Oct 11 / 2013
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Articles, Inbound Marketing, Social Media

Lake Havasu Web Design – Social Advertising for Your Business

Good morning folks!

Are you looking to invest in some social advertising for your business? Check out Lauren Indvik’s article, “Social Advertising Tips for Your Business”, below:

“Social Advertising Tips for Your Business

For small business owners, the complex ecosystem of social media advertising can be difficult to navigate. For every success story — and there are plenty — there are hundreds, if not thousands, of small business frustrated by their attempts to attract customers through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Pinterest, etc.

The problem, fundamentally, is that small businesses are on social media because they feel that they should be — not because it fits into some larger strategy. They’ve heard about the small businesses that have radically enlarged themselves through those networks, as if by magic — that magic being, in fact, the execution of very smart strategies.

Before you pour further resources into a Facebook page or a Twitter account, it’s worth laying out the factors — in marketing terms, the key performance indicators (KPIs) — that determine the success or failure of your business. Are word-of-mouth and customer advocacy essential to your customer acquisition strategy? Perhaps it’s worth looking at social media to amplify those messages. Likewise, if you find that your Facebook fans spend more and more often than non-Facebook fans, it may be worth investing in ads that will help you boost your fan count.

Here, we’ve outlined the ad products offered by the two most popular social networks: Facebook and Twitter. Perhaps in reading about them, you’ll find matches with your business’ list of KPIs. In that case, you may want to set aside a budget to test them against the marketing investments you’re already making. After all, you’ll never know what works until you try.

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads used to be extremely complex, but thanks to a recent overhaul, they’re much simpler to purchase these days.

Your first task is to identify your marketing objective. Do you want Facebook users to buy something on your site? You should optimize for website conversions. If you simply want more Likes on your Facebook page — knowing that Facebook fans tend to be valuable customers in the long run — then optimizing for page Likes is the way to go. You can also optimize for website clicks, post engagement, app installs, app engagement, Offer claims and RSVPs to a Facebook event.

Once an objective has been identified, Facebook will guide you to the most appropriate ad type. It’s up to you to choose where that ad appears — in the News Feed, for example, or alongside it. Facebook will help you figure out where your ad is likely to perform best. You’ll also need to choose a headline, image (you can upload up to five on rotation) and text for your ad. Facebook recommends copy be “succinct, friendly and conversational.”

Once you’ve chosen your ad, you’ll need to decide who sees it. You can target people by location, age, gender, interest, relationship status, language, education and even workplace. You can also opt to target only people who are or are not already connected to your page or app, or the friends of people who already like said page or app. This kind of targeting is unique to Facebook, and should be thought out carefully. A restaurant, for example, may want to advertise a group happy hour special to employees of nearby businesses that tend to go out together after-hours.

Lastly, there’s the budget. You can allot a daily or lifetime budget, the former of which will allow you to space out your ads over a broader timeframe. You can also decide how you want to pay: You can either pay for specific actions (such as Likes or website purchases), or per thousand impressions. Facebook will help you choose the best one. Pricing varies according to the competition in the demographic you’re targeting.

Once you’ve set up your campaign, you’ll want to track its progress through Facebook’s analytics dashboard. Pretty quickly, you’ll be able to see which ads and images are performing the best — and can modify your spending accordingly.

Head over to Facebook’s advertising center to get started.

Twitter Ads

Twitter’s ad suite is much more simple. It’s divided into two categories: Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts. (A third ad product, Promoted Trends, isn’t available to small businesses.)

Promoted Tweets are ideal when you want to advertise a specific message, or product. If your goal is new followers, promoting your account is the most efficient method, as you’ll pay only when you add new followers. It’s worth testing whether promoting a specific message, or having more followers (who may then see multiple messages), is more profitable for your business over time.

Screen Shot 2013-10-01 at 12.50.41 PM

You can opt for two kinds of targeting. The first is by keyword, which will allow you to target those who search, tweet about or otherwise engage with a specific term. You can also target by interests and followers, reaching people who fall into certain broad interest categories (like board games or college basketball) or who follow specific accounts — a skin care brand might want to target users who follow accounts that tweet about beauty and anti-aging advice. You can also limit your targeting to certain devices, like BlackBerry, and by gender.

