Artopod

Is Gmail and Twitter changing our view on email?

I’m going to start with an observation – people I come in contact with professionally are more and more using their Gmail address instead of name@companydomain.com-type addresses. Not sure if this is because Gmail is such a wonderful service or if all the social networking has made us more personal and less “official”?

Could it be that all the networking we do on services like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on, builds our personal brands to the point where a personal Gmail address feels much more relevant than our company email? We change positions and companies, but seldom our identity…

And then we have lots and lots of companies and organisations going from Exchange to cloud email services, but that’s another story…

What do you think?
Have you noticed the same or am I just wrong?

We’re hiring!

Fun projects are pouring in, and we are looking to strengthen our team with an ambitious web developer (HTML/CSS/JS/PHP).

More details here (in Swedish) or get in touch with me at .

How many people follow your links?

One of the reasons URL shorteners like bit.ly have become so popular are of course Twitter, but another is the possibility to collect data and metrics about your links. Just set up a free account, use that account to shorten your links before sharing and then follow up by looking at the metrics. You might be surprised at the number of people looking at your links without retweeting or commenting.

If your Twitter client supports URL shortening accounts, be sure to set that up so your links automatically show up in your stats. Don’t forget to use this in your email marketing efforts as well, especially if you’re not using a system with built in metrics.

Read a shootout between different URL shorteners to find your favorite.

Social media and traditional PR

Despite what some people say, traditional journalism still is an important marketing tool in many industries. But can you use social tools to get covered in a magazine? Yes you can.

One strength of using social media is the ability to build relationships, and you can do it with the key journalists within your industry. If you haven’t identified them yet, start there. Once you know who they are, find out if they have a blog or Twitter account. By leaving comments and participating in the conversation, you can create a connection with these journalists and increase the possibility to get covered in the future.

Just remember that spamming these people with commercial messages will give the opposite effect. This is a long-term solution, not a quick fix.

We’re dreaming of a Green Christmas!

Every year we give a special Christmas present to our customers and partners – often with the environment in mind. This year it’s the rain forest that is the winner because each of our friends in business has gotten a plant for our virtual forest and we hope to fill it up before this years end! Artopod will donate to WWF the money they need to plant a real tree for every virtual we get from you. Read more about WWF and their mission to save the forests

See how the forest looks now

If you think you should have a plant, why don’t you just contact us

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from us at Artopod!

Have a budget for 2nd half

Lack of blog updates often mean lots and lots of work, so you can probably figure out that we’ve been working overtime the last couple of weeks.. :)

Some of these projects have most gladly been about continuing to build on existing websites. Web projects are too often seen as short term efforts with a development time over a couple of months followed by little or no activity.

This is never a good idea – by using all of your budget at the start of a project, it’s hard to make corrections and enhancements based on statistics and feedback. It’s much better to lay out a plan and see the site as something evolving over time. This sounds basic, but from experience we know it can be hard for an organisation with small resources.

We have two recent good examples of customers with forward thinking – for Brokk, the world leading manufacturer of demolition machines, we built a foundation where regional websites could easily be added based on the global web platform. Recently Brokk UK Ltd. launched their site as the first example of this.

Another client, FilmArc, have done great work. Based on research, interviews and statistics, small enhancements have constantly been added during the year. We also see that the client-agency relationship works much better with a long-term commitment, where both parties have a chance to learn more about each other.

So maybe next time you’ll save 30% of the budget for enhancing the website after 6 months? The result can be 100% better.

Canvas: be there, or be…squircle (huh?)

I have played around with Canvas lately and made a simple test with a squircle-like form using bezier curves. Huh, squ…what? Yeah, I didn’t know either, but it’s a form of superellipse and a combination of a square and a circle – read all about it at Wikipedia.

I’ve made two demos in the same spirit, an example how to make any image into a superellipse form with canvas and a simple drag & drop your squircle demo. Internet Explorer still doesn’t support Canvas, but there are workarounds as you can see in the second demo.

So…is the Canvas technology something to care about at all? Read my article on Canvas.

Here’s a simplified copy/paste code for testing with the supposed result to the right:

<canvas id="mycanvas" width="100" height="100"></canvas>
<script type="text/javascript">

function squircle(ctx,x,y,size){
  var hsize=size/2; // half size
  x-=hsize; // reposition in the middle
  y-=hsize;
  ctx.save();
  ctx.translate(x,y);
  ctx.beginPath();
  ctx.moveTo(hsize,0);
  ctx.bezierCurveTo(0,0,0,0,0,hsize);
  ctx.bezierCurveTo(0,size,0,size,hsize,size);
  ctx.bezierCurveTo(size,size,size,size,size,hsize);
  ctx.bezierCurveTo(size,0,size,0,hsize,0);
  ctx.closePath();
  ctx.restore();
 }
 var canvas=document.getElementById("mycanvas");
 var ctx=canvas.getContext("2d");

 squircle(ctx,50,50,100);
 ctx.fillStyle = "black";
 ctx.fill(); // fill it up!

 </script>

Digital matters. A lot.

The american agency Razorfish published their FEED report this week, focusing on how digital is changing the way that consumers interact with brands. And the statistics are pretty amazing, here’s one example:

65% of consumers report having had a digital experience that either positively or negatively changed their opinion about a brand. Of that group, a nearly unanimous 97% say that their digital experience influenced whether or not they eventually purchased a product or service from that brand.

These are pretty impressive numbers, and shows that the transformation towards digital goes faster than maybe even us in the digital communication industry had predicted. If you’re in any way involved in marketing at your company or organization, check out the FEED report!

Behaviour, not technology

Quite often, we get questions about “the new technology X” or “the new service Y”. For us, it’s of course important to know about these things, but it’s even more important to understand that technology itself will not change anything. It’s not until we change our behaviour that change happens.

Using new technology alone will not create success – we also have to understand how and why.

Social Media marketing is about the details

When it comes to marketing yourself, your business or your organization in social media channels, be aware that details count. That is of course true in most aspects of marketing and advertising, but people tend to forget that when it comes to social media. Maybe because those details are a bit different from other kinds of marketing and the tools are free, so anyone can do it, right?

How can you help, educate or entertain your customers? Decide (measure or ask) what content is relevant and focus on that.

Think hard about how you say things. How (and not just what) you post on your Facebook wall will decide if people engage, talk back or share it with others. Remember social media is like a cocktail party. What makes you comment on someones wall?

Are you posting personal and relevant info? Can other people share your content in a personal and relevant way? Customization is key.

Maybe we can agree that it’s not about sending as much stuff to as many people as possible all the time? It might be tempting, because it’s so easy to do, but is it a good idea to spam the people you should be having conversations with?