Archive for July, 2010
Creating and maintaining a social media strategy in 7 steps: Part 2 & 3
Sunday, July 11th, 2010
2. Which digital/online platforms and channels are available?
This step is to identify if you are going to use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and so on - and for you to investigate if, where and what your target audience does on these platforms. This to make sure that your time and efforts are going into the right place.
3. How can you use social networks to achieve your objectives?
Here is an example of how you could use Facebook;
1. Create a group – fill this with relevant and useful content
2. Tie this tighter with appropriate icons on your website, possible blog and newsletters enabling your visitor and subscribers to swiftly share the content on Facebook or join your group.
3. To get members to your group you should create online incentives, such as an competition or prize to actually drive members to your group. Use your imagination.
4. Maintain this group with regular, relevant updates, easily done by sitting down looking at the marketing activities for the next say 6 months, compare this to any promotions and put together a content schedule. This way you wont runt out of any material and it keeps you pro-active.
5. Set-up collaborations with other groups. Do some research and look into if there is a non-competitive or complimentary group you could do any collaborations with.
6. If applicable and appropriate – use the rather cost effective Facebook advertisement on the right hand side for any promotions you may run. It’s very easy to set-up a campaign on Facebook with a daily budget, some catchy copy and a image which enhances the message. Then target effectively by gender, age, interests etc while setting up your campaign.
Forgotten drinks For a remembered Friend
Saturday, July 10th, 2010
Not to long ago one of my dear friends left London for new adventures in San Fransisco. Before she left, I together with some other friends of both me and her (my brave friend who left London that is), secretly made a book for her mixing life’s best ingredients – friendship, cocktails and memories. All into her very own book, this to make sure she would never forget us, her old skanky London friends, once she made new shiny California friends.
We all contributed with one cocktail recipe each, an appropriate (embarrassing) picture or two and a text from the heart. Which I then simply laid out in InDesign, using a set of templates which I easily downloaded from Blurb.
A week later, our hard work and expertise – a result of vast experience from activities which happens to ruins ones liver – was delivered neatly in a hard cover, with a stylish dust jacket.
Using Blurb was as easy as one, two three. You download your templates for InDesign, based on the cover, paper and desired amount of pages. Then you simply design and layout your book, export to PDF (after installing one of Blurbs color profiles – dead easy) and upload to Blurb. Choose your desired shipping time and voila – your book arrives.
If you don’t have the software or knowledge, then you can download Blurbs own layout software and produce your book.
I am very impressed with the quality of both the print and the paper, and I will definitely use Blurb again, however this time for my own creative projects.
View a sample below, sans the cover. Do bear in mind that the layout for the book pages was set-up to be viewed as a spread while reading, hence the left and the right white space.
