carrie*connects

Video | Do You Need A Social Media Recovery Group?

If you erupt into a mini giggling fit when you watch this video (from Sony Vaio) about Social Media, you may need to seek counseling (like I do).

Social Media Marketing ~ How To Infuriate Your Fans & Friends on Facebook pt. 1

About a year ago if I mentioned the concept of harnessing the power of Facebook and Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, ect as a realistic strategy for marketing a brand, I would generally get a very long "hmmmmmm ....." followed by a very pregnant pause from many of the people I talked to.   A massive question mark would float over their heads as, more often than not, they just couldn't grasp the concept. 

Magically within the past six months however all that's changed with virtually every person I've ever known jumping on (at least) the Facebook bandwagon.  Unfortunately, rather than adopting the evolving norms of social media into the platform, which BTW are based on (1) actual human contact (2) original and interesting ideas (3) reciprocation ~ most Facebook newbies have attached dusty old marketing ideas to their shiny "new media" programs.  

As a result Facebook in particular is being used in some very annoying ways.  I thought I'd start tracking the most insidious behaviors and note them down here (mostly as a venue for venting my angst about the situation)....if you want to annoy on Facebook, here are some ideas:

1)  Businesses who want to really tick off their Facebook fans should be sure to send incessant group emails announcing minor sales, bland product announcements, and other information that is of interest only to their internal sales staff.  As a blogger, I'm used to getting press releases from other PR firms emailed rapid fire via specific email accounts, as such I really have little patience for this type of information sent to my Facebook in-box ~ and I'll lay you odds that I'm not in the minority here.  Even the most casual Facebook user is most likely not interested in being spammed about your 5% off sale once a day - if they are they'll visit your page to see it.  Facebook by definition is a "FACEBOOK" ie: people attached to faces, and personalized messages should only be sent this way. 

2) Keep requesting your friends "fan", join a group, or attend an event 0ver and over and over - even though they've probably repeatedly chosen to ignore your previous attempts for a reason.   Once is more than enough.

3)  Repeatedly poke, send game requests, gift requests, and all manner of the embeddable widget nature to people you've never had any sort of correspondence with and to whom you're a complete stranger - they love that.

4) Post only the dullest and most narrowly defined product photos and information about your company on your Facebook page so that instead of a lively interactive forum with an array of accessible ideas and information, it resembles a yellow page ad.

5) Never correspond with your fans or friends when they post info of their own (you know - the stuff that comes through on your homepage news-feed from them) ~ we know you're the only one that matters!  And when they comment on your posts or go so far as to post items to your page or wall, be sure to ignore them.  People love being treated solely as "consumers" and not individuals - isn't that what "social" means?  Oh it doesn't??  It means engaging and talking??  Whoa ....

Oh....there will be more .... stay tuned.   Yes, the Medium is the Message, but only if you know how to use it.  Otherwise it's just another cyber-armload of junk-mail to toss in the trash unopened.

Food PR | An Upscale Soda For The Refined Palate

 
To date, the user experience with non-alcoholic beverages such as wine and beer is less than satisfying.  The flavors of these products usually aren't appealing enough to make consuming them worth the effort.  Now Vignette from Wine Country Soda has come onto the scene. 

I saw this at a local cafe here on the East Coast over the weekend and was immediately intrigued.  I love the thoughtful graphic design of the labels set on classic soda bottles.  Upon sipping, I was expecting the flavor to be a bit grape juicy, when in fact it has a pleasant wine flavor that makes the experience of drinking it seem special.  It's not sweet like a wine cooler either - and offers a nice carbonated effervescence that will make the product a hit at events and gatherings this summer and well into the holiday season.

Choose from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, or Rosé - about $28.50 for a 12 pack.

Another Ode to Michael - the EternalMoonwalk Site is Just Fabulous

Yes, I've been on a Michael Jackson video binge the past few weeks - remembering anew, much like the rest of the world, what it was that made us pay so much attention to this guy in the first place.  I will absolutely never forget the first time I saw Thriller, and further than that, watching that Motown Anniversary Special when Michael first showed us the Moonwalk.  It stays permanently in my heart along with so many other cultural time capsule events from that era.

Funny, while gazillions of people have been backsliding across kitchen floors over the years since that first telecast, no one was ever able to work out the step quite like Mike.  But perhaps 99.9% of the fun is imagining that we can.  Now Studio Brussel has put together a brilliant, whiz bang project that involves the entire globe of MJ fans - and fancy that it came together in just the past ten days - amazing.

