OriginBlu Communications Blog

David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So you’ve decided it’s high time you join the rest of the world and create a Facebook fan page for your company. Awesome. Kudos to you for being so forward thinking. It’s easy enough to do if you already have a personal profile. If not, then go sign up – it will only take a few minutes.

What’s the plan Stan?

Don’t just create a Facebook page because you think you should, or because someone told you it would be a clever marketing tool. It will, but only if properly executed. Setting up your page is the easy part. Figuring out what you want to get out of having one takes a little more time and effort. Spend some time brainstorming, cruise the web to see what others are up to and, if you’re still not sure, enlist the help of an expert. There are plenty of Social Media gurus out there.

Who are you?

If you’re going to be on Facebook, then you might as well tell us a little about yourself. Social Media and mystery are not synonymous, and besides, it’s an opportunity to talk about you. Who doesn’t enjoy that? So don’t skimp in this area, okay?! I know it seems a bit like being at the doctor’s office and having to fill out a ton of forms, but for someone who has never heard of your company before, it can provide them with valuable insight into who you are and what makes you tick.

Will the real URL please stand up!

In the old days you had to collect a bunch of fans before Facebook would afford you the privilege of a Vanity URL. What’s that, you ask? Well when you initially set up your fan page, or even your personal profile for that matter, the URL would look something like this: https://www.facebook.com/pages/BobsVeganTarts/134451411034. Who wants a bunch of numbers after their name right? Fortunately Facebook has since changed their policy in this regard, so you no longer need to cadge ‘likes’ from friends and family members in order to make up the requisite 25 fans. Nowadays all you need to do is go here and allocate yourself a name of your choosing. If it is in fact ‘BobsVeganTarts’, it will more than likely be available. If it’s something more run of the mill, then you might find someone has already nabbed it. That’s cool, just think outside the old box and come up with an alternative.

Pretty yourself up

Facebook gives you the option of adding a rectangular banner down the left-hand side of your page. Be creative with this space. Rather than just uploading your logo by itself, design an interesting background, or choose a nice photograph to showcase it on. Just remember to place your logo correctly, so that it displays in your thumbnail. Have a look at the example below to get the general idea.

Say what?

People will only ‘like’ your page if you offer them something of value in return. Otherwise there’s no point to letting you clog up their newsfeed. So don’t boast and don’t prattle. Offer them interesting tidbits of information, tell them about specials, make them laugh, engage with them, but while you’re doing all of that, remember not to bombard them. Don’t be that irritating neighbour who always pops over unannounced, and then doesn’t know when to leave!

Use your words

If ur 14 thn its kool to rite yr updates lyk this. However, if you’re managing your company’s fan page you need to ensure that your spelling and grammar are both top notch. You can delete an update if you made a mistake, but chances are at least one person will see it before you do. Check, check, and check again! And then only post.

What are you up to?

Share your photos, but do it in a way that makes sense. Create separate albums for events, occasions, divisions, branches etc. This way your fans will understand that Bob from accounts is wearing antlers on his head because it’s the year-end Christmas party. Make use of the ‘description’ section to tell us a little more, and take the time to add notes next to each individual photo.

Take advantage of what’s available

Everyone has their platform of choice, and there are certainly enough of them out there. The two most popular are still Facebook and Twitter though, and people seem to lean quite definitely toward one or the other. If you’re not inclined to Tweet, or perhaps don’t have the time, you can always set up a Twitter account and then link it to your Facebook page here. This nifty little application will automatically tweet your Facebook updates on your behalf. Nice!

Linky love

Link back and forth until you’re dizzy. Facebook and Twitter both give you the space to share your website deets – take them up on that. You want people to find their way to your website so that you can convert them from fans to guests (or customers etc). Likewise, remember to share your social ’hood on your website. That way you make it easy for people to ‘like’ and ‘follow’ you in a more relaxed environment. Think of your website as work and Facebook as going for coffee.

Are you talking to the right people?

