Archivos diarios: 17 octubre 2010

oct17

Trends in in-game advertising

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Trends in in-game advertising

Screen shot 2010 10 17 at 17.24.28 200x148 Trends in in game advertisingSocial gaming is huge at the moment. Zynga are firmly owning this space and are consistently proving the business-case for social gaming, with the majority of their revenue coming from users purchasing virtual-goods that enhance their experience. As much as social gaming is a revenue-generator for many tech companies, it’s also providing a whole new advertising opportunity for brands. We saw the first high-profile example of this when Microsoft sponsored Farmville earlier this year. Since then, how is it progressing and is it really providing value to advertisers?

The answer to the second question, seems to be a big fat yes. Though it is still new and it is arguably only the more tech/social savvy companies that are really eyeing this up, the revenue potential is clear. According to a recent survey issued by Nielsen and Electronic Arts, when Gatorade invested in in-game advertising by placing branded goods in different online points, the real-life spend on Gatorade increased by 24%. Clearly this is an exciting, lucrative area and the ad dollars are following. The ad spend on game advertising in the U.S.  was at $370 million in 2006 and this is expected to expand to $2 billion by 2012. And it’s casual/PC/mobile  in-game advertising that will reap this revenue. In 2006 this accounted for 27% of the game advertising market, and by 2012 it will account for more than 80%. This is big money and big business and represents another stage in social advertising that can potentially transform advertising as we know it.

Case study – McDonalds

Earlier this month McDonalds experimented with one of the first advertising examples of its kind, by teaming up with Zynga to create a branded farm for just one day, that offered users the chance to grow mustard seed and tomato crops. They were then rewarded with branded products that would help them improve the growth of the their own farms. Though it only lasted 24 hours, it was available to every single Farmville user, being shown as a neighbour farm.That’s instant, deep ingrained (excuse the pun) exposure to nearly 70 million Farmville players worldwide. Lee el resto de esta entrada →

oct17

Social Media and Graphic Designers – Pros and Cons

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Social Media and Graphic Designers – Pros and Cons

http://www.dzinepress.com/2010/08/social-media-and-graphic-designers-pros-and-cons/

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Social Media is not a new name and almost everybody is pretty much acquainted with the uses and effects of social media websites. In this techno-oriented world, social media networking is a prevailing trend that continues to grow with increasing awareness. People from all walks of life are prone to its usage. Likewise, graphic designers are also into using social media websites and many of them are pretty fond of it. However, what I have noticed is that with the growing challenges of graphic designing, social media has become more of a necessity for every graphic designer.

Today, every segment of industry is shifting its focus towards social media for its publicity and promotion. The graphic design industry is no exception with more and more graphic designers making use of it. But like every other technology that has been invented, social media has its particular pros and cons.

Every new development has its own advantages and disadvantages. Innovation can either lead to progression or devastation. It only depends on how you use it. On one side, social media has numerous benefits for graphic designers, however simultaneously; social media can prove to be disastrous. This post is to give you a balanced analysis of social media and its impacts on graphic designers.

Social Media for Graphic Designers – Pros

Shortest Route to Publicity and Promotion

Publicity-and-Promotion
Surpassing all the conventional business promotion techniques, social media marketing is a known fact that the fastest way to promote something to the world. One single tweet on Twitter and graphic designers are able to share their designs with the entire designer community, rather the world.

Your Link to the Design Community

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There are millions of graphic designers all over the world and all of us share almost the same feelings and understand each other. Also, it is quite universal that graphic designers benefits from each other. By using social media, graphic designers share their views and their designing work and provide useful feedback to each other. Lee el resto de esta entrada →

oct17

75 Most Creative Free Social Media Icon Sets

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75 Most Creative Free Social Media Icon Sets

http://www.dzinepress.com/2010/08/75-most-creative-free-social-media-icon-sets/

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We’re sharing hundreds of free social media icons for your website design needs, you can choose to download these all creative icons. we all know that social networks and social bookmarking are really important media for our websites or blogs, these can help to promote our business and news stories in world wide web.

