by christine | Nov 19, 2012 | Business Success, Interactive, Social Media
Great, you now have your Facebook, linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest accounts in place. Fingers on the keyboard and ready to write and hit that submit button. Stop! So now what? Well, you may want to hold off on populating all those accounts. Why, you ask? Well, did you prepare a social brief? How do you know if your audience participates on all the accounts you have signed up for? Have you been monitoring their social media activity on different social communities? If you’re not sure, let’s step back a bit …You develop briefs for print, TV, web, and mobile, so don’t forget to write one for social. I know it can be overwhelming, but if you can create a social strategy that will keep you on point, and you have the talent to help you implement your social accounts, you will become a great social listener and your audience will appreciate it too!
We’ve all heard the phrase, “Content is King”, well before content we need to focus on developing that strategy. This will give you the means and ability to make sense of what you are trying to do, what is the purpose of your social media marketing. By creating a social listening strategy you will understand the importance of “really listening”. In social media, listening is your guide through the continuous online conversations taking place on many social media platforms, being alert and one step ahead, will keep your brand strategy fresh and competitive. Focus on these key steps for success:
1. Who is Your Target Audience(s) and which social platforms to use: Once you have determined who your audience is, it’s imperative to focus on where to engage your audience online. As said earlier, don’t just start opening accounts to social platforms that don’t reflect your brand or your target audience. This could have a negative impact on your marketing campaign and diminish your brand. Research where your audience is already active, capture this data and customize your social media accounts to adapt to your audiences’ socializing habits.
2. Identify the influencers: These are the people who follow, share or friend you. They are more important than the actual volume of traffic. Determining who your influencers are will make all the difference in your listening strategy and ultimately how affectively you have captured the information and affectively communicated with your target audience.
3. What are the keywords and trends in your social world: You want to validate the topics and conversations that matter most to your brand and document them as potential keywords. You then need to determine through social listening if these keywords reflect or resemble the “social speak” that your audience is interested in. Keywords should reflect what’s important to your brand. However, you need to compare your word selection to that of what is being used by your audience. Don’t think traditional marketing here, or specific naming conventions used throughout the industry. Look for real words, used by real people. This approach will help you communicate more successfully with your target audience.
So now that you have your social strategy in place and the talent in place. You can now start selecting your accounts and write content. Make sure you keep it up-to-date and current with specific topics that tie into your brand and relate to your social users…use your customer’s speak, not marketing lingo and always keep it fresh. This will keep your brand on target with your audience…You also need to take a pulse on your brand as it stands today, consistently monitoring social sites that talk about your brand, making sure that your online reputation is strong, active and fresh.
Also, keep in mind that socializing on the Internet is not limited to the traditional social media platforms. Don’t forget about the community blogs, forums and posts, these areas all require your focus and interaction keeping up with conversations across the web to maintain a strong brand presence online and off. Keeping up with what your customers are saying about your product or service will keep you informed and honest about your brand. Yes, this is time consuming, but in the end, the best investment for you to apply, and to keep your brand honest and on target.
Now you are ready to get back to your keyboard and write, and make your Brand a “Social” listener.
Let me know how your social listening strategy has worked for you (do’s / don’ts) and links you might want to share with us pertaining to this topic. Thanks for listening.
by christine | Nov 9, 2012 | Advertising, Branding, Business Success, Creative, Design
As a creative person, passionate about digital media, graphic design and the visual arts, colour has always been an important factor in my work.
How colours interact with each other or to a specific object can be significant especially in design. The same can be said about how colour relates to your brand and its impact on the consumer and what emotive feeling will be identified with your brand. Will the perception of your brand be a positive or negative behavioural reaction?
Pairing the wrong colour palette with your brand can kill your identity. It’s important to know your target audience, culturally, geographically, gender, age, and also the purpose for your campaign so that you launch your business in the right direction.
Just by viewing a colour in a design, and how it interacts with your brand can completely change or send out a false representation of your brand to the viewer. Colour is such a powerful and important communication tool that it should not be neglected; it is part of our daily actions in life represented in religious, cultural, political and social influences.
Studies have shown when users are shown a bright red hue; it will create a physical feeling of anxiousness and an increase in heart rate. This would not be a good use of colour if used on the interior walls of an emergency room, but if the colour red were associated with food, it would be a positive action to a reaction. You want the consumer to feel hungry and in a response really need to go out and purchase your product.
There is so much more complexity to colour and colour theory and I could go on, but maybe I will save that for another blog.
*Just a note you may want to check out a few of my favourite artist’s that were really the pioneers with colour theory– Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc to name a couple.
