New graphic design samples!

Tell us what you think, and contact us if you need a logo or branding set!

To learn more about us business check us out here.

Tech Kids

I recently got an iPad -blogs explaining this coming soon- and I’m learning new things about it everyday. It’s great! What’s kewl about tablets is that they are smaller and lighter than laptops and you can interact with them by touching the screen. There are apps for just about anything that you would want to do and they’re great for productivity, as well as fun, on the go. I have a long history with technology and, thus, find it relatively easy and exhilarating taking the learning curve for the latest and greatest gadgets and devices that populate the market. Some other adult both young and old, however, do not. Some people find it hard, and not worth the trouble to learn a new machine that they may not use to the fullest capacity. This is understandable, if not a little sad. But, that’s not what we’re here to discuss. I think it is amazing to watch children find their ways around technology so easily. As time passes, it seems the age of the technologically savvy continues to lower. My cousin Philip, shown above, is 4, and he was whizzing around my tablet like it was nothing. I thought he might need to be taught how to play Angry Birds, but he told me he was already a fan of the game (his words, not mine), and he knew how to play. My niece Olivia, below, is 2, and she loves watching Curious George on the Netflix app and when I came back to check on her and change to the next episode, she was already there, and was rewinding the video. Amazing! And you don’t have to take my word for it, check out the kewl infographic after the cute kid!

Infographic from http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/19/kids-technology/

What this means for business owners is that you should never underestimate the power of technology! What to know how to get your business started with social media? Go here!

 

Tumblr: In the Great Divide

Recently a client asked about how to set up a Tumblr blog that she is starting. Since WordPress has always been my blogging vehicle of choice, I had to take a crash course -pun intended-, and what I found was interesting. Tumblr seems to be the cool younger sibling in the blog family. You know, loves hard, hurts hard, fickle and free. It’s like they wanted to say more than Twitter, but didn’t want to commit to settling down like WordPress or Blogger. I’m going to give you a few reasons why that’s great!

1. Short and fast content:
Say you are an artist, you may not want to build your brand on how much you know about the history of the art form, or the current controversy surrounding the medium, per se.  Maybe you just want to show the world your personality and your work.  A full blog might be hard to fill out, too much work to post a simple picture or quote that lets your fans know what is going on in you world.  Tumblr provides an easy fix.  A simple and easy to use -read learn- platform, means that you don’t have to fuss with the logistics, you can just post.

Which brings me to my next point,

2. Easy set-up:
There is something to be said about the ease posting, but there is even more to be said about how easily one can get to the point of posting.  No one starts blog to spend all of their time setting it up and designing the pages and placing widgets, and while some, like us at KR Social Media Consulting, enjoy the set-up, most just want to start posting.  Tumblr is for that person.  You can seriously set up an account and post within minutes, maybe seconds over there.  There aren’t even any pesky sample posts or comments to delete (no offense).

3. Variety of media:
I love writing.  That, however, does not change the fact that every once in a while, I just want to post a picture to say my 1000 words.  No title.  No typing.  Tumblr makes this easier than ever with its 6 easy to understand icons. Check it out!

At the top, you can see the bar or icons.  When you log in, this page (dashboard), is what you get.  Useful, huh?  This makes it easy to write an entry, or simply post a quote you just heard.  Not too many clicks, or much set up, you just click on the icon that best represents what you want to post and voila!

4. Re-blogging:
Tumblr is an online community that encourages sharing.  They encourage re-blogging, or reposting, other users’ posts, they like to share the love and spread the info.  That’s great if you want to get your work, ideas, or great personality out to the masses.  Since it’s so easy to do, people do it all the time!

All in all, these are just a few things that make Tumblr a viable option for your blogging needs as a professional, or just as a regular person who wants to share yourself with the world!  So get out there and blog, but don’t forget to come back and post a link of your page, so that we can check you out.

Also, if you are in need of some guidance, feel free to ask us.  We love to help people and businesses get connected right!

Social Media Management Tool of The Week

                                                                                              

Welcome back for another installment of KR Social Media Consulting Social Media Management Tool of The Week ( #smmtotw). We hope that everyone had a great holiday season filled with family, friends, memories, love and food! This weeks Social Media Tool of The Week is going to be a review of Sendible, this is a very complex online based program so this post will give you a brief overview.