Once you’ve set that all up, you can set lifetime and daily maximum budgets for your campaign. If you’re running a Promoted Tweet campaign, you set the amount you’re willing to pay every time someone retweets, replies, favorites, follows or clicks on your tweet. (Twitter recommends bidding somewhere in the $1.50 to $2.20 per engagement range.) For Promoted Account campaigns, you pay per follower — Twitter recommends bidding in the $2.50 to $3.50 range.

Beyond Facebook and Twitter

While small business participation on Twitter, and especially Facebook, is high, companies may find that other networks (and their ad products) are a better strategic fit. Pinterest, for example, has become essential to women’s lifestyle publishers, accounting for as much as 10% of their monthly referral traffic. Tumblr and LinkedIn may also be worth exploring, depending on your target customer demographic and other needs.

To repeat our earlier mantra: You’ll never know what works until you try. What you may discover is that social networks and their ad products don’t yet provide the kinds of returns that ad products from Google and elsewhere can — and that’s okay, too.

Images: Mashable composite from iStockphoto, Artpuppy; Facebook; Twitter”

Oct 09 / 2013
0

The Internet

Lake Havasu City Web Design- What People are Really Doing on the Internet, Part III

Happy Hump Day!

Hey homies, ready for more cool charts and graphs? Of course you are!

Scroll down for Business Insider’s article explaining what people are doing online through sweet charts and pictures:

“10 Stunning Facts About What People Are REALLY Doing On The Internet

…continued…

Tablets are selling faster than smartphones. In less than three years on the market, they’ve surpassed desktop and notebook PC shipments.

KPCB

The average mobile phone user reaches for his or her device 150 times per day. A good portion of the time, they’re just checking the time (which is a good case for the smart watch).

KPCB

QR code scanning may not have caught on yet in the US, but it’s huge in China. It’s up 4X year over year there, and it’s used primarily for passcodes and promotions.

KPCB

Why we should all care about immigration laws: 1st and 2nd generation Americans employ 1.3 million people in the US and have founded more than half of the top 25 tech companies.

(Internet Photo courtesy of Alvimann)

Oct 07 / 2013
0

The Internet

Lake Havasu City Web Design- What People are Really Doing on the Internet, Part II

Wake up to a new week NSquared readers!

Welcome to Part II of our blog series, What People are Really Doing on the Internet. Scroll down for more fun facts, charts and graphs:

“10 Stunning Facts About What People Are REALLY Doing On The Internet (Part II)

Snapchat is a monster, with more than 150 million images being shared and uploaded per day.

KPCB

YouTube is growing quickly. Now, more than 100 hours of video are uploaded to it per minute, up from nothing six years ago.

KPCB

YouTube is becoming almost as widely used as Facebook. Tumblr rose from obscurity in 2011 to a frequently used social media site in one year.

“

…to be continued…

Oct 04 / 2013
0

The Internet

Lake Havasu City Web Design- What People are Really Doing on the Internet, Part I

The internet. It’s pretty huge. So what is everyone doing while they’re “online”? Check it out:

“10 Stunning Facts About What People Are REALLY Doing On The Internet (Part I)

What do people do online, how do they get online, and how are startups changing our behavior?

Mary Meeker, a former Wall Street analyst and current Silicon Valley investor, put together

an annual presentation on the state of the Internet and mobile.

In it, she answers a bunch of those questions and more. Here are the most stunning findings.

There is 9 times more content available to peruse online than there was 5 years ago. It’s all thanks to user-generated content, such as photo shares, video uploads, tweets and articles. As of 2011, the content totaled 2 zettabytes.

500 million photos are shared and uploaded per day. More photos are uploaded and shared on Snapchat than Instagram. Snapchat’s upload volume is about 1/3 of Facebook’s.

“

Oct 02 / 2013
0

Random

Lake Havasu City Web Design- 3D Printed Extreme Architecture

Morning cool kids,

So we have all heard of 3D printers, right? We’re not talking printing photos on flat paper here folks; we’re talking printing ears and guns. Well recently, some architects decided to “print” a room. (And no, not four flat walls…) Check it out!

“‘Digital Grotesque’ Structure Takes 3D Printing to New Heights

3D printers can create everything from glasses to ears, yet two architects have pushed the technology to new heights — by printing an entire room.

