Luke Saunders // 200541145
DESN 2255 // Design Technology Management
Online Self Promotion
Contents. C ON T E N T S
Luke Saunders // 200541145 DESN 2255 //
Research. R E S E A R C H
Online promotion is a key part of spreading my presence as a designer and getting my work out to the correct audience. Using the correct social networks sites and various different sharing information sites, I can target those relevant individuals who apply to me. What Twitter can give me is up to date information on different companies and people whom I want to look and at see what they are doing. Having 120 characters to sum up a thought means short and sweet comments can be read quickly and efficiently. Whilst Facebook can be branded under the same umbrella as Twitter a lot of business’s say away from this due to it’s slightly immature feel. But you try to find a international company now who doesn’t ‘tweet’ or have a Facebook ‘fan’ page you will see it is few and far between.
Many design orientated companies now are very active on this particular social networking site. The post various different articles which interest them and promote them. Anyone can follow anyone else on Twitter as it is a completely public social networking site. This gives people who are interested in certain fields easier access to those influential people. ‘Hash tags’ also help refine a search to find the relevant information and people on Twitter which is very easy to do. Twitter can also be linked to other media sites such as eBlogger, LinkedIn and WordPress Website which can be interlinked within one another to give an overall picture.
With close contact being ever easier on twitter networking and job finding can be made even easier. Being able to write a direct message to the required person has huge benefits in getting the message across. Rather than a generic message being sent, a individual can be targeted. On twitter you can give your opinion on different things people have posted, make your own comments and analysis, this can then help to build relationships and making relevant contacts in an ever growing society where it’s more who you know rather than what you know.
Twitter opens doors to build bridges and make contacts in which you never thought you could have access to. What Twitter can do is provide valid address for you to send portfolios and share interests with those people whom what field you want to work in.
The good, the bad & the ugly. T H E
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G O O D , T H E
Easy to use Takes less than a minute to join No confirmation Email needed Short, sharp, sweet Easy to keep in contact with friends Easy to make contact with major people within your field
B A D &
T H E
U G L Y
It’s another ‘social networking’ site No applications like Facebook has Can only post links to videos away from twitter Only have one photo attached to your profile at one time It’s not a easy way for people to get to know a lot about you as you only have 120 characters
Research. R E S E A R C H
Vimeo is YouTube for Professionals. What this allows is a video sharing website without all the fuss and annoyance of a adverts, useless video’s. The site attracts many professionals as it doesn’t have that stigma attached with YouTube. It provides people whom want to make video’s professionally a chance to publish those they make. Other people who view these videos are interested in similar things and professional content which helps in targeting the right market. Vimeo was created by filmmakers and creators alike so being developed by the people who use it helps as it gives them exactly what they need. With YouTube hosting a wide range of video at different bit rates, what Vimeo does is only allows high bit rates so that the quality stays and people view the media as the author intended them to.
YouTube has been with us since February 2005. What YouTube allows us to do is post videos and view videos from lots of other viewers to create an online network of videos. What this does is connect, inspire and inform people all over the World. YouTube also acts as a distribution network for people to spread their work and get their name out there. YouTube also offers a advertising scheme for users who post their videos to make money from the advertising agencies. Being a free application this also helps people spread their work . Having your own profile can mean user can see all your videos that you’ve uploaded. So from one video this can lead to a lot of different opportunities.
Vimeo was created in November 2004 in New York. Interestingly Vimeo is an anagram of ‘Movie’ which is where the name of the company came from. As a large number of video posted on the internet and into YouTube are of gaming, Vimeo banned these videos from being uploaded. These saves ‘clutter’ within the site and keeps away any useless information.
YouTube also can be slightly controversial. With unlimited uploading of content policing can be difficult. YouTube can’t monitor everything and all the content which is uploaded to the web so viewers may be surprised sometimes with the content of a video. As this site is available to everyone anyone can lot at any video. Although some security measures can be made as you have to register before uploading any videos.
The good, the bad & the ugly. T H E
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G O O D , T H E
Only allows a collection of professional video’s First video sharing website to be able to give users the option of uploading a HD 720p Has the same type of people all producing quality videos on it Can create an online profile displaying all video’s
Can’t upload any video onto the site Doesn’t appeal to everyone
B A D
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T H E
U G L Y
Most popular Video Sharing website on the internet Quick Streaming of videos Good, clean interface Can create an online video portfolio of work Easy to use and open up an account Linked together with ‘4OD’ and other TV network Content can sometimes be unsuitable for all ages So video are of a low standard Technical difficulties may interrupt viewing Adverts can get in the way of watching a short clip
Research. R E S E A R C H
Tumblr allows people to have there own blog to comment on things they love, think and create. It claims that it is the easiest way to blog on the web. The average person creates 14 posts each month. Tumblr was created 4 years and 10 months ago in New York. The size of the company grew from two people to seventy-one. Tumblr is a more American based blogging site and to date 15,450,055,249 posts have been made by it’s users. Around 40 million people worldwide have a blog on Tumblr. What users can do is re blog someone else post to enhance there reputation on the site. This blogging platform is the most popular in teen and college students.