The site, eternalmoonwalk.com is an amalgamation of videos collected from all over the world and features people, cartoons, cats, dogs, goats .... yeah - if you can imagine it - it's there, moonwalking in 20 second clips from right to left.  The concept for the site alone is priceless, but then you add in the good natured creativity of the thousands of clips that have been collected from guys and gals just like you and me who are featured and you have some sheer brilliance - and a lot of laughs to get you through an afternoon.  Clever features include buttons you can hit to create Jacksonesque whoops and calls - all the while set to the Billie Jean beat. 

But before you click over you have to check out this very creative video from Abeja Mariposa who culled together archival footage of dancers from the 20th Century who were moonwalker pioneers - it's really quite amazing.

Design PR | check into our [design] Sketch Pad

We curate a number of lovely little web galleries on tumblr that are just fabulous - one of my favorites is [design] Sketch Pad which features great picks from around the web of interiors, gardens, products and art that we just love. 

While we could easily host this project as an independent website, Tumblr makes a great spot for it.  If you're not familiar with Tumblr, basically it has four very attractive elements for promoting image rich products and projects: 

(1) The public page, which is the screen shot above - there are a good number of prefabbed templates as well as those than can be super customized as ours is.

(2) the tumblr page, which is a feed of posts from the tumblr blogs that each individual follows - this is very similar to the feed you see on Facebook or Twitter, but it includes photos and more expanded text. 

(3) An option to reblog posts - so a product posted on a Tumblr page can be reblogged hundreds and thousands of times through the Tumblr community.   Posts also are automatically tweeted on Twitter and can be sent to Facebook as well.

(4) A very user friendly feed that can be converted into a widget - see our combined widget in the left hand column of this blog for an example - and feel free to grab that and incorporate into your own publishing project or blog.

If starting your own design blog seems daunting - we invite you to submit design links to [design] Sketch Pad - just add the info here and we'll put it on (providing you have a great pic and the right link info).

Design PR | Architectural Digest's Reader Submitted Rooms Contest

As long as I've represented designers, contractors, furniture manufacturers, and architects, one of the main professed goals of almost each and every one of these clients has been to get into Architectural Digest in some capacity.  The magazine's reach and influence is legendary - but the collection of designers and projects that it publishes to date has been an intentionally exclusive and cloistered club - one into which very few gain entry.

So naturally I was quite intrigued when I saw that the AD website has now launched a rather egalitarian design contest.  More than 150 reader rooms have been submitted and are now being voted on.  According to AD, the images are being divided up at random into groups of 10 and are being posted this and next week.  The winner will be announced on July 31st - no telling what they win, other than exposure on the website - which in and of itself is its own prize. 

So far the entries range from professionally designed rooms to kitchy, fun spaces that could only have been created by light hearted homeowners.

Hop on over to their site to put in your two cents! 

Fab Promotion | Threadcakes Contest

I love this contest that Threadbare T-Shirts has mounted to promote their seemingly endless collection of interesting and artful designs.  Called Threadcakes, entrants pick out their favorite Threadbare T-Shirt design and interpret it with flour and sugar in the form of a cake.  The contest started June 15th and runs through August 3rd - to date the promotion has inspired some very interesting and creative entries such as "The Apple" shown here.

There are two divisions of the contest 2-D and 3-D - 2-D being the sheet cakes with images created in fondant and icing on top much like a photo - and 3-D more sculpturesque.

An impressive roll out of prizes awaits the winners that includes free t-shirts, baking supplies, and ingredients.  To enter visit here.

via {ifitshipitshere.com}

Technology Trendcaster | Become a Sociopath ~ It's the Latest Thing!

I recieved an invitation this morning to join the new social network StyleCaster (which sounds suspiciously like a column that I write called Trendcaster on Bloomacious.com) - naturally I immediately zoomed over to take a look and post my mug on my own page.  

While the site doesn't seem all that different from our own network Bloomacious Cafe it apparently is embedded with lots of watching and listening devices that when explained in the video below makes me yearn for a nice long nap. 

Terms like "associated neuro network"  and "associative dynamics" are a far cry from my favorite phrase "me likey!"  but they mean similar things.

If there's any doubt after listening to this explanation that networks are the new blogs (which are the new magazines) then take a sneak peek at Fashionair which is girding up to launch soon.

Broken down gently, networks allow companies to watch the patterns and flows of their members - whom they friend, what they comment on.  We've done the same thing for the past 6 months through our networks and it's not quite as scientific or reliable as the Sociocast guys would like you to believe. 

Networks do provide a venue in which individuals can enjoy a club-like camaraderie- they also can serve as a TV station, a community blog, a messaging system and a newsletter - and are the next step beyond Facebook and Twitter.

Love Fonts? We *REALLY REALLY* LOVE them!

