Friends Danny P., Claudia N. & Upright's Eric Frye at Cut&Paste digital design competition. 19 May 2012, Downtown LA.

The first Cut&Paste digital design competition was held in New York City in 2005. It has grown massively since. Today, preliminary rounds are held in each of 12 cities worldwide — with winners competing in the Global Championship in NYC each year.

This past Saturday, I was in attendance for the Los Angeles qualifying round of this now-famous design competition. Held in a small warehouse downtown, graphic designers and 3D animators hunched over their computers as we watched 3 speedy rounds of live graphic designing.

There were 3 teams of designers competing for just 1 spot in the championships. All 3 teams were well-spoken about their visions and calm under pressure.

Friends of Upright, Claudia and Danny joined me for the DJ set, great drinks and fun of watching graphic creations come together.

We were surprised by several twists and turns as the designs developed. With its combination of 3D animation and 2D drawings, the designers’ creative process reminded me (naively) of a special I saw on TV on the making of the Toy Story films.

Visit the winners’ circle page from the 2012 Los Angeles Cut&Paste design competition.

Is the winner’s design your favorite?

What do social media and donuts have in common? Both are something one may enjoy at the start of the day. Both are available in a wide variety of types and flavors to suite a broad range of individual tastes. Recently, a North Carolina based marketing company tied these two subjects together in an interesting illustration that generated a great deal of interest, including some 100,000 likes on Facebook.

In the form of a chart handwritten on a whiteboard, the illustration provides a concise explanation of the various forms of social media, using a simple common thread. What makes this chart so great, beyond providing the opportunity to talk about donuts, is the simplicity with which it boils down a rather complex subject.  There is no denying the impact of social media, and that it is rapidly becoming one of the most important facets of marketing for a growing number of businesses. This fun and clever social media explanation makes its own case for this in the attention it has brought to the company. The important message here is that social media does not necessarily need to be a complicated endeavor.

If you are a marketer who is new to social media, you may feel overwhelmed in trying to gain a full understanding of how these platforms work. By looking at each platform through the perspective of “how can I use this to promote my [donut]?” you can identify a simple starting point. After gaining some experience and familiarity, you can take your campaigns to more complex levels. For example, as the owner of a small neighborhood café, you may start with a simple Facebook business page, and invite customers to “like” it. As your following grows, you may post coupons or menus.  The next step may be to offer patrons a free order of biscotti for “checking-in” when they visit. Eventually you can incorporate other special Facebook features such as sponsored stories to generate interest in your business.

Ready to bite into the world of social media, but find you’re in need of a little assistance? Consider Upright Communications the coffee to go with your donut. We’ll awaken you to the myriad of social media opportunities that are available, and we will help you supercharge your efforts!

Want to learn more about the social media mentioned? Check out the links below:

Twitter – “Twitter connects businesses to customers in real time—and businesses use Twitter to quickly share information with people interested in their products and services, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and influencers. From brand lift to CRM to direct sales, Twitter offers businesses an easy way to reach an engaged audience.”

Facebook – “Facebook allows marketers to stay connected with people throughout their day whether they are on their computers or mobile devices, at home or at work, watching TV or shopping with friends. This allows businesses to create rich social experiences, build lasting relationships and amplify the most powerful type of marketing – word of mouth.”

Foursquare – “Foursquare makes the real world easier to use. We build tools that help you keep up with friends, discover what’s nearby, save money and unlock deals. Whether you’re setting off on a trip around the world, coordinating a night out with friends, or trying to pick out the best dish at your local restaurant, foursquare is the perfect companion.”

Instagram – “Snap a photo with your iPhone, choose a filter to transform the look and feel, send to Facebook, Twitter or Flickr – it’s all as easy as pie. It’s photo sharing, reinvented.

YouTube – “YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.”

Linked in – “Influence consumer perceptions and purchase decisions by messaging followers across LinkedIn and the Internet. Post relevant updates, like company news, product promotions, videos, and industry articles. Amplify your brand message and benefit from follower engagement (likes, comments and shares), interactions that are virally distributed across a follower’s networks.”

Pinterest – “Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and share their favorite recipes.”

Last FM – “Last.fm is a music recommendation service. You use Last.fm by signing up and downloading The Scrobbler, which helps you discover more music based on the songs you play.”

G+ – “Google+ makes connecting on the web more like connecting in the real world. Share your thoughts, links and photos with the right circles. Use easy, spontaneous video chat to strike up conversations with as many as nine people at once.”

Dr. Jakob Nielsen, often called the “father of Web usability,” remains a thought leader today as he continues to research emerging trends. Today we focus on Nielsen’s new findings on mobile usage — do people prefer using mobile apps, or visiting websites from their smartphones?

This report asserts that as of early 2012, the experience of receiving information from a mobile app is superior to visiting a website from a smartphone.

Why? Apps are flat-out easier for everybody now. Designers only need consider a few devices during app development, and all user experiences can be tested easily. The issue of hundreds of Internet browser versions and screen resolutions — making a website appear different on nearly every screen — is irrelevant. Apps are fully branded around your company, they load quickly on phones, are colorful and sound great, and require no scrolling or squinting to read.

