Tag Archives: business

How To Adapt Your Business’ Logo for Social Media

In 1986, Huey Lewis and the News proclaimed, “It’s hip to be square”. Clearly the bods behind the internet’s biggest social networks agreed, because from Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest we are all represented by an image confined to a small square box. For social profiles of real people, it’s easy to crop a favourite photo to a loose ‘head and shoulders’ shot. But how do you make your company’s logo look its best within square confines? Here are our top tips.

A square canvas resting on an easel.

You’ve been given a square canvas. What are you going to paint? Photo by Silverblee.

Option 1: If your logo’s almost square, add a little padding

The reason why some logos look great as social media icons with almost no effort is down to their ‘aspect ratio’. Basically, this is the ratio of their width to their height. Where your logo is close to a square anyway, it’s generally perfectly acceptable to use it straight out of the box, with just a little padding added to the top or sides to make the social media version of your logo exactly square. This is one of the techniques we use at fifty6: for our Facebook channel icon, our standard white logo sits on a square of orange. Because our logo isn’t that much wider than it is tall, it looks fine with no need for additional tweaking. Importantly, it doesn’t compromise our branding.

Option 2: If your logo’s a bit wider, use a single letter or design element

If your logo has a wider or taller aspect ratio—a ratio of 2:1 or higher, say—simply padding it to fit will result in your logo being small to the point of unreadability. One of the most popular workarounds in this instance is to take a single letter from your textual logo, or alternatively a striking design element, and turn this into your social media icon. (If you’re worried this might dilute your brand, you can always supplement the social media icon with a customised ‘header’ graphic at the top of your Facebook profile or Twitter feed. These spaces offer a far larger canvas, and are perfect for a photo of your bustling office with a superimposed copy of your full logo.)

Two of my favourite examples of this technique are: fifty6 client fashion boutique Berties, which uses the lowercase “b” from its main logo as a social media icon; and the Britain’s Got Talent Twitter feed, which uses the revolving star graphic from the TV programme’s title sequence.

Option 3: Put your logo elsewhere and use a photo instead

The most daring alternative is to eschew your company’s social media icons as a space for your logo and branding, and instead to use them for (ultimately) what they were actually designed for: a photo! The most striking example that comes to mind is technology blog Mashable; despite growing exponentially since it’s inception, the Mashable Twitter page uses as its icon a photograph of CEO and founder Pete Cashmore. (It helps that he is surely the most handsome geek in cyberspace!) Don’t be afraid of using a photo of your company founder or mascot; again, the header of your social profile can be used to reinforce your branding.

In the future (and I suspect the present), this will be less of an issue as design trends evolve to reflect the need for a logo to work as well on screen as it does in print. But for the time being, hopefully this will help you export your branding to the social web.

Is Responsive Web Design Right For Your Business?

This May marks three years since web designer and developer Ethan Marcotte introduced the term “responsive web design”. This is a technique whereby a website automagically changes its layout to make best use of the user’s screen, whether they are viewing on a 27″ widescreen monitor or a 3.5″ smartphone. But such technological witchcraft doesn’t come cheap. Here’s the big question: is it right for your business?

The Channel 4 News website, showing the different layouts for mobile, tablet and desktop users.

The Channel 4 News website, showing the different layouts for mobile, tablet and desktop users.

Amongst geeks like the fifty6 bunch, responsive web design has been popular pretty much since its inception – largely due to its inherent cool factor, but also because mobile phone and tablet users are invited to the party and don’t suffer a sub-par browsing experience. Traditionally, the only way to improve a website for mobile users—for instance, by boosting font sizes and removing bandwidth-gobbling images—was to detect mobile users and serve them a second, separate website. As well as introducing the sort of duplicate content issues that Google frowns upon, this meant any new content had to be added to two versions of your website instead of one. By comparison, and to borrow from Tolkein, responsive design means “one website to rule them all”.

