Monthly Archives: October 2011

How Can Small Businesses Leverage Social Media?

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Maybe you are a local business owner, or an entrepreneur, or a marketer at a small company. How do you make the most of social media to increase your visibility online and attract new customers?

What Is Social Media?

When we say “social media,” do we actually talk about the same thing? People want to define social media as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. While this is a component of it, it does not accurately portray the entire picture. The emphasis should be placed on the word “social,” which in reality means sharing. “The best small business use of social media is to create things that are worthy of being shared,” says David Meerman Scott in his book “Real-Time Marketing.”

Create Great Content
Content, of course, is one of the best things that is worthy of being shared. It can come in different formats, ranging from video series and webinars to text-based content like eBooks, whitepapers and blog posts.

If these content pieces provide your target audience with valuable information, people will be eager to share them further. Today the social way of sharing is by using the tools you are familiar with: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Social Media Is Not A Stand-Alone Thing
A lot of businesses make a mistake by thinking of social media as a stand-alone thing. Companies focus too much on specific tools, profiles and features. If you think of Twitter and Facebook as ways to share irresistible offers, then social media becomes easy. If social means sharing, go and create something share-worthy!

25+ Awesome Illustrator Tutorials of 2011

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Adobe Illustrator is a designer’s delight for its targeted approach towards both artist and graphic designers. The artists are always found ready to share thier experiences with the designers’community and we often find tutorials written by them about the use of new techniques and tricks of the software. At this platform we are presenting a whole lot of 25+ best Illustrator tutorials emerged during the current year 2011. The list is never to miss!

1. Gradient Mesh Tool In Illustrator

Gradient Mesh Tool In Illustrator Tutorial

2. Creating a Burning, Vector Match Using Gradient Meshes in Illustrator

Tutorial Vector Match Using Gradient Meshes

3.Create Vector Denim Texture Using Adobe Illustrator

Vector Denim Texture Using Adobe Illustrator

4. Create a Chalkboard Type Treatment

Chalkboard Type Treatment Tutorial

5. Create Proper Gears Using the Dynamic Shapes Tool

Create Gears Using the Dynamic Shapes Tutorial

6. FAUX 3D FINISHES IN ILLUSTRATOR

FAUX 3D FINISH illustrator

7. Master Composition in Vector Art

Master Composition in Vector Art

8. Woodcut effect for type Art

Woodcut effect for type Art in Illustrator

9. Create Angry Birds Characters In Adobe Illustrator

Create Angry Birds Characters In Adobe Illustrator. (Red Bird)

10. Rusty Metal Text Effect

Rusty Metal Text Effect

11. Splash of Colorful Paint Using Adobe Illustrator

Splash Colorful Paint Adobe Illustrator

12. How to Make a Golden Compass in Illustrator

Golden Compass in Illustrator

13. Create a Shiny Shield with Illustrator

Shinny Shield how to Illustrator

14. Create a Colorful Logo Style Icon in Illustrator

Colorful logo icon in Illustrator

15. Draw an Analog Stopwatch with Illustrator

Analog Stopwatch

16. Vector Snake Using Adobe Illustrator CS5 and Mesh Tormentor

Vector Snake Tutorial

17. Origami Style Typography in Illustrator

Origami Text Effects

18. Create a Sparkly Text Effect

Glowing Text Effect in illustrator

19. Create scalable vector halftones in Illustrator

Scalable Vector Halftones

20. Folded Paper Text Effect in Illustrator

Folded Paper Text Effect Adobe Illustrator

21. Magic Book Using Adobe Illustrator

Magic Book light Using Adobe Illustrator

22. Cocktail Glass in Adobe Illustrator

Cocktail Glass

23. Create a Fun Typography Poster in Illustrator

Fun Typography Poster

24. Create a Polished Raised Type Treatment

Polished Raised Type Treatment

25. Create Advertising Billboard

Vector Tutorial Advertising Billboard

Why user-generated content matters to drive sales for your website

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Integrating user-generated content (UGC) into the product page is a proven, effective way to drive more traffic to your product pages. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of integrating UGC on the product page:

