There are a lot of ways for you to get your influence out on the internet. Originally, we had simple websites and email. A website in the early days of the internet was nothing more than some really basic graphics and text. It was informational and not really a means to connect with anyone. That has changed dramatically and continues to evolve thanks to social media and other web based technologies. The question becomes how do you use your website today?
It's still essential to have a website. You can get by without one by utilizing your social media as your main online presence but it's still very difficult to get everything done online without the use of a website. What's changed is how you use your website. Originally the website was your end all be all online persona. Today you can think of your website as your hub. It is the intial point of contact and from there you can direct your online visitors to all of the other online platforms you can be found on. For instance, someone finds your website and realizes you only have a website. They are in a pull demand situation. It's up to them to pull info from you online and it's up to them to visit the site and see if there are any updates. If they want your contact info or want to see projects your working on, they have to visit the site and find them. Now if that person goes to your website and sees that you have a facebook page and they join it, you have created a push demand info. You can post to your facebook page and they will see that info because it's automatically put into their timeline. They will see you even if they aren't looking for you.
To take this a step further, you can create a network of online systems. Connecting your website, blog, facebook, twitter, youtube, etc.... together unifies everything while allowing people to pick their online source of choice. Some people only use a single social media account, maybe only facebook. Others use lots and may miss your message on one system and catch it on another. When we post to our blog or facebook, it automatically goes to our twitter account for instance. The goal is to get your message across all of the platforms that your clients use. The website is still critical and proper design and good content will keep people coming back but social media, blogs, and other web technologies allow for a custom fit for each visitor and it will keep your online persona dynamic.
- Zack
Friday, January 20, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Flashback Friday by Bruce Carlin
In cold winter weather you often daydream about summer. Today the snow had me thinking about an ad I produced for North End Repair in the late 90's for Yamaha Waverunners. As I watched I saw as talent two friends Luther Stephney and Bob Ayres. Bob worked at Channel 5 in Plattsburgh for many years and sadly passed away a few years ago from heart failure. Bob was a great guy and is missed.
Also on the waverunner is my wife and my niece Sarah. She's living in Alaska now and is a Marine Biologist. She's expecting her first child. The announcer is Don Bazley who nows lives in Ithaca and is the proud new father of "Betty Bazley", born on New Year's Day. My family and friends have always been a great source of "talent" for tv commercials. When you have little or no budget it's the only way to go.
When you do have a budget and you need a girl to wear a negligee one source to consider- your local bachelor party planner. That was where we found the young lady in a second North End Repair ad from the year 2000.
Finally, since some of my readers are also video producers I'd like to stress the importance of getting image releases. I recently produced an ad and one of the persons in the ad complained to the client that I didn't get a release. I had it, and more importantly found it quickly, putting the matter to rest. If you would like the wording we use for our release please e-mail me and I'd be happy to send it to you.
Also on the waverunner is my wife and my niece Sarah. She's living in Alaska now and is a Marine Biologist. She's expecting her first child. The announcer is Don Bazley who nows lives in Ithaca and is the proud new father of "Betty Bazley", born on New Year's Day. My family and friends have always been a great source of "talent" for tv commercials. When you have little or no budget it's the only way to go.
When you do have a budget and you need a girl to wear a negligee one source to consider- your local bachelor party planner. That was where we found the young lady in a second North End Repair ad from the year 2000.
Finally, since some of my readers are also video producers I'd like to stress the importance of getting image releases. I recently produced an ad and one of the persons in the ad complained to the client that I didn't get a release. I had it, and more importantly found it quickly, putting the matter to rest. If you would like the wording we use for our release please e-mail me and I'd be happy to send it to you.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Flashback Friday by Bruce Carlin
We recently began uploading both new and old tv ads and productions to YouTube. No surprise that a pretty face and the words "plastic surgery" are popular as indicated by the visitors to an ad we produced for Adirondack Plastic Surgery Center.
Back in the 1980's when I worked for WPTZ-TV, and lived in Burlington, VT, there was a store called "Gayne's Shoppers World." It was a Vermont version of Wal-Mart. This ad combined some primitive blue-screen work with some even more primitive drawing by yours truly.
The actor featured is Jim Gratton, another WPTZ-TV almunus and now you can hear him pulling some shifts for Hall Communications, mostly on WKOL.
Today's last look backwards is to 2001 and a take-off on the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey, featuring the further primitive antics of early man.
Back in the 1980's when I worked for WPTZ-TV, and lived in Burlington, VT, there was a store called "Gayne's Shoppers World." It was a Vermont version of Wal-Mart. This ad combined some primitive blue-screen work with some even more primitive drawing by yours truly.
The actor featured is Jim Gratton, another WPTZ-TV almunus and now you can hear him pulling some shifts for Hall Communications, mostly on WKOL.
