The New Trend

Social media marketing sounds daunting to a lot of people, but a basic plan will help most small businesses.

MySpace was the beginning of the whole revolution. The idea was not about throwing ads in front of people, but actually “being” the ad by virtue of how you presented yourself and your products. Social media marketing is about building a community around your business. The goal is to offer them compelling and engaging information because you want them to come back.

Why Use Social Media

There are two major reasons to use social marketing.

One: is to establish yourself as an expert in an area related to your business, and through that drive traffic to your site; the end result being sales and referrals for you.

Two: is to raise your Internet ranking by driving more people to your site making you more visible in searches. “Really it’s all about SEO,” SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is using keywords to become more noticeable to the Internet crawlers, in turn, pushing you higher on a search ranking.

For example, the more people that visit your Facebook page, the higher ranking that page will get, as well as directing more traffic to your main site.

A 2010 social media marketing white paper, “How Marketers Are Using Social Media to

Grow Their Businesses” by Michael A. Stelzner, concurs.

The number-one benefit of social media marketing is gaining the all-important eyeball. Improving site traffic was the second major benefit, followed by building new partnerships. More than half of marketers indicated a rise in search engine rankings as a benefit of social media marketing.

“As search engine rankings improve, so will business exposure, lead generation efforts

and a reduction in overall marketing expenses,”

The Big Four

The “big four” social media marketing tools for brokers and small businesses are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs, Fladung said.

Facebook

If Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populated in the world; the site has hit 400 million active users (people who have used it in the last 30 days).

One has the ability to create a community on Facebook by offering multiple forms of content not just blogging, but photos and videos as well. You can create your own pages, your own designs, with hyper-linking to your own products and services.

But Facebook is not enough on its own. “You can have all the bells and whistles on the Facebook business page you want,” “but without content to establish yourself as the expert and engage your audience, it’s never going to be more than bells and whistles.”

Blogging

A simple blog doesn’t mean you have to write all the content yourself. You can aggregate content and link it back to the source.

“Blogging is the backbone of any good social media plan.” Blogging helps you establish yourself as an expert and provide information to your community.

Twitter

Twitter is basically micro-blogging, and as the site says, it’s a communication platform that “shrinks the emotional distance between your company and your customers.”

Each “tweet” gives you 140 characters to play with; enough for about 100 characters and a link.

The Twitter site has a Business 101 guide for learners that includes a how-to on getting started and best practices.

“As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company,” Twitter’s website says.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the business networking side of the equation people can review your resume.

“It has grown, gotten better, but it’s still a community.” The good thing about LinkedIn is that you can have your base of connections and you can get to their connections too.

Linking together all the social media tools you use is an efficient way to cross-update everything.

“Social media networking is like a big Internet cocktail party.”

Networking in the gaining and maintaining of contacts. On the basis of respect and trust you start a relationship, ask questions and share information. Networking conversations are usually positive and pleasurable conversations, you gain good contact relationships.

Why Networking?

Networking is a pro-active activity. You don’t wait until there is a vacancy, instead you put yourself on the map within a certain work field. You do not ask for a function, but you present yourself as a motivated individual in the branch of your conversation partner.

This way, a more independent and suitable position is created. You can ask the other person advice, practical tips or ask for a referral. Networking can lead to a job.

Pros of networking:

• Make contact with people
• Interesting conversations
• Orientation on work
• Insight into certain functions or jobs.
• Growth in certain branches
• More information about working for a specific company.
• Last but not least: Gain a job!

Kinds of networking:

Without even knowing it, you are part of many different kinds of networks. Think of your family, fiends, colleagues, fellow students. Even if your network is extremely small, you have a starting point.

Below is a splitting on different network groups:

1. Personal Network: People that are close to you. Friends, family, good start!
2. Social Network: People you don’t see too often. People of the union life, friends of your friends. You can broaden your social network by mingling more in clubs and unions.
3. Professional Network: People that you meet in your education and work, during get-togethers., trainings, workshops, old students, old colleagues.
4. Cold Network: Contacts that you still have to gain, that can come out of your already existing networks.

Do you already have a network?
A lot of students claim they don’t have any kind of network, but in actuality that’s completely false. If you are going to network, you start to talk with people that you know. When you start to talk to more people, your network gets bigger.

Networking doesn’t have to be a factor of an already existing network. A good preparation and some nerve is necessary.

