Last week a few of us made our way over to Windy City Social’s Marketing Challenge pre-party. Windy City Social hosts this challenge each year, where WCS members are invited to work in teams developing social media plans for participating clients. Clients then review the proposed plans and pick a winning team. Last year, our client Imerman Angels was a participating organization. Above is our favorite action photo of Jonny Imerman raving about the event’s results.

This year’s marketing challenge will be held on Wednesday, November 18th and feature clients such as the Special Olympics, General Motors and Southwest Airlines. envisionit will definitely be ‘representing’ this Wednesday! Go team! Hopefully you win the car that GM promised….

My friend recently showed me a tweet by a congressman who used “u” and “lol” in one of his posts on Twitter. My first thought was, does this thread really warrant the Congressman “laughing out loud”? But then I thought that using the aforementioned short hand made him look immature and stupid. So I pose the question, does text-messaging short hand have a place in the business world?

I can’t remember the last time that I’ve used the actual words “you” or “I don’t know” in a text but when it comes to working with teachers, employers, or other professionals it is not the time nor the place for that type of lingo. Posting on Facebook or Twitter for recreational use is one thing, but for business I would say it’s a major no-no! And if you’re a public figure, you might not know who is reading your post, so this bit of advice goes 2U2

The whole point of using social media as a professional business tool is to better help you grow and spread your professional brand. While this can and should be done with a variety of social networking platforms, LinkedIn has become the most effective and far-reaching professional application.

With over 43 million members in over 200 countries, LinkedIn represents 170 different industries and helps businesses accomplish their goals. Whether you’re a job seeker, entrepreneur, consultant, or a business looking to create buzz, LinkedIn gives you an advantage in your career, and can be one of your most valuable assets.

The key then, is knowing how to successfully use LinkedIn to create and market your professional brand. The major difference between other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter is that LinkedIn is not instantaneous. Your long-term upkeep is much less but for it to be a valuable piece of the social media puzzle, your profile needs to be updated, error-free, and effective.

Using LinkedIn for your overall business strategy and building up your individual brand image is essentially the same. No matter your goals, LinkedIn is at its best when you build contacts, network, and interact with other business professionals.

Most LinkedIn users are probably already doing many of the necessary things to strengthen their brand, but for those that are not, here are five easy ways to build your brand through LinkedIn:

1.    Make Yourself Accessible—If you don’t have a visible presence on LinkedIn, then it’s really of no use to you. To really be a helpful social network you want to make yourself accessible to others as an integral part of the overall network. There are a few easy ways to do this. The easiest way is to create a custom URL and then promote it by adding it to your signature in e-mails or including it on resumes, blogs, or other works. This way colleagues, friends, and potential clients can easily access your profile.
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This week one of our very own, Michael K., received a coveted invite to try out the new Google Wave. Now, Michael was not expecting the techie angels to be looking down on him and bestowing such a gift. But ever since, his step has had more spring and he’s been idolized by our interactive team. Now if he could only figure out how to use Google Wave, he might have something going!

Ok, I admit it … I was around gleefully watching tv when there were only (gasp) three networks. No that isn’t a typo. Marketers had it so easy then. Write a clever slogan or maybe a catchy jingle. Run a 30 second ad and you could reach 70 percent of the viewing audience. But of course nothing is more constant then change and that applies to marketing as well.

Today consumers are bombarded with advertising messages in a non-stop blitz to get their attention. Add to that the fact that consumers are in complete control of their own media. From Tivo to iPhones and everything in between.

In order to successfully communicate to your audience today you will need to accept a few things:

1. Times have changed.
   And guess what … they are never coming back. Get over it. Times change and you have to change your thinking (and marketing) to adapt, or better yet, lead. Period.
2. People talk.
   And not just neighbors and friends. Everybody. From forums and chat rooms to review sites and beyond. The amount of conversation happening is staggering. There are leaders and followers. One moment can reverberate around the world almost immediately.
3. Interactive drives business global.
   That includes your competition. Businesses today have unprecedented access to consumers across the globe. Which of course means more competition to you.

So what does this mean to you? What can you do to adapt? In the constant struggle for consumer attention there are certain things that remain constant:
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We are pleased to announce the launch of a new website design for IncredibleEgg.org, the home of the incredible edible egg!

The new website design includes a much needed cosmetic improvement, which is better aligned with the other incredible! branded elements across all media including TV, print and banner ads. This new website also includes enhanced navigation and usability features. envisionit media also has equipped the site with a fully customized and user-friendly content management system (CMS). This improvement allows the American Egg Board the ability to make changes, updates and additions with ease while still maintaining the consistent design applied throughout the entire website.

The highlight of the egg board’s site is the recipe section, a customized recipe solution developed by envisionit, which launched in April 2009. It’s a great resource for healthy (and not-so-healthy) and delicious recipes for the entire family!

Check it out!  IncredibleEgg.org

We wanted to extend a special congratulations to our client Michael Binstein as well as Binny’s on their recent acquisition of Sam’s! All of us here at envisionit media wish you and the company much continued success. Cheers!

Almost on a daily basis we are faced with the question “how do I optimize my website for search engine performance“.  The truth is there are so many factors that have a direct impact on your results there is really not one “correct” answer.  It is only based on a combination of SEO tactics that a company can obtain the exposure they are looking for.  With that said, here are some tips that we have compiled that hopefully will help.
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1. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.
2. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.
3. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.
4. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.
5. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.
6. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.

Well, it was probably only a matter of time that Twitter would pick a big time suitor. And Twitter couldn’t just pick one, so they decided to go with two.

Both Google and Bing will start indexing “tweets” from public Twitter profiles in their search results. To date, tweets were not indexed by either search engine. But given the micro-blogging site’s current popularity, it was time for Twitter to test the dating pool.

If you have been following Twitter’s rise of success (50 billion tweets and counting), what it gained in popularity it lacked in revenue generation. While Twitter has received millions in venture capital, it has not been able to monetize its business model. The current partnership with Bing and Google looks to be the start, even though Twitter’s CEO Evan Williams denies this as the driver.

So what does the future hold for these new partnerships? We will just have to wait until after dessert is served.

The other day I read a post by a designer who posed the question: “Should we be including mailing addresses on business cards?” He stated that out of 38 cards he viewed on a design site, only 6 included mailing addresses. I didn’t want to take this guys word for it. So I went online and looked through some of the sites that I use for inspiration. Sure enough, only 6 of the first 30 samples in the gallery had a mailing address. Has this total stranger lifted the vail from my eyes?

I’ve designed my fair share of business cards. Historically, clients supply address, phone, fax etc. — you choose type, font size and design away. Done and done. But I’ve never found myself stopping to consider that maybe by not including a mailing address we can increase communication for ourselves, and for our clients.

New technologies are being invented almost every month, getting us closer and closer to being in the same room without actually being in the same room. When you have biz phone, cell phone, email, Skype, texting and iChat to choose from… who is going to use a stamp?

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I did some digging, and here is something to consider. According to statistics taken from USPS.com: mail volume in the fiscal year 2008 declined by 4.5 percent compared to the previous year. And is stated to be the largest decline since 2002.
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Like every other debate; there are pro’s and con’s to this simple idea. Maybe the address itself is a big deal. Or maybe your client is proud to be locally owned and operated and they want to promote it. This isn’t a right or wrong blog post. This issue is not about to save the world. It’s probably not about to be the big WIN with your client. But as an art director it seems it might be something we should start considering. Taking the time to consider any issue we can that ensures the success of our clients. Which in-turn will make you, or your agency more successful. Something to consider.
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