Blogger or eBlogger was started in San Francisco in 1999. From a rough ride at the start narrowly going out of business in 2002 Google came on board and wanted to take over as they liked the idea of blogging online. What eBlogger allows the user to do is have a personal diary of what you perceive as interesting and want to share. Having Google on board with the whole blogging gives huge benefits to the company but also to it’s users. Tool bars linked to searches and other capabilities mean the integration of google has given the users greater benefits.
Tumblr isn’t a design based blogging system and it’s rather generic it’s appeal to users. Anyone who wants to blog about anything they want can join which makes it a very open blogging site. Being able to personalise your Tumblr with pictures and themes benefits people hugely in that they can make the blog their own. Recently Tumblr has created an iPad and iPhone application to make it more easy to share and blog when out of the house.
eBlogger has an application available free to it’s users on iPhones and iPad. This like that of Tumblr allows you to Blog from anywhere. So I now don’t need to be at my computer in order to update my eBlogger when something interesting occurs.
The good, the bad & the ugly. T H E
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G O O D , T H E
Personalised HTML’s iPhone and iPad applications help blogging easier than ever before It’s free and you don’t have to pay for any tools or features Allows you to tap into a niche audience
Can’t upload any video onto the site Difficult to post any form of longer blog WordPress and eBlogger allow extensions whereas Tumblr doesn’t There is no way to leave a comment on someone else’s blog
B A D
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T H E
U G L Y
Unlimited number of blogs Over 1GB of free storage for pictures Free iPhone and iPad application Very easy software to use
Content can sometimes be unsuitable for all ages Only 1MB allowed per page on the blog Allowed a maximum of 20 pages Picture resolutions of 800px doesn’t allow the full and maximum potential of some images to be displayed
Research. R E S E A R C H
WordPress was created in 2003 and is now the largest self hosted blogging tool in the world. It is used by over 10 million people every day. It means you can create anything from making a fully compatible website to just a pure home page. You can download scrip software which will allow you edit your website. This mean the site is completely customized. This program allows people who want to make a quick and simple website the necessary tools to do so. It isn’t complex to use to people can construct a Website in seconds. Being a self hostesses blog compared with that of a freely hosted blog. With WordPress as it is coded you can completely customise your site. You can also add in any kind of plug in you wish to customise your page.
LinkedIn was founded in the living room of Reid Hoffman in 2002. It was then officially launched in May 2003. Two new member everyone second are now joining LinkedIn. It is the worlds largest professional network with more than 135 million members in 200 countries. So in terms of making contact with professionals in the desired industry you want to go into. The idea of LinkedIn is to connect you with people and share ideas and opportunities in order to broaden your expertise. It also gives you an online identity. As so much more information is being put online you need to have an online presence. LinkedIn put your name at the top of google searches to help get you noticed when people are searching for you. Furthermore it helps keep contacts you’ve made in the past to use at a later date.
The WordPress app for iOS means effortless editing on your WordPress site. Like Blogging and LinkedIn they have given the use to the editing onto a mobile device. This means that you don’t have to be at your desktop computer in order to compose your site.
With LinkedIn it doesn’t matter what your looking for, whether it be friends, colleagues or jobs. LinkedIn helps you get into those position and starting points to make contact and create new opportunities. With it’s application on iPhone recently being launched it now seems that it is ever easier to find someone on LinkedIn and contact them.
