Today we break down those visuals even further into one single image that encompasses everything about your brand.  A logo is essentially your entire brand summed up into one mark, emblem, symbol or icon.

Your logo is the ultimate face of your brand.  It is intended for identification and it certainly shouldn’t be taken lightly.  This is why a logo shouldn’t be designed for 50 bucks and a case of beer by your buddy who works at a sign shop.  If that’s all that your brand is worth to you, then don’t expect your audience to get much more than that out of it either.  Your logo should invoke the same feeling that your brand represents.

Again with the feelings... are you warm and fuzzy yet? FEEL IT!

It’s true.  Think of your friends and let’s consider their names or nicknames to be their brand.  You don’t refer to your friend as “Hi, dark haired guy who always stays at my place till 3:00 in the morning because he has no job, no life and no credentials.”  You refer to him as Rick or Jordan, or Tom.  The same idea can be applied to a logo.  It should symbolize and reflect what you want your brand to mean to your audience.

Let us be critical of our own logo for a second.  What would someone envision or feel when they see the Point Click Media logo?  Well, we would hope that they would see a youthful, clean and fresh approach to design with creative and imaginative flare.  When someone sees our logo we hope that they would think “Cool. Those guys know what they’re doing.”  Try this same exercise with your own logo.  Also try it with other people and see what they tell you.  Maybe your logo isn’t representing your brand in the way that you imagined.

This concludes our three part series.  If your brand could use a spark to get the motor running, contact Point Click Media.

To achieve the positive emotional goal that you desire from your audience, your brand likely relies on a series of visuals.  These visuals can be considered your brand identity.  Your corporate identity should not be taken lightly either.  After all, it’s this identity that allows people to recognize you.

Oh, hello tasty apple. I almost didn't recognize you without Steve Jobs' hands in my pockets. How's the wife and kids?

An identity consists of a long list of visual accessories that are designed to reinforce your brand.  This includes logos, promotional materials like brochures and websites, packaging, business cards, envelopes, storefront signage and the list goes on.  Even the things that aren’t literally seen with one’s eyes, like radio commercials or distinguished scents, are still considered part of your identity.  The goal of all these items is to cohesively support and strengthen your brand – which, as we discussed in part one of this series, is the initiation of an emotion in your audience.

In order for these visuals to be effective, it’s also important that there be some form of unity between them.  The ‘look’ of your brand allows a person to become familiar with your business.  Colors, slogans and various forms of advertising are again all part of the repetition to get people accustomed to your brand and enhance those perceived emotions.

In part 3 we’ll look at summarizing your brand into one entity – your logo.

Great. He's been into the moonshine again. Who left the barn door open?

No, really.  A brand can be described as the emotion one feels when recognizing or acknowledging your company.  For example, this could be a typical conversation:

JIM: “Hey Bob.  How’s that new truck working?  You know, I’m thinking about buying myself a Toyota…”

BOB: “Don’t do that, Jim.  Toyota sucks.”

The fact that our friend Bob doesn’t like Toyota means he doesn’t care for the Toyota brand.  There could be a variety of reasons.  Maybe he doesn’t like the look of their vehicles or the fuel mileage, or maybe he doesn’t like the service he gets at the dealership.  Maybe he’s a little paranoid about his car driving off a cliff and bursting into flames Bonnie & Clyde style because of that huge recall on brakes recently.  It’s likely not just because Jim hates the Toyota logo.

Shoulda bought American, Bob.

Any of these reasons are related to an overall brand.  It’s not just about the pretty pictures and taglines you see printed on brochures and the logos you see plastered on every second page of your daily newspaper.  A brand can’t be designed per se.  It’s the way you’re perceived by your audience.  In the end it’s the people who decide what your brand is, and in case you were passed out during Economics 101 in high school, making your customers happy is kind of important in business.  If you’ve ever wondered why corporations spend millions of dollars for what seems like an insignificant tweak to a logo for instance, it’s all because they want to keep that public image positive and if it keeps people coming back, it’s worth every penny.

In part two we’ll take a look at the visual aspects of a brand.

Looks like the 50's were right all along.

Our insatiable hunger for information has only grown exponentially with the advent and evolution of social media. It’s true, society has become the Blob – a giant Jello-like amoeba slurping through the streets feeding on any sort of information it can get from politics to sports to this. Quicker. Faster. More!

