Category: Uncategorized

Continuing to link to your now inactive (zombie) social media accounts from your homepage is not advised…

Hashtags are small but powerful tools to lift the visibility of your online content.

There are DIY skills every modern marketer should have in their virtual toolbox to handle the numerous small tasks which need to be frequently performed online. Tackle the simple stuff yourself when you can – quickly and inexpensively – and only outsource the big hairy jobs. So, do you have the digital chops to get the everyday basics out of the way?

You Should Know How To:

1. Customise the branding elements on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ (if you have a presence on these platforms).

2. How to activate and deactivate automatic cross-posting between social media platforms.

3. Adjust your personal privacy and visibility settings on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.

4. Use permalinks to link to specific posts on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.

5. Comment on a blog post, and comment on a comment.

6. Use a wizard tool to manually create one or more of the following social share buttons for a webpage: Facebook Like, Google +1, Twitter Tweet, Pinterest Pin-It or LinkedIn Share.

7. Upload a video file to YouTube, and then embed that same YouTube video back onto your webpage.

8. Subscribe to a specific blog, YouTube channel or podcast series.

9. Apply hashtags to a post, search on specific hashtags within a social media platform, and know the meanings of basic courtesy hashtags such as #HT (hat-tip).

10. Compress the file size of an image for web use, change its horizontal or vertical orientation, or resize it to a specific pixel width and height.

11. Add text as an overlay to a digital image, e.g. general text, a brand name or a URL.

12. Customise the metatitles and meta descriptions on your own webpages or blog posts.

13. Insert a hyperlink into a webpage.

14. Insert an image onto a webpage and add alternate text to it for increased search visibility.

15. Create a basic customised Google Map.

16. Embed an interactive Google Map or a Streetview frame into a webpage.

17. Post an online review for a specific business (and how to delete it later if you choose).

18. Run a search engine keyword query which is limited to blog or forum results from a specific country.

19. Clear cookies from your browser and surf the web anonymously using a free proxy server.

20. Open a Google Analytics account and set up visitor tracking for your website or blog.

21. Scan a QR code, and how to create your own QR codes selecting from multiple response options.

22. Reuse other people’s digital content under the conditions of an assigned Creative Commons licence.

23. Apply Creative Commons licencing to your own original online content.

24. Claim the Google+ Local business listing for your organisation or business.

25. Provide an ‘owner response’ to a Google+ Local review of your organisation or business.

26. Use a free voice and video conferencing platform such as Google+ Hangouts or Skype.

27. View the cached search engine version of a webpage when a website is down or the page has recently been deleted.

 

Image by  Visit Greece

Looking at old photos of yourself can be jarring: past iterations of your physical self that are familiar yet detached. Websites are no different – if you look at past snapshots of any organisation’s homepage it’s like watching a child growing up through an awkward adolescence.

If you want a glimpse of your own website’s past try the Wayback Machine at archive.org, a digital time capsule created by the Internet Archive, a non-profit organisation based in the US. You won’t be able to find snapshots from every date since your website was launched, but you will be able to retrieve enough to marvel at how far you’ve come.

I’ve used ANZ’s homepage as a case example with snapshots spanning from 1996 to today.

1996

 

1997

 

1999

 

2000

 

2001

 

2003

 

2008

 

2009

 

Today

 

Viktor is a freelance graphic designer based in Ukraine. He’s good. I’ve known him for over 2 years now and I use his services regularly. His hourly rate is $US20/hr.

I have no philosophical issues with outsourcing to people in foreign lands. As a small business owner it makes perfect sense. I try and use freelancers for all of my core business functions – the notion of organising payrolled staff into a traditional office environment seems bizarre to me now.

There are many ways to find good freelancers around the world (or locally). I found Viktor through 99 Designs when I ran a competition for a new logo. He didn’t win the competition, but I liked his portfolio. I emailed and asked if he was up for freelancing work and he said he was.

Viktor usually responds within 48 hours with the first drafts of a new project. He itemises his hours on a Google Drive spreadsheet we share, and I pay him by international transfer about once a month. PayPal would have been a preferable payment option (saving me a $20 international transfer bank fee), but PayPal doesn’t operate in Ukraine. Language is not a problem – he uses Google Translate, and I make sure my communications are free of slang or jargon. All good.

But if you’re thinking of utilising the services of international freelancers, here are a few lessons I’ve learnt from setting up my own virtual workforce:

Kiss a Few Frogs
You won’t find great freelancers straight out of the gate. You’ll might go through 2-3 duds to find your guy. Assign a few small projects initially and if you’re not happy with the quality move on quickly. 

Rarely Right the First Time
Be comfortable with more project iterations than you’re probably use to. Differences in language and culture, and a lack of face-to-face contact can lead to interesting first interpretations of a brief.  I usually let Viktor throw anything together as a first draft, and then I use that as a core reference for what I want more and less of.

Pay Above the Standard
I pay Viktor a premium – $20/hr instead of his standard rate of $12/hr. It means he bumps my jobs ahead of his other clients. An extra $8 is not that big a deal to me, but it makes a big difference at the other end.