Benjamin Dillenburger and Michael Hansmeyer teamed up with an eight-person fabrication team to create an entirely 3D-printed 172-square-foot room. Titled “Digital Grotesque,” the room is made up of 3D-printed sandstone in two large halves that come together and form a space for viewers to explore its intricate design details.

While working on the design took about a year, the team finished printing after a month and put the room together in only one day.

The all-white structure is made up of complex forms that twist and turn, sometimes folding into weird shapes that look like the inside of a kaleidoscope. Viewers can walk into the structure to see the designs up close, as shown in the video below.

We corresponded with Hansmeyer via e-mail to discuss the technical aspects of the project and how new modes of technology might change architecture as a whole.

By using computational design and additive manufacturing, we can design architecture with a complexity and richness that would be impossible to draw by hand.

By using computational design and additive manufacturing, we can design architecture with a complexity and richness that would be impossible to draw by hand,” wrote Hansmeyer. “We’re primarily exploring the expressive potentials of these new technologies, by devising new spatial experiences and sensations.”

The Switzerland-based architects’ work utilizes customized algorithms, starting with a simple form that is repeatedly divided into smaller parts through computational design. When the division rates are tweaked, the geometry changes; in the end, the ‘Digital Grotesque’ algorithm creates a form with 260 million individual parts. The changes happen quickly and easily, much more efficiently than if someone took the time to hand-draw them. Each part of the structure — from its overall shape to its smallest design detail — was created this way.

While, 3D printing has been used for objects such as shoes and even a gun, “Digital Grotesque” ranks among the first to build something larger than the human body; the structure towers more than 10 feet high.

As Hansmeyer points out, architects can now move more quickly from model-making to building a solid structure that can stand on its own: They don’t need to take extra steps between the computational design and the additive manufacturing that yields the 3D-printed parts.

“A single printed piece can weigh up to 12 tons, yet have a resolution at fraction of a millimeter,” wrote Hansmeyer. “Also, the sand-printed pieces are massive and fully structural themselves; they don’t need any additional support structure.”

The resolution refers to the height of each printed layer or “how much the print head moves at each step.” The team created each piece with distinct construction details that make them fit into other pieces easily.The pieces are then sprayed with resin to add more stability to the smaller parts of the design and close the pores of the sandstone.

design5

“Digital Grotesque” explores both how technology can lead to new ways of building and help express creative visions more fully. Hansmeyer explains that the name came from the way the project explores the “delicate balance between the expected and the unexpected, between control and relinquishment.”

3D printing is relatively inexpensive; while the printer might put a significant dent in users’ wallets, the printing itself remains relatively affordable. In addition, this particularly complicated design could not possibly function on CAD software — the go-to program for architects — because of the large amount of data it contains.

“For the first time, there is no longer a cost for complexity: printing a highly detailed and ornamental room costs the same as printing a plain box,” wrote Hansmeyer. “Also, the scope of possible designs has been vastly expanded: one can print geometries that would have been impossible to manufacture using any other method. Just as importantly, there is no cost for customization: printing highly individual designs costs no more than printing a standardized series.

“Digital Grotesque” will sit in the permanent collection of the FRAC Centre in France.

Images: Hansmeyer/Dillenburger”

Oct 02 / 2013
0

Fun Stuff

Facebook Tab Images

Free Facebook Tab Images!

Just right click an image, select “Save Image as” and save it to your desktop:

Sep 30 / 2013
0

Websites

Lake Havasu City Website Design – The Very First Website Ever

Mornin’ friends!

Have you ever wondered what the very first website looked like? Doesn’t everyone think about that sort of thing? We do…

Check it out:

“The Very First Website Returns to the Web

Twenty years ago…CERN published a statement that made the World Wide Web freely available to everyone. To celebrate that moment in history, CERN is bringing the very first website back to life at its original URL.

If you’d like to see the very first webpage Tim Berners-Lee and the WWW team ever put online, point your browser to http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.

For years now that URL has simply redirected to the root info.cern.ch site. But, because we all know cool URIs don’t change, CERN has brought it back to life. Well, sort of anyway. The site has been reconstructed from an archive hosted on the W3C site, so what you’re seeing is a 1992 copy of the first website. Sadly this is, thus far, the earliest copy anyone can find, though the team at CERN is hoping to turn up an older copy.