The good, the bad & the ugly. T H E
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G O O D , T H E
Self hosted blogging website Extremely large community Ease of creating an functional website Adding pictures are very easy Lots of additional themes available
Editing themes may be tough using computer coding Many free themes are low quality and not effective Spam can be noticed in some areas Page layout may be inconsistent within the site
B A D
&
T H E
U G L Y
Opens up a world of opportunities Groups all professionals Groups with experts help you find solutions to problems Helps you grow a contact database of professionals in your market
Content can sometimes be unsuitable for all ages Spamming can being annoying and disruptive May receive strange people asking to be friends with you, and if you accept could lead to information being in the wrong hands
Strategy. S T R A T E G Y
In terms of my own strategy for my online promotion I needed to think about what the experts in my industry use and how they have an online presence. As I am a design and technology student I wanted to pursue a career in the car industry. Although I am quite open about what career I go into, Marketing or branding is another options in which I would go. So bearing this in mind the different methods in which I am going to use to construct my online presence are quite limited. I have chosen to rule out both YouTube and Vimeo as I feel I don’t have a passion or desire to go into animation or movie making so these two wouldn’t best suit my online presence. I have also ruled out Tumblr. This was closely matched to that of eBlogger with a very similar set up. I have chosen eBlogger over tumblr to use as I feel tumblr is more Americanized which that particular market being the soul users of the site. eBlogger also came across an easier program to use so I decided to opt for that. I feel I need to have a website as whatever industry I was going into a website can always be beneficially in terms of contact details and presenting work. I choose the social network of twitter as well to support my online presence. The majority of car manufacturers and other design companies have a twitter account and tweet on a regular basis new and innovative things they are doing. So this I feel will give me the most up to date information straight from the companies them self. In not choosing tumblr I still felt I need to have a blog in order to present what I liked on a blogging bases. Articles and other relevant information that I was interested in could be written in this blog as well as commenting on. I finally needed a professional network that could give me contacts within the industry and broaden my client basis so I had more contacts on hand to me. I joined Linkedin so that I could create a database of professionals that I knew and could keep in contact with. I feel that having these four different attributes can all be interlinked with one another to create a good online presence for myself.
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eBlogger Development e B L O G G E R
D E V E L O P M E N T
The theme I choose for my blog is a clear sky back drop in order for my post to be read clearly and concisely. I have named my blog simply my name as all my other online sources are just my name. I have linked my eBlogger up to my twitter account so therefore I can instant tweet an interesting article of mine.
Here you can see the kinds of things I like to post on my blog. I want to post things that I find interesting and then have a debate on the subject in the comment boxes below. Although I want to appeal to the design industry I still thoroughly enjoy looking at design work and this is where I get a lot of my inspiration from.
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Using eBlogger has enabled me to have another online presence and another source of blogging. Linking into my twitter accounts other online information, I can use this blog as a slightly more informal way of putting across my views on things I find interesting. Here you can see the slightly informal side to my blog giving me the background information on favourite films and books
I feel that in this day and age every designer should have a blog of some sort. I choose eBlogger due to it’s ease of use and mobile device application it has. This is key to me as I am mainly always on the move. So any spare second to quickly blog something I can do via my mobile device. eBlogger is also quite a in-formal way of writing about different articles. I can write about different designs on here in an informal fashion. I also have my eBlogger linked into my twitter account and website so I have a closed loop of online presence.
Wordpress Development W O R D P R E S S
D E V E L O P M E N T
Vimeo My website theme was going to either make of break the appearance of the site. I wanted something that was very clear and easy to read, bright and had a slightly modern feel to it. I opted for this theme and activated it accordingly. I feel the simple spacious theme brings a good eye pleasing website.
As you can see on the left I have designed a quick design table in what I wanted the structure of my website to look like. I wanted to keep the horizontal and vertical lines throughout so that it keep the overall shape of the website crisp, clean and readable.
When developing my website I knew the front page had to look smart and sophisticated as this was the first thing the viewer would see. I went for a clean and crisp layout. I also put a small welcome message and then below added in a slideshow of artwork that I have blogged about or am interested in.
Using wordpress have given me the necessary layout in order to construct and simple site. As I have got no previous experience of web designing or computer programming I needed a program which would give me the tool and structure in order to do this. Wordpress has been a brilliant tool in giving me the peace of mind into constructing a simple site. As part of my online presence I knew that I had to make a website, every company now in the world should have an online presence of some sort and in the least a website is a starting point. I need a place in which can be my central working space in which my Twitter, LinkedIn and eBlogger can all relate too. In the contact section all these three are hyper linked so that they can be easily accessed by interested parties. As my website is the central point of contact throughout my online presence all the linkage between my twitter, LinkedIn and eBlogger site had to be fully interchangeable so a viewer could easily go between the different sites.
