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Changing Times: How mobile and tablet use force the need for Responsive Web Design

Posted by Mike Gingerich on April 15th, 2013 at 8:25 am

The Internet continues to evolve and change at great speed.
Sometimes it's hard to even remember  the "olden days" of the world wide web without services like YouTube and Facebook.  Reality is, however, that each of these web networks is less than 10 years old.  Social sites like Pinterest and Instagram are even younger, having been around less than 4 years.  Websites, as well, have changed.  What started out first as an adaptation of print brochures to "online brochures"  has now grown into much more advanced website tools that are commonplace including e-commerce sites, blogs, membership portals, and more.  Even services such as Online Banking have become quite common and mainstream.
Yet we are on the cusp of another major shift in web use.
No longer is the web primarily a place accessed by users on desktop or laptop computers. Now, the majority of web use is via smartphones and mobile devices such as iPads and tablets.  This significant shift to smaller, portable and always on-demand web access is forcing a shift in website design.  No longer is it sufficient to have a website built to be viewed properly only on a desktop or notebook computers.  Today the need is for sites... Read more

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Posted in Websites | No Comments »

Facebook Quietly Rolls Out New Facebook Timeline

Posted by Mike Gingerich on March 14th, 2013 at 9:50 am

Facebook Quietly Announces MAJOR
Facebook Timeline Changes for Profiles
On March 13, 2013, Facebook quietly announced a BIG update:
“UPDATES TO THE TIMELINE ROLLING OUT NOW.”
Full news release accessible here and the Developer specific news on Facebook Developer Blog.
This is the “home page” of any Facebook user (not Pages).  This is where a person updates their Cover image, has links to their About information, Photos, and Friends, and most importantly where it lists their most recent Facebook status updates and activity.
WHY ISN’T THIS BIGGER NEWS?
Hard to say.  Last week Facebook held a press event to announce a revamp of the  News Feed and yet this roll-out hasn’t really been arrived for the majority of users.  However, the Timeline update was announced one day ago as “We are beginning to gradually roll out these new features to users and developers today.”  (emphasis added).
Current Timeline View:

Coming New Timeline View:
Key Differences:

About section in left now displaying
two column equal width changed to 2 column with right width being much more substantial.  A 2/3 and 1/3 style.
Plus the image thumbnails below the cover image are gone
text tabs are now below the Timeline and include: Timeline, About, Friends, Photos, and a More drop down.
Biggest Change: Set Apps to display and keep... Read more

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Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

The Next Facebook News Feed

Posted by Mike Gingerich on March 6th, 2013 at 6:37 am

The invitations have been sent, the speculation and build-up has begun!
On March 7, 2013, Facebook will unveil the coming new News Feed.  The event will include information about the latest changes to Facebook’s News Feed and a live demonstration.

The News Feed was identified as one of the “Three Pillars of the Facebook Ecosystem” during the January annnouncement and beta launch of Graph Search.  Both the News Feed and Graph Search were identifed by Mark Zuckerberg as two of the three “Pillars of the Facebook Ecosystem.”  The other pillar was Timeline that launched for everyone in early 2012.
Often, Timeline and the News Feed are confused in articles and posts about Facebook.  To clarify, the Timeline is what each user has for their “main page” profile, and the Timeline for companies is their Facebook Page. A user’s Timeline is what their custom username url destination goes to so that others can easily find them.  For a Page, it is their “landing page” where their custom url goes such as Facebook.com/TabSite.   The Timeline includes the large Cover large image and the content on the page includes a users most recent posts and activity as well as links to their photo albums, “About” information, and more.
The News Feed, on... Read more

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Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment »

The Rise of Video Continues as Business Marketing Tool

Posted by Mike Gingerich on February 25th, 2013 at 11:10 am

The Rise of Video as a Online Business Marketing Tool
Video has come a long, long way in the past few years.  No longer is video use by businesses strictly limited to high dollar investments with video production companies.  Now, businesses and entrepreneurs have access to create and produce quality videos in-house at low cost.  As well, consumers have adapted to and are comfortable viewing low cost, self-produced videos due to the strength and infusion of YouTube videos as well as newer tools like Tout and Vine.
Low cost videos self-produced videos can be very valuable in marketing efforts, and they can  ultimately drive increased sales.

YouTube seems like it has been around forever, yet YouTube only launched in 2005.  Fast forward to 2013 and video is the fastest growing online digital content category.  In fact, there are 4 Billion (with a "B") daily YouTube video views, an average of over 46,000 per SECOND worldwide.  With the increase in handheld and mobile phones with HD quality video capture, video has moved from the realm of "entertainment only" to "informational" and "educational" as dominant online video uses.  The fact that Internet speeds continue to increase and mobile phone data speeds are getting faster means... Read more

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Posted in Social Media, Video | 6 Comments »

Maximizing Facebook News Feed Posts for Promotion Engagement

Posted by Mike Gingerich on February 22nd, 2013 at 3:19 pm

Maximizing the engagement on Facebook News Feed posts is critical to Facebook Marketing.
Building engagement is a process, not a once and done function, and there are multiple keys to the process including:

Interesting Content
Publishing at key times for the audience
Inviting comments, questions, and shares
Offering promotions.  Contests, deals, and offers can help

If you offer a contest, deal, or promotions to assist in pulling fans and a larger community to your Page, a key is posting that promotion correctly to maximize it's visibility in the News Feed and to best prompt viewer actions.
Too many businesses are failing to get the word out effectively in the News Feed and then wondering why the engagement is lower than expected.
Getting the attention of and making it easy for all fans (desktop and mobile) to access the promotion can totally make or break your promotion getting traction!  It can mean the difference between 5 entries and 500 entries; between 5 Likes and Shares and 5000 Likes and Shares!
So how do you best get the word out on Facebook?
The Answer:
Post a photo or video to your News Feed with a call to action and a Smart URL in the description field.

Why a photo or video?
Facebook, in its own... Read more

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Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

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