Alright! I devoured his book like I would a snack sized Butterfinger. LOVED IT! Of course, I did. He’s Gary Vaynerchuk. For those of you who have no idea, Gary Vaynerchuk, is the creator of Wine Library TV and author of Crush It! He is a vivacious (to say the least) and inspiring speaker. Watch and learn how Social Media will make or break your business. It really IS that important.

Here’s another of his keynotes. It’s a bit raunchy and in-your-face, but brilliant all the same.

Now go and get excited about what YOU do and CRUSH IT!

There are so many changes happening in our industry these days that I find myself reading several books at time. Following are my three favorites from the past year.

“Six Pixels of Separation” by Mitch Joel

If you have been putting off taking your business into the world of Social Media, hoping the silly time sucking craze will just go away, then you must read this book. Even if you have gotten your feet wet on Twitter, you still need to read this book. “Social media is not a fad,” says Mitch Joel. He guides you through the world of Wikis, Twitter and blogging and explains the necessity of getting involved in the conversations going on out there. Take control of your company’s messaging and branding through the great internet tools available now. READ THIS BOOK TODAY!

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A Tale of Two Cards

There are a constant barrage of business cards left on my front porch from tree trimmers, cleaning folks, landscapers, gardeners and others insinuating that I am not doing a very good  job of these things myself. I don’t take offense because I am busy and don’t put as much attention into my house as I probably should. Hopefully my friends and family get that and don’t think less of me. But, as I am sort of in the market for a cleaning person, I kept two cards in particular from last week. (more…)

In order to help the designer truly capture the essence of your company when designing or redesigning your corporate identity it is necessary to provide them with some background material. This is often done with a design brief but simply answering these questions should give any designer a great head start in the right direction.

1. What services and/or products do you offer?
2. How would you describe your corporate culture?
3. What makes your company unique? (more…)

Good design doesn’t always require super creative genius. Armed with a basic understanding of typography, you, the non-designer can create well-designed, professional looking business documents that can carry your brand image to the next level. Note here though that great design, however, does require a certain level of genius and professionals like us should be hired for the really complicated stuff.

Typography involves the selection of appropriate typefaces and their arrangement on the page. Bad typography practices can negatively affect the reader’s view of your company. Good ones should be invisible, placing the focus on the content of the document and not the totally cool typeface you chose.         (more…)

12 Reasons Why You Don’t Need to Redesign Your Website…Yet

1. The flashing, pulsating, blinking bright yellow boxes with the red text on your home page look pretty.
2. No one ever contacts you from your site anyway…or at least they don’t stay long enough or dig deep enough to find the contact information which was supposed to appear on the home page but for some reason shows up on the third page of services and you have to scroll to the right to see it.
3. Your site loads rather quickly. By the time you make a cup of coffee and get back to your desk the home page is almost completely up.
4. It doesn’t matter that your site is all messed up when viewed in IE6 or Firefox because it looks just fine in Netscape. (more…)

1. You really, really like Comic Sans and think it is perfect typeface for all your business documents.
2. I don’t need graphics. I just want a company logo, brochure, website and trade show booth.
3. Joe, the IT guy, knows how to stretch and squish photos and place them into PowerPoint to make cool trifolds we can just print out on our desktop printer.
4. Because you KNOW that people will look at your ad longer if you fill every inch of it with all the information they ever needed to know about your product.
5. You have all the special effects you could ever need in Microsoft PowerPoint. You know, like rainbow gradients and bevel emboss. (more…)

Many of our clients lately are asking about whether they should be incorporating social media into their marketing plan. My answer is YES! Marketing is really changing these days. People can block out the message you’re trying to get across with the old traditional methods of advertising and marketing by using Caller ID, TiVo and Junk Mail settings. Magazine and newspaper subscriptions are way down indicating that you have to be more careful with your advertising dollars. We must constantly look for new methods for promoting our companies in places where people are open to the message and don’t feel interrupted.

Today people expect a strong online presence. If you don’t have one you are losing potential customers daily. Everyone between the ages of 20-40 is online for at least part of the day, everyday. They are more likely to search for something on Google than in a phone book. Come on, when was the last time you actually picked up that huge yellow book and thumbed through pages? I used to heft it out to find the phone number for the pizza place. Now I even order my pizza online! Below are some things you should be doing to promote your company (and yourself) if you’re not already: (more…)

When people Google, they know basically what they’re looking for so your site has to speak to your potential client/customer instantly. What with the bombardment of information we receive on a daily basis, no one wants to sit and read a lot of fluff about the details of your business. They want to know why they should choose you immediately. Everyone is in a hurry to do their research and get on to the decision making. If you don’t tell them right up front what makes you different and better than your competitors you had better believe they aren’t going to dig through the paragraphs of copy blabbing on about your superior this and ultimate that to find out for themselves. They are going to jump right to the next site listed on that first page of Google.

Your home page content should do these three things:

1. FOCUS on your differentiation – Choose one and only one differentiation because that is all people can remember. Do not list and describe all of your services on your home page. Make the decision to choose your company easy because your difference is obvious. The less information we are given, the more likely we are to remember it later. This FOCUS is fundamental to branding and should be maintained throughout all marketing materials. (more…)

As I become more involved with trying to decipher the social media mystery and how to use it effectively in marketing I thought I would really hate TWITTER. I figured it would be just another social media distraction in my already crazy busy day. I have found just the opposite to be true. Just like Flower, Thumper and Bambi, I am twitterpated. You know, that flighty exciting feeling you get when you think about the object of your affection. Twitter is not as all consuming as I thought it might be. People are not just posting tweets about what they are doing at the moment. They are posting helpful, insightful tips and useful links. It is a tool where you can connect with all kinds of people in a quick, professional way. I find that I am excited to check what new info is waiting out there provided by people that I know have similar interests. In the last year the number of people in the U.S. using Twitter has exploded. According to statistics from compete.com the site grew from 4.1 million monthly visitors in February 2008 to 54.2 million last month.

In reading other people’s tweets, I have run across many interesting articles. One of which is about the many ways social media is changing the way we, as designers and marketers, work.

Check it out: The 10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2009

This one gives good insight into The 90/10 Rule of Successful Twittering