Sendible has many different packages that are designed to fit many different budgets Starting at $9.99. They also offer a 30-day free trial with no credit card info required to give you a no strings attached opportunity to evaluate the product. There is a lot to try in thirty days, but they also have videos available on Youtube and a great customer service staff that is available to assist you with any questions that you have.

Sendible is an online based program and it’s one of the first that I have worked with that supports a large number of social media outlet options so that the you can manage all of your networks in one place. Here is a link to the > list< of the networks that are supported on Sendible. Two of the main services that we use at KR Social Media Consulting are Facebook and Twitter, and this program allows us to manage those as well as a plethora of other networks!

Sendible offers a way to manage your networks completely from your message box. The facebook account in sendible, for instance, it is very comprehensive, you can view your your profile comments, update your profile, update your fan pages, and see the activity in your groups as well as participate in those conversations. This is my favorite stream within sendible because you can monitor all of the conversations and comments in any group that you are a part of and comment right from your sendible desk top. Now, I mentioned earlier in the post that the packages start at $9.99 and with each package you only get a certain number of services; so if you are just starting and you don’t have the funds to get a bigger package there is one problem. The way the program is set up, each network that you manage is considered a service and each stream that you have within each network is considered a service. Each package sets a limit on how many of these “services” you can have. So, if you sign up for a cheaper package, you will quickly have to choose which services you want to manage in the program. If you have a number of profiles for your business of brand or if you manage profiles and networks for other businesses you may want to choose one of the bigger packages.

With everything in one place you have the ability to interact with your fans and follower, answer questions and have conversations with your fans and contributors in your groups as well as update your blog and sent out your weekly or monthly news letter all from the some place, without having to sign into multiple places. This program is one that will save you lots of time when managing your own social media as a small business owner or a social media manager. Please join us In the coming weeks as we will be breaking down some of the key components of Sendible.

Please leave you feedback, let us know what you think about this product and let us know what you think about our site. . Check back with us next week for another installment of the Social Media Management Tool of The Week also follow us on on twitter @krsmconsulting and like our Facebook Fan Page

Social Media Management Tool of The Week

Welcome back to another Social Media Management Tool of The Week! We at KR Social Media Consulting thank you for joining us for another week. This week in the social media world there have been some big-time changes with the timeline on Facebook and the new design of Twitter! Now, while we have done an intro to the new twitter changes last week,(feel free to check it out!), This weeks tool is not on either of those… We introduce to some and present to others Yoono!
Yoono has been around since 2006 but in their minds they are just getting started! This tool has many features, some still in the beta stages but this tool still offers some great advantages and for those that like a tool that has multiple powerful parts wrapped in one, this may be your tool. Yoono can be compared to a Dynamic Point Guard in basketball. Now, those of you that know me know that I am a basketball fanatic and for those that don’t… well now you know; a dynamic point guard has the ability to get to the basket at will, shoot the jump shot, set up his teammates, and Defend. One of my favorite point guards playing today is Chris Paul. Now, I know that some are asking how does Yoono compare to Chris Paul; After you look up Chris Paul for those who may not have heard about him in the news this week I will give you the great info that makes Yoono similar to the dynamic point guard.

For the social media experts out there who want something that is user friendly but has multiple features that allow you to get information without going to different applications to find what you need, Yoono has a web based application, desktop version and a google plug in all are very user friendly and have access to many of your social media profiles such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace, Youtube, Foursquare, and Flicker(now, it does not have Google +, but there are other social networks coming soon, per their website). With this application you have the ability to add columns so that you can see all of your social media network streams on one screen. Now, one of the features that sets Yoono apart from the other social media management tools is that you have the option to open the application with a detached screen. On this screen you can manage all of your profiles in one continuous steam or you can select each profile to see just those updates and messages. In this application the notifications show up on each avatar letting you know how many new updates and messages you have, and you can click on those updates to go straight to your page in your web browser. One of the other major features that sets Yoono apart from other social media tools and makes it a dynamic tool is the ability to open the desktop version that has a web browser incorporated into the application. Now, when you talk about convenience, this is the ultimate. Not only do you have the ability to see all of your profiles on a separate screen but you have the ability to have the web browser in the application so that you don’t have to switch back and forth between your desktop application and your web browser or even from tab to tab inside of your web browser.
Now, back to the analogy, if you haven’t caught the comparison yet here it is for you:
Just as a dynamic point guard of Chris Paul’s ability brings most of the aspects of multiple positions into one player; Yoono has the ability to bring most of the aspects of other individual applications ( multiple profiles, continuous stream, separate streams, column viewing, Web browser) into one package that is user friendly. Yoono is continuously looking for new ways to improve their product and one of the new additions is the Socialzine feature that allows you to see all of your social streams in a magazine format, this is still in the beta stages but look for updates to come!  Overall, the consensus over here, at KR Social Media Consulting, is that you should give Yoono a try.  Please leave you feedback, let us know what you think about this product and let us know if you have other products you would like to see a review of. Check back with us next week for another installment of the Social Media Management Tool of The Week