Marc
http://www.franzmarc.org/The-Red-Horses.jsp
http://artsconnected.org/collection/111185/franz-marc
Kandinsky
http://www.wassilykandinsky.net/
by Lindsay Sleightholm | Nov 8, 2012 | Business Success, Creative, Design
There are many questions in life that we are faced with that have yet to be answered. Some of those are: What came first, the chicken or the egg? Is the sky blue? And, is graphic design art? Most people have an opinion on all of these, but there remains no definitive answer. Ignoring the first two, let’s just dive into: Is graphic design art? This question has been debated for a long time. The following is a little food for thought.
What is art?
Art – specifically visual art – is difficult to define. Not simply because of its artistic nature, but also because what is deemed as art is constantly changing. And we as a society have never quite been able to make our minds up about what art really is.
In fact it wasn’t until just before the 20th century that anything other than fine art (that is, painting, sculpture and architecture) was actually considered to be art. Then came the Arts and Crafts movement, resulting in the shift to include the applied arts, decorative arts and crafts into the mix – meaning that everything from painting to interior design was termed as art.
So what is visual art today? Well Encyclopedia Britannica describes it as “a visual object or experience consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination.” But that’s a little broad, isn’t it? So let’s add the intention behind the process. Then we could include the artist’s motivation to create for the purpose of communicating a message.
What is graphic design?
Similar to art, graphic design lacks a satisfactory definition. Graphic design is also visual, has a process and a purpose. Design involves the use of various forms of visuals – illustration, photography and even “art” – combined with text to communicate a message to a specific audience. It speaks through a visual language. The purpose of graphic design is to solve visual problems. When successful, it communicates a very clear message.
Now that’s not to say that it lacks expression of skill or imagination. It is the role of the graphic designer to bring a unique visual aesthetic to any problem they solve. However, their end goal is for effective communication. The message is paramount and trumps individual creative expression.
So what’s the difference?
Both art and design have rich histories that illuminate many transformations to their standings within society. Historians have written volumes on it. And like any history, it involves a great deal of flux. Art has played a crucial role into the development of graphic design – there is no question about that. Without the leaps of great artists and art movements of the past, there would be no such thing as graphic design.
Although, it is the here and now that is the concern. Before entering into their creative careers, most graphic designers start out as artists of a sort. Through their earlier education (or individual endeavours) they’re first introduced to exploring creativity through art. That’s where it stems from and it’s a fundamental seed to what graphic designers do.
So yes, both artists and graphic designers are inspired to create, have creative processes that allow them to produce compelling visuals, and are intent on communicating a message. Although, it is the purpose behind their contributions that distinguish one from the other.
Art is subjective, while design is objective. In other words, art can be open to interpretation, whereas design requires complete clarity in order to be effective. What’s more, art involves a degree of self expression. Graphic design expresses in order to aid communication – if not, it fails to do its job. Consequently, art and design can no longer be considered the same thing.
What’s in a name?
So if graphic design and art are different, then what’s all the confusion about? Well it all boils down to a name game. And graphic design needs to be better defined. Many simply don’t understand what it is. The general public, clients, as well as the industry need more clarity.
A lack of clarity breeds a lack of respect. Graphic design – like art – has been through its ups and downs as a profession. And though it may not be art, it’s an incredible medium that takes a great deal of talent, passion and creativity to execute successfully. Now more than ever, graphic design needs to stand apart and keep hold of its status by having little room for misinterpretation on what is stands for and where it’s going.
So, where do you draw the line between art and graphic design? Or… this there one?
by Miriam Hara | Oct 18, 2012 | Advertising, Branding, Business Success, Creative
Listen up Marketing Vice-Presidents, Professionals, Brand Managers, Ambassadors and Gurus… I know only too well that it’s hard to separate yourself from the Brand you’re responsible for. After all, you work it, live it, breath it – 24/7. You understand it intimately, better than anyone else. You define its market and potential, watch its competitors (with disdain!), develop the strategy that will give it wings, provide its raison d’être (USP). Then – fight for the budget by promising the powers that be that just around the corner, there’s profit to be had (ROI)… if only they would believe, like you believe.
When you’ve done all all that and successfully received the sought after funds, you need to entrust it to an “outsider” (yes, an advertising agency!) to communicate to the world what you know is this Brand’s promise and truth… The “how” and the “why” of it.
So off goes the agency’s team, armed with your Communications Brief, Brand Guidelines, Brand’s positioning statement, market assessment and competitor’s information. They come back with creative that responds to brief, the market conditions and provides a good solid plan on how to obtain the objective that is required for that ever elusive ROI.
That’s when it begins, the shift from professional objectivity to personal judgement. That’s when business and marketing professionals change hats and become emotional human beings. The tweaks, the design directives, the micro management of font selection, type treatment, the scrutiny, the judgement calls, all about the creative. I am not suggesting for one minute that all agency work is on target, on point or on brief. Although, I am not quite sure how it can’t be if the brief provided was correct. The development and creation of Marketing Creative and ideation is very rational. Rationality doesn’t take away from creativity. Quite the contrary, it adds to it. Marketing creative is about thinking inside the box… the box that was created by the Brand Keeper.