So how does your website fit into all of this social media buzz? Here are a few things to consider:

Content

How fresh is the content on your website? In order for there to be an interest from search engine or any form of social audience your site must be publishing new content on a regular basis. Your new content doesn’t need to be elaborate either. If you aren’t up to publishing regular blog style content, consider syndicated content or even simpler, a Twitter feed. Frequent updates encourages search engines to index your web pages and you’ll be keeping those ever-roaming web bots busy, improving the organic ranking of your website.

Interactivity

Social media is all about discussion, conversation and interaction between people.  Giving your customers the ability to create Facebook style profiles on your website might be a little over the top, but allowing simple interaction between business and client or client and client can help with the buzz surrounding your website. This can be achieved through the ability to review or rate your content, post comments, or even forum discussions.

Share This

How accessible is your content? Is it locked up like the Caramilk secret? Unless you’re trying to hide the launch codes for a nuclear submarine within the content of your website, you’ll want to make sure it’s easy to find and easy to share. You’ll notice that many websites have a “Share This” option that allows users to spread content via Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. Remember, word of mouth is your friend, and when people are talking online it all gets indexed by search engines.

Social media has indeed changed the way that we absorb information online. The tools now exist for businesses to interact closely with client and prospects and give them the best opportunity to capitalize on their wants and needs. The greatest challenge for any business, however, is to figure out just how social media fits into their overall marketing and business goals.

There’s a good chance that by now you’ve signed up for a Facebook profile, Twitter account or MySpace page at some point. Heck, maybe you’ve been enlisted to all of the above. If you’ve recently decided to take your business into the social media world, you’ll notice that there’s a lot to sink your teeth into, and without prioritizing your efforts you can quickly become overwhelmed and have your whole social media business plan crumble out of the sky in flames like the Hindenburg.

“Oh! The humanity!”

There are some very important steps to account for in the planning and execution of any of your social media plans. By performing these exercises before and during your social media endeavours, you stand a much better chance of reaching your goals.

1. Goals

Let’s focus on that first of all. Goals. Without a goal, what is your purpose of getting involved in social media? Any proper business plan should have well-defined goals attached to it, and social media is no different. Your goals don’t need to be pie-in-the-sky ideas either. Your main goals will likely be to increase company exposure and build customer relationships that will yield sales in the present and/or future, but a goal can be also be as simple as clarifying one customer service question per week, for example. Without goals or any intentions of sticking to your goals with social media, you may be inclined to focus your efforts elsewhere.

2. Listen and Observe

Remember the movie Short Circuit? You know, the 1986 Comedy/Sci-Fi flick featuring the lovable robot named Johnny Five that was heinously pillaged and plundered by the pirates at Pixar for their WALL-E franchise? Well, before he was crushed down into an earth saving, space traveling, pint-sized version of himself by Disney, Johnny Five occupied himself by satisfying his cravings for “input” by taking in all the information he possibly could. We can all learn from Johnny Five. By listening, reading and observing the people who are interacting with you and your business you can better gauge the effects of your efforts, properly identify your demographics, and effectively improve your customer relationships.

photo credit: emilydickinsonridesabmx - "Remember when Johnny Five and EVE were identified as rogue robots and were chased all around the Axiom? Wait a minute..."

3. Create and Communicate

Without original content and without communication and interaction, what makes you different than every other marketing scam out there patrolling the interwebs for their next pigeon? Creating content creates buzz, yes, but with that content comes a responsibility to back it up. Don’t just spam Facebook and Twitter with anything and everything. Choose your topics carefully, and most importantly, don’t let those topics sit. If people are asking questions about your business – good or bad – don’t ignore them. Contrary to popular belief, customer service is not dead. It’s just been sitting in the back room banging its head against the computer monitor because it can’t find the ‘any’ key. It’s up to you to use it.

There’s no exact science to social media. For the most part, it’s still just a hugely diverse group of people lolling with their bff’s and riding in their roflcopters. Still, by utilizing these three priorities for social media you stand a much better chance at making it work to your advantage. If you’re looking to save time by managing all of your social media accounts at once, I recommend Tweetdeck. It allows you to post updates to your Facebook, Twitter and all of your whatchamacallits all at once!