You might be so funny, engaging or entertaining that you have more fans than you can shake a stick at, but it’s not money in the bank if those people are never going to do anything more than hang with you online. Make a point of getting to know your audience. By finding out a little more about them, you’ll be able to ascertain whether or not they’re likely to make use of whatever it is you’re offering. For instance, if your fans are all very young, then they probably won’t be visiting your very expensive five star establishment anytime soon. If this is the case, don’t be rude and send them packing. There’s always a chance (however slim) that they have a rich aunt who wants to give them a lavish graduation present. Until that happens though, you need to put more effective measures in place in order to gather the right fan base. Running a Facebook ad campaign is one brilliant solution, because it allows you to target your audience very specifically: age, gender, location, likes, interests etc.

That’s the slog work done; now go and make some friends.

Ang

Image: posterize / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So here’s the scenario. You sent off the image you want placed in your A4 magazine advert as an RGB jpg with a memory size of 164 KB. Now the printer has come back saying that the resolution is way too low, adding in an ominous tone that it would pixelate badly.

What does this mean?

Firstly some definitions are necessary. The explanation would be incomprehensible without an understanding of the jargon, so let’s start with the basics shall we?

Resolution refers to the sharpness and clarity of an image. The term is most often used to describe monitors, printers, and graphic images. In some cases the resolution indicates the number of dots per inch. For example, a 300 dpi (dots per inch) image is one that is contains 300 distinct “dots” in a one inch long line.

For graphics monitors, the screen resolution signifies the number of dots (pixels) on the entire screen. There are different dpi measurements depending on the size of the screen. For example, a 15-inch monitor (640×480) displays about 50 dots per inch. The average screen resolution is accepted as 72dpi.

Dpi is the abbreviation of dots per inch, which indicates the resolution of images. The more dots per inch, the higher the resolution.

This is not to be confused with image dimension however.

Image dimensions are the length and width of a digital image. It is usually measured in pixels, but some graphics programs allow you to view and work with your image in the equivalent inches or centimetres. Depending on what you plan to use your image for, you may want to change the image size accordingly. For example, if you have a high-resolution digital photograph that you intend publishing to a Web page, you’ll first need to reduce the image dimensions somewhat.

When using a graphics or image-editing program, you will usually have two options for changing the image dimensions: resize or resample.

Pixel (short for Picture Element) – a pixel is a single point in a graphic image. Graphics monitors display pictures by dividing the display screen into thousands (or millions) of pixels, arranged in rows and columns. The pixels are so close together that they appear connected.

Pixelated – Describes an image in which individual pixels are apparent to the naked eye. Typically, the separate square pixels in bitmapped images such as GIFs do not appear individually. When the image is displayed too large or at a low resolution the image becomes pixelated.

Colour models – On colour monitors, each pixel is actually composed of three dots – a red, a blue, and a green one. Hence the colour model for monitors and television is referred to as RGB. When printing, the inks used are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black – CMYK. This would be the colour model used for anything that would be printed.

File sizes in bytes

Byte is the abbreviation for binary term, a unit of storage capable of holding a single character. On almost all modern computers, a byte is equal to 8 bits. Large amounts of memory are indicated in terms of kilobytes (1,024 bytes), megabytes, and gigabytes. In computer literature, kilobyte is usually abbreviated as K or KB.

Explanation

If a 72 dpi image were viewed on a monitor it would appear crisp and normal because the screen resolution of most monitors is on average 72dpi.

However, if we now take that same image and attempt to print it to a 300dpi printer the following pixelation would occur.

Another tell-tale sign lies in the memory size of an image. If an image is less than 1 MB it will be too small to use in printing, but will however suffice as a web image as these are generally placed at 72 dpi.

164 KB                                                                                      892 KB

At first glance these images might appear the same, but by looking at their respective sizes you’ll soon pick up the difference in resolution. The one on the left is low resolution, while the one on the right uses more memory for the same size image. This means that it would be higher resolution.

Lastly, explanations of the various file formats have been known to come in handy from time to time.

JPG vs. GIF vs. PNG vs. TIFF

The following are of the most commonly used file formats when designing for the Web, along with a brief overview of how each differs from the other.

