We’re proud to announce the launch of American Osteopathic Association’s microsite Mini-Medical-School.com, just in time for National Osteopathic Medicine (NOM) Week, April 15-21, 2012! The microsite was designed to introduce young children to osteopathic physicians (DOs) while teaching them the basics of health and fitness. With the activities defined by the AOA, EIM turned them into an online environment to engage and educate children on the world of osteopathy. This initiative is in direct alignment with the AOA’s continuing drive to properly educate children in the areas of medicine, health and fitness.

The site features information about the Mini-Medical School, the American Osteopathic Association and a cartoon host guiding you through six interactive activities. These activities span a variety of games including a bone health drag-and-drop skeleton, medical instrument matching, hygiene and germs multiple choice, complete the organ sentence, nutritional food group identification and an exercise-focused word search.

Those interested in building their health and fitness knowledge can enjoy the Mini-Medical School website at home or on the go, as all of the games are iPad compatible. The experience should prove to be a fun and engaging way for both parents and teachers to educate kids on a very important topic. There may even be a few valuable refreshers in there for adults, too!

Look—a Frequently Asked Questions page is included in the site architecture! This will be a great place to give information and answer questions for users. Let’s go! FAQ away!

But hold your questions for a minute. Is an FAQ really a necessary part of your site?

An FAQ section is necessary if it:

• Educates users about service or product
• Keeps users engaged with site
• Gages effectiveness of content

An FAQ section isn’t necessary if it:

• Act as a substitute for clear, useful content
• Doesn’t add value because questions aren’t real or aren’t asked

If content clearly tells users everything they need to know, an FAQ doesn’t need to happen. If your organization is asked the same questions over and over—it might be a sign to adjust your site content, not add to your list of frequently asked questions.

I will come out and say it, I hate dashboards! Today’s business Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are changing so rapidly that dashboards become obsolete very quickly. Dashboards provide end users with summary metrics that are supposed to lead to accurate decisions. However, miscommunication between the dashboard creator and end user could cause inaccurate decisions. Dashboards miss the communication that is so critical between the analyst and the decision maker.

Web analytics platforms come with easy to configure dashboards that are created in seconds (example above). So what? An amateur looking at a dashboard without full knowledge of how data is collected and summarized is more dangerous to an organization than a monkey with a grenade.  Dashboard end users are getting a summary of data; they are unable to see the statistical significance behind the numbers needed to make business decisions. In most cases, you need multiple views of data to conclude a decision you are making that will affect your business.

As an example, the image on the left shows that conversion rates are going down. Anyone looking at the image will state that February conversions are lower than January. However, users do not realize that it takes 3 months to make a trend. In March, conversions increased and are now trending upwards. Analysts understand that data has seasonality, caveats, and needs to reach statistical significance before it can be used in analysis.

Data You Can Use
Organizations need to work with analysts who can turn data into action. Analysts make reports easy to understand, visualize, and provide clear outcomes for decision makers. If you leave decision makers trying to guess, they will steer towards not making any decisions. Thus, lots of wasted time and effort in the organization. Analytic insights are about knowledge that leads to fact-based decisions.
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If you follow our Facebook page, you may have noticed that early last week, we quietly marked the 10-year anniversary of envisionit media, inc. We’ll be celebrating properly as the year goes on (so be sure to keep up with us here and on Facebook and Twitter for updates). Meanwhile, I thought I’d take a look back at a few notable differences between the digital marketing landscape a decade ago and today.

It wouldn’t be a very quick read if I included every single difference, so these are just my faves. Enjoy the walk down memory lane and provide your own memories in the comments!

OMG, what did we do without Facebook?
That’s right…10 years ago, Facebook didn’t. even. exist. Gasp! Social media was barely even a phrase. Yes, the idea of social media has been alive for some time—think instant messenger and message boards. But the marketing world’s favorite buzzword of the last few years didn’t quite yet have today’s popularity and meaning back in 2002.