So far, so good, but of course any new technology has its pitfalls. In the case of responsive design, the one which business owners are most likely to encounter is cost. Ensuring that a website looks good on any device requires significantly more development and testing than ‘normal’ web design. You’ll either need to set aside lots of time for your in-house developer, or pay a freelancer to set aside lots of their time for you. But if you can jump over the price tag shaped hurdle, responsive web design will make your content (or your products) look great on any device, and could even open you up to a whole new audience. I know it’s rude to answer a question with further questions, but here are the three main things you should be asking yourself to help decide if responsive design is good investment for your business:

How many visitors to my website currently use small screen devices?

As food for thought, over the past month we’ve found that 22% of visitors to the fifty6 site eschewed their laptop or desktop computers, opting instead to browse on a mobile phone or tablet. As Jason has said before, Google Analytics will offer you similar insights about your own visitors. Responsive web design may be expensive, but can you afford to annoy a chunk of your visitors with a site that is difficult to navigate (if not impossible to navigate at all)?

Can I adapt my current website design to work responsively?

It’s a myth that “responsive web design” has to mean “a completely new design for my website”. If you are happy with how your site currently looks on desktop screens, and especially if your site is designed around a grid layout, it may be possible to modify the existing code rather than designing a new website from scratch. This saves you time and, of course, money.

Would my business (and brand) benefit more from an app?

If, as above, you are happy with how your website looks to the ‘average’ PC user then you may prefer to have an app developed for your business. Unlike a responsively designed website, there is no guarantee that this will work on all devices. On the contrary; the myriad of mobile operating systems (iOS, Android and Windows Mobile are the most famous) means it is unlikely that you will reach absolutely everyone. However, apps can make much greater use of a user’s device, blending in seamlessly with their surroundings and offering functionality which would be difficult to achieve through a browser.

Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer that is right for every business. It depends on the size of your mobile audience, what you hope to offer your visitors, and of course what you can afford. But just remember: in 2013, visitors can find you using a dizzying array of devices – can you afford to lose their attention?

A Downfall Of Being Geek In Business

There’s a lot of plus points to being a real geek, and wearing that proudly on your sleeve – you get an excuse to be socially awkward, a reason to never have a job outside when it’s raining, and apparently our natural dress sense is fashionable now. Nothing good comes without it’s minus points though…

Geek Tattoo

I’m not going to go into all of the minus points, but it’s safe to say that they include being socially awkward, not being able to go outside, and the fact that no matter what Vogue or GQ say – geek dress won’t ever be ‘cool’ for long (not a negative point if ‘cool’ isn’t your thing of course!).

There is one massive point, though, that brings me to writing this blog – sometimes, through experience and knowledge, you will know that something that someone thinks is wrong. I think most geeks who base their work on their geek knowledge will agree that if we know we’re right we probably won’t back down – if we do it feels like we’ve wasted the time, effort and passion that we put into knowing we were right in the first place. But if we don’t back down, we’ve got that social awkwardness to deal with…

I’m not talking about the times when we know we’re ‘right’ and then we’re presented with a reasoned, logical reason why that’s not true. As a man who values knowledge, I love those moments where I can learn that I’ve been believing something that was wrong – self improvement is everything.

I’ve never taken the time to get diagnosed for anything, but plenty of people seem to agree that I show traits of lots of things with acronyms – ADHD, OCD, HFA, BOGOF, ABC, SEO, ETC – and that means that fifty6 has ended up, first and foremost, existing but also existing in a very specific way. Results that have been achieved in the past, are being achieved in the present, and will be achieved in the future happen because of the way that I and We have structured the ways that we do things. The fact that I don’t deem any of it an accident means I get all sweaty and nervous when a client suggests or demands that I (and we) work a way that I know doesn’t work. Couple that with the aforementioned social awkwardness and you end up with a whole bunch of eggshells ready to be walked on. As it turns out, most of the time I just jump on them, and so should you.

