to return, the same characteristics that have kept clients coming back.
A real challenge we marketers face today is remarkably like what I experienced in the years after design school, the need to turn down the noise and trust our own experience and instincts to provide innovative solutions for our clients. Like everyone else, we’re networking, Facebooking, linking in, attending webinars, watching videocasts, and reading blogs and tweets, which we then refine, rewrite, retweet, reblog, redesign, and generally review on a minute-by-minute basis. This is both incredibly useful and highly addicting. At times, it is also a crutch, an apparently legitimate way to avoid creating original content or trusting one’s own intuition. Many marketers today have no place for intuition. It can’t be measured. When I started my business 17 years ago, I’m glad I never read that.
Categories: Brand / Marketing · Web / Interactive
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 11:11 AM | No Comments
28 October 2011
On the Subject of Search: the Difference between SEO, SEM, and "Search"
Search… or do you mean SEO? SEM? S.O.S?
Many people instinctually use the words "search" and "search engine optimization" interchangeably. This isn't wrong, necessarily, but it doesn't allow for the wider range of meanings within the ever-expanding world of search.
SEO and SEM are fundamentally different marketing tools, and serve to organize, characterize, and make website content more easily found. Inbound marketing has opened a new door into the world of search that builds on the foundation these tools lay; content creation, link building, and social media are all now tangible aspects of search that can work in union with SEO and SEM to build your reputation online. However, when discussing search, the two biggest contenders are still SEO and SEM thanks to Google. Let me shed some light on the differences.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is the most common buzzword in search and refers only to "organic search" efforts; that is, not pay-per-click (PPC). SEO means optimizing your website to make it "stronger." Strength is determined by keyword prevalence and relevance, and the optimization of on- and off-page elements. Best practices involve creating valuable website content, matching appropriate keywords to your topics, and assuring that you focus your efforts on the most relevant topics.
Accenture, a management consulting and technology
company, has their website organized into individual
pages that are each well-optimized for a specific keyword
related to a product or service. (Click to enlarge)
SEO is also not a short-term campaign, as SEM sometimes is. SEO campaigns start with initial foundation work – doing keyword research and optimizing your pages – but also requires on-going work that includes continuous research, measurement, analytics, and tweaks to constantly improve your site's relevance and thus strength.
For startups or new websites, SEO takes time to be recognized by Google and other search engines. The length of time a website is live, as well as the number of pages of keyword optimized content influence how you are ranked. In these cases, it can take a while for Google to consider your website strong enough to be ranked along your potential competitors.
The most important aspect of SEO is: Ensuring your website optimizes valuable content to strengthen your site and improve the quality and frequency of traffic.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM refers to paid search: PPC campaigns through Google AdWords, and social media advertising through Facebook and LinkedIn. These campaigns are often segmented and differentiated, meaning that each keyword will engender a specific set of ads that are served up each time someone does a search query for that keyword, or a similar keyword, in Google. These ad groups target a certain keyword or placement that triggers the appearance of your ad.
A Google search for "rain boots" reveals the PPC campaigns
for that keyword of several large shoe companies,
including Zappos and DSW. (Click to enlarge)
SEM is advertising using keywords; it works to promote companies and products on search engine result pages (SERPS). SEM incorporates all of the keyword research and optimization done to improve your website in SEO and combines these elements with paid placement and inclusion.
The most important aspect of SEM is: Targeting appropriate keywords to find the best places on SERPS and sponsored Google pages to place advertisements, and to use these advertisements in conjunction with SEO campaigns.
Categories: Brand / Marketing · Web / Interactive
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 9:29 AM | 1 Comment
21 October 2011
5 Starter Tips for Mobile Design
As the mobile channel advances toward its tipping point, we are all learning best practices for mobile design, which are not always consistent with web design. Here are 5 key points to keep in mind with your mobile sites.
1. Simplify design
The best way to first approach a mobile design is to think, "simplify." Two big initial considerations are size and speed: mobile browsers, while getting faster, can still be irritatingly slow, and are only made slower by large files and sizeable amounts of content to load.
Additionally, with smaller screens comes less real estate for you to utilize. Branding becomes increasingly important here, because you really need to strip your content to its most basic purpose, and carefully choose and place elements to represent yourself in such a small space.
Some companies, like Spotify, a music
streaming service, really take the mantra
"less is more" to heart in their mobile design.
This isn't to say that it has to sacrifice design for functionality, just that the two need to live harmoniously. In fact, designing for mobile is a new challenge that invokes creativity in designers.
To see how each brand approaches mobile design, visit the gallery Mobile Awesomeness, which features good and bad mobile designs for inspiration.
2. Use a Single-Column Layout
The single-column layout works hand-in-hand with design simplicity. On a mobile device, many users are scrolling or flipping between landscape and portrait mode, so the easiest way to maintain user-friendly navigation is to keep it all in line: one line, that is. Similarly, when designing a mobile version of your website, it is best to convert your navigation to a vertical, single-column layout. If you have a particularly content-heavy mobile site, use a collapsible navigation that allows users to open or hide particular content.
3. Re-think Visitor Paths By Examining Consumer Needs
A mobile site is not necessarily just a miniature version of the website. Part of re-defining your mobile navigation process is to evaluate why a customer might visit your site on a smartphone or tablet. Often, it is to use or research your products and services quickly. Mobile design should cut out unnecessary content and immediately deliver an easily discoverable path for the visitor.
Take for example Amtrak's mobile site versus their desktop site.
Amtrak's desktop design is a pretty evenly divided between: buying tickets and organizing a trip, conducting travel research, and offers and promotions. It is fair to assume that someone visiting from their computer could be looking into any of these things.
The company's mobile site, however, is much more straightforward, and assumes that the visitor is coming this way for one reason: to easily and efficiently map out a trip, right now. They eliminate the research portion and deals section to streamline the process according to consumer want, and make their mobile site a tool for the visitor to quickly accomplish this goal.
4. Think In "Taps" Instead of "Clicks"
One of the biggest physical usability differences here is that mobile design users tap where desktop users click. This means that small, numerous links on your website need to be revisited and reformatted as big, tap able buttons, yet another way to reconsider the content that is provided in each format. This also means that there is no option for hovering – a feature that is often used in desktop web design to reveal content.
5. Make Your Original Website Available
The best mobile designs allow for options, and sometimes visitors really do want to visit the original desktop website. Making it easy for them to access it represents best practices when it comes to mobile design.
Zatarain's, a supplier of New Orleans-style food products, smartly places their "view full site" link next to a newsletter sign-up call-to-action. While the link is in standard web formatting (more "clickable" than "tap able"), it is placed exactly where the visitor's eye would go to find the link: in the footer.
Categories: Web / Interactive
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 2:17 PM | 2 Comments
Previous Entries
