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Twitter has become very popular in recent years which has led to an increased use for both personal and business use. Unfortunately, there are some specific ways to correctly use Twitter (more so than on Facebook) that many people don't seem to understand. This post won't make you a great Twitter user, but it will make you a Twitter user who uses the site correctly.
Mother's Day happened recently (hopefully you knew that, or you owe Mom a phone call at the very least), and one of the things my mother asked my sister and I for was a gift card to a certain store which I won't name, for their sake. The entire process, beginning to end, was ridiculously complex and vague, and struck me as a great example of ecommerce gone wrong.
If you've been keeping up with our series, I hope I've made it abundantly clear just what a landing page is and how/why to use it. For those who might not know, I'll boil it down to one sentence: Visitors are coming to a specific page on your site that is designed to capture their information in exchange for an incentive you provide. Of course there's so much more than that, but for this week…
We've been talking recently about what landing pages are and the things you need to consider before tackling a custom landing page project. Assuming you've figured out who you're targeting, where they're coming from, what you want them to do and all of those important questions, what's next? What kind of elements do you use in the creation of a landing page to reach your goal?
Last week we talked at great length about just what a custom landing page is, and the main reasons behind using one. As with any project it can be easy to look past the small–yet important–details and focus on the end goal. Doing so will leave you having wasted both money and time; there are certain things that you need to consider before starting a custom landing page project.
If you've ever sat down with an internet marketer, it's likely that you heard one of two terms (not to mention myriad acronyms) over the course of the conversation: Landing Page and/or Squeeze Page. Odds are you smiled, nodded, and let the conversation continue for fear of opening up another can of worms by asking "wait, what does that mean?" To be honest, we can't blame you… we've had meetings with us, too.
Last week I wrote a blog detailing an apparent obsession with purple and teal in the world of professional American sports during the 1990's. (That, or I'm a graphic design conspiracy theorist.) While the color schemes of our favorite sports teams are very important to us fans, they can and do change; most of the time they are what they are solely out of tradition. Color can play a very important, if only subconscious role…
Fads come and go. In my life, I saw corduroys, Tomagotchi, DigiMon and pogs blow up, and then fall by the wayside… and that was just in elementary school. Our tastes, no matter what topic we're talking about, are always changing. As a designer, one of the things that I have always paid attention to is color, and the 90's were a special time for sports in that regard.
Facebook can be a great tool for businesses of any size to build community and reach their customers and clients. What many people don't realize is that it's constantly changing. Yes, every so often the site undergoes a major face-lift which is usually ill-received at first, yet the outcry is just as loud once the next update hits. But more often than these major overhauls, little things are changing all of the time.
Websites can be beautiful, and a well-designed site can definitely make an impression with visitors and customers. But when you get down to it the content on your website is much more important than those color blocks and images. Content is so valuable because it's not just read by those visitors, it's also read by search engines to determine what your site is about and when to show it. The problem is all that content…
Last month I wrote a lengthy post on the importance of writing good headlines, the idea being that it's often the only shot you have at convincing people to read your content. While the headline is the important first step, there obviously has to be some content to read within, whether it's a post or page on your site or an email. A well designed email is great, and even something we've come to expect,…
I've mentioned before that social media can be tricky; more often than not, each new site is hailed as the next big thing for every business, so people rush to create profiles on each one without learning how to use them properly. Soon, profiles languish and may as well star next to the kittens and puppies of an ASPCA commercial.While we don't actively offer social media services like account management, we're plugged in so we…
Websites are all about clicking. OK well that's not completely true - a number of sites these days do some creative things with scrolling - but computers at their core are about seeing something and clicking it, whether you're using your finger or a cursor. Because of this, there are some important conventions surrounding all the clickable aspects of a website - standards that web users are used to and rely on for an intuitive…
In the two years between college and joining BKMedia Group, I had a few different jobs that straddled the line of part-time and freelance. Most of these jobs ended up dealing heavily with social media and email marketing—I graduated in 2009 and these were the two biggest buzzwords in marketing at that time. As online communities like Facebook and Twitter grew in popularity and influence, businesses were told of the digital El Dorado that was…
Here at BKMedia Group our main focus is web design, development and internet marketing. We do, however, offer graphic design services as well, ranging from branding to print work and more traditional marketing.Oftentimes, our clients use us for a combination of these services, and one thing that usually causes a slight hang-up is images, specifically their sizes and resolutions.
Conventions are the way web users expect a site to look or work. When it comes to navigation, there's freedom in some decisions, while others should stick to the status quo.
If the word "STOP" was suddenly removed from stop signs everywhere... you'd still understand what that giant red octagon was telling you to do, right? But if the shape changed to a square, or the color to blue, you'd be a little more cautious, wouldn't you? You could figure it out soon enough, but there would most likely be a moment of confusion. Over time you've become accustomed to things looking a certain way and…
Unlike our office, most people aren't plugged in to their computers all day long. That used to make keeping up with your business's social media pretty tough, but the proliferation of smart phones and social apps has alleviated most of those problems. One area that hasn't been made any easier though, is blogging. Writing a simple text message can be hard enough with just your thumbs; a whole article almost certainly requires a desktop. Yes,…
SEO is not Witchcraft nor is it Voodoo. SEO is not pleasing Google's algorithm either. SEO is simple.
On Monday it was officially announced that the University of Maryland would be joining the Big Ten Conference, and it's fully expected that Rutgers will make a similar announcement later today (NOTE: They just did). This is the second expansion of the Big Ten in just 2 years, with Nebraska joining in 2011, brining the total number of schools to 14 by 2014. From a branding perspective, this move could hurt the conference.
We usually write about design-related topics, due to the fact that it's what fills our days (And nights. And dreams. And nightmares.) but sometimes we just have to post about something we think is really cool... and Red Bull Stratos is one of those things. If you're actually using the internet and reading this blog we shouldn't have to explain what Red Bull is to you, but you probably haven't heard of Stratos. Red Bull…
Way back in the dark ages, I mean 1994, actor Kevin Bacon made the bold claim that he had worked with everyone in Hollywood, or was at the very least connected by those he had worked with. It was this claim that started the game of "6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon," the challenge being to connect any actor to Kevin Bacon in no more than 6 steps. The internet has made the game much easier,…
Remember our little chat about Microsoft and their new logo? About how it fit with the trends in branding these days? Well you can add another redesign to that list, and it's quite similar. This time it's eBay, the online marketplace giant that started 17 years ago as an auction website.
It's official: for the first time since 1987, Microsoft has a new logo! Seeing as I was born that year, I haven't known Microsoft by any other mark, though looking through their past logos I think my favorite is now the 1980-81 version, or the "Metallica version" as we've dubbed it here.
The folks over at Inspix collected many of the Olympic logos from 1924–2016 (winter and summer) and it's worth a look. For as (relatively) few Olympics as I've been around for, you'd think I'd have a better memory of them. Apparently, not the case. The logos for Atlanta (96) and Beijing (08) drew instant recognition, while others like Nagano (98) and Salt Lake City (02) looked familiar, but mainly reminded me of watching those games.…