Twitter Has a New Tweet!!

Well, the people over at Twitter are at it again.  There is yet another new user experience rolling out.  Tagline: A faster, simpler way to stay close to everything you care about.  Now, while I am a creature of habit, and these things usually annoy me more than make me breath a sigh of relief, I must say that they may be on to something this time.  Twitter has gone back to the basics and decided to streamline their overall experience, while adding features for business users as well.  I won’t go into all of the details because Twitter has a blog and landing page dedicated to explaining the when, how, and why behind these new changes.  What I will do, however, is highlight some of the basics just to give you a taste until the new site rolls out to you fully.

New Site Navigation

New Tab Menu

Twitter has developed what they’re calling the Tab Menu, that you see above.  These are the icons that will now grace all user experiences Twitter.  Every site (full or mobile), plug-in, and app that they own will have the same simple to understand menu icons that allow you to quickly get to what you want.  The idea is that once you are familiar with these icons you will more easily be able to “follow what you care about, connect with others and discover something new.”  They have changed the TweetDeck platform to mirror that changes too, since they own TweetDeck now.  Check out the new Twitter for Android profile page, and then meet me on the other side for the lowdown on the new site layout!

Twitter for Android

New Layout

The layout of the site has changed too.  Here is a screen shot of our homepage:

New Homepage

As you can see the content is now on the right, and your vitals (as I like to refer to them) are on the left.  You’ll also notice that the navigation tabs have the icons that I talked about above.  On this main full site, the words accompany the icons, this is not the case on the mobile site and in the Android and iPhone apps.  Profile pages will look like this:

New Profile Layout

Notice the extra head room! Another cool feature is that your media will be embedded into your tweets.  I’m guessing this is with the help of Twitter’s new native posting services that can replace services like bit.ly and TwitPic.  I know!  The plot thickens!

New Enhanced Profile

That brings us to the main event. Along with Twitter’s anouncement of the new site for all users, they have introduced “enhanced profiles” for business users. The idea is that business pages should feel more like the brand of the bussiness. They have allotted more head space for businesses to add images to their profile header, and will have the option for a promoted tweet that will act as a “sticky” post at the top of your page, and will automatically expand whatever media is in the tweet.  Check this out:

Disney Pixar Enhanced Profile

Cool, huh?  I think that this will be great for businesses.  Branding the entire online presence has always been one of the the strategies that produces that most Brand recognition, loyalty, and familiarity.  Twitter is making this enhanced profile available to 21 (big time) partner business right now, but will soon roll it out to all businesses!  We, here at KR Social Media Consulting are excited, and I hope you are too!  Sound off on what you think in the comments!

Social Media Management Tool of the Week

Welcome to another installment of the Social Media Management Tool of the Week! KR Social Media Consulting strives to bring you the best information on social media management and the tools that are available to assist you with positioning your brand throughout the internet to allow potential customers to feel as though they are a part of what you do as a business.  We know that your goal, as a business owner, is to develop a deeper and longer lasting relationship with those customers.  Now, positioning your brand, monitoring your brand, and engaging with the followers of your brand, whether it be on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Google+, etc., can be very time consuming and involves more than just setting up a profile and leaving it alone; Social Media profiles are not like your beef stew that you can put in the slow cooker in the morning before work and when you come home in the evening Voila! Eats! No, Social media profiles are like (for the foodies out there) Homemade Alfredo sauce; you must constantly monitor, making sure that the heat is not to high, add your proper seasoning, stir, add your cheese, stir and over time you have a wonderful sauce to complete your meal! Sorry, I kind of got carried away! Meet us on the other side of this meal for the insight on Google Reader!

