Well, we finally made it to Facebook. Just like any other small business, we struggled with the decision of whether or not to have a presence in Facebook. It’s free to start; it’s simple to use… but the reality is that it’s an investment of internal resources, mostly time. But given the staggering statistics of how much Facebook is used, we decided to give it a shot. Here’s how we did it.
1. We decided on content
We took this as an opportunity to have a balance of work-related posts and fun/personal ones with the goal of showing the world who we …

Recently Scott Stiefvater and I were discussing the principles behind the CMS driven model of website design that MB/I favors.  In that conversation he mentioned the three levels of content and presentation (the core application, the modules, and the interface and display).  This reminded me of the six elements of design presented in Scott McCloud’s visual textbook Understanding Comics.

From inception to presentation these layers are: the idea, the form, the idiom, the structure, the craft, and the surface. This week I’d like to look at the two …

Here is a writing tip:  Don’t rely on your cell phone in an emergency. Write down phone numbers and carry them with you.

I was in a car accident two weeks ago. Crunchy, smashy 6-car pile up on 101-south bound near SFO.  It was just like in the movies, tires squealing, horns blaring, horrible metal-on-metal bang and clang, except that, unlike the movies, I was actually in one of the cars.

After the thudding and praying stopped, and my traveling companion and I realized neither of us were badly hurt, we reached for our phones.  When I called another friend to come …

Let’s face it, even if the economy is currently pulling out of the worst recession in 70 years, money remains tight and the independent entrepreneur needs to consider ways to reduce costs while retaining their brand image and placement.

So, what can a company do on a $2500 budget?

Invest in a custom blog

For $2500 you could have a fully functional and branded blog with custom features.

What does this price buy you?

• A persistent platform you can use again and again, whenever you have an announcement or other content.
• Custom blogs can build up traffic for your own domain, giving it ready-made …
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It can be difficult to get a new blog off the ground.  A recent IBM report announced that 80% of the blogs they host never made it past the 5th post.  Other blogs, especially business blogs, often start with a flurry of activity only to peter off after a month or two.

If you want to keep your online presence from becoming one of these social media casualties, you need plan out how you will keep your blog alive.

Build Blogging into Your Calendar

When it comes to scheduling, you need to treat your blog just like you would any other formal project.  …

At a marketing workshop I attended recently, the subject of web sites naturally came up. One attendee was feeling the pressure to create a web site for his insurance business. Although he knew he “ought” to have one, he was obviously reluctant (indeed, suspicious) about the need, the cost and the benefit.

His reasons for not getting a site boiled down to:

Today, I’m going to examine reason #1. I’ll address reason #2 next week.  So let’s …

Time to freshen up your web site? I’ve just finished updating mine! I’m delighted with the new and improved Blue Ribbon Writing.Com but-whew!-getting it done was a challenge. Oh, MB/I did a sterling job on the design and production. My challenge was with the content. And I was the writer.

I write Web site content professionally but preparing my own was an eye-opening experience. Now that I’ve been my own customer, I offer you three pieces of advice as you work on your site:

Know Thyself. If you are planning to write your site content yourself, please sit in front of …

Until Apple’s release of the iPhone and accompanying App Store, Japan was more or less the undisputed leader in mobile technology and innovation.  Roughly 90% of the population owns some form of mobile phone.  Their mobile networks are faster and cover a greater portion of the country.

What’s more interesting, 8 years ago the breakdown of revenue from Japan’s mobile internet looked remarkably similar to the current breakdown of revenues for the rest of the world.  These are just a small number of the many observations to appear in Morgan Stanley’s 424-page Mobile Internet Report.

Japan’s market anticipated the popularity of recreational …

Websites are tools, and the tools that endure are the tools that serve a purpose.  Shovels are good at making holes, cars are good at moving people from one place to another.  If you want people to use your website, it must serve a purpose.  However, it is not sufficient for the site to serve a purpose for you, it must serve a purpose for whomever you want to use it.

What Purpose Should Your Website Serve?
And Whom Does it Serve?

There are any number of purposes a website might serve, but let’s take a look at some of the more common …

Redesigning a website is like building a new one:

Start with a purpose.

If you know you need a change, but can’t put the reason into words, try answering these questions:

“What do I want my new website to do that the old one couldn’t?”

“What do I want my new website to do better than my old website?”

Maybe you want your new site to reflect a new identity, perhaps you want to start selling products online, or you want to start an online community, or improve online customer communication, or reduce the turn around time between when you decide …