For these reasons, today’s user prefers using mobile apps versus surfin’ from their smartphone. However, the trend is switching towards mobile websites as a preferred portal of on-the-go information. I’d recommend that you read Dr. Nielsen’s entire report for the reasons why.

Good News for You?
As mobile apps become more expensive to develop and mobile websites become faster and easier to use, the small business owner will win.

Currently, many popular apps are produced by large corporations with millions of American customers. For these app creators, the hefty pricetag of mobile app development sees an immediate return in downloads and new customers earned. But for the average business owner — with a smaller mobile market or a less consumer-focused product — an app is not beneficial, forcing the business owner to struggle to present website information for smartphone users in a universal, user-friendly format.

I look forward to the day when mobile website experiences can be simplified and sped up. Websites are accessed by all — anytime, and for free. Apps sometimes cost, require search and download time, and must release updated versions to remain useful over time. A company’s own website is still their richest, most dynamic marketing tool and the hope is that mobile technology will streamline so every user experiences a website on their smartphone in the way the web developer intended.

We receive this question all the time.  Often it starts with the line, “I checked the website from home and ______ was different…”

Good web designers and developers do a considerable amount of testing before launching a new website — using tools to simulate the view of the website on different computers (various resolutions), different Internet browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera etc.), and different devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile).

Here we’d like to share a few of the FREE tools we recommend for those who would like to simulate the view of your website as others see it:

TEST AT DIFFERENT RESOLUTIONS <- Viewlike.us is an online application that enables you to quickly test your website in different resolutions. Simply enter your website URL in the provided field and click “Submit.” Once the webpage loads, click different resolution tabs to view how the site looks on computers of several resolutions.

TEST IN DIFFERENT WEB BROWSERS <- A link to a strong list of cross browser testing tools. We recommend Adobe BrowserLab (the first on this list), but wanted to include this full list of recommendations, as BrowserLab will switch to un-free shortly.

TEST DIFFERENT MOBILE/TABLET DEVICES <- A link to a strong list of device “emulators” as they’re often called. Your best bet is to simply research which are the top 5 or 10 mobile and tablet devices at the time of your website/project launch, and download the individual emulator specifically catered to those tools. (Emulators that claim to match the view at several different devices typically do not work.)

Testing is important and (shhh — don’t tell!) can actually be fun. Remember to also test the view of social media campaigns, such as your Twitter profile and Facebook landing pages. Happy testing!

Online reviews are increasingly growing in importance (You may be thinking, “duh”!). But not only are they extremely important for YOUR company, they’re just as important for when you’re not at work. You want people to trust what’s being said about where you work, but you also want to trust that the restaurant you go to tonight will really be that good!

What if I told you that some online reviews are FAKE? You may say to yourself, “I could see competitors writing bad reviews for their biggest rival” or “I’ve seen reviews where its obvious the employees write it”. Well those examples do indeed happen, but the latest craze is actually PAYING for positive reviews. Not all that surprised? Me either!

Most recently on a website asking “What would you be willing to do for $5?”, one man offered to write two positive online reviews for a company. On another site, one person said they would pay someone to write a positive review on TripAdvisor.

I could probably go on all day, listing off examples of people paying for reviews, but that’s not what I want you to take away from this blog post.  I want to educate you on how to spot a fake review.

A group of researchers at Cornell University studied reviews and developed an algorithm that worked 90% of the time. Here is what they concluded:

“The fakes tended to be a narrative talking about their experience using a lot of superlatives, but they were not very good on description. Naturally: They had never been there. Instead, they talked about why they were in Chicago (for example). They also used words like ‘I’ and ‘me’ more frequently, as if to underline their own credibility.”

We can only hope that word spreads about these paid reviews and that more people become educated on how to spot them. We don’t want what was once a positive online strategy, to end badly.

Now you know how to spot a fake review!  Get online and make me proud!

Every business– from local start-ups to international corporations– benefits when they claim their location profiles in the Top 3 search engines’ local listing centers.

The Top 3 local listing centers are:

• Google Places (formerly Google Maps)
• Bing Business Portal (formerly Bing Local)
• Yahoo! Local Listing Center

The larger your business and the longer it’s been around, the higher chances that incorrect or outdated info about your business is displayed by these 3 business centers.  Claiming these profiles ensures you have control over how your business is represented online.  You can correct mistakes and also add marketing assets like photos and coupons!  Each has its own special perks — Google Places offers the Google Dashboard, where you can see visibility numbers for your local listings.  Yahoo does not require any verification step to complete Local profiles.  And Bing offers mobile-marketing considerations and allows you to prioritize your services.

HOWEVER, there is one minor caveat to the simplicity of this process: the dreaded VERIFICATION STEP required by Google and Bing.