Pay Quickly
I pay Viktor within 24 hours of his invoice. He knows that the sooner he completes my work the sooner he’ll get paid. As in right away.

Relationship Building
I send Viktor a little extra at Xmas time for his two boys. And occasionally we chat about stuff not at all related to the job at hand. He’s like a staff member when you think about, and he deserves the same respect.

Jealously Protect Your Network
If you find a good freelancer or two be wary about giving their details to your friends. I did this once and the guy became so popular he ran out of time to do my work. Let your friends go out and kiss their own frogs on the way through.

 

Image by DBduo Photography 

 

 

I frequently use other people’s digital work across my various web properties – mostly image based content, and all for free with the implicit blessing of the original creators. I do this under Creative Commons Licensing.

CC Licensing is a sub-set of copyright. Is provides flexibility for digital content publishers to state how their works and ideas can be copied, modified or remixed, and within a commercial or non-commercial context. You can view full descriptions of the different Creative Commons licences here. The commonality among the licences is attribution – you must explicitly credit or reference the creator of the work you’re using.

Sourcing images from Flickr, here’s one example of how it works.

I’m always on the look-out for interesting (read non-cheesy photostock) images and illustrations for my course pages. Let’s say I want an edgy shot of the iconic Vinegar Skipping Girl neon sign in Melbourne. I go to Flickr and run a search for ‘skipping girl melbourne’. I then run an advanced search and tick the ‘Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content’ box at the bottom of the page. Searching again filters in only images sitting under a CC licence.

I find an appealing shot of the skipping girl against an emerald sky background:

I download the image and adapt it – I might crop, compress or change its orientation. The CC licence associated with this image specifically states I’m allowed to ‘remix’ or adapt the work in these and other ways. The image now sits prominently at the top of my course page: 

But importantly the attribution appears within the same page:

I have both attributed the creator by using their Flickr account name and provided an active link back to the original work.

There are numerous online platforms which allow content creators to publish their digital media works online under Creative Commons licencing. Look out for this symbol or variations:

And of course you can publish any of your own creative works under the CC licencing for others to use or remix. What goes around comes around.

 

by Bruce McKay Yellow Snow Photography 

 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) take their social media seriously. Very seriously.

As a nation on a virtual war footing the Israelis are making the most of the communications tools of the day to stridently push their own cause while demonising the enemy. Nothing new there. During WW1 Norman Lindsay proved himself the master of the evocative with his series of recruitment posters – they were positioned to evoke an emotional response in young men, rousing fear and hatred of a dehumanised foe: 

DESTROY THIS MAD BRUTE. ENLIST

 

 

Social media is the new battleground for hearts and minds, moving the message from street posts to status posts. For the IDF, Twitter and Facebook are their  two main engagement platforms, with a lesser presence on YouTube and Pinterest.

Here’s a taste…

 

Facebook
330,000 likes www.facebook.com/idfonline

Sample Facebook post: “One less scumbag to worry about.” 

 

 

YouTube
1,466 subscribers www.youtube.com/channel/HC6Fg1dotZMKU 

Sample YouTube video: IDF Pinpoint Strike on Ahmed Jabari, Head of Hamas Military Wing

 

 

Twitter
214,000 Followers @IDFSpokesperson twitter.com/IDFSpokesperson

Sample Tweets: 1/2, 2/2 & will not tolerate

 

Pinterest
784 Followers, 5 Boards, 16 pins www.pinterest.com/idfonline

Sample Pin: “They’ll never even know we were there.”

 

 

 

The smaller and more specific your online signalling becomes, the easier it is to be found by those searching for your content.

Nothing lets a site down more than $5 stock photography that took all of 5 minutes to source. Images of this sort lack authenticity and undermine credibility. And it indicates laziness.

A homepage, back-page or post should capture interest within the first few seconds of being viewed – well considered images can do that. But you’ll need to invest more than $5 – don’t be a tight-arse when it comes to the imagery and design elements online which are speaking for you in your absence.

Here are a few of the hackneyed classics that haunt my browser…

The Smiling Businessman
Is he high on drugs or what? And those teeth.

 

 

The Signpost
Of course, over there silly…

 

 

 

 

Writing on Glass
Because business is easy.

 

 

 

 

Inspirational
…and I’m feeling queazy in the tummy now.

 

 

 

Chess Pieces
So super-strategic it hurts.  

 

 

 

The Bullseye
Get it? Do ya?

 

 

 

The Contact Centre Babe
Call me… or at least someone not vaguely like me. 

 

 

The Lightbulb
More of the same original thinking. 

 

 

The Superhero Kid
Super annoying. Not quirky. 

 

 

 

The Dealmakers
Taking your money – we’re laughing all the way to the bank.

 

 

 

The Thinkers
Here’s our workplace… well, not literally.

 

 

 

The ‘Upward And To The Right’ Graph
Dumbing it down (while magically making it go up).  

Advertising for an individual capable of undertaking a wide cross-section of online and social media duties for an organisation is unrealistic. It also demonstrates that the organsiation lacks focus on where to concentrate its online firepower.