And how quickly the space has grown! In 2002, Friendster was introduced. Myspace followed in 2003. Flickr and Digg hit in 2004, and that same year the college scene was introduced to The Facebook. Twitter was born in 2006. StumbleUpon, FourSquare, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest…all these social networks later, and companies now commonly have dedicated social media marketing roles and entire departments.

Phone is ringin’…
I happened to graduate from college in December 2001 (which is why I know to follow up this section’s subtitle with “…oh my god.” Name the reference in the comments if you know it!) and got my first cell phone a few months later in 2002. It was the standard Nokia phone that everyone else had. It made calls, it received calls, that was about it. Some fancy people had PDAs at the time, but it would be a few years before Blackberrys found popularity and exactly 5 years until the first iPhone was introduced. And now? There’s an app for that! And QR codes, geo-fencing, mobile-friendly websites, mobile SEO…and the word on the street for a few years now has been that the future is mobile marketing.
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Now that the new Facebook Timeline has officially rolled out to all personal profiles, guess what’s up next? That’s right, brand Pages are now the next on the list for a Timeline makeover!

The new Timeline for brands has officially rolled out today (Wednesday, February, 29^th 2012), and some of the big brands like Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Livestrong are already taking advantage of the new features of the Timeline. With that said, there’s no need to rush right in and hit the publish button. Facebook isn’t making the Timeline for your brand page mandatory until March 30^th, 2012, and with the new preview functionality for Page admins you can fully adjust your brand Timeline before you push it live.

Let me fill you in on some of the new features of the brand Timeline, and some steps you can take to launch your new brand Page on the right foot.

Say Goodbye to your Welcome Tab, and Hello to the “Sticky” Feature.

Before the new Timeline, brand Pages would develop custom tabs that the user would land on when they first visit the page (Before they like it).

Well, with the new Timeline, the welcome tab is now obsolete. It’s O.K., don’t freak out just yet! All tabs are still active on the page (but relocated), and the new Timeline for pages have a brand new “Sticky Feature”, which I believe is even more effective than the old welcome tab.

The Sticky feature allows you to select a piece of content to display on the top of your page feed for 7 days, giving you the opportunity to feature any marketing message you would like in that area. You can direct people to one of your tabs, showcase an event, new product, or basically anything your little heart can think of.
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We are excited to announce the launch of the brand new Knight Hawk microsite! Near the end of 2011, we were approached by Smart Targets LLC (a federally licensed dealer of professional tactical supplies and training materials) to create a visually stunning, informational, and educational new microsite showcasing their exclusive product: The Knight Hawk Portable Pop-up Target. When developing this microsite, we wanted to make sure that the visitor was able to quickly view the product and all of its great features- all while using SEO best practices.

The Knight Hawk Target is a “smarter target” than the simple pulley system or knock-down targets that are currently used in the industry, and far less expensive (not to mention hundreds of pounds lighter) than the hydraulic pop-up targets sometimes used. This target is perfect for Military and Law enforcement training professionals, allowing them to seamlessly set up multiple targets in multiple areas of the training facility with its portability feature. It also has a programmable remote and instant feedback feature that is perfect for setting up training facilities, or for any shooting enthusiast. The instant feedback system will stand up in 50 mph winds, yet can be knocked down with something as light as an air-soft gun (we even tested it with Nerf guns at the office and it worked).

The Knight Hawk Target has received support from Top Shot Season 2 Winner Chris Reed, as well as various board members of the NTOA, MTOA, and various law enforcement departments across the country. This product really is one that is going to change the future of Military and Law enforcement training as we know it.

Check out the Official Knight Hawk Website to Learn More!

We are excited to announce the second piece of an interactive program for Fibre-Craft Materials Corporation’s Springfield Dolls line. Following the launch of the SF Style Club interactive microsite, we’ve just launched the second part of the piece, an ecommerce sister site for Springfield Dolls, where you can buy all your favorite dolls, fashionable clothing, accessories, and furniture!

The online store features easy-to-navigate product categories, a searchable catalog of all the fashionable doll products, and a wishlist to save all your outfits for safekeeping or online shopping on a rainy day.

