Social Media for Real People

I admit, I've "liked" a few corporate brand pages in an effort to get something for free but I usually end up unliking them soon after because I'm tired of blatant advertising clogging up my news feed. Apparently, I'm not the only one.


For a lesson in all the things corporate brand pages do wrong, check out Condescending Corporate Brand Page and marvel at all the ineffective and offensively obvious pleas for attention some companies use. 


A better strategy, especially for small businesses with closer relationships with their customers:

1. Post things people WANT to like as opposed to things that guilt people into liking.

2. Be a real person. Recognize that your customers are real people.

Maybe that's oversimplifying (yes, yes it is) but it certainly is the first step in not looking like a jerk on Facebook

Gimme Something Worth Looking At

Flyers are a great way of getting information out but you need to be mindful of short attention spans!

And these days especially, capturing attention is all about compelling visuals! 

If your flyer is all words/ no pictures, the chances of most people stopping to read your words are smaller than you'd like. 

Break your words up into bite-sized pieces! Add color if you can or shades of gray if you can't! Break up your text with graphics or images or add a watermark background.

Otherwise...

Ugh! 

Soooo.... booooring. 

Don't do this to the people you're trying to communicate with!

Give them something to look at, something to direct their eyes and focus their minds on the most important pieces of information.

Or contact Stark Modest Designs 
and I could do it for you!

StarkModest@gmail.com

Jump on the Blog Bus or Get Left Behind

Search engines have been wising up lately and that makes your website harder to find! One of the best ways to get found, says Google, is to constantly update your content. The bestest, most easiest way to do that: Blogging.

Blogging is not just for disgruntled adolescents anymore (which is precisely how I started, by the by) and it's certainly not just for the prolific of opinion. You don't need to write an essay once a day and you don't need to spend hours prowling the internet for relevant content. You don't even need to "engage in conversation". 

What you need is to update your content on a regular basis. 

Figure out what you could say once or twice a week that's relevant to your business and what potential customers might search for to find your business. Do you have a soup of the day? A special promotion? A contest and that contest's winner? Do you have loyal customers that might appreciate being publicly appreciated? Do you have a student who has overcome some obstacle that deserves mention? What's new in your neighborhood?

Write a little blurb, use some searchable keywords, add a picture if you got one and that... is that.

Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy!

Check out blogger, wordpress, or livejournal to start a free-standing blog or see if your website is blog-compatible. Weebly and Intuit have blogs built right in to the design software! 

Ask your website administrator or email StarkModest@gmail.com for advice! 

What I Learned from 90s Movies

As a product of the 90s and in the decade of my life where nostalgia seems inevitable, I've spent some time this week reminiscing about the old movies that seemed so very important to my adolescent self.

Because shapes and colors have always drawn my attention, I decided to forgo the cartoonization of my favorite 90s movies stars and focus just on their clothing and posture instead. 

I'm sure anyone in my age group will be able to identify the movie and probably the actors based on the clothing alone but just for funsies, I simulated the movie title font and substituted my own personal message.