JPEG/JPG

Short for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the original name of the committee that wrote the standard. JPG is one of the image file formats supported on the Web. JPG is a lossy compression technique that is designed to compress colour and greyscale continuous-tone images. The information that is discarded in the compression is information that the human eye cannot detect. JPG images support 16 million colours and are best suited for photographs and complex graphics. The user typically has to compromise on either the quality of the image or the size of the file. JPG does not work well on line drawings, lettering or simple graphics because there is not a lot of the image that can be thrown out in the lossy process, so the image loses clarity and sharpness.

TIFF

Acronym for Tagged Image File Format, one of the most widely supported file formats for storing bit-mapped images on personal computers (both PCs and Macintosh computers). Other popular formats are BMP and PCX.

TIFF graphics can be any resolution, and they can be black and white, gray-scaled, or colour. Files in TIFF format often end with a .tif extension.

GIF

Short for Graphics Interchange Format, this is another of the graphics formats that is supported by the Web. Unlike JPG, the GIF format is a lossless compression technique and it supports only 256 colours. GIF is better than JPG for images with only a few distinct colours, such as line drawings, black and white images, and small text that is only a few pixels high. With an animation editor, GIF images can be put together for animated images. GIF also supports transparency, where the background colour can be set to transparent in order to let the colour on the underlying Web page to show through. The compression algorithm used in the GIF format is owned by Unisys, and companies that use the algorithm are supposed to license the use from Unisys.

PNG

Short for Portable Network Graphics, PNG the third graphics standard supported by the Web (though not supported by all browsers). PNG was developed as a patent-free answer to the GIF format, but is also an improvement on the GIF technique. An image in a lossless PNG file can be 5%-25% more compressed than a GIF file of the same image. PNG builds on the idea of transparency in GIF images and allows the control of the degree of transparency, known as opacity. Saving, restoring and re-saving a PNG image will not degrade its quality. PNG does not support animation like GIF does.

Thanks to webopedia for their awesome definitions!

May this assist to keep your images crisp and your printers happy!

Until next time,

Amanda

We recently implemented the Express Series, which Amanda kicked off admirably with her take on white space and how best to use it. In keeping with the short really is sweeter vein, Ing explains what it is we should avoid at all cost when writing web copy.

It helps to be a good writer, but there are a few more considerations to keep in mind if you want your web content to work for you.

I’m AMAAAAYZING!

Take the ‘me’ out of web copywriting. Don’t use the website to showcase your immense linguistic talents. Writing web copy is not about you; it’s about the company or the product you’re representing. Their website is not a platform to display your phenomenal vocabulary.

You many think that peppering your content with abstract language and clichés will make you look good, but remember, your job is to present the company. Think of that awesome TV ad with graphics galore, but the product doesn’t even get a look-see…that is precisely what you’re not after when writing copy. Take  you out of the equation and focus instead on communicating the facts.

“Weasel words” are generalisations used purely for the convenience of the writer, and they’re also a cop-out. A good example is saying “Everyone loves [insert product]”, rather than providing statistics. Web readers want information, not opinions.

Another lazy ‘out’ that writers are inclined to take is using acronyms. Acronyms are fine for those who know what they mean, but an annoyance for those who don’t.

“The use of a SUITCASE has yielded excellent results and insured an improvement in profitability for the last quarter.” In this instance, SUITCASE stands for ‘Portable, versatile and multifunctional monitoring system that assures the energy output of low cost thermal solar facilities’. Need I say more?

This company’s AMAAAAYZING!

Egocentric web copy is just as off-putting. A company that places itself on its own cyber-pedestal is bound to turn potential clients away. The world’s top companies don’t scream: “We are the best!” on their websites – they don’t have to. Their products and service are what make them the best. Stick to the facts. Tell the reader what the company can do for them, rather than prattling on about how wonderful it is.

That’s it for now, folks. Have an awesome weekend!

Ing

Image by Chris Wallace

So I found myself up the proverbial creek without a paddle while in a meeting last week. Originblu is very much about the new-age way of doing business. That of shared partnerships and a close network of industry specialists. This most certainly has its pros, but the distinct con seems to be the tendency towards insular knowledge – each specialist doing what they do best, and the rest relying on them to do just that.