Google Reader is a great social media tool that can serve a couple of different purposes; like subscribing to your favorite website’s RSS feed, like our blog, or you can monitor your brand by subscribing to the alerts feed using Google Alerts. Now, I know some of you are saying what is that! If you return later this week we will give you a brief over view of Google Alerts which is another great tool to aid you in monitoring your brand. So how does Google Reader work? you ask… First you must have a Google email address to use this service and don’t worry it is free to sign up!  Once that is done you can log in to your Google Reader and begin searching for the topics or specific websites or blogs that you would like to subscribe to.  That’s it? How does this relate to my slow cooking Alfredo sauce?  Glad you asked.

1. Subscribing to Feeds is a phenomenal way to stay on top of the latest news in your niche. By subscribing to a website’s feed it eliminates the need to scourer the Internet, doing separate google searches to find the info you want.  With Google Reader, it is delivered straight to you as it happens. No matter whether you’re in the office, on the road, on your laptop, cell phone or tablet, as long as you have a data connection with Internet access you can have the RSS feeds delivered directly to all of your devices.

2. Monitoring:
Now, I won’t go into any extreme depth on all of the intricacies on monitoring, but this application is great for searching in specific areas to find what people are saying about you, good or bad, and this allows you to either extinguish the fire by responding to concerns and complaints or fan the fire by helping to spread the good news about your company. For instance you can search all of the posts on Twitter to see what people have tweeted about you or your company and how often. This is a great way to monitor your brand and make sure the correct image of your company is being circulated around the world wide web.

3. Finally, business owners need to have interest outside of their own business and with google reader you can search a plethora of topics to read and share with your personal followers. So, if you want to subscribe to a blog about Cute little kittens, you can do that! It’s ok we won’t judge you.

Social Media Management Tool of the Week

Hoot Hoot!!  Hootsuite is here to stay, and I must say that it is Sweet!! **All Corny puns and jokes are the property of @kcarth of KR Social Media Consulting.** 🙂

Ok, all jokes (good or otherwise) aside, this week’s social media management tool the the week is Hootsuite, and for good reason.  Hootsuite offers a plethora of awesome features that are essential to managing your social media networks, and those of your clients, in a painless and user friendly way.  Now, because there are so many different features and options, we are just going to take a look at the ones that you’ll need to get started and then you can go and make your personal Hootsuite experience your own.

Multiple Social Media Accounts

In the free version you can manage up to five(5) social media profiles, whereas, in the paid version($5.99/mo) the number of profiles in unlimited.  Thus, if you are just managing just your own accounts, the free version will probably be sufficient.  If you are managing for clients and want the ease of one location where you can cover all bases, then the $5.99/mo is worth it!  The social network that can be managed are  Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, FourSquare, WordPress, MySpace, and PingFM.  This is awesome because unlike some other platforms, that means you can manage blogs right in the same place, which comes in handy if you are creating and managing some or all of your clients’ content on such blogs.  There is also a neat feature that allows you to plug your WordPress blog into the social networking sites!

Profile Tabs

Hootsuite creates a tab for each profile that you manage.  Clicking on the tab will bring you to a screen that has columns or “Streams” that you have customized to show the information that you need.  For each profile you can add Streams that are unique to the network.  Take Facebook, for instance, you can add a streams that show your most recent news, status updates, photos, and videos from your feed, wall posts, events, and even the messages that you have scheduled to go out.  You can even follow and unfollow people in your timeline.

Scheduled Posts

Hootsuite allows you to create posts, and set them to go out at any time you choose.  If you want to send out a reminder to check out the holiday deals, for instance, that you offer, you can send a post now, and also schedule one to go out at 1pm everyday next week.  The free version allows you to schedule these one at a time, and the paid version lets you mass schedule (pick several times and dates, at one time for the same post).  the kewl thing is that you could set a post for sometime next year if you wanted, now I don’t know how effective that would be, but the option is there!

