the effective use of social networking to advance your business fresh inspiration from unexpected places, like rainy Seattle and a Colorado mountain town a client’s new postcard for a new market works while departing from the usual design style wondering where summer has gone and other thoughts from Candy marketing tip for harnessing the Facebook marketing medium and a funny photo just for fun
A monthly newsletter of marketing ideas, photos, and fun.
08
THE REVIEW candyrice design
social media
friending and tweeting for business
2: 8: 09
We’re going away from our usual article in this section to bring you another useful exerpt from an article about Twitter. Enjoy!
This Business Ain’t for the Birds OK, we admit it: For a platform as popular as it’s become, Twitter’s surprisingly hard to understand to the untrained eye. What are all those messages? IMs? Forum discussions? Public IMs? And what the heck is a “tweeple,” for goodness sake?!! Most importantly: What’s with this rumor that Twitter can do something for my business? I ain’t no bird. Fret no more. Hoping to draw more SMBs to its fold, Twitter has released
a
Twitter 101, a straightforward guide to what Twitter is, why it’s relevant to you and how best to approach a Twitter campaign. That’s a lotta info. Thankfully, a sidebar on the left-hand side is equipped with useful topics to navigate: “Getting Started,” “Learn the Lingo,” “Best Practices” and “Case Studies,” among others. If in doubt, do one simple thing: visit Twitter.com (which recently got a userfriendly facelift) and run a search for your brand in the Search bar.
What are people saying about you? Are people saying anything at all? Either way, the next natural step is to want to spark positive conversation. And the best way to do that is by starting an account. The Po!nt: Don’t let opportunity fly away! There are plenty of resources out there to help you leverage Twitter’s real-time search and buzz features. Study up and get tweetin’! Article by MarketingProfs.
social media
friending and tweeting for business
We had a great time creating a postcard for Holly, owner of Coloradobased Old Glory Antiques. We needed to visually showcase some of Holly’s vintage merchandise and create a large postcard she could mail to area interior designers and home stagers, letting them know about her merchandise and special shopping hours. She wanted to focus on a more urban look for this postcard, so we created a clean, modern design to highlight some of her favorite items currently in her inventory. We are her product photographer as well, and so the postcard project was made even easier as we could access the images immediately. As is usual when we design for our clients, we worked hard to create brand consistency in the look and “feel” of the piece, despite this project being a departure from her usual style. In this case, the branding was achieved through the use of Holly’s signature logo and colors.
Featured project
Holly is a treat to work with, and we are excited to be a part of her marketing efforts for the next year!
Client: Holly Kuhn Old Glory Antiques, Colorado
Solutions Provided: • Design Services • Photography Services • Marketing Services
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lifegoing on week in August to train some of their development people. I took advantage of one of the perks of being a small business owner with a portable business: I went to Seattle with him and spent some time photographing around the city, despite not being inspired by the gray skies and rain. Some of my inspiration for the month came from these images and the beauty of northwestern Washington state. We spent a blissful few hours at Larrabee State Park staring at the San Juan Islands and watching the multitude of purple starfish clinging to the submerged rocks at the shore’s edge. What do you call a lot of starfish? A herd, a fleet, a school? Hmm...guess I’ll have to look that up.