But while Social Media is our game, I shudder to admit that I am quite ‘old school’ when it comes to one particular platform. Perhaps I was shot out of the sky in a flurry of feathers in a former life, but when I hear the word ‘tweet’, my eyes literally glaze over.

“Leave it to those in our crew who know best!” has been my philosophy thus far, with “Who on earth has the time?” being my justification.

That is, until said meeting last week when someone asked, “Can you help me to understand how we would run a campaign on Twitter?”

I really do not like being left at a loss for words. Those who know me will attest to the fact that it seldom happens. And I will be damned if the platform for the birds will be the one to render me speechless!

Twitterverse…here I come!

The purpose of this post is to help like-minded folk better understand the “ins and outs” of Twitter.

Definition

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that allows you answer the question, “What are you doing?” by sending short text messages of 140 characters in length, called ‘tweets’, to your friends or ‘followers’. It’s oft described as ‘The SMS of the Internet’

Origin

Heard of @Jack? I hadn’t either. But dear Jack Dorsey was the brainchild behind Twitter, which was created in March 2006.

As with most things instant, Twitter has its origin in the US of A. Twitter Inc., the company that operates the service and associated website, is based in San Francisco.

Work on the project started on March 21, 2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 9:50 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST): “just setting up my twttr”.

“…we came across the word ‘twitter’, and it was just perfect. The definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information,’ and ‘chirps from birds’. And that’s exactly what the product was.” – Jack Dorsey (courtesy Wikipedia).

The Twitter ‘Lingo’

Thanks to Sandesaimond for the following glossary of twitter-minology.

Tweet

Each of your Twitter posts or updates is known as a ‘tweet’. Some people refer to them as ‘twits’, but the official term is ‘tweet’.

The @ symbol

The @ symbol is a way of referring to another Twitter user. For example, @SandeSaimond means you’re either sending a message to Sande Saimond or you’re talking about her in your message. On your Twitter home page you’ll see a linked search where you can find people mentioning your username with an @ before it. This is how you find other people’s replies to you.

Retweet

A ‘retweet’, or RT, is when you share the tweet of one user with all of your Twitter followers. If you happen to follow a Twitter news feed and they post a link to a story that you feel should be shared, you can ‘retweet’ it. If you see a beautiful quote or a funny saying that you like, you can also ‘retweet’ it.

Something to be aware of though, it’s considered rude or just plain not nice to take someone else’s ‘tweet’ and send it back out as your own. Give credit for the ‘tweet’ where it’s due. You will more than likely be thanked for the ‘retweet’ and you may gain new followers at the same time. ‘Retweets’ are usually prefaced with “RT @username.”

Reply

‘Reply’ is when you respond to a tweet from a particular user. To reply to any given Twitter community member where it’s placed in the public feed (everyone can see what you are saying) is called a ‘Reply’. Most Twitter clients (and Twitter itself) prefaces your ‘tweet’ with @username.

Direct Message

Whereas replies are completely public, a ‘direct message’ is akin to a private message that you send through a discussion board. You can only send a direct message to someone that is following your account. Send a direct message by prefacing your tweet with DM username.

Follower

While Facebook requires that all relationships be reciprocal, Twitter allows for one-way interactions. If you find Twitter users who are interesting, you can ‘follow’ them to subscribe to their tweets. They do not necessarily have to follow you back, though the more social users will want to.

Tweeple or Twerson

Twitter people, Twitter members, Twitter users.

Tweeps

Twitter people that follow each other from one social media/network to another.

Twitterverse

The Twitter Universe…it’s big and it’s expanding at a great rate!

Hash Tags or #

Hash tags are words or acronyms that begin with the number sign. They are used when many people are tweeting about the same topic or from the same event. At least one hash tag is often atop Twitter’s trending topics list. The granddaddy of tracking what the different hashtags means is Hashtags, which tracks tags by popularity over time. Before Twitter’s search feature was useful in this regard, Hashtags provided a means to search tags.

Valuable content?