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Twitter Development T W I T T E R
D E V E L O P M E N T When I was developing my Twitter account I knew the people I had to follow a particular group of people. A mixture of design accounts, car company accounts and colleagues. As you can see on the right hand side you can see how this is broken up. This gives me a broad knowledge of information and sources when researching and reading what they are all tweeting
As my twitter account was set up for both social and a professional contacts I needed to get the balance right. In my blurb I wanted to focus it upon the professional side so people could see what I was all about. I have a lot more followers at the moments as I am following all the major car companies. As I choose to use twitter for both my social use and professional. Rather than using that of facebook twitter can give me short, sharp and sweet. Only having a maximum of 140 characters I can spread the word of my blogs and website quicker. I never had twitter to begin with so I started a fresh when this project occurred. The background I used was inspired from my love of cars, design and art. I also felt that the combustion engine is such a significant invention that I should use this particular piece. I follow many different car companies on twitter to keep up to date with regular developments. These include; @SEAT_cars_UK, @Dodge, @GM, @Lexus, @MBUSA, @lamborghini and @BMWi just to name a few. As I am also interested in design I have followed companies such as @printmag, @CreativeReview and @styledotcom. I have also put a direct link to my website so people can be taken to all angles of my work.
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When I first created my twitter account and starting to get to grips with it I noticed that people had backgrounds and other features which enhanced there profile as a whole a made it more ascetically pleasing. So I as I have a passion for art and design I went for this CAD drawn engine as a theme. I then matched all the colour on the sidebars in order for it to match.
Linkedin Development L I N K E D I N
D E V E L O P M E N T
I am unsure around what business sector I am going into I knew having a LinkedIn page was essential. Having an online CV would help hugely in getting my name out their in the market. As you can see I have listed where I am studying and what I am studying. I have also include the details of my previous experience. A link to my personal website and also to my twitter account to have all my online presences inter-linked.
LinkedIn was a definite answer online presence I wanted to include in my portfolio. Knowing people is almost as important as getting the relevant the relevant education as the more people you know the better. Having those contacts for life will also help you in keeping contact or making contact with them for a relevant job or opportunity. It is very important to make sure you keep good contact with those colleagues you’ve done business before in case another money making opportunity comes up again. As LinkedIn is a very formal online profile this gives me a good solid base and reference point for people to visit if they want to research me as a designer.
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Here you can see below and right that the full details of all my LinkedIn detail. A summary of what I want to achieve in my career and what specialities I have. These both are a little weak and need updating before the final outcome. My full experience is listed here as you can see. But I feel as if I need to write some of the most positive point I achieved at both these placements to show off my key skills. This will also need further improvement before the final draft. I have listed the modules I am studying at the University of Leeds as I feel this is highly relevant. Also I have mentioned some of my personal interests so show what else I enjoy apart from work.
Linkedin L I N K E D I N
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Wordpress W O R D P R E S S
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Twitter T W I T T E R
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eBlogger e B L O G G E R
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Reflective Report R E F L E C T I V E
R E P O R T
During this project I feel as if I have promoted myself to a good standard and have learnt some very important things about how to present myself online and how to continually develop my online profile. As I am quite open to the career I want to go into, I had quite a broad mind set to begin with in terms of how to promote myself. I found it rather difficult in which way I was going to do it. I’ve tried to work to my strengths to give a good all round feel to my online presence so I am not limited to what job I am going for. As I have a huge passion to work in the automotive industry I’ve aimed my online presences towards that particular sector. I feel that I have learnt good presentation skills on how to present my work to a professional standard throughout this project. I feel that I have linked all four of my different online assets well in which they can all be accessed easily from one another. I am happy how my website has been constructed. I used a design table to begin with in order to achieve good presentation and with this tool, it has proven to be a very useful in terms of getting the correct layout. I am also happy with my website overall as I feel it represents me well. As I continue to do more portfolio work, I can keep adding this to the site to give a good overview of the standard of work I can produce. Having a website gives off a good impression when I am looking for a job as it puts me ahead of other designers and professionals. I feel that my LinkedIn pages went very well throughout this project as I have given detailed notes about my degree program and relevant work experience I hold. From this I have built up good connections with professional’s who are interested in what I am doing. Having these knowledgeable contacts on my LinkedIn means that they can get a direct link to my website, Twitter and eBlogger to see what I am further about. I can then use these contacts in the future for possible job links and future contacts. The weaknesses of my project lie’s in my eBlogger, I feel that this will become develop further in time with the more reading I do as it will benefit me as an overall designer and give me further inspiration. In hind sight I should of used Flickr as I feel image based work is what I am most interested in and feel this would of benefitted me more in my overall goal. My Twitter account is continually developing as I follow more car and design companies and make further links. This has proven to be a good option as all my eBlogger posts and LinkedIn posts appear on my Twitter and vis versa so having a big contact base on Twitter helps improve my overall online appeal. I will use my online profile to help me secure an industry placement with either Jaguar or Bentley of which I am currently in the running for. Having this online ability I hope will set me apart and continue to promote myself as a designer.
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