If you’d like to chat about your social media goals, contact Point Click Media.

The old adage that there’s no such thing as bad press isn’t entirely accurate in today’s world. Look no further than Apple’s recent antenna problems with the iPhone 4. Just ask Steve Jobs and the Apple shareholders what the cost of bad press is. You thought you were insane for remortgaging your house to buy an iPhone? Just wait until the next version is released and you have to sell your family and both kidneys to help recoup Apple’s losses.

Bad press can cost a lot of money, but we all have to expect negative commentary at some point. Sure, not all bad press is a major event rivaling Apple’s current misfortunes, but we all have to deal with poor reviews, disgruntled customers, and disagreements with your company policies or philosophies.

When someone publishes a bad review or nasty comment about your company, it’s important not to become too defensive and start kicking butt and taking names like you were hunting alien predators in a Schwarzenegger movie.

photo credit: jurvetson - "GET TO THE CHOPPA!"

Sit back and study what the initial reaction is. Often, you’ll find that a person’s negative comments can be discredited by other users, clients, or employees. If you really feel the need to respond, be sure to state your point or opinion and leave it as so. There’s no need to add fuel to a potential fire.

Many websites often have screening processes in place for comments. When a user submits a comment on the website, the item falls into a queue that is reviewed by an administrator or moderator who can then choose to approve the comment for public viewing.

Also, if you believe a user is being downright slanderous towards yourself or your business, there are precedents for legal positions you can take. A New Brunswick newspaper was recently ordered to provide the identity of an anonymous poster who was posting some defamatory content on its website. Other similar cases are popping up all over Canada and the United States.

It’s important to participate in online discussions but there always needs to be some give and take. If the comment has some truth to it, acknowledge the person. Feedback is what helps us improve our products, improve our services and ultimately improve our business. It would be pretty naïve of us as business owners to think that we are untouchable.

For more ideas on handling and deciphering feedback on your website, contact Point Click Media.

photo credit: Jamiesrabbits - "Hello? Operator? I'm looking for someone who can point me towards the 21st century..."

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

Last week, in the first half of this 2 part series, we offered a few ways to help you get your website off the ground by providing free methods of driving traffic to your website to help your organic search engine rankings. This includes updating your website with regular content and link building with your closest business partners and associations, among other things.

All of our provided free methods work great, however they can take a significant amount of time to produce results. Now, we’re not all perfect – often, when we don’t see results right away we’re bound to fall off the wagon eventually. There’s no real reason to fret over it though, because unlike those 10 unsightly pounds you have circled in red permanent marker on the top of your New Years Resolution list every January, your immediate problems can be resolved with only a pocket full of change. We’re not talking thousands of dollars or even hundreds. You can essentially purchase extra traffic for the cost of a ham sandwich.

Ok, I’m slobbering like a pitbull in a post office. Tell me how.

Your first option is to purchase search engine keywords via Pay-Per-Click advertising. Google AdWords is currently the most popular keyword tool on the market that you may have heard of. The way AdWords and other keyword tools work is you purchase a keyword is that you’d like to be found with by bidding on it with other competitors. Let’s say for example you own a dry cleaning business in Edmonton. You have the ability to bid on a variety of keywords, but you really want to be found when someone types in the words “dry cleaning in Edmonton”. By purchasing this keyword phrase, when someone types this into Google, they’ll see your business ad located at the top of the organic search results. When someone clicks on your ad and visits your website, you’re charged for the click.

Depending how competitive your search term is, it can cost anywhere from pennies per click to hundreds of dollars per click.

SWEET GEORGIA BROWN! WHAT HAPPENED TO PENNIES A DAY?

Relax. Only the really competitive industries with extremely broad keywords generate that kind of cost. For example the companies bidding on the terms “pharmaceuticals” or “real estate” are the ones shelling out the big bucks. For a small business, targeting your keywords is key to not only being more cost effective, but acquiring legitimate targeted traffic. For a bit more in depth look at CPC advertising, see our previous blog post on this topic.

Google AdWords and other similar keyword bidding tools work great for search engines, but there are even further steps you can take to get the traffic coming to you. Many social media networks like Facebook also have similar CPC programs in place that allow you to purchase keywords on their own websites to target customers and drive people to your website.