San Antonio-based market-research firm Pear Analytics analyzed 2,000 tweets (originating from the US and in English) over a two-week period in August 2009 and separated them into six categories:

• Pointless babble – 40%
• Conversational – 38%
• Pass-along value – 9%
• Self-promotion – 6%
• Spam – 4%
• News – 4%

Social networking researcher Danah Boyd responded to the Pear Analytics survey by arguing that what the Pear researchers labelled ‘pointless babble’ is better characterized as ‘social grooming’ and/or ‘peripheral awareness’ (which she explains as persons ‘want[ing] to know what the people around them are thinking and doing and feeling, even when co-presence isn’t viable’).  The numbers tell their own story!

The How To!

You can send your messages using the Twitter website directly, as a single SMS alert, or via a third-party application such as Twirl, Snitter, or the Twitterfox add-on for Firefox. Most mobile devices worth their salt will also have a built-in Twitter application for direct communication.

So CAN I use it for business? (follow: @Twitterbusiness for other nuggets of info)

Per Twitter’s best practices, you can build your following, reputation, and customer’s trust with these simple practices:

Share. Share photos and behind the scenes info about your business. Even better, give a glimpse of developing projects and events. Users come to Twitter to get and share the latest, so give it to them!

Listen. Regularly monitor the comments about your company, brand, and products.

Ask. Ask questions of your followers to glean valuable insight and show that you are listening.

Respond. Respond to compliments and feedback in real time

Reward. Tweet updates about special offers, discounts and time-sensitive deals.

Demonstrate wider leadership and know-how. Reference articles and links about the bigger picture as it relates to your business.

Champion your stakeholders. Retweet and reply publicly to great tweets posted by your followers and customers.

Establish the right voice. Twitter users tend to prefer a direct, genuine, and of course, a likable tone from your business, but think about your voice as you ‘tweet’. How do you want your business to appear to the Twitter community?

How do I use Twitter for my business?

Click here to have a look at how some international brands (including Virgin America, and Paramount Pictures) are already using Twitter very effectively.

Promoted Tweets

Use Promoted Tweets to amplify the reach of your ‘tweets’ with targeting options that allow you to reach the right person, at the right time, in the right place. Click here to read more (courtesy of Twitter.com).

Promoted Trends

Use Promoted Trends to drive conversations and interest around your brand or product by capturing a user’s attention on Twitter.

Every minute of every day, Twitter hosts viral conversations that reflect some of the hottest topics of the moment. These trends are featured prominently next to a user’s timeline.

Because of this placement, a Promoted Trend gets massive exposure and is ideally placed to kickstart or amplify a conversation on Twitter and beyond.

Successful Promoted Trends give users something new and exciting to discover, participate in, and share (courtesy of Twitter.com).

Promoted Accounts

The Promoted Account is featured in search results and within the Who To Follow section. Who To Follow is Twitter’s account recommendation engine, and identifies similar accounts and followers to help users discover new businesses, content, and people on Twitter. Your Promoted Account appears in this section for users who have been identified as most likely to have interests similar to your account.

Promoted Account campaigns can be geo-targeted at the country level (courtesy of Twitter.com).

How do I measure it all?

Twitter offers two layers of analytics to advertisers, providing in-depth insight into both paid and unpaid activity on Twitter.

The Promoted Tweets, Trends, and Accounts Dashboards

All three dashboards display the fundamental metrics of your campaign: impressions, Retweets, clicks, replies, and follows (Promoted Accounts) as they happen.

Timeline Activity provides an invaluable, all encompassing look at all your activity on Twitter. See how every single one of your Tweets (regular as well as Promoted) is performing in terms of mentions, follows, reach, and more.

Use the Followers Dashboard to gain valuable insights about your followers. See how you gained your followers over time and their composition by interest, geography, gender, and engagement (courtesy of Twitter.com)

Oh my goodness! Where have I been? This is HUGE, and is not just a willy-nilly way of passing superfluous moments of time. This platform is real, instant, and dynamic.

You have to be in it to win it! So let’s take the plunge, shall we?

Share your stories with us. We’d love to hear how you are using Twitter in your personal or business capacity.

I’m now off to commune with the massive Loerie-like creature that has landed on my balcony at the Natal coast.

It’s far less complicated.

Michelle.