Be sure to view the source of the first webpage. You’ll find quite a few things about early HTML that have long since changed — like the use of <HEADER> instead of <HEAD> or the complete absence of a root<HTML> tag. There’s also a trace of Berners-Lee’s famous NeXT machine in the <NEXTID N="55"> tag.

CERN has big plans for the original website, starting with bringing the rest of the pages back online. “Then we will look at the first web servers at CERN and see what assets from them we can preserve and share,” writes CERN’s Dan Noyes. “We will also sift through documentation and try to restore machine names and IP addresses to their original state.”

In the mean time, have a look at the web’s original todo list and read more about the project to restore the first website over on Mark Boulton’s blog.”

Sep 27 / 2013
0

Cool Stuff With a Cause

Lake Havasu Graphic Design- Deliver Bikes in Africa This Weekend

‘Sup NSquared homies?

What are ya’ll going to be up to this weekend? Well whatever it is, we’re sure you can squeeze in some time to deliver bikes to Africa.

No, really…we are completely sure you can. For serious. How you say? Like this:

“By Playing This Game, You Deliver Bikes in Africa

One company is taking a different approach to gamifying charity: by playing a game on your iPhone, you provide transportation to people in Africa.

The Global Gaming Initiative uses popular mobile game genres to create games that “make play purposeful.” The company’s first game, Sidekick Cycle, provides people in poor regions in Africa with bikes, through a partnership with charity World Bicycle Relief.

Sidekick Cycle, which was released last week on iTunes, is a downhill racing game where players navigate a bicycle on progressively difficult terrain. Half the proceeds are going to World Bicycle Relief. For every 387 games sold, a bike goes to a disadvantaged child. The game even keeps players updated with how many bikes they have helped donate. This is a different approach to gamification for charity, as Sidekick Cycle exists as a game with good mechanics first and a teaching tool second.

Our game does have a message, but it is through play and having fun that people learn

Our game does have a message, but it is through play and having fun that people learn,” said Global Gaming Initiative founder Elizabeth Sarquis. “In the U.S., bikes are a leisure activity for most, but in other parts of the world bikes are a form of transportation that provides access to education, health and employment.”

Sarquis said the company is focused on charity but also making the process both fun and transparent at the same time. ForSidekick Cycle and future games, it vets the charity thoroughly to assure they are transparent, as well as offer a tangible good that affects the lives in the communities they serve.

“After serving many years on non-profit boards, I became aware of the collapse of the non-profit model after the 2008 financial crisis,” Sarquis said. “As a result of that, people were willing to donate to charities, but they demanded accountability. They cared to know where their donations were going, especially with the transparency that the Internet can provide.”

Sarquis said Global Gaming Initiative wants to tap in to the passion of gamers and channel that passion into real-world problems.

“Mobile games allow engagement in a way that has never been seen before. Not only are the numbers of players astounding, but so is our connectivity,” she said. “We now realize that we are all connected and what happens in other parts of the world affects us all. The smartphone generation is not only aware of this but they actively want to ‘do good’ in a measurable way.”

Sidekick Cycle is out now for iOS for $0.99. Half of the purchase price, as well as half of the money from in-app purchases, go to charity.”

If you’re going to game it up this weekend, you might as well help some needy people in the process.

Sep 25 / 2013
0

Graphic Design

Lake Havasu City Websites- Digitized Paper Drawings

Howdy readers,

Do you miss the good old days when people drew on…(gack), paper? I do. Well then you’re going to flip out over today’s blog: digitized paper drawings.

“iSketchnote Makes Digitized Copies of Drawings on Paper

With the use of laptops and smartphones, it’s rare nowadays to see someone actually pull out a pen and paper. But a new technology merges the traditional mode of writing and sketching with the technology of the iPad.

iSketchnote works as an iPad cover that digitizes a hard copy of words or drawings on paper. That separates it from other modes of sketching on an iPad, which normally require a specific stylus that interacts with the screen. iSketchnote uses a classic ballpoint pen with a metal ring inside that detects the movement of the pen on any piece of paper. It can play back the pen’s movement in real time and users can share these on social media or save them for later.

