January 2017 - Nathan Ives

Social Media Account Name Alignment

January 29, 2017/0 Comments/in Digital Products Platform/by Nathan Ives

Like all other elements of your brand, aligning your social media account names will help establish recognition, trust, and engagement with your audience. A consistent naming convention also serves to reinforce the connection between you and your audience across all of your digital platforms. So while this exercise might be a little tricky, it’s a worthwhile investment of your marketing time.

Establish a Naming Convention

Your social media account names should reflect that of your business and be easily recognizable by those you seek to engage. Here are a set of principles to follow when developing your social media account naming convention:

Chose a name that aligns with your company and brand
Your social media name should be as specific as possible
Avoid using acronyms and abbreviations that will be familiar to only your inner circle
Stay away from names that could be confused with another company, product, service, or individual
Consider your chosen name from the perspectives of others to ensure its appropriateness for all audiences
Your social media name should convey an official status
Not all social media outlets allow the same number of characters for a username and so you will need to accommodate that which is most restrictive
Not all social media outlets allow special characters in their usernames

Selecting Social Media Account Names

Because of the vast number of users on the popular social media sites, we recommend the following process to selecting your social media account names consistent with your established naming convention:

Develop a prioritized list of desired names
Check all of the social media outlets applicable to your business for the availability of these names
If a name is not available on one or a very few social media sites but is available on the majority, consider slight modifications to the name such as insertion of obvious abbreviations, adding a company title (e.g. LLC, Inc., etcetera), or appending the year (i.e. 2017)
Having identified an acceptable name to be used across social media accounts, quickly register these accounts using that name with the intention of later configuring the social media pages

Philosophy of Above the Fold

January 29, 2017/0 Comments/in Digital Products Platform/by Nathan Ives

Getting visitors to your website is hard work and can be expensive. Keeping those visitors engaged after just a few seconds is even more difficult… so don’t make them scroll!

Research shows visitors must be immediately engaged in order to keep them on a particular webpage or website. Here are the sobering statistics:

60 seconds is the average time an individual spends on any one webpage
15 seconds represents the time 55 percent of visitors spend on any one webpage
6 – 8 seconds is the average attention span of an adult website visitor

Consequently, you have roughly 7 seconds to gain and retain the attention of any website visitor. If you can keep an individual on your webpage or website for 15 seconds, chances are they will continue to consume your content for at least 2 minutes (120 seconds).

Importance of the Content Above the Fold

Journalists, particularly newspaper editors, have always known the importance of content ‘above the fold,’ the upper half of the newspaper that is visible to onlookers when a newspaper is presented within a newsstand. Because only this content is immediately visible, the most eye catching headlines and graphics must be placed here to gain the attention needed to make a sale.

Your webpage content is no different. With so little time to gain visitors’ attention, your most valuable content must be visible without those individuals having to scroll down the screen to see it. Requiring visitors to scroll for content wastes some of the precious little time you have to prove your content’s relevance to their needs.

Keeping the Message Above the Fold

To ensure your most value-adding content remains above the fold, consider applying the following principles:

Headlines: Use impactful, concise headlines to convey your message
Summarize: Provide a very high-level summary as the first paragraph of your content
Bullets: Use bulleted phrases to convey your main points
Images: Select images supporting your main themes
Calls-To-Action: Ensure the visitor knows what to do next by placing your call-to-action above the fold
Layout: Don’t push your headline, message, or call-to-action below an image or graphic

Remember that in today’s world, many of your visitors will arrive on your webpages via smartphones and tablets with even smaller viewing areas. Thus, you need to strive to forever make your communications more concise and immediately value-adding.

Stylistic Uniformity

January 29, 2017/0 Comments/in Digital Business, Digital Products Platform/by Nathan Ives

With the myriad of communications bombarding your customers, it’s increasingly important to get your message across as quickly and concisely as possible. In fact, the average person’s attention span is only 6 – 8 seconds!

Effective branding visually conveys your message in a manner that subconsciously communicates key elements of your message without words. Think of the best known brands and their stylistic communications…

Apple’s clean, white, contemporary backgrounds, images and styling;
Nike’s bold athleticism and swoosh;
Coke’s cool, wet red, and silver; and
IBM’s big blue.

In each case, the branding communicates volumes without printing or saying a word. And everything the respective company publishes embodies uniformity in styling so to ensure viewers immediately recognize their communication and register the desired message.

Application

Achieving this level of immediate brand recognition requires discipline and uniformity in the styling of all of your communications from your website and social media accounts to your presentations, videos, and podcasts to your stationary, letterhead, and business cards.

Key Elements

Immediate brand recognition occurs through consistent, repetition of messaging. Receivers of your messages should always ‘see’ the same styling such that, over time, they come to associate the uniqueness of your styling with your business and its characteristics. Key styling elements include:

Color

The specific color combinations used across all of your communications, platforms, and products should be the same. But how can you define an array of colors that both reflect your company and look good together? One simple method is to use the predefined color scheme used within your website’s theme. As is typically the case, these color combinations have been defined by professionals with an eye for what works together. Simply choose the scheme that aligns with your desired messaging and then apply those colors across all of your many internal and external communications mechanisms.

Fonts

Like colors, character fonts visually communicate the uniqueness of your brand. Be careful to choose a font that is web and printer friendly; taking the lead from your website theme often works well.

Images

Images illicit feelings among viewers and photographers each tend to exhibit a unique approach to the stylizing of their images. Images may be contemporary, rustic, real-life, illustrated, etcetera. Choose and image style that conveys the desired feeling about your business and consistently use those types of images.

Depth

Visual depth represents another styling variation. Flat (lacking depth) is a cooler, contemporary styling whereas shadowed (deep) imaging is a warmer, conservative styling. Whichever approach you choose, apply it consistently across all of your communications mechanisms.

Other Features

There are many other opportunities to reinforce your messaging through consistent styling including:

Logo (styling application and consistent use)
Taglines
Trademarking
Bullets (both type and color)
Icons (consistent application/use and color)
Indenting
Framing (images and text)

Developing Strong Passwords

January 25, 2017/0 Comments/in Digital Products Platform/by Nathan Ives

Strong passwords are a cornerstone of cyber security. In the case of your digital products platform, strong administrator passwords not only protect your website from malicious intrusions but also protect stored customer data and your intellectual property. Therefore, special consideration should be given to the development of your administrator passwords.

Characteristics of Strong Passwords

Research shows that a combination of characteristics help ensure passwords are ‘unhackable.’ Your passwords should:

Be a minimum of 12 characters
Include numbers, symbols, and upper and lower case letters
Not be an obvious sequence of letters, numbers, or symbols
Not be a word or word combination
Not use obvious substitutes such as swapping typically upper and lower case letters

Additionally, you should have a unique password for each important account.

Tips for Developing Strong Passwords

Three methods for developing strong passwords include:

Mnemonics: Develop a password using from the first letter of each word and the numbers associated with a somewhat random sentence such as “In 1892, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America!” becomes I1892CstobadA! (14 characters, 4 numbers, 1 symbol, 6 lower case letters, and 3 upper case letters) Note that mnemonic passwords tend to be the easiest to remember.
Discarded Products: Develop a password using the serial numbers or UPC symbols from two or more common products that you consume and discard such as soda cans, stock paper, etcetera.
Random Password Generators: Use a reputable password generating service to develop your strong password.

Final Thoughts…

Password security starts with the design of your password and continues with its own security. Keep your passwords secure by keeping them offline (documented on paper) and in a secure/locked location. Additionally, change your passwords routinely to further minimize the chance of your digital products platforms becoming compromised.