Ah, the Dramatic Form — Even Just the Barest Suggestion of It Encourages Engagement

Short post today.  A family member sent me this web site opener done in flash.  For all you creative designers out there, you’re going to appreciate this.

All it is is a look at a simple ‘over the desk’ view, where you see suggestions of life insinuating itself into the flash opening sequence — a dog casually passing through, a foot showing the presence of a guy who obviously is hanging out.

The point is that these simple gestures are enough to build anticipation.  It got me!  Take a look!

An HD Video Outpost: Vimeo

I’ve just completed a video on two labyrinths in the East Bay (the walks organized by the East Bay Labyrinth group, mostly coinciding on the winter and summer solstice) and had to find a place to park it to prepare for fundraising (If interested, feel free to check them out here: Night Walk during the winter solstice, Day Walk during the summer solstice!).

Given I was among the many who suffered those earlier times when all stages of video production was ridiculously time consuming, I was overjoyed to realize I could upload my Final Cut Pro to Quicktime converted video, and park it on Vimeo very quickly with a quickly generated URL to boot. Mostly no burden, very good quality and free!  Wonderful!

They have one stipulation you need to anticipate however.  Only one HD video upload per week.  It slowed things down a bit and sometimes the uploading caused me pain (I forgot that if I had to redo a video upload, I would also have to redo the description, titling, and key wording) but other than that, things went fine. Vimeo is great, especially if you are not ready for wide dissemination on the level of YouTube, and just want a place to review.

Next steps are to find features on video display sites that allow for making  links that take you to designated URLs (like your donation site).  Not to mention, setting in place some video tracking/usage/video dissemination when you are ready which a site like TubeMogul makes incredibly easy (even for user-generated content that is inspired from your own)!

Creating Books and Buzz — ready to take the plunge?

It’s not like promoting a book didn’t demand a heck of a lot of effort from book authors before. There was always the legwork of book tours, finding individuals and organizations willing to recommend your book to others, putting on ancillary events. But if individual effort was part of the package then, it’s tenfold now.

That’s not a bad thing. For your efforts, you actually get a book published, sometimes with just a three-day turnaround. Your book may lack some of the touches of custom formatting or be published without the benefit of more professional review, but you’ll get it out there, giving you authorship and a good many of the services traditional publishing affords.

For some guidance on this topic, check out 5 Great Services for Self-Publishing Your Book where there is some great information about the major differences among the various services, the new terms promulgated by these publishers, as well as common standards for payment/royalty rates. Self-Publishing 2.0, a blog with some entertaining Youtube videos, concentrates exclusively on POD (print on demand) topics, and provides readers with insight into the hot topics of the self-publishing world. Writers and Editors focuses on both traditional and non-traditional publishing formats, sharing good information about the writer’s circuit with discussion of the POD field as well. And SelfPublishingResources.com offers up the latest trends, some of which can further your thinking about marketing as well.

Which brings me back to the original reason for writing this blog. Once you’re self-published, generating that buzz now falls squarely in your lap as author. AuthorBuzz does a solid job of revealing what actually makes for good “viral effect”, the spread of activities that will spur people to either promote you or be involved with your creation. For example, one suggestion is to buzz readers, booksellers & librarians that you do phone calls with book groups.  It’s a novel idea, and a double value strategy for getting promoted AND getting connected directly to potential readers.  Since every creative professional can benefit from sharing their expertise, self-publishing is an opportunity with the promise of some very enticing returns.

Developing Your Own Portfolio Online

I’ve just visited one of the member’s of the Digital Atelier site, Dorothy Krause, and I noticed she had done something very interesting in terms of displaying her work. She used a flip book where you can click on the edges and the pages, well, flip them, as if you were turning actual pages from a book.  It’s a great use of the application because the images she is sharing all have a similar textural quality and so, viewing her book of images is a fluid, engaging experience.

Flipbooks, then, are great if your work is grouped together as a series.  And they are very easy to create — especially when your website is a blog and you can access tons of plugins that have this feature.  Just check out this flipbook plugin on the Wordpress site, and you’re good to go.  Once installed, you’ll be able to upload your images into it  automatically.  Of course, there are other options you might want to check out too.  I use both NextGen Gallery, a plugin for blog sites when I want to embed an image gallery in a line format into a web page, and a Content template called PhotoNexus with a built-in gallery, when I want to have a dedicated website, that is, when I want just a site that shows images in quick succession and organized by category.  The latter did cost me a small amount but it fit my needs perfectly.

So, don’t be overwhelmed, as if this is a mountain of a technical problem.  It isn’t. There are plenty of ways to scale the mountain of “how best do I present my images exactly!” —  from a simple slideshow, using Smilebox or a show generated from a Flickr account, to the more advanced that keeps your images completely within your own domain, as in the dedicated gallery template I’ve just described above.  Any and all of these options will create satisfying displays of your work.