The technology uses a USB cord but, thanks to great success on Kickstarter — the project exceeded its goal of $35,000 dollars, boasting more than $214,000 at the time of writing — the team intends to develop a Bluetooth connection.

The ISKN team (ISKN being the sleek, shortened version of the product’s name) worked for two years to find a way to “combine the natural experience of familiar tools with the power technology,” as described on its website.

The technology uses patented sensors that work with the iSketchnote’s unique pens, which also come in different colors. The team began with a collaboration between Jean-Luc Vallejo and Timothee Jobert, who belonged to the French microelectronics organization called LETI. Future plans for ISKN involve partnerships with major pen companies to expand the project.”

Sep 23 / 2013
0

Graphic Design

Lake Havasu City Website Design- What Colors Mean, III

Good morning NSquared readers!

Are you a cool cat that always wears black, or does purple make your heart sing? Maybe you love the look of fresh white color and clean lines. Check out what’s behind the color psychology of purple, black, and white in today’s blog:

“Color Psychology

Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Throughout history purple has been associated with royalty, nobility and prestige. It symbolizes mystery, magic, power and luxury. Purple is often used to portray rich powerful kings, leaders, wizards and magicians. Purple combined with gold can be flashy and portray wealth and extravagance. Light purple and pink is good for a feminine design and is a popular color among teenage girls. Bright purple along with yellow is commonly used in promoting children’s products. It gives the appearance of something that is fun and easy to do.

Black is often a color used to portray something evil, depressing, scary or even death in western civilization. It has negative imagery with it at times such as “black mail” “black list” “black hole” etc. Black is also a very powerful color that also portrays one of class elegance and wealth. Classy clothing is designed in black from the “power suit” to the “sexy black dress” to formal “black-tie attire”. Black combined with other colors can have a very strong statement. Black is a color that can fit into almost every design to add contrast, type, and make the other colors stand out more.

White is often associated with being pure, clean, fresh and good. The color of a fresh snowstorm brings up images of a peaceful and pure winter scene. White is a common background for Webster’s as it is easy to read black or dark text on it. When used with a design using lots of negative space it gives a very clean look to it. White is also used lots for charities and non-profit organizations to denote something good and positive. Hollywood often portrays their characters in white as being good; the white horse, the cowboy with the white hat, the white wizard etc. White usually is associated with being pure and almost heavenly, it is associated with hospitals, doctors, and heaven.”

(Tulip Image Credit: www.ronablack.com)

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Beyond Facebook and Twitter

“10 Stunning Facts About What People Are REALLY Doing On The Internet

Tablets are selling faster than smartphones. In less than three years on the market, they’ve surpassed desktop and notebook PC shipments.

The average mobile phone user reaches for his or her device 150 times per day. A good portion of the time, they’re just checking the time (which is a good case for the smart watch).

QR code scanning may not have caught on yet in the US, but it’s huge in China. It’s up 4X year over year there, and it’s used primarily for passcodes and promotions.

Why we should all care about immigration laws: 1st and 2nd generation Americans employ 1.3 million people in the US and have founded more than half of the top 25 tech companies.

“10 Stunning Facts About What People Are REALLY Doing On The Internet (Part II)

Snapchat is a monster, with more than 150 million images being shared and uploaded per day.

YouTube is growing quickly. Now, more than 100 hours of video are uploaded to it per minute, up from nothing six years ago.

YouTube is becoming almost as widely used as Facebook. Tumblr rose from obscurity in 2011 to a frequently used social media site in one year.

“10 Stunning Facts About What People Are REALLY Doing On The Internet (Part I)

There is 9 times more content available to peruse online than there was 5 years ago. It’s all thanks to user-generated content, such as photo shares, video uploads, tweets and articles. As of 2011, the content totaled 2 zettabytes.

500 million photos are shared and uploaded per day. More photos are uploaded and shared on Snapchat than Instagram. Snapchat’s upload volume is about 1/3 of Facebook’s.

“‘Digital Grotesque’ Structure Takes 3D Printing to New Heights

“The Very First Website Returns to the Web

“By Playing This Game, You Deliver Bikes in Africa

“Color Psychology