Most of the icon-sets are really creative and professional designed to be universally used on every blog – but what if your blog is different, and in need of some social icons that are not only creative, unique and original also sharing different kind of icon sets. It’s also important that this feature isn’t over looked by web site visitors. So it’s always a good idea to use icons when linking to social media sites. They get peoples attention and the logos are immediately recognizable.  Hope you like all listed beautiful icons, If I have missed any, leave send me the link via the comments.

Note: all listed icons are sharing as freebies, but you all respected visitors and readers may follow their owner terms and conditions of free license. Thanks

Lee el resto de esta entrada →

oct17

Corporate Branding – Social and Financial Benefits

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Corporate Branding – Social and Financial Benefits

http://www.dzinepress.com/2010/10/corporate-branding-%E2%80%93-social-and-financial-benefits/

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Corporate Branding

Branding is the process of creating an association between a symbol/object/emotion/perception and a product/company with the goal of driving loyalty and creating differentiation. For example, through product packaging and advertising, Coca Cola has created an association between many different elements of its brand to its consumers. The hourglass shaped bottle, the red and white colors, and even the font of its logo together make Coca Cola distinctive from its competitors. Branding has many shapes, forms and mediums i.e. brochures, flyers, company business cards, postcards, website, newsletter, packaging and even the office interior and exterior. All these and a constant advertising has been successful in reinforcing past positive associations between the brand and consumers. Including your logo on every marketing piece from business cards to your signage can help customers recognize your brand.

In the corporate realm, a corporate brand distinguishes a company from its competitors in the market. Today, however, a brand goes beyond mere differentiation but brand management is now complex, dynamic, and multidimensional. The brand management now addresses a host of interrelated issues.

Additionally, corporate brand management requires the strong backup of marketing, promotion, advertising strategies and creative thinking which helps to come up with novel ideas of brand positioning. Managing a corporate brand is not simply about projecting the visual identity of a corporation through a logo or slogan but it is about winning a battle, an arduous and challenging one to be sure, especially with the brand itself serving a dual and seemingly contradictory purpose as an ultimate weapon, and at the same time as the most precious but fragile possession that we must defend.

Social and Financial Benefits of Branding

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Planning for branding without counting on gains is something corporations do not do. The benefits of branding are numerous which is why companies tend to promote their products, services and most importantly themselves as potential brand for competitors in their respective industry. Followings are some advantages of branding your product, service or cause:

Unpaid Loyalty of Customer Lee el resto de esta entrada →

oct17

From Side Project to Sustainable Business … Using Social Media

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From Side Project to Sustainable Business … Using Social Media

This guest post is by Clare Lancaster, of WomenInBusiness.com.au.

Over the last 18 months I’ve built two profitable businesses with the help of social media. One business was a sure thing; the other was a side project. My side project was a blog: womeninbusiness.com.au. All of the important numbers (subscribers, page views and profits) are growing monthly and I’ve never paid a cent to promote it.

When I decided to drop out of corporate life, my first move was to open a consultancy. I had been working online since 2001 and by 2008 was confident I’d accumulated enough skills and experience that finding work wouldn’t be a problem.

Around about this time, Twitter was the next big thing. I realized if I wanted to offer my clients the best service I could, I’d better get to know what Twitter was, and work out it was going to be any good for business.

Little did I know that the answer would be a resounding ‘yes’—and that it would help me take my side project from an idea to a sustainable business in less than two years. Lee el resto de esta entrada →

oct17

Real-Time Social Influencer Notifications in WordPress

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Real-Time Social Influencer Notifications in WordPress
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The folks over at Web Design and User Experience Agency Digital Telepathy, creators of SlideDeck, have built a rocking Flowtown WordPress Plug-in. Now anyone with a WordPress blog can seamlessly integrate their Blog with Flowtown!

What does that mean? Social Notifications.

1. Someone comments on a blog post
2. This person gets automatically imported into Flowtown
3. You get notified if their an influencer, have a particular occupation or is in a certain location
4. Instantly send a follow-up email or follow them on Twitter
5. Wicked cool