Somebody told me recently.  We all have our own way to climb a mountain.  Just stick to your own preferences and do it!  I think, in this case, that’s pretty sage advice!

Localizing Your Business Via Online Tools: A Bay Area Example

Nothing like having a real business challenge to get me moving on how to advertise locally. And I certainly had that. Nothing complicated in any way; just a few small businesses yearning to open their doors and reach out to the Bay Area community, and my challenge to come up with a few strategies for them.

Since I had been concentrating on online awareness campaigns exclusively, and not what social media could do on the ground at the local level, I had some work to do.  No matter. Like a siren call, there came a point when certain terms persisted, echoed louder and louder.  Words like “localizing”, “hyperlocal.”   I’m sure for you too.

So, here’s what we’re probably all seeing.  Local is part of almost every social media effort now.  Sure, we always had our friends to help us broadcast announcements but what’s newly sprouted are potentially more powerful options for discovery that lie beyond our own networks.  Oh, and the accumulation of many more options, such as:

• Local search (Check out Google Becoming Local)
• Blog aggregation focused on a local community and category of interest (see below)
• The emergence of outlets that emphasize  local views (Think Google AdWords or cityslick.net)
• Local video/TV/radio  (BlogTalk Radio provides a local lookup)
• Local ‘location-based’ coupons channels (Think Groupon, now in S.F. and the East Bay)
• Local mapping (Bing, Google, Ask and Yahoo, all have local filters, with mapping opps that create better or even new experiences while mobile)
• Local social networks/meetups (Think Craigslist, Loopt, Tweetups, etc.)
• Online business hubs with a local emphasis (e.g., Google Local Business Center really can optimize your search, achieving better placement in search results, etc).

I was a little surprised, on the other hand, to realize several local business directories (like Yahoo) were quite sparse, and content from many local professional associations, disappointing. Nevertheless, what has emerged to help us hear about/advertise local is impressive (especially those innovations that have focused on filling the gap left by traditional news outlets). For example, Vid SF LOCAL is a ‘Video as Local TV’ site which accepts local advertising and improves local connection-making, and Bay Area News, one of the aggregators for community sites and bloggers, now makes local exploration increasingly fun (many points of view represented in our most passionate areas of interest), not to mention rewarding to folks interested in combining business with a community presence.  Places like Thumbtack are now emerging as the new local directories. And I’m sure we’ll be hearing about many more developments as well.

So, hey, there’s reason for a little optimism, no?  Certainly, there is power in this media. The trick, of course, is to keep up with it, and then, do something with the visibility we are able to achieve.

Mobile Publishing — getting the word out

I don’t know if this formally qualifies as publishing, but when I went to MacWorld recently, I saw three mobile apps with strong personal appeal.

One was called SelfServeApps which allows anyone to build a high quality phone app from their web browser in less than an hour at a fraction of the cost of custom development, giving small business owners a footing in the mobile market. Think of now being able to provide a creative mobile service with a lot of functionality to customers at a comparatively low cost of entry ($99.00 for setup, $29.00-$99.00 monthly).  It integrates with mobile web pages so customers can place orders via their iphones (and only iphones) as well.  Although it’s not yet integrated, that is, not all functionality provided operates within the app itself suggesting there could be performance issues (slower access which can turn consumers off), they plan on a fuller integration in a future version. It’s a Canadian company, reachable at 1-250-940-9080.

Another was called Yapper, which is essentially a web-based tool that allows you to build an iphone app based on a RSS feed.  App creation here too is $99.00+, with the ability to simply stream the latest and greatest utility/service that your company can provide via an app.  If you have a stream of offerings (weekly customer specials, articles published that are helpful to your community, information that’s useful on-the-go), your content made accessible via this app could win some hearts. The company, SachManya, is from Santa Clara.  Their phone number is (408)782-4557.

And a third was QuickOffice, an app for $10.00 which simply makes it very easy to both review and edit MS Office software (Excel, Word, etc.).  Although more a general tool, than something special for publishing, I believe it will be possible to keep up a productive pace, doing publishing-oriented tasks, again, while on-the-go.  Nothing earth-shattering here; just a practical app for when you’re mobile.

Shock! You can make a simple mobile app…and faster than you think!

Somewhere in the part of the world where curiosity seekers seek lies a little habitat called Mobile. Here, people go hungry if they don’t get fed, that is, when they lose access to those ubiquitous, ‘you really want me now’, increasingly useful mobile apps.

I didn’t think I knew much about this place, until one day, I saw that my home ground was a deja vu. Right on my very own iphone dashboard (I counted them) were approximately 75 apps. How did it happen? Quite obviously, I downloaded them all, slowly over months perhaps, but still, the herd was overtaking my screen.