An example:

It takes nerves to pick up the phone and call somebody that can mean something for you.
Nerve to plan with somebody else and to get and give feedback. You have to be prepared to be open.

1. Meeting Deadlines – Race against time:

Now this is one issue that you cannot learn to resolve through tutorials. Meeting deadlines is every graphic designer’s nightmare. It’s never easy for designers to listen to the bitter things clients say when their work is not completed on time. Many a times, designers’ personal work comes in way of the project deadline. It literally becomes a race against time. Consequentially, the project has to be completed in haste which ultimately makes waste.

Solution:

A practical solution is to give your clients a realistic date of completion. Setting outrageous deadlines are never easy to accomplish. However, if you are caught up with a deadline, the best way to work it out is to draw out a time frame and prioritize your remaining tasks. Once you write down all the residual tasks, it will be easier for you to accomplish them.

2. Handling Extreme Pressure – Battle of Nerves:

Although this is something that every person experiences, but for graphic designers, this dilemma is manifold. Handling extreme pressure includes working with high-end, complex software and tackling difficult clients all at the same time. Although a certain amount of stress (eustress) is required to gain maximum efficiency, but extreme stress (distress) leads to lowering of productivity which ultimately affects your performance.

Solution:

No matter how serious your work is you need to take time off. Graphic designers must learn to take time out to relax and beat the heat. Another solution for handling extreme pressure is to tackle things one at a time. Taking too many tasks together can simply ruin the whole project. Hence it’s better to focus on one thing at a time.

3. Client Troubles – A Recurring problem:

This is one recurring problem that can never cease to exist for designers. While clients are the greatest source of earnings for designers, they are a great source of headaches too. Starting from the issue of designer payments and remunerations to the quandary of dealing with annoying and bossy clients, client trouble is a never ending problem.

Solution:

The first and foremost thing that graphic designers need to do is to have a proper agreement with the clients on all issues beforehand. A mutual contract would be favorable in building an understanding between you and the client. Talk on money matters beforehand, and explain your terms and conditions and method of working to them.

4. Priority Syndrome – Too many things to do:

Disorganized work always leads to failure. When you have got too many things stuck in the “pending list”, you are bound to fall behind your work schedule. Sometimes, graphic designers get caught up in what I would like to call the “priority syndrome”, i.e. not being able to prioritize their work.

Solution:

The best solution for this dilemma is to make a checklist of all your work and prioritize them according to their significance. Give corresponding weights to your priorities and finish off the work according to the precedence. If you believe that one work can be postponed and the other cannot, finish off the latter first.

WK

Vandaag begint het wereldkampioen voetbal in zuid Afrika.

Een ieder is in de ban van het wereldkampioenschap.

Heel wat auto’s rijden rond met een vlag van hun favoriet op het WK.

Er zijn mensen die vinden dat zij de openingsceremonie niet mogen missen. Ment neemt verlof en andere gaan zelfs naar de dokter om een vrije dag te krijgen.

Enkele bedrijven hebben een televisie toestel aangeschaft om hun werknemers toch van de wedstrijden te laten genieten.

Bij Spang Makandra is men bezig om een TV-kaart te installeren om vervolgens via de beamer de wedstrijden te volgen. Het installeren is gelukt maar helaas was er niet gedacht aan een antenne.

Het volgen van de openingsceremonie en de eerste wedstrijd zit er voor Spang Makandra niet in.

Hopelijk dat de antenne optijd komt zodat de tweede wedstrijd toch nog kan worden bekeken.

Ik wens heel veel plezier toe met de wedstrijden en may the best win.

WEB 2.0

What is WEB 2.0?

Originally in 2004, Web 2.0 was referred to as this idea of the “Web as a platform”. The concept was such that instead of thinking of the Web as a place where browsers viewed data through small windows on the readers’ screens, the Web was actually the platform that allowed people to get things done. But this really didn’t catch on. In fact, it’s fairly hard to grasp what that really means.

Later people started thinking of Web 2.0 as the programming tools used to create the Web pages that were considered “cutting edge Web 2.0″. This included AJAX and SOAP and other XML and JavaScript applications that allowed the readers to actually interact with the Web pages more like you would with an application on your desktop.