If you’re in business (geek or not) and you really believe in what you do, then you can puff out your chest and stamp on eggshells when you’re faced with something that you know wont work. You might lose some potential clients, you might even lose some existing ones, but you wouldn’t have worked well with them anyway and there’s plenty more people out there who will work well with you.

Why The Death of HMV Isn’t Such A Bad Thing

90 years of the history of physical music is in the balance today, as HMV brings in Deloitte as administrator to oversee the potential sale of the company. Is anyone surprised? Is anyone sad? More importantly – should we be?

HMV Death

I’m not surprised, nor am I really going to miss HMV. It’s a huge shame that 4500 will lose their jobs, and my thoughts go out to them and their families as they look for a solution to a problem that was almost completely out of their control (almost because it’s been pretty obvious for a long time, and the job market isn’t as appalling as many seem to harp on about). It’s also definitely a shame that one of the last physical stores that I really bother to go in merely to ‘browse’ won’t be there anymore.

The fact is that the business was unsustainable, and has been for a long time. An unsustainable business should be allowed to die gracefully, without repeated attempts to revive it with a new look covering the same tired ideas. A graceful death without the repeated reliance on products that most people would rather buy for less money online. The people who still like to buy CDs – a group to which I do not belong – can find the exact same product, with essentially the same service, delivered to their door the next day, for a lower outlay. The people who are shopping for the ‘other stuff’ that HMV added to its range (to plug the hole that was made by plummeting CD sales) can do the same. The fact is that they can, but more importantly they do. Don’t even get me started on how much better a services Spotify or Grooveshark are in comparison to owning music anyway…

With a smaller share of a shrinking market, and massive overheads across the board, is it really that bad a thing that HMV dies?

Let’s stop whinging about it and work out what to do with yet another space on the high street left by a business that refused to evolve. The spec is that it has to be a social place to be, and in some way allow people to get that ‘browsing’ feeling of an entertainment store, so that it can appeal to the same people. Massive musical swap shops? Yet another coffee shop, with a music/film focus? I haven’t got a clue, so I’d love to hear some of your ideas – comment away!

Facebook Offers: An Exciting New Development for Business Pages

It’s been bubbling away for a while now under the surface, but Facebook Offers have finally started to roll out among pages.

This is A Good Thing™, and probably the most exciting development in business pages on Facebook (in my opinion, at least) since the ability to have your customers ‘check-in’ at your business.

Facebook Offers

What are Facebook Offers?
At it’s most basic level, Facebook Offers give page owners the ability to easily give a discount or freebie to the connections of their page. Obviously page owners have been doing this since day one anyway, but Facebook have packaged it all up in a simple to use product which posts your offer specifically as an offer. This means that all offers will be instantly recognisable as such among Facebooks ever growing user base, and the process to redeem and offer will be consistent across a wide variety of businesses. Making actions easier for potential customers: Another Good Thing™

You set an expiry date, a limit to the amount of redemptions, the terms and conditions, add a photo and that’s it ready to go. You can even spread the word with sponsored story ads specific to the offer.

Obviously users can like, comment on and share your offers. Every time they do this, that action gets shared with all of their friends which gets your offer – and, more importantly, your business page – in front of an ever increasing number of potential customers.

How to create an offer
An offer is created simply just like a post on your pages timeline. Above the status box will have the option to post an offer. If your page doesn’t have the ability to yet then sit tight – Facebook is rolling this feature out among the pages gradually. If you do, then fill out the relevant boxes in terms of offer title, expiry date, limit of redemptions, terms and conditions, photo and then post it out to your connections – simple!

What to do once the offer is taken
Facebook will automatically send out an email confirming the offer to your Facebook connection, which they will either bring to you or send to you in an email – make sure your staff know the terms and conditions to enable them to complete the offer smoothly. Most importantly, ask the customer to share the offer among their friends if they haven’t already!

 

No doubt I will be posting up some success stories of this feature in the near future, but for now I’m experimenting with some various different creative ideas across my clients – it’s a very cool new feature. Enjoy!