Believability Is Key

Look at it as a business owner or decision maker. When we receive an email from gmail, aol, or yahoo, we are generally less apt to take that email as seriously as an email from “admin@yourcompany.com”. If you feel that way about businesses who use free email accounts, then it begs the question why would you use one? In addition to the lack of credibility associated with free accounts, there is another reason that choosing to use your business email account is a wise choice when setting up your email provider, one based purely from a marketing standpoint.

Marketing And Branding As A Rationale For Your Business Email

Businesses pay money to make themselves more visible on the internet everyday. Although some marketing is best left up to the experts, many businesses are simply losing out on free marketing opportunities such as an email address. Look at it from the perspective of your clients and prospective clients. You have already lost believability by using a free account and now you have also lost an opportunity to promote your website. Every chance you have to offer up your URL is one more valid promotion of your company name and website.

Your Reputation Is In Your Hands

As a businessperson, your reputation is everything. How others perceive you is as important for business as your product or service. If perspective clients shy away from you before they even try your product or service, then any amount of promoting will do no good. You must represent yourself in the most positive light possible. In short, it is in your best interest to use only official email addresses for your business. Leave the free email accounts for individuals and make yourself stand out from the crowd.

We offer quality Search Engine Optimization / SEO Services and Internet Marketing Solutions. Our dedicated team of SEO Professionals ensures Top 10 search engine rankings. Our SEO Processes are designed in view of the SEO guidelines, and white hat SEO techniques are strictly followed to ensure that our clients from world over get the best SEO services. Please reply to this email so we can send you more details.

from: cecilia (at) gmail.com

Right off the bat, the gmail email address offers no credibility behind the email – one is still left to wonder who this person is and what company they work for (if they are even a real person). But the real clincher behind this email is – if this supposed person who works for a mysterious company is so good at SEO, then why are they emailing YOU? Is it because they don’t have enough clients because not enough people have found them through their own internet marketing efforts?

My best recommendation is if you are looking for an SEO or internet marketing firm, Google “SEO” and the city and/or state your business is in, talk to your friends/colleagues who have worked with a firm or contact us for a no obligation proposal.

Check it out and let us know your thoughts below:

We speak multiple times per week bouncing ideas, new concepts and trends as well as the occasional personal story off each other. We often laugh and sometimes cry but more importantly we learn from each other. Just last week, Clare brilliantly pointed out that everyone’s in business these days and she’s right. I had never compared the modern era of entrepreneurism to the corporate era when Clare opened her studio in 1987 but it’s different. It’s this very point, that makes me value her insight – as without her the thought would have never crossed my mind.

Let’s hear what Clare has to say about “Clients: It’s Not Their Fault”:

Only a few years ago, clients that bought communication design services were well educated in the design process. Many of them went to design school, later deciding they would be happier buying the work than making it. They were vested in the marketing power of branding and spent years developing their own skill in a marketplace that looked, at that time, “stable” to them. They followed standards that would seem rigid to us nowadays; standards that nonetheless made the work easier and profitable for everyone to do.

These clients won design awards and actually cared what other corporations thought of their visual branding. They understood stuff like corporate color palettes and spoke all the technical lingo of their time. You knew in advance that these clients would be clear about what a “kill fee” was, they understood usage (and planned to pay for it in advance) and they knew that what they paid for did not include endless rounds of revision unless you were billing them. In short, you as designer or developer did not spend ANY time educating clients about your work. They came to you already understanding the business of communication, of design, of branding and marketing…and all you had to do was what you did best: invent, design and produce a fabulous “thing” that made them look good to their higher-ups. They actually paid you for this (very well, in many cases), and you didn’t spend a minute explaining what “comp” was to them. Ah, The Good Old Days…it all changed so quickly, we didn’t know what we had.

The New Client

Corporate meltdowns eliminated a lot of jobs and created a new breed of client: the entrepreneur. These are brave folks with their back against the wall and new dreams to realize. The only problem is that most of these folks had little if any contact with the visual purveyors of their previous corporate entities. They never had to deal with the blurry edges of the creative process, or for that matter, the hard structures of deadlines, clear communication, design briefs, budgets, and all the rest that makes great communication design projects. So while the potential and the need for design is greater than ever today, the folks buying it are less informed about it too.

In 2010, design clients are ubiquitous. Your Aunt Tildie is a client because she wants to sell her cookies on the internet. The guy who walks your dog needs a website. An economy who can no longer take care of it’s corporate shareholders opened the floodgates, and now clients are everywhere and everyone, whether they know what a kill fee is or not, needs a logo. Designers and communication experts need to be smarter than ever before, and much more saintly too, if they want to keep their sense of humor about all of this.