I think in the blogging and online world there are two types of folks - the font lovers and those that are just fine with arial, helvetica, times roman, and verdana as their arsenal of expression.

I'm a little font obsessed to be honest. In fact it really made my week (actually my long working weekend) when I found a slew of new goodies over at dafont.com to use in my design of our new tumblr pages. Like really made my weekend.  Here's one of them below - it's just HoneyScript with a little clip art but I've always loved that font.

Another more adventurous one I found is A Morris Line which totally looks like knitting to me. 

Years ago I remember going to have a magazine namemark typeset - typeset!! Looking through a book of fonts and pointing, then having someone do a super hi res mechanical print out so that a printer could make a film. Wow - that was a lot of effort that took up tons of time.

This morning I was going through my other addiction, Tumblr, when I came across thedailywhat's post of a comic strip about fonts (it's above). It led me to a page where some mutual font lovers had gathered little snippets of font lovin' humor. One of them is this video below:

And then there's this other very funny one:

Oh - and it's free, free, free!  And easy.  Just a couple tips - take your time writing your font and use a strong pen.  Try to keep your letters evenly spaced in the boxes on the template, and we don't recommend adding a signature for security purposes.  Here's the link for YourFonts.com

There's something about a really well designed bottle or box of tea that just gives us pause.  The contents are usually healthful and the design reflects the careful thought that went into bringing the product to market.  Ito En's bottled teas are just that - almost decadently beautiful, yet completely simple, they really do make you want to reach out and open one.  Designed by the Gooder Company in the UK.

Everyone in marketing knows how important package design is to the success of a brand.

For quite some time the style of products aimed at women has revolved around a somewhat cutesy palette of pastels and dots.  One that I'm rather glad to see making an exit.

For a couple weeks  now I've had this lovely package of JR Watkins All Purpose Aloe & Green Tea Wipes in my office.

I'd picked them up, along with a number of JR Watkins Home Care products at Target - attracted to the vintagey homespun graphics on the labels, and the promise of something fresh and "conscience clearing" inside.

I love this direction in product design.  The notion that even the drudgery of housework (I'm no Monica from Friends - to my mind, housework is always best done *tomorrow*) can be made better through perky label craft.

Mrs. Meyers was probably the front runner in this category - creating products and packaging that literally transformed washing dishes into a spa experience.  It's no wonder cabinets are going out of style with the beautiful package design home care companies are turning out.  Homeowners want to showcase their lovely cache of cleaning and household goods.

The JR Watkins labels I find particularly gorgeous - with their french apothecary feel and ernest nod to the company's good vintage American roots.  Not too cluttered, but with enough alliteration that the look is really special.   

And naturally, what's inside is great too - but sometimes it takes a great bottle to get you there.

More Font Fun - Make Your Very Own

Oh - and it's free, free, free!  And easy.  Just a couple tips - take your time writing your font and use a strong pen.  Try to keep your letters evenly spaced in the boxes on the template, and we don't recommend adding a signature for security purposes.  Here's the link for YourFonts.com

Design | Pretty Package, ITO EN and The Gooder Company Team Up For Some Lovely Design Work

There's something about a really well designed bottle or box of tea that just gives us pause.  The contents are usually healthful and the design reflects the careful thought that went into bringing the product to market.  Ito En's bottled teas are just that - almost decadently beautiful, yet completely simple, they really do make you want to reach out and open one.  Designed by the Gooder Company in the UK.

Pretty Package - JR Watkins.

Everyone in marketing knows how important package design is to the success of a brand.

For quite some time the style of products aimed at women has revolved around a somewhat cutesy palette of pastels and dots.  One that I'm rather glad to see making an exit.

For a couple weeks  now I've had this lovely package of JR Watkins All Purpose Aloe & Green Tea Wipes in my office.

I'd picked them up, along with a number of JR Watkins Home Care products at Target - attracted to the vintagey homespun graphics on the labels, and the promise of something fresh and "conscience clearing" inside.

I love this direction in product design.  The notion that even the drudgery of housework (I'm no Monica from Friends - to my mind, housework is always best done *tomorrow*) can be made better through perky label craft.

Mrs. Meyers was probably the front runner in this category - creating products and packaging that literally transformed washing dishes into a spa experience.  It's no wonder cabinets are going out of style with the beautiful package design home care companies are turning out.  Homeowners want to showcase their lovely cache of cleaning and household goods.

The JR Watkins labels I find particularly gorgeous - with their french apothecary feel and ernest nod to the company's good vintage American roots.  Not too cluttered, but with enough alliteration that the look is really special.   

And naturally, what's inside is great too - but sometimes it takes a great bottle to get you there.