We’ve expanded the newsletter to include more about what is going on in my life, more of my photographs, and an inspirational thought. We’d love to know I managed to get some time away what you think! to photograph around Colorado this month, too, making an afternoon trip to nearby Central City in the mountains. This historic western town, now mostly Summer 2009 filled with casinos like its neighbor The summer has gone by so quickly and Black Hawk, boasts some beautiful old I find myself wishing I could grasp it with buildings with a cool Western vibe. both hands and stretch out the remaining time. Though my favorite season is fall, We also moved our personal belongings each year I wish that summer could go and my business to a new location by a bit more slowly. You know, the way this month! We’re still in the Denver it did when I was a kid and the most metro, it’s just that now we’re in pressing thing on my schedule was Westminster. The new address is riding my horse all afternoon or lying on 12304 N. Bannock Street, #19103, the grass reading a book. Westminster, CO 80234. Our phone number hasn’t changed, nor has our Many of you know that I love to roadtrip website or email address. New location, with my husband Tim and our yellow but the same great service & marketing lab Chase. This summer was filled with design as always! numerous trips, which was great! We spent a few days in my home state of Minnesota in June, followed by a few I hope you can take some time to really days in the hill country of Texas in July, enjoy the summer before it’s over. As followed by Seattle in August. We also small business owners, it can sometimes peppered in lots of weekend “circle be really difficult to put work away and drives,” as we call them: 4- to 8-hour spend some time just relaxing and drives around Colorado exploring this recharging. Even if it requires scheduling gorgeous state. Tim, a development guy for the American Heart Association’s annual Heart Walk in Denver, was invited to Seattle for a
on our Blackberries time for enjoying summer to make it happen, let’s find a way to enjoy this time before it’s gone. Happy rest of the summer to you!
thoughts “Review
your
own
life. Are you balancing work with play, mental effort
with
physical
effort, seriousness with humor?
Your
mind-
body must first learn to live a rhythmical life in harmony with the world and natural laws to achieve great heights of successful living
and
efficient
functioning.” ~Napoleon Hill
my fresh inspiration
1 cover : Sailboat on Lake Washington, Seattle a : Street scene in Central City, Colorado all images by candy rice 1 : Pike Place Market, Seattle 2 : Space Needle, Seattle 3 : Historic Central City, Colorado 4 : Minneapolis skyline at night, roughed up 5 : Left turn only, Central City 6 : Larrabee State Park, Bellingham 7 : Houseboat Community, Seattle
2
6
7 85
5
4 3
marketing tip
Excerpts from an article by web marketing coach Charles Brown. Full article available here. Understand an emerging market & maximize marketing.
Advertisement for Samsung MP3 player, as seen on hongkiat.com.
7 Great Resources for Using Facebook as a Business Tool Facebook has grown on me. It took a while for me to “get” Facebook and understand how I can use it to grow a business. But as time has passed, I have come to appreciate it as a truly awesome marketing tool with application for any organization and any movement. Groups are THE secret to creating success with social media. Instead of the old style approach of sending a message to an audience, group marketing involves energizing others to work with you to spread the word. A group can be your fans who tell others about you, or it can be people you lead on a mission to achieve a goal. Groups exist because people want to belong and do. They want to get involved with your message and help spread it (but remember, along the way it becomes their message). Facebook is the ultimate tool for engaging, cultivating, nurturing and empowering tribes or groups online. With that said, here are seven great resources for using Facebook as a business building tool by empowering tribes: Top Ten Tips For Creating BUZZ With Facebook Events. Tribes need
We love puzzles, cartoons, and funny photos. Watch this section each month for something new to do or laugh at.
303.947.5527 www.candyrice.com : candy@candyrice.com 11823 ridge pkwy #821 | broomfield, co 80021
events and this piece by Mari Smith shows how to create buzz for an event. How To Manage Your Facebook Relationships With Friend Lists. Nick O’Neil has written this very helpful article on how to organize your friends on Facebook. Just a very helpful piece. Attraction Marketing Facebook Strategy. This is a very effective video about how to use Facebook groups to generate leads and build relationships with the people who “friend” you. The Facebook Marketing Toolbox: 100 Tools and Tips to Tap the Facebook Customer Base. This is just a wealth of information about the many business applications of Facebook. It is practically a library of articles and tools that you can use. Share Your Favorite Marketing Tips and Ideas. This is a group that I started designed for marketers to share their ideas and tips with one another. 32 Ways to Use Facebook for Business. Meryl Evans has compiled a very helpful list of ways a Facebook beginner (or someone just starting to use Facebook for business) can benefit from using it. Top Ten Tips For Promoting An Event On Facebook. Another great article by Mari Smith, that takes you by the hand and shows you how to set up an event on Facebook and then how to promote your event.