This verification step, required before a new listing is published, is vital to limiting spam.  But for those attempting to ethically publish info about their location(s) online, verification can be an inconvenient challenge.  Depending on several factors, Google and Bing require one of two forms of verification before a location’s listing can successfully publish:

1) phone verification – Google or Bing call you, and provide a PIN number to enter
2) letter verification – Google or Bing send your location a letter, supplying a PIN number to enter

There are pros and cons to each method.  When given a choice, phone verification is more immediate.  However, it requires the person who answers the phone at your location(s) to understand the process described above (sometimes a lot to ask during a busy day!).  Good thing both Google and Bing provide multiple attempts before letter verification is required.  Letter verification is no longer a snail’s journey.  The time it takes to receive these letters is getting faster– most companies will find Google and Bing letters in their mailboxes within a week.  And letters can be easily resent on command.

The bottom line is to stay calm during the tricky verification process.  These verification systems are patient and offer several attempts.  And the light at the end of the tunnel is awesome — much-increased visibility of your business to local consumers.

If you continue to have trouble verifying your business in Google Places specifically, search Mike Blumenthal’s blog for solutions.  The actual Google Places forum is a tangled web, and Mike does a great job to synthesize issues business owners face during this process.  Popular user issues covered on Mike’s blog include:

What does “We currently do not support this location” mean in Google Places?
My Google Places listing has been in ‘Pending’ status forever!
Why did I receive the error message that I’ve used a banned term in Google Places?
Why is my business marked closed in Google Places?  I’m still here!

Best of luck, and please comment below with any questions as you verify your business in Google, Yahoo and Bing!

The stat was ingrained in my mind.  That 89% of search engine users clicked a result on Page 1.

But a new study, published recently by Slingshot SEO, debunks that old statistic.  Reported today by thought-leader Search Engine Watch, the number of people who click on results from Page 1 of search results is now proven to be…only 52 percent.

Click here for details and implications of this important study.

In the meantime, we leave you with a chart (courtesy Search Engine Watch) of what percentage of Google users click on results in the first 10 positions:

Eyebrows are raised.

The sheer timing of recent changes to Google Places (reported here) and the introduction of Google+ (reported here) is suspect.  Google strips a considerable amount of information from Places profiles in the same month as they release Google+, which enables rich social interactions for users.  A coincidence?

Local Search experts are reading between the lines.  Previously, Google encouraged all business owners to edit information about their business for free, in order to provide consumers with details on the businesses nearby.  Will Google soon charge business owners for enhanced profiles, data-rich and infused with flashy features from Google+?  Will business owners pay for this?

Previous attempts from Google to encourage local business owners to advertise have NOT been wildly successful.  Products like Google Boost have come and gone, as business owners did not see the benefit of paying to display their hours and photos.  How better to force business owners into advertising, than requiring payment in order to create a business profile at all!

As we anticipate Google Business Profiles (an unreleased product), many theorize that Google Places will become the equivalent of a bare-bones Yellow Pages listing.  Meanwhile, paid Google Business Profiles would become big and colorful display ads with lots of interactive features.  There is certainly a demand for business owners to control information out there about their business.  That is really their right!  If data control becomes un-free, Google seeks to reap considerable rewards.  Stay tuned.

Now more than ever, people are relying on online reviews before making a purchasing decision.

In fact, “84% of consumers said they were more likely to check online for reviews prior to making a purchase compared to twelve months ago”, according to a recent survey by Brand Reputation.

Because of the growing popularity of online reviews, companies have been working hard to encourage their happiest customers to share what they think about their business!

Most recently GetListed.org came up with the idea of “Review Wednesday” where you take a few minutes every Wednesday to write a review on Google Places for a favorite small business of yours.  After you do that, log on to your Twitter account and share it.  Remember to use the hashtag #RWX when Tweeting.

Check out an example on Twitter!

If you aren’t sure how to find direct links (like Mary Bowling’s in the example above) to your Google Reviews, please check out this video:

Google Places listings are looking different from week-to-week, as Google actively tests different profile displays.

Last week, Google axed 3rd party reviews from Places listings (reviews from sites like Yelp.com), and removed the “More About This Place” feature where business citations were listed.  What’s next?

After researching and following these changes closely and anxiously anticipating what will happen in the near future, we stumbled upon a forum post by a Google Places Community Manager (i.e. Google employee) that confirms additional display changes in Google Places profiles.

Vanessa from Google states:

Seeing a lot of questions in the forum, let me just clarify a couple things about the new Place pages. The following info you provide may not appear on your Place page, but it’s all still used to help us understand more about your business:

• Email address
• Menu
• Reservations
• Optional attributes / Additional details
• Service area toggle “Show service area”

So just because we’re not showing it, doesn’t mean it’s not helpful for us to have – it helps our system ensure that your organic listing appears and ranks appropriately on Google and Google Maps when potential customers perform searches related to your service.

At this point, we can only theorize as to why Google would un-display helpful data provided by business owners. Mike Blumenthal, a known Google Places guru, seems to think Google is making room for more paid local features. Whatever the case may be, we expect more changes to surface. Until then, as they say: “keep calm and carry on”!