Now Web 2.0 is really starting to mean a combination of the technology (like AJAX) allowing the customers to actually interact with the information. Web 2.0 is starting to mean the situation where amateur writers and developers are able to create applications and Web sites that get more credibility than traditional news sources and software vendors. This combination of powerful JavaScript tools like AJAX enabling nearly anyone to contribute to and interact with the data that we are all working with is really what Web 2.0 is.

web_2.0_guide

A collage of us being "spang" with each other

“Hook me up with a great photographer, a clever stylist, and an expert retoucher and together we create a beautiful Illusion”. Those words were spoken by Heidi Klum, one of the most successful supermodels to walk the planet. She has been criticized for this quote, and accused of belittling natural beauty as though it could not exist with retouching by a graphic designer. When I was asked my opinion on this quote, my only response was that beauty was a product of Photoshop.

I have long been proud to call myself a Graphic Designer. Whether it was to make a “totally awesome” banner for my profile on a wrestling forum that “reeked of awesomeness” , or to make a collage for my mother on Mother’s Day, or to design a birthday card because Hallmark didn’t always have the coolest card, you name it, I loved Photoshop for it.

I have made funny faces of my friends, turned my cousin into Shrek, put my sister on top of the Empire State Building and placed myself as the bride of Brad Pitt. All thanks to Photoshop. On a more professional note, I have made promotional banners, posters, business cards, logos and anything else you could think of to put bread on my table.

Interestingly enough, I once came across an extremely religious woman 2 years ago who was totally appalled by my profession. I was accused of being a “master manipulator” and “my kind” are nothing but liars and our software was a creation of the devil. A bit harsh yes, but instead of getting defensive, I tried to see it from her point of view.

I am assuming that by manipulator, she was referring to those God awful edits that we constantly see in gossip magazines, where two people were photoshoppically added in an embrace to make it seem like the other was cheating on a spouse, or where a model was airbrushed to a point of perfect skin and posture. The entertainment world done a fantastic job of making the graphic designers seem like the evil doers.

I regret not asking this woman what about the good “my kind” could do. For example, I once read online an article written by a woman who had lost her hair due to chemotherapy. She posted a picture online of herself and asked if a graphic designer would be so kind to transform her into a striking blond with blue make up and glossy lips. When I saw the result and read her response, all I could do was smile. I’ve been asked numerous times to give some of my friends some highlights in their hair in Photoshop so that they can get a visual before actually going through with it. Photoshop is an excellent way to get a glimpse of something you want to make a reality.

Graphic Designers, as well as photographers are keen on detail, and other people tend to forget that. Am I manipulating a picture by simply adding highlights to a nature scene for it to stand out, or am I making it easier for you to see the beauty in something you wouldn’t even think to look at from that perspective. Am I a liar for turning a “Twilight” die hard fan into a vampire or wherewolf, or am I simply helping said person express themselves in a different way?

Inner beauty is skin deep, but Beauty is a product of Photoshop.

Welcome to my first security topic.

“Password strength”

Inspiration for writing about this came to after stumbling upon the following blog:

http://onemansblog.com/2007/03/26/how-id-hack-your-weak-passwords/

There is some really good information there. so read-on. It will come in handy, because anyone who uses computers / web regularly has in some way suffered from security issues, that be data-loss / corruption due to viruses or other malware wheter you admit it or not

FYI here is a table that shows the estimated time required for a brute-force method of password cracking.

Remember, these are just for an average computer, and these assume you aren’t using any word in the dictionary. If Google put their computer to work on it they’d finish about 1,000 times faster.

Keep in mind that a strong password is not enough, you must scan your systems at least once a week for viruses. This however still does not guarantee 100% safety.

end part 1

ok my time’s up,
I’ll write more about this (part 2) soon.

We also got some books on actionscript 3.0.

With all these info we need to start studying actionscript 3.0 and
make our own actionscript applications and sell them to the world.

It’s been very stressful these last couple of months, but that doesn’t stop me.
Working on old and new projects, working with your colleagues, it’s all very challenging.
Seems that every day you get new obstacles to overcome and you know you’ll only fail if you stop trying.
That’s my short blog for now.
Hope it keeps you satisfied till the next one

It`s been a very busy week for me. The days are going fast and the work flow is very high but i’m very glad to do great projects and to see smiling faces from our customers.

Management and carrying out updates, both are a part of my job but supporting en helping my colleagues is crucial for team spirit!
Our colleague, Simon, is also participating in WorldSkills Americas 2010 in the skill “Web Design”.
He has our full support and we know that he will return with a splendorous result. Simon! Best of Luck!!!!:)

This is my blog for now.  I have to hurry up to finish my work.

Have a great weekend!!