Making the most of your Facebook page
A great article was posted on Mashable this week about making the most of your professional Facebook page. The article offers great suggestions on how to build your page, and will help put together a social media plan. Definitely a good read – I learned a bit this morning!
to friend or not to friend… what an interesting question
I’ve attended meetings recently with several school Public Information Officers and the “Friend Question” is a hot one. There is no doubt that Social Media is here to stay, in an ever evolving form no less! There is always the question of “How do we leverage this to keep our kids engaged in the classroom?”, quickly followed by “What is an appropriate level of involvement?”
The Chicago Tribune posted an article this week: Should students ‘friend’ teachers online? It’s a great article that shines light on one of the grayest of the gray areas! On the one hand you have a teacher that is clearly using the tool in a positive way to keep his students updated on lessons and deadlines, but you also have the valid argument that it opens a big door into over-share-land. (Which opens an entirely new can of worms about educating our youth about over sharing online in general).
I believe this is a debate we will be facing for years to come, especially given the constant state of change in which Social Media seems to exist. Perhaps we can use Foursquare to check us into a world where privacy and liability issues aren’t so risky…
Online Education going Social
This is a pretty relevant article about why Online Education Needs to Get Social.
I think this is one of the concepts that all of us struggle with, especially in the public education system. Our students are using Social Media and it is keeping them engaged. So it seems pretty obvious that we need to use these tools in the classroom – easier said than done!
the pitter-patter of little feet
I joined the NWESD team in November of 2009, and it seems like a strange coincidence that nine months later we are poised to start a huge online environment shift. In the next couple weeks the project begins: building a new and improved NWESD website, flanked by a cluster of online platforms that do everything from social networking to providing a library of resources related to the cooperatives and programs we offer. From a communications standpoint, our lives will be forever changed.
I have to admit that this project has been a daunting one to conceptualize. It started out with a simple idea – lets freshen up the website. It sounded innocent enough and I estimated just a few short months of work to get everything tucked in. Easy!
However, like many young Moms, myself included, I was in for a wake up call when we actually started putting the plans together. If we’re going to freshen the content, we need to restructure the framework – which led to an analysis of what was currently there and why. In the course of doing so, we realized that our departments and programs need a more collaborative workspace for learning and sharing, in addition to the static informational website. Our little baby plan had grown seemly overnight and there was no turning back!
While we’ve spent nine months putting the plan together, the next year is a very important time for us. We will be putting the blocks together and testing the functionality of our new Drupal system, with an expected launch time frame of June 2011. The first year is always a time of learning, where we discover the challenges we didn’t expect and find a way to work through them. I do expect, however, that after the first year we will wonder how we ever lived without it…a little bit of blind faith thrown in for good measure.
a fantastic Monday morning geek-out opportunity!
One of my very favorite and, luckily, very useful activities as a Communications person is reading blog posts and articles by experts in my field. This article came through from Mashable – which, in my opinion, is one of the best online resources for our industry. I cannot recommend them enough and subscribe to their technology, social media and business feeds.
This article: 40+ Web Design and Development Resources for Beginners is a fantastic way to start your week. I think all of us, where ever we are on the development/maintenance scale of our websites, can use at least some of these links and resources.
I will take this moment to note a few awesome resources that I believe were overlooked – at least from my perspective:
Lynda.com – Seriously, the BEST online training resource ever born. About a year ago I decided it was time to learn how to build in Flash. In one day I went from “how do you open this bloody program?” to “Wow! Look at the cool Flash banner I just built for a client!”
Joomla – A great open source CMS for beginners, with a large network of plug-ins and support forums for beginning designers. The NWESD is preparing to launch a new web environment using Drupal (which was listed) but I have to admit that Joomla is certainly one of my top choices when I start building a site. This is a great one to consider while you evaluate Drupal and WordPress.
Firefox Extensions – A few of these were noted in the article, but I cannot function without SEVERAL of these web development tools. There is literally no web work happening without them. The ones I use the most are Measureit – where I can measure anything on the web in exact pixel dimensions, and Colorzilla – that allows me to get the exact RGB color match for any image or graphic showing in my browser.
So happy geeking on this Monday morning!
Think twice before you post
This is a really unfortunate lapse in judgment by a major corporation, and a great lesson to all of us that take part in Social Media marketing. Sometimes we can get caught up in the concept, forgetting who our audience is and where this campaign may go.
choosing a font is like choosing a glass of wine…
I was teaching a class this morning on Email Marketing (yes, while still considering the hop-while-clicking-my-heels move) and a great question was asked by one of the participants: “Which fonts are best?” I’ve come across a number of articles and blog posts discussing fonts and font choices lately, so it seems like the question is floating in the air these days.
The Great Font Debate reminds me of the “What type of wine goes with fish/red meat/pasta” discussion I used to fall into while waitressing in college. As a college student, my wine knowledge was tapped out at “this is how to open the bottle”, so I polled a number of the higher-ups to see what I was supposed to be recommending to people. One of them told me something that I will never forget: The best type of wine to pair with your meal is one that you like.
Source: http://www.zimbio.com/Tim+Gunn's+Essentials
Now, before we all go nuts with a curly-Q font that dots the “I”s with hearts (its out there, people) I should put a disclosure in here pointing out that the font must also fit the situation. Script fonts can be lovely or they can be tacky – so as Tim Gunn says on Project Runway, “Edit thoughtfully!”