Analytics

This is another awesome tool that will help you in finding the best strategies for your business or the businesses of your clients!  There are several platforms that do this to varying degrees out there, and most of them cost considerably more than the paid version of Hootsuite.  Don’t be fooled by the low price tag.  Hootsuite does the job.  If you add links to your posts through Hootsuite’s URL shortener, Ow.Ly, it will track the clicks that you get, and include information like who did the clicking, and when, amongst other information of your choosing.  This info can be compiled in a report that you can customize and print or e-mail to your clients, or keep for yourself.  The Report Builder is user friendly, and even allows you to insert logos and contact information. That’s just what you get for free, for reasonable costs, you have access to Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Influence Reports, and Proposal Reports that allow you to monitor the progress of your campaigns across Twitter, Facebook, and website profiles.

Team Members

The ability to have team members is for the paid version.  With $5.99/mo, you can have one(1) team member, that can log in, and see the same accounts and information as you.  Without this, each unique set of log-in credentials for the various social networks can only be managed by a single Hootsuite user under their log-in information.  The ability to have a team member means that you can share tasks, and reports and create assignments for your team.  If you are a business that needs the ability to add more than one team member, the cost is $15/mo for each additional member.

Contacts

Another cool feature of Hootsuite is the Contacts page.  You can go there to find any lists that you have created in Twitter, and the lists of your followers and those you follow and manage them.  You can add people to lists or take them off, and change their position in the lists.

Fun Extras

You can also download apps within the platform that allow you to follow other streams like YouTube and Tumblr, and if there is an app that you want that is not in the list, you can request it.  Hootsuite is also great because there are desktop, mobile, and web add-on versions!  That means you can manage your profiles from anywhere!

Are you sold yet?  The features that Hootsuite offers could be written about for days, but where is the fun in that?  Now that you have a general idea of how to get started with Hootsuite, go on over and check it out!  It’s free, remember!  Make sure you come back and share your discoveries with us!

HootSuite* VS. TweetDeck

Recently we received a message from Stephanie C. Harper of CAREER Magazine, and she was interested in a comparison of HootSuite and TweetDeck. What a great topic!  There are so many platforms claiming to take the pain out of managing your social media profiles out there in cyberspace, so a comparison of them is always good to have when making a decision on which avenue to take. One of our main goals here at KR Social Media Consulting is to assist individual and corporate brands with choosing the best products and services to fit their needs, and honestly this is the one of our favorite parts of the operation!  We get to test and play with different types of technology, so that we can give our clients the best.  Meet us after the break for the goods! (The following picture was taken with the Retro Camera app.)

Hootsuite or TweetDeck, that is the question.

Hootsuite is a great social media management tool that enables you to post updates to your social media profiles such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and FourSquare but unlike TweetDeck, you can also update  WordPress, MySpace, PingFM.  Now, depending on your social media needs some or all of these options may be very beneficial to you.  Another major difference between HootSuite and TweetDeck is the ability to monitor your analytics. If you are a business owner, affiliate marketer, or just simply a numbers junkie that uses a lot of links in your posts you will love this!  TweetDeck does not offer this option.  In the analytics tab on Hootsuite you can track the links that you post in your updates.  This option is great for discovering what ads, verbiage, and update styles result in conversions.  Both TweetDeck and Hootsuite have the option to schedule updates which is great if you have certain times to invest in crafting your posts, but your target audience if most active at a time that you are unavailable. TweetDeck is like a Cadillac with cloth seats and a CD player;  a phenomenal tool for an individual that likes luxury and only has a few special needs but still wants to look good!. Hootsuite, on the other hand is like that same Cadillac but fully loaded with heated leather seats, satellite radio, mudflaps, and a TV for the children in the back.  A great product that has extended functionality and you still look good! (I may be aging myself with this analogy but you get the picture).  Both of these products are great; Hootsuite in my opinion is the better business tool because of all of the added power under the hood, its great if you need the analytics horsepower that won’t break your wallet.  Tweetdeck, on the other hand, is a great tool for an individual who only needs a few extras to get their job done, and does not need no know what makes the car run better. For a full breakdown of the Hootsuite software check back tomorrow for our Social Media Tool of the Week! For other product details checkout www.hootsuite.com

*This comparison considers the features of the free version of hootsuite.  Visit their website for the added features of the paid version that starts at $5.99.