Another method for pulling in some eyeballs is by purchasing listings on the websites of key business directories. For example, the Yellow Pages website is indexed by search engines everywhere and is a very popular website. When someone is searching Google for a location that can’t yet be found on the web, you’ll notice that a Yellow Pages listing is often the first to pop up. Although the phone book itself is earning its spot on the dusty museum wall next to homo erectus and the Model T, the Yellow Pages website is still a very handy method for finding a business, and they allow you to link your business listing to your website for a small fee.

These are just a few options that one can take to ensure that their website is being utilized to the fullest. It’s extremely important to remember though, that purchasing advertising of any kind is only a temporary solution, and your organic search results are not to be ignored. By ensuring your website is being populated with quality content that is useful to your visitors, you ensure that they have reason to return, and your traffic will begin to take care of itself.

This concludes our 2 part series. If you’re looking to expand further into search engine marketing and advertising, contact Point.Click Media.

photo credit: MorrowLess - Corn on the Ty Cobb anyone?

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

It’s the nature of the entrepreneur. You’ve invested some money into your website, giving it a fresh new look and all kinds of great new features that are going to have your customers drooling and itching to throw fistfuls of cash at you like Steve Jobs at an Apple Developers Conference. Now you want to start cashing in a return on your investment.

Alas, you’ve launched the website and not much is happening. You’ve built it, so why aren’t they coming? Well unfortunately, unlike the vast cornfields of Iowa that are inhabited by hoards of dead baseball players just waiting to flock to Kevin Costner’s house for a game of poltergeist stickball, search engines don’t give you that automatic drawing power just because you’re there. You need to earn their respect.

When you first launch a website, you’re seen virtually as a new business. Search engines have a lot to learn about you. Are you legit? Are you out to scam people? What other organizations are you linked to? All of these things are studied by search engines over time before they can figure out how to rank you. It takes time. It can take weeks or months before search engines can begin to identify you and properly index your website.

So how do I speed up this process?

The key to earning brownie points with search engines is to keep populating your website with content and keep building quality incoming links. If you’re putting up a weekly newsletter, for example, make sure that it’s  loaded with the keywords you want to be found with. Adding regular content also helps search engines realize that you aren’t some fly-by-night organization that has closed up shop with your grandmother’s pension and sailed a bathtub off to the Congo in the middle of the night. Also, by building incoming links with other reputable organizations you let search engines know that you associate yourself with the right people, and it helps drive extra traffic to your site at the same time… a 2-for-1 special.

What’s the best way to build incoming links?

First and foremost, your website address should be on every printed material that you’re handing out to people. Business cards, brochures, letterheads… even putting the address in all of your email signatures will help gain traffic. Every little bit helps, and every little bit is oh so crucial in the beginning.

Another way to build incoming links is to contact various associations that you may be a part of and get them to link to your new website. Perhaps you work or partner with other companies in the same industry. Getting them to refer your website is another great way to get the word out.

Let’s not forget social media as well. Have your staff use Facebook or Twitter, LinkedIn or even web forums to talk about the website and refer people to it. You could take it a step further and even set up a company Facebook group.

All of these methods for generating interest and traffic for your website don’t cost anything other than your time. Genuine search engine rankings don’t just sprout up overnight like bamboo on steroids. It takes patience and dedication to constantly feed new content into your website and keep increasing exposure. As your traffic begins to snowball, so will your search engine rankings.

But sometimes, we just need results NOW. Luckily the economy has a place for you… sitting atop of the golden throne of the advertising food chart with pulsating arrows and neon lights reading “Sell to this guy!”. There are plenty of ways to artificially buy your way to the top until your organic search rankings can grow some wings. Next week we’ll look at how you can pay to reserve your spot at the top while you establish your website’s presence.

This type of Vector - although delicious and high in fibre - is not what we're talking about

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

If you’ve ever gone to a sign shop, cresting/embroidery shop, or any design and printing house to get your marketing materials designed or printed, there’s a good chance that one of the very first questions you’ll be presented with is, “Can you supply us with a vector of your logo?” Your first instinct may be to reply, “A logo? Sure! I’ll send a JPEG over as soon as I get back to the office.” But do you really know what you are providing?