I once knew a design firm that fired Prince. When I asked the principal of the firm about it, he said “well, not every client is right for us and you have to maintain your standards”. (Boy, would I love to have been a fly on the wall during that termination meeting!) That firm has long since broken into smaller pieces, unable to carry a huge overhead and forty employees through dwindling corporate design budgets, the meat of their income. And while we all need to be picky and careful who we give our talent and time to, corporate America, traditionally the fountain of great design, ain’t what it used to be. This new breed of client is a victim of a system that isn’t working so well for anyone anymore.

So it’s not their fault if clients don’t know what they’re doing, or we have to explain the process over and over to them, right? Right! Annoyingly, we’re all in this together. But in the end, I think we’ll be in a better position, no matter what it looks like now. We all may have to do more than what’s expected of us for a while, (and that means clients too!) but when we begin to surprise each other with the integrity we always knew we had – business will be better than ever.

Great point Clare! Thank you for your insight. I would like to hear what you think about this article! Feel free to share your thoughts below.

Clients: It’s Not Their Fault Article Courtesy of:

Since 1987, Clare Ultimo Inc. has been on the forefront of graphic design, corporate communication, and branding, as an award winning Graphic Design Studio located in New York City.

Adding YouTube to your fan page is easy to do as long as you are an administrator of your fan page with your attached profile.

There are two that work well for connecting YouTube to a fan page. One is free and the other requires a VIP membership of $10 for two years or $20 for 3 years. These apps are:

• Involver’s – YouTube for Pages – Free
• Tab Fusion’s – YouTube Tab – $10 year or $20 for 3 years

We have chosen to add the YouTube for Pages app. It works just fine and is free, making it an easy and cost effective solution.

1. Go to Involver’s app page at the following url – http://www.involver.com/pages/gallery.html
   
2. Find the YouTube Channel and click on the facebook install button. This will take you to your facebook page, you should log in or already be logged in when you do this.
3. You are now taken to a box which asks what page you would like to add the app to.


Click on Image to see Larger Version

4. Choose the fan page from the drop down box that you would like to add it to.
5. The application is now installed on your fan page, but you need to connect to it and add a tab.
6. To do this:

• From your profile, in manage accounts, choose the page to manage and go to it.
• Under your picture on the left, click on the edit page link
• Scroll down and find the YouTube for Pages and click on “application settings”
• Choose to Add Tab and hit ok
• Now choose edit in the YouTube for Pages which will take you to a different page where you can set up your account
• Type in your YouTube User or channel name and choose the features you would like to import

Click on Image to see Larger Version

Importing an RSS Feed To Facebook Notes

1. On the tabs at the top of your Facebook Page, you will see a tab called notes. Notes always update to your wall and it is the same for your RSS as well. Go to the notes tab, if you have not added any notes or RSS feeds yet your page will tell you that you haven’t written any notes and to write a note now.
2. Tip – If you have no notes, you may not see the button that says start importing a feed. The way around this is to post a note. It doesn’t matter what you post as you can simply delete the note afterward. Write your note and hit publish if you don’t see the “Subscribe’” and “Edit import settings” on the left of your screen.
3. Once you have the “Subscribe” option on the bottom left of the screen, click on the “Edit import settings” directly below it.
4. You will see the information on importing your blog as well as a place to enter the URL of your feed.
5. Enter the URL and check the box directly below to confirm that you have the right to reproduce this blogs content and hit the “Start Importing Button”.

Please note: The note can take up to 24 hours to post to your Facebook account.

UPDATE – November 3, 2010:

There seems to be a glitch in the feed import. Some have had problems getting their feed added. The message says:
“Import Failed We couldn’t find a feed using the URL you provided.”
As long as you are sure the feed is correct, you may want to double check by making a post that your feed is not working. Some have noticed that even though Facebook says that the feed is not working, it seems to still be posting feed updates to their wall.

The 3 steps to a faster load speed on your website are:

1.) Open Notepad

2.) Add this line: “php_value memory_limit 48M”

3.) Save the file as php.ini (no other extension) and upload file to the root directory of your website (linux hosting).

That should do it! Load time is another important factor in search engine optimization.  The simplicity and effectiveness reminds me of my secret to making your computer run faster, so stay tuned for that tidbit!

P.S. If you are on a monthly plan just drop us an email requesting this file to be added to your website. Alternatively, if you are not on a monthly plan and need help implementing the php.ini file, please contact us for a quote.

Like Twitter, there are a number of Flickr Tabs and Applications to choose from, but not all work with fan page. This makes actually finding the app that will work for you, the most difficult aspect to adding it at all. I have found that the best Flickr app for Facebook is one known as Flickr Tab.
Though it does cost a small yearly fee to upgrade your Flickr account,$10.00, it is a tried and true application that works well.