Today's last look backwards is to 2001 and a take-off on the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey, featuring the further primitive antics of early man.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
New Web Design by Bruce Carlin
Media Central launched it's redesigned website on January 3, 2012. Nothing is changing faster, nor more exciting than using the internet for marketing and providing services.
In the beginning you were cutting edge to get a website and we had to spend time trying to convince clients to get online. Then we moved into the "Well I guess I have to have a website" phase in which companies sometimes basically put up a billboard.
Today it's all changed. The Yellow Pages are happily heading to the marketing graveyard. We are building interactive, content-managed websites brimming with social media interaction and being delivered on a smartphone or tablet that customers tune to.
There's no turning back the clock, and why would you want to if you could? But wait you can, check out the "Wayback Machine" at http://www.archive.org/. Here you can enter a URL address and see how web design has evolved for a particular company. Sometimes parts of sites aren't there but it's suprising how much lives on.
Media Central provides an entire array of web services ranging from design through hosting, call us today if you're interested in improving your online presence and utility.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
The interwebs are taking over!
I thought I would take the time to post my thoughts on the last year and the impact of social media on our business. I started with Media Central full time a little less than a year ago. I had dabbled in social media and helping business to get on board with social media but when I came to Media Central they were willing to take the risk and let me specialize in social media development.
When I first started to develop what exactly I was going to do to get companies involved in social media, I was a little nervous to say the least. I was taking something that I knew would be great if applied to business but also knew that most of the social media services offered little support or services for business use. This changed drastically over the last year. Facebook has been releasing feature after feature devoted to business use. The change from groups to pages was a big advantage. The results have been great. We have helped around 20 businesses get involved in social media and helped them to develop policies and procedures to help them develop how they will interact with their clients online.
While the focus was mostly on Facebook, we have been trying out all of the large platforms. We have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Youtube accounts. While we love helping other people get active in social media, I have really enjoyed seeing how it's helped us in getting our name out there. The question we get asked a lot is, why use social media. The best answer I can come up with is this: If your fishing, would you have more luck with a single line and one type of bait, or with as many lines and as many kinds of bait as possible. Google seems to agree with this strategy and now it's an important part of how you are ranked on their search engine. Linking out of your website to social media pages and linking to you site from social media pages helps significantly boost your ranking. The reasoning for this is that it shows that your site is active and relevant. This blog was a great opportunity to let people know what we are doing and how we work but it also will be helpful in boosting our ranking in search engines and is yet another fishing line we have dropped into a very large and continuously growing ocean. - Zack
When I first started to develop what exactly I was going to do to get companies involved in social media, I was a little nervous to say the least. I was taking something that I knew would be great if applied to business but also knew that most of the social media services offered little support or services for business use. This changed drastically over the last year. Facebook has been releasing feature after feature devoted to business use. The change from groups to pages was a big advantage. The results have been great. We have helped around 20 businesses get involved in social media and helped them to develop policies and procedures to help them develop how they will interact with their clients online.
While the focus was mostly on Facebook, we have been trying out all of the large platforms. We have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Youtube accounts. While we love helping other people get active in social media, I have really enjoyed seeing how it's helped us in getting our name out there. The question we get asked a lot is, why use social media. The best answer I can come up with is this: If your fishing, would you have more luck with a single line and one type of bait, or with as many lines and as many kinds of bait as possible. Google seems to agree with this strategy and now it's an important part of how you are ranked on their search engine. Linking out of your website to social media pages and linking to you site from social media pages helps significantly boost your ranking. The reasoning for this is that it shows that your site is active and relevant. This blog was a great opportunity to let people know what we are doing and how we work but it also will be helpful in boosting our ranking in search engines and is yet another fishing line we have dropped into a very large and continuously growing ocean. - Zack
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
A Year To Remember by Bruce Carlin
Our newest television ad for the Champlain Valley Heart Center at CVPH highlights the past years accomplishments at the nationally recognized Cardiac Care center. Eight years ago in 2004 we began our first campaign for the center developing the branding with a new logo and slogan, and crafting creative and marketing campaigns. It's been an honor to work with the program that has dramatically improved health care in our region. While I have known many people that have been treated there, including our beloved late Office Manager Charlene Wolf, I personally found myself being called to the heart Center in the middle of the night several months agoafter my father-in-law suffered a heart attack and was treated with emergency angioplasty.
There is something surreal about hearing from a doctor about saving your loved ones life after spending almost a decade promoting the service and having shot many videos of patient testimonials and procedures. Having just spent the holidays with my father-in-law who has made an amazing recovery, I can really say this was a year to remember.
There is something surreal about hearing from a doctor about saving your loved ones life after spending almost a decade promoting the service and having shot many videos of patient testimonials and procedures. Having just spent the holidays with my father-in-law who has made an amazing recovery, I can really say this was a year to remember.
How much time do we spend on facebook?
An interesting video explaining how much time is actually spent using social media. This is critical in understanding why it's so important to be using social media for your business.
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