For my part, I am magnetically drawn to serif fonts. Serif fonts are ones that have the strokes and details at the edges of the letters – like Times New Roman or Garamond. Sans-serif fonts are ones that are “without serif” like Arial and Calibri. I can’t pinpoint exactly where my love for serif fonts comes from, but I’m assuming it has to do with the additional details that go along with that typeface. To me, sans-serif fonts always look like they are missing something… probably the serif…
So it stands to reason that most of my work is done with serif fonts, which is likely part of the signature that I believe all designers have to some extent, even if done very subtly. Whichever font type you prefer, there are a number of other factors to consider when choosing a font – height-to-width ratio, character widths and stroke width – to name a few.
Here are some great articles about choosing fonts and which ones are best in different situations.
30 Fonts To Last A Life Time from Just Creative Design
What’s the right typeface for text? from Before & After Magazine
Bored with Gotham Typeface? from imjustcreative
As for the original question about what is the best font to use in Email Marketing, that question is decided less upon personal preference and more upon the use of web safe fonts. However, web safe fonts come in both serif and sans-serif – so as long as you are choosing from a web safe font gallery (which should come standard with your Email Marketing system) you are probably safe to rely on the preferences of your audience and yourself. After all, if everyone at the table likes white wine, it will go wonderfully with the steaks.
The Fabulousness of Email Marketing
One of our email templates, coming to an inbox near you!
The NWESD just purchased an email marketing system that allows each department to manage all of their professional development communications. If I was a bit more flexible, I probably would’ve done one of those hopping-while-clicking-your-heels moves. This is great news for us and our modern marketing efforts – and provides a great opportunity for a little geek time.
If you haven’t made the move to a formal email marketing system, you are missing out. Accounts are unbelievably inexpensive – we are paying a penny or less per email we send, compared to printing and a stamp, and the emails are specifically built to work harmoniously with the clients’ in-box. I cannot imagine what our open rate was when sending PDF fliers attached to standard emails, but I’m thinking it was not good. And the lack of said information leads us to the next very cool part about email marketing…
For all the geeks like me out there: there is a response matrix that goes along with each mailing! We are always looking for ways to measure the effectiveness of our marketing efforts and most email marketing systems give us the ability to do so. (If you find one that doesn’t, keep looking!) After a campaign is sent you can see a report that tells you if messages bounced and where – which allows us to follow-up with districts to request an add to their white list. We can measure our open rates against other mailings, which can tell us a lot about how our efforts are being received by our audience. There is really a plethora of geeky data that can be analyzed and utilized to improve our communication with the audience we exist to serve.
Another thing we are loving about this move is our ability to manage our contacts. Not only do we have a system completely dedicated to clean and organized lists, but the system offers us easy forms to post for clients to subscribe to their areas of interest only. Nobody wants to get stuck on 50 lists when they only wanted two subject areas – so this gives people the ability to control their own preferences and gives us the ability to sort accordingly. Genius!!
As if I haven’t yet communicated the fabulousness of the email marketing, I’ll leave you with some comments about eye candy. Email marketing systems are built for the pretty – and most have templates you can customize with little effort. Imagine how much more enticing an offer is when wrapped in a lovely HTML package. The NWESD spent time creating custom stationary in Photoshop, which is great from a branding and consistency standpoint, but I’ll admit that it’s also an opportunity to enjoy some quality time with the graphics software…
Hungry for more
I am a total information hound – there are literally not enough hours in the day for me to read half of the blogs and articles on design/marketing I come across. I have to limit myself to a just a few minutes each day to make sure I am able to get enough work done!
Having said that, I believe that a steady stream of blogs and articles are crucial. You cannot know too much about the upcoming trends and ideas in this field. The NWESD recently restructured our publications, turning two magazines into one. This meant a new name and, my favorite part, a new publication logo! Before opening my Adobe suite, I first took a look through some galleries and blogs focusing on text only logos – which is the direction we were choosing to follow. The official logo is under wraps until the release of the new publication at the end of August, but here are a few of my favorite inspirational sources – just to get your juices flowing:
Before & After Magazine
Mashable
Prom Night Fist Fight
Smashing Magazine
Just Creative Design
Between us: I saved the best for last, as this website has more information on one page than I can absorb in one day (galleries, ideas, resources, how-to articles, the list goes on). I can’t stop clicking and reading – so grab some coffee and enjoy this one!
Getting Started
I get questions frequently about how to get started with social media. Whether you’re a small business or a school district wanting to jump into the fire, the advice is always the same: Take it slow. There are any number of places you could be talking about your school – but who has time to be in six places online at one time? I’ve seen several people post themselves on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a new blog all at the same time. I hope you laced up your tennis shoes because you’re in for a long race!
In my experience, its best to start with one social media outlet. Pick the one that has the highest concentration of your target audience (are you trying to reach your students with upcoming school activities or their parents with news and updates about your district?). Spending time building the content on the one social media site, and connecting with the audience there, will be far more beneficial in the long run than trying to build in four places at once.
Once you’ve waded into one social media platform you may find that another platform is calling your name. I find this often happens with Facebook and Twitter. While there are some crossovers there, most people tend to favor one or the other – which means that eventually you should be posting on both. Don’t worry! There are great dashboard programs out there that allow you to post in both places at one time. My current favorite is HootSuite, which allows you to link several social media sites into one dashboard and post to any or all of them at one time. The NWESD has a diverse audience with 50 programs available, so we have multiple social media sites managed by different departments. All of them are funneled through HootSuite, giving us the ability to oversee all accounts in once place. There are many variations of this theme out there, so which one you choose really depends on the needs of your organization. However, I think a dashboard program is a must for any organization or school district managing multiple social media platforms.
Whichever path you choose, you definitely want to take your time. Social Media isn’t going anywhere and, like any marketing or PR effort, you want to go forth with careful thought.