Assessing Brand Creative properly is as important as writing a solid Marketing Plan. It’s important to learn how to assess creative effectively and efficiently. Here are 9 questions to ask yourself when assessing Brand Creative.
- Are you walking in your targets’ shoes? Remember, you aren’t the target market, even if you fit the demographic profile. You are a Marketer, and more specifically the Marketer of this product!
- Is the product benefit easily communicated? Is the communication efficient. Does the creative speak succinctly and effortlessly about the end benefit.
- Does the creative deliver? Does it offer consumers the reasons to believe so that they can take the next step in the customer journey.
- Does the creative adhere to Brand Guidelines? A good brand agency lives by guidelines. Any agency that doesn’t isn’t a brand agency.
- Is the creative in line with the Brand Persona and the Brand Voice? This is the most subtle and intuitive part of any creative. Refer back to your communications brief for guidance.
- Is the creative original and Brand Unique? Does it provide a strong identification with the Brand… and only this Brand.
- Is it provocative? No, I don’t mean showing bare skin, I mean does it resonate and engage the audience? It must provide traction to gain brand awareness.
- Is it respectful to the Brand and its audience? Does it speak to consumers and not at them, does it value the consumer’s time and mind?
- Does it work as a unit? It’s very easy to zero in on a word, colour, or small detail. The more you focus on it, the bigger it becomes and the more you feel compelled to fix it. But don’t try to fix it yourself. Articulate what is bothering you and let the agency resolve the issue. Creative is a process, so there is always room for improvement. Make that improvement effortless by communicating the issue, rather than trying to provide the solution.
I recognize that it’s not easy to let go. Often the creative of marketing is the “fun part”. Good agencies make it appear easy, but it’s not. In closing I will only say and I know it’s hard to hear but it doesn’t matter that you, the Brand Keeper, like purple or green, or that you prefer a serif type face or the use of a particular word. In short, it’s not about you. It’s about the Brand that you have been entrusted with. and have in turn, entrusted to brand agency to ensure its healthy growth by developing a strong brand awareness and position within the market.
by Lindsay Sleightholm | Oct 16, 2012 | Business Success, Creative
What is original?
In terms of creativity and ideation, “original” can be described as something new. But being original really requires more than just being new. It also implies standing apart as unique. It’s the combination of new and unique that takes us from ordinary to original.
Why be original?
Society likes originality – and for good reason. It inspires and enriches our lives. We want to see and experience original thoughts, ideas and visuals. We like to be provoked, entertained or questioned in different and interesting ways.
Let’s look at Halloween for an example. This yearly tradition is when some of the youngest members of our society play make believe. They dress up for the rest of us. They plan out a costume based on the person (or creature) they want to become for one special evening. The results of their unique ideas are wacky, wonderful and often original creations.
Why don’t we see more originality?
Today, originality is hard to come by. Speed and efficiency have rivalled its importance. There have never been so many easy solutions for everyday problems than there are now. We have more resources available than ever before – at our fingertips and within seconds. Most simply don’t have the time or patience to produce original, creative ideas.
So what’s missing?
Thinkers – those that have original thoughts and pursue them. Great thinkers either have the time or make the time to explore their unique ideas. But originality isn’t just another item on their to-do list. Original thinkers not only make a commitment towards their ideas, but follow them through with fervor and conviction. As a result, they bring us originality. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates come to mind as a couple of well known great thinkers.
Going back to our trick-or-treaters, I don’t think many kids say, “I don’t have time to think about a Halloween costume this year. I’m just going to go as whatever is easiest.” Instead, these young thinkers plan far in advance. They develop a clear visual of what they want and how it will look. By the time the big night rolls around, everything is in place.
Be original.
Everyone is different. And everyone has a unique view of themselves and the world around them. If we each took that view and used it to generate original ideas, we’d have millions of different solutions to any given problem. But, we don’t. Generally, there are a limited number of individuals providing novel ideas. The rest just follow along with what someone else has already created or discovered, and build upon that success.
It has been said that “it’s all been done before.” But how true is that? Are there really no original ideas left to be had? As difficult as originality is to achieve today, so too is its importance towards creative success. We can’t “reinvent the wheel”, but by saying that, we hinder our own unique thoughts.
What’s your approach to being original?
You don’t have to be a kid or a recluse to have original ideas. Originality can be explored as a process of thinking, planning and doing. The ideal result is something both new and unique. Whatever your approach, make sure it makes sense to you. After all, you’re an original.
Let’s continue the conversation. What are your thoughts on being original?