There are two general types of image files – raster and vector. Best defined, a raster file is a bitmap image consisting of a simple grid of pixels that can be compressed into different formats including *.gif or *.jpeg. So those photos you uploaded to Facebook of your 4 year old nephew’s birthday party where he lit his scalp on fire while attempting to blow out the candles – those are raster files. The same goes for those animated clipart graphics of a dancing fish that your distant relatives send you every week despite the fact that you’ve only met them once in your life. (You were only 7 at the time, but somehow they’ve tracked you down through the power of the interwebs… and your mother who sent them your Hotmail address.)

If you’ve ever tried to take a JPEG image and enlarge it to fit on a poster, you’ll notice that the image becomes blurry. The problem with raster files is that when enlarged, each square within that grid also becomes enlarged and your image processing software has no idea what to do with all of that extra new space. It tries to fill it the best it can, but it’s still guessing what each new pixel should look like.

A vector file is much more complex. Vector files use a series of points, lines and various geometric equations to determine what an image looks like. A vector image can fit on the side of a pen or on the side of the Empire State Building and keep the same quality, crispness and detail. Some file types generally associated with vector files include *.ai and *.eps.

It’s quite possible that your company may not have a logo version in vector format. If you’ve created your company logo yourself or purchased one from an online logo creation website, you may not have a vector logo at your disposal. Also, if your company predates the digital age for logo design (back when everything was created through the CMYK layering process), it’s possible that you’ve never had a need to have a vector logo on hand. All reasoning aside, if you’re going to be printing anything from now on, it’s always a good idea to have a vector logo on hand. Some print shops may even charge you for having to recreate your logo in vector format if they require it for the printing process. It’s always a good idea to ask the print shop what type of formats they prefer, since every printer setup is different. If you’re supplying them with a CorelDraw 4 file from 1993 for example, there’s probably a good chance they won’t be able to use it.

If you’d prefer not to be the punchline of every inside joke at your local print shop and would rather be prepared for printing in any medium, contact Point.Click Media.

We can't all have a PR guy like Billy Mays at the helm...

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

As we outlined last week in Part 1 of this series, a press release can have a profound effect on your public relations. They are the most traditional method of getting your business name some ‘air time’ in the public eye. Anytime your company has some worthwhile news that may garner some interest from your demographic, a press release can certainly achieve that goal.

So what does a 21^st century press release look like?

Remember, the goal of a press release is to interest, educate and in the end, engage your demographic. The interest part can be taken from the event itself, for example, if your company is writing about a new product that may be launching.

The education process is important in describing the new product to the consumer. Of course, I’m not just talking about the physical description of the product, but also what makes it attractive to potential customers. Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

• What is it?
• What does it do?
• What are the benefits of having this product?
• What makes this better than a similar product?
• Where can I get it?

Enhancing the education process will also help your customers realize the need for your product. With so many people being more susceptible to visuals, adding photos, video (or audio) clips and links will allow people to get a much clearer picture of what the product and your company are all about. In addition, adding quotes from the company owner, customer testimonials and even product reviews will all give extra credibility to your press release.

Finally, engaging your reader with a call to action is the ultimate goal. Be sure to provide plenty of contact information, not only for your readers but for media outlets as well. If someone has taken the time to read your press release, chances are there’s something there that has peaked their interest, and you want to be able to provide them with additional information if they choose to seek it. A call to action can be as simple as saying “For more information, call 1-888-8888” or “Visit www.newproduct.com to learn more.”

Note: Be sure to use proper formatting when writing a press release. A press release should have a clear headline, summary, location and dateline, a body and contact information. Some media outlets require a certain formatting as a sort of ‘screening process’ in accepting press releases, so it’s important to take the time to cover everything.

A great example of a press release with proper formatting can be found here

What you do with your press release after you write it, and who you contact is up to you. Your business may decide to distribute the document to a variety of local or national media outlets, or you may choose to just keep it brief and post it on your website or Facebook group. In any case, make sure that your readers can get a good sense of what you’re trying to accomplish with the press release and offer them the best information possible. If you’re in need of some direction, a starting point for establishing good public relations, or even some expansion on the few points we’ve made here, contact Point.Click Media.