  • User-generated content provides addition information about the page that it lives on, which boosts relevancy.
  • UGC produces valuable longtail keywords written in user syntax. Customers could be using adjectives and superlatives not included in the marketing copy or that the manufacturer wouldn’t use to describe a product. (For example, a “sofa” may be listed, but a customer could describe it as a “couch.”)
  • UGC increases relevant keyword density on the page. The keywords that are used in the marketing copy can drive up your SEO ranking based on density (how many times the word is used on a page).
  • UGC is constantly updated which is favors by Google. In order to remain relevant, content should not be stale and unchanged.

There are many types of UGC valued by Google, including but not limited to: customer reviews, Q&A, discussion forums, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, and Wiki Entries.

Social Consumers and the Science of Sharing [INFOGRAPHIC]

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If you’re buying a car, do you check Facebook? Or do you read up on Kelley Blue Book values and scour the company website for every spec, from horsepower to miles per gallon? What about music — do you check Top 40 radio charts or scope out what your Facebook friends are actually listening to on Spotify?

Social media has infiltrated the purchasing funnel, helping consumers make informed decisions, from what to have for lunch to where to go on vacation. Depending on the decision, sometimes you turn to your social graph, and sometimes you turn to Google. So, as a brand marketer, you want to know what online channels you should be targeting in order to reach the perfect audience for your product.

But regardless of what kind of consumer you’re trying to reach or what you’re selling, your SEO better be top notch — search is the most important influence on the web.

The infographic below, featuring data from M Booth and Beyond, analyzes the differences between high and low sharers and various purchasing decisions, helping brands to understand how should be targeting consumers.

What kind of consumer are you? Let us know in the comments below.

 

 

Artificial Super-Skin Could Transform Phones, Robots and Artificial Limbs

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Touch sensitivity on gadgets and robots is nothing new. A few strategically placed sensors under a flexible, synthetic skin and you have pressure sensitivity. Add a capacitive, transparent screen to a device and you have touch sensitivity. However, Stanford University’s new “super skin” is something special: a thin, highly flexible, super-stretchable, nearly transparent skin that can respond to touch and pressure, even when it’s being wrung out like a sponge.

The brainchild of Stanford University Associate Professor of chemical engineering Zhenan Bao, this “super skin” employs a transparent film of spray-on, single-walled carbon nanotubes that sit in a thin film of flexible silicon, which is then sandwiched between more silicon.

After an initial stretch, which actually aligns the randomly sprayed-on conductive, carbon nanotubes into microscopic spring-like forms, the skin can be stretched and restretched again to twice its original size, without the springs or skin losing their resiliency. Darren Lipomi, a postdoctoral researcher who is part of Bao’s research team explained, “None of it causes any permanent deformation.”

This unique makeup allows the malleable skin to measure force response even as it’s being stretched, or “squeezed like a sponge.” Researchers noted that it can also sense touch and force at the same time.

This super skin is not simply a thicker, more flexible version of the touch screen on your iPhone 4S. Virtually all touch-sensitive smartphones feature transparent films that sense touch. However, these capacitive screens are only responding to the tiny electrical charge in your fingertips and do not actually know if you’re touching lightly or hammering the screen.

Flexible touch screens for computers and smartphones is one obvious super skin application idea, but the Stanford researchers have larger goals. They envision future robots wearing this flexible touch and pressure-sensitive skin. From there, the next logical step is replacement of skin on people, especially burn victims or those who have lost limbs.

Learn more in the video and then give us some of your ideas for how industry could use this super skin breakthrough.

 

 

Three Steps Approach for Retail Loyalty Program Success

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Deep discounting with online services like Groupon and LivingSocial allows retailers a way to quickly attract new customers, and many retailers have jumped on the daily deals bandwagon.

Here Michael Koploy, ERP Analyst at Software Advice writes Three Steps Approach for Retail Loyalty Program Success.

If you are interested to create a great Loyalty Program for your business, you should check out his great article in this matter.