Well, well. We’re talking iTranslate, Zhing, Brightkite, iBlueSky, Dogtag, Skype, NPR, Pandora, FMtouch, Stanza, Ruler, NightCamera, Spanish, Showtimes, Ichillout/iZenGarden, Foursquare, and Evernote, among many others. Apparently, I’m famished, not to mention I must find them tantalizingly useful. It’s true — when I’m on the run, the information’s right there,  less floundering.  Nice!

Now, after a few additional trips to the land of Mobile, I’m also learning, with some counsel, that I can actually make one of these too. Although mobile development tools like Corona that works on the iphone require understanding of code like javascript and actionscript, there’s also Build an App that lets you create something simple in less than an hour. Unbelievable how fast things turn around to encourage mobile participation.

But if you’re really smart, I’m told by Barbara Ballard, author of Designing the Mobile User Experience and President/Founder of Little Springs Designs which offers up an incredibly informative mobile design site, you’ll want to use an open source tool like Phone Gap that works on the iphone plus the Blackberry/Android platforms as well (AND they offer online training!).  Their pitch and ours: it simply makes more sense to build an app that can leverage several platforms instead of just one. And with more app stores from multiple vendors on the horizon, the appeal is obvious.

As for myself, I’m not living and breathing life as a designer in the mobile terrain yet but I have to say it’s fun to realize that there’s interesting opportunity ahead for any of us creative types who have an idea for a useful service. Whether we’re just prototyping an idea or actually diving straight in to do it ourselves, we don’t have to pray for bumping into a competent geek to jumpstart our idea. I’d say that’s a bit of a wow! What about you?

Social Media Impact — Some Ideas Worth Trying

Sometimes, I just want to figure out what matters most in terms of social media impact.  As messages, dire and otherwise, blast my ears, and content consumption line my days, I decided to attend an Inbound Marketing Conference moderated by Chris Brogan in San Francisco.

I walked away with two major insights.  How to be as consumer-centric as possible, and what that entails, and how to get yourself/your company ready to deliver impact.  This topic is split up into two posts.

Developing Consumer Centricity

• Always be helping has replaced always be closing — The context at the conference assumed you were selling something, and of course, with selling, this is how it is more than ever. Can’t be overgeneralized though.  If I were always helping, I’d become depleted and lose my usefulness, not to mention go broke. But within certain boundaries, building social capital and meaningful relationships (being responsive to fellow community members on social media sites) is a valuable endeavor, requiring that you focus on ways to recognize and empower others through what and how you share.
• When you want to crowd-source something, by all means, make it easy.  Crowd what? Crowd-sourcing.  Simply means enlisting your community to contribute content. Ever try Pegshot.com or hear about the Extraordinaires? The former makes it easy to share videos and photos of what’s happening where you already are.  And the latter provides the software to help you mobilize your community to contribute photo albums and maps.  Either way, you are getting people to know who you are and what you aspire to.  That willingness to crowd-source will fuel a sense of affiliation within your community.
• When you ask people to register for your e-alerts or info, manage their expectations about they are signing on to receive — how much and when.  This will let customers know you value their time from the get-go. Don’t forget to also include options for sharing (e.g., send to a friend options) within your emails.
• Always ask: what does your community really need most from you?  Don’t wander too far from that need. What is the point of your content from their perspective?   How can you most help? Come to think of it, why not come up with something actionable from every conversation you have.
• Trust comes most frequently from recommendations and you must learn to make customers a more central part of your story in order to earn those recommendations.  Check out sources of customer case studies; in all of the ones that were effective, you can be sure customers had a meaningful opportunity to contribute and loved the recognition!

That’ll be mobile offers on herbal tea only, thanks!

I recently realized that something that has a great appeal to some folks, like location-based sharing, has less relevance and appeal to me — especially when it comes to keeping things in the short term much simpler.

Not sure why that is really, except that I just finished a job where I realized I simply prefer choosing my own influences.  The fact that some choices I need to make come recommended seems to matter less when there’s not that compulsive need to check in with others. At times, what you want, you simply already know.

So, when I saw that some mobile services actually encourage you to sign up with companies, brands, and services which you know would already compel your participation, I could see I liked that more.  For example, with mobilecoupons.com, you can just put in your area, choose your category of interest, and get deals that way. So, as this post title suggests, I can get offers just on herbal teas. Location-based services has that element of keeping tabs on everyone  and keeping you in step with your friends, when that may not be your mindset. May not always be true, but for now, yes.

More and more, I see that companies and brands can easily develop their own private apps, offering up discounts directly to those who have already expressed interest.  I could offer up those offers through a privately branded app. I find that simpler too.  As a small business, could you see this having appeal to you?