We made sure the ecommerce system syncs to an existing inventory management and shipping component. This ensures that the inventory numbers within the store and the warehouse correspond at all times.

Ready to get shopping? Visit the Springfield Collection store now!

If you have a website that requires users to register or login to take action, it’s time to consider implementing a social login option. That is, the ability to login to a website via your existing Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or other account.  A recent social identity study reveals a few compelling stats supporting this:

• 90% of consumers will leave a website if they forget their user name and password
• 86% are bothered by being asked to create a new account on a website, and most will then leave the site or not return
• 41% of users would prefer social login over having to create a new account (35%) or even using a guest account (24%) (the same question in a study 1 year prior returned the reverse results in terms of order of preference)

What’s more, 78% of social login fans share site content with their social network. So not only does the social login option increase the likelihood that visitors will interact with your site and prevent them from leaving, it can also help encourage your customers to promote your site.

Think about every opportunity you might have for this, even in regards to content that doesn’t exist yet. Can people leave comments or write reviews on your website, and if not, can you find a way to integrate that kind of feature? Giving users opportunities to interact with your site and engage with your brand is important itself, and social login would be the cherry on top to help get them to participate.

And can visitors purchase products from your site? If they see an option to login through, say, Facebook, eliminating their need to even think about a password, they’ll be more likely to jump into their account and buy. Beyond that, once they’re logged in, you have opportunities to allow them to easily share what they purchase or what they want with their social network. Tack on an incentive to them to share with friends for even better response.
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With their new “Search Plus Your World” feature, Google’s search results are undergoing a transformation that will drastically change the way search results appear to users.  The feature is now live on the Google Network, and will be fully rolled out to all users that are logged in to Google and searching in the English language.

What does the “Search Plus Your World” feature do?

The new “Search Plus Your world” combines Public, Personal, Social (Google+ only), and Private search all into one algorithm. Public results are just regular Google searches, while the new Personal feature compiles results based both on your past search behavior and social connections. The feature will also feed in relevant content that his been shared within your circles on Google+.

Here’s an image provided by Google that shows an example of the Personal Results feature. (Note: if you select the globe icon on the right it will hide personal results, and when the person icon is selected, personal results will be turned on.)

The left arrow above points to the section that states there are 50 personal results out of the 419,000 found for the search. Some of these 50 personal results will be blended into the first page of your search results.

Personal Results are compiled from these existing areas:

• Regular Web Listings
• Regular Web Listings  (boosted because of social behavior and social connections)
• Public & Private Google+ posts, photos, and Google Picasa Photos

In the image below (again provided by Google) we see more of the results for a search for “Chikoo,” the name of a Google developer’s dog. Chikoo is also the name of a fruit, and before the “Search Plus Your World” feature was implemented nothing related to his dog would have ever shown up in the search results. But with the new feature…
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New kinds of social media are popping up like wildfire, but which ones are catching the eyes of consumers?

We all know the social media big timers—Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—but a new wave of alternative social media sites are worth looking into. Some have been around a while, but they can still help your business’ visibility and discoverability.
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• YouTube has been around since 2005 as a video sharing website. Recently, companies have been using this online tool to promote their services and advertise themselves. YouTube videos work because they are easily accessible and can be shared easily. Not to mention they help with Google Optimization.

• StumbleUpon was created to let users “stumble” through sites related to their interests. All companies have to do to become a part of StumbleUpon is submit their website and associated categories. From here, whenever a person clicks “stumble,” their website has a chance to pop up on the site. On StumbleUpon, a link to a company’s blog or specific product pages would be most effective.

• Pinterest (pictured above) is a different kind of social media site. A mix between StumbleUpon, Twitter, and Facebook, users can see images other users have “pinned,” or uploaded. You can “re-pin” an image someone else has already pinned onto your own boards. Users create boards and categorize them however they want, such as fitness, food, crafts, or weddings. Business can get into it, too. A bakery could utilize this site by uploading pictures of their wedding cakes and linking the pin on their website. Just one re-pin can reach hundreds of people. Uses of this site can be limitless to a company.