Note: if you are simply adding a Flickr Tab to a personal profile, the $10.00 upgrade will not be necessary, it is only necessary for “pages” in Facebook.

The object of having a Flickrtab is to allow your Facebook fans to see all of your pictures from your Flickr account, including updates, without having to actually visit Flickr.

1. If you are an administrator – log into your Facebook profile and choose the page you will be managing from your account settings.

2. In the search bar, type in Flickr and choose the app called Flickr Tab

3. Make sure that if you manage more than one Facebook or Flickr account you are on the ones that will be linked.

4. Add the application to your Facebook page by allowing access to Flickr, this can be done without a profile or administrator so you don’t have to be logged in as an administrator for this step, but you will need to be for the next step.

5. If you are not already logged in as an administrator, do so now to complete the link between your accounts. It will ask you for access to your profile information; you must allow access to go any further.

* You may also want to be logged into Flickr for simplicity as you will have to go there soon anyway.

6. At this point, you can go back to the Flickr Tab app http://www.facebook.com/flickrtab and add the tab to your page, except now you have to pay $10 to become a VIP member on Flickr to do so.

7. To become a VIP member of Flickr, simply choose “You” from the top tabs, opt for the “your account” option and choose to upgrade to a Pro account.

8. Once you pay to become a VIP member using paypal, the Flickr feed will be added to your Facebook fan page.

Your Flickr Tab will update each time you update your Flickr account allowing your fans to see your Flickr Photos from your Facebook page.

By far, the most popular sites that companies use today are Facebook and Twitter. Facebook and Twitter allow your group or product to offer promotions, and interact in a conversational format with fans, thereby creating a visible online presence and effectively advertising for free.

The problem with having multiple options for social networking is that administrators would have to update each site individually. In 2009, Facebook announced that they would be making it possible for fan pages to share their updates more easily. By creating an application that allowed administrators to post to Facebook and update Twitter immediately, administrators could now effectively update two social sites with one post, saving significant time and hassle and reaching a wider audience.

The time to link your social sites is now. The sooner you can reach more fans at once, the more effective you can make your online presence. Though there are many ways to do this, the following method seems to be the simplest way to link Facebook to Twitter. After installing the following application, you will be able to post updates from your Facebook fan page to Twitter automatically.

How To Automatically Update Twitter From Your Facebook Fan Page

1.Log into your Facebook profile

2.Paste the following url into the browser once you are logged in http://www.facebook.com/twitter/ and hit enter, this will take you to the Facebook to Twitter application.

3.You will see a list of the pages you manage. If you are an administrator of the page, you may now begin the process of linking Facebook to Twitter.

Note:If you are not an administrator, you must log into the fan page you are planning to link and make yourself an administrator. Once you do this, you may log out of the fan page and log in as yourself. Then you would complete step two.

4.After you have made it to this step, you must click on the “Link to Twitter” box next to the page you are planning on managing.

5.The page automatically redirects you to Twitter where you can enter your login information for Twitter.

6. Fill in the information and click “Allow”. After a few moments, you will be redirected back to Facebook, where you can now edit your settings.

7.Check or uncheck the boxes that you would like to post to Twitter and hit “Save Changes”

A word of caution – be sure when editing fan pages that you manage that you click on account and choose the page to manage to keep your profile separate from your fan pages.

We asked Dan to send over a small testimonial for our website but when we received it, determined it deserved it’s own post, so here it is:

June 23, 2010
To Whom This May Concern:

I am absolutely delighted with the graphical design, website build and technical support provided by Harmonie of Ponder Consulting and Web Design. Harmonie has made a great effort to really understand our needs in terms of both look-and-feel and functionality.  She is always ready to advise on design improvements, and review regularly the optimization criteria, and suggest effective measures that have maintained continuous viewing on the principal search engines.

I wanted to take our Powerhouse Gym from “Good” to “Great”. It had to start with customer service. To provide a level of service that would be “great” meant getting gym information out to our members and the public in a professional and expeditious manner. I feel our website is the only tool that can do just that!

I am very proud to say “please visit our website all the information is at your finger tips!”

Thus on a business level I am extremely happy with the service, and it’s also great that Harmonie is equally satisfying to work with on a personal level!  The end result exceeds my expectations – and is great value for money.  The Powerhouse Gym is going from “Good” to “Great” with Ponder Consulting’s help. Thank you for a job well done!

Sincerely,
Dan Forcier
Powerhouse Gym

Thank you Dan, and the feeling is mutual.

Since I designed the website, I have also become a member of Powerhouse Gym. It is one the cleanest and well maintained gyms I’ve frequented and the equipment is state-of-the-art. If you live in the area and are looking for a fitness center, then stop into Powerhouse and tell them you read about it on Ponder Consulting’s website: you never know, you could get a free day pass!