Digitally Printed Garments

I am trying to establish a Christmas Eve tradition for my family. Ever since we stopped going to my husband’s grandmother’s house for her family Christmas party on Christmas Eve, we haven’t really had anything to do that night. At first I was okay with that, after having somewhere to go every single Christmas Eve since I was a baby (growing up we went to my dad’s family gathering on Christmas Eve then once I was married we started going to my husband’s family function), it was nice to not have to pack up the kids and go anywhere, getting home late only to wrestle with the kids to get them into their new Christmas printed pajamas and then to bed so I could relax and put out the Santa presents. But after a couple of years of having nothing to do, I realized that I missed it. And since I want Christmas Eve to be enjoyable and not stressful, I’ve tried to think of something fun to do. Last year I came up with the idea of putting some hot chocolate in a thermos, grabbing some snacks, and after an early supper of homemade pizza, heading out to drive around and look at Christmas lights for a while, then head home and put the kids to bed. That seemed to work well and we all enjoyed it so we’re going to do it again this year. It’s also a good opportunity for me to take some lovely high color photographs of the Christmas lights. I’m not sure it’s a tradition that will hold since after a while the kids will get too old to want to look at Christmas lights, but it will work as a tradition for the foreseeable future anyway.

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Small Apparel Orders

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Digitally Printed Stickers

A friend of mine on Facebook tagged me in a picture that was just so awesome I want to have it printed on stickers to put on my Christmas card envelopes. It was a digital photo that she had found on the internet of a Christmas tree, but it wasn’t just any old Christmas tree. It was a Christmas tree made entirely out of books. I know, right? Books! It was so cool. Obviously someone had put down a layer of books in a circle, then another layer only alternating them enough so they looked staggered and so on getting smaller as they went up so that it looked like a tree. Then they put some lights on it and took a picture of it. I thought it was a really cool idea. And my friend thought of me when she saw it because she knows how much I love books AND Christmas! Two of my favorite things together in one place! I would consider making one myself except that I’m not sure I want to take that many books off my shelves. When I put them back, I’d have to reorganize them all over again. You never know though, I just might give it try next year…

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High Resolution Printing

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SEO Effects of Social Search

Yesterday we covered the hot topic of Google’s social search from a very ‘news’ perspective. If you haven’t watched the tour video take a minute and hit play on the video below.

The truth is that Google is rolling this new search functionality piecemeal just in the same way as most of the recent features. So if I try to explore the option from my work account I get no offers and I’d have to cheat to go play with it right now.

However, on my personal account the option comes right up and my personal account has a smaller social circle than my work account so it seems to me that it’s just a work-in-progress at the moment.

A visit to the Google Inside Search site gives us a bit more confirmation:

If you aren’t seeing the features of Search plus Your World, don’t worry, we’re rolling them out over the next few days.

.. so if you’re not getting the option to try it out, it should come along soon!

Here’s a ‘hands on’ example of ‘Search plus Your World’ for a phrase I personally talk about a lot, ‘minecraft’:

The first thing that occurs to me is that Danny talks about Minecraft WAY more than anyone else, but the second thing that gets my interest is that there’s nothing in the results that I wouldn’t have read or couldn’t get from poking my head into Google+.

Going back to that video from Google that we linked earlier, I have to admit this looks like a very over-hyped feature where 90% of the interesting parts of the video aren’t things we can do with the new search feature. This almost feels like a Microsoft product that was invented by marketers as something to market with zero user interest?

Well that’s my opinion dealt with, but what about SEO factors of this new feature?

A ton of questions come to mind that need to be answered, here’s a few :

• Who stands to gain from these types of searches?
• What sites will be negatively impacted?
• What should websites be doing to take advantage of this new feature?

The first one’s easy, Google, and particularly, Google+ will gain the most from this new search behaviour. Google has always wanted you to find what you want within their domain/services, and limiting your search to a Google owned property, selling it as a great feature, works so well for Google’s overall goals. If you don’t believe that Google wants to keep you inside their services, as you use Google products challenge yourself to consider ‘What more could Google do to keep me inside their networks?’ and I think you’ll start seeing all the efforts they are making to give you what you want instantly vs. leaving Google to visit an external site.

Social media sites that were getting a lot of commercial traffic/advertising will be the hardest hit by this move. If a client came to me and said “We’re on all the big sites, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Squidoo, etc.. but we haven’t bothered with Google+.” I would be forced to assume they were Australian with such an opposite approach. The same thing would follow with campaign strategies where a company looking at time spent vs. returns would be silly to start a social media campaign anywhere but on Google+ first.

If you have a website that isn’t already following the guidelines for linking between Google+ and your site, you need to start there and then work on building up followers. Ideally you want people talking about your products/services more than your competition so I’d strongly urge someone within your company to engage in Google+ social media efforts on a weekly basis if not more. While it’s pointless to have infinite reach and zero relevance, you also want to be very ‘friendly’ doing whatever it takes to get people to take enough interest in your company pages to follow, +1, add to circles, etc..

In fact the last bit of advice will be a recurring theme for early 2012 where we will be looking at super organic ways to get your product/services out to relevant sections of the internet.

A good example would be a product that is easy to find on-line, but very technical/tricky to work with. Selling the product puts you in the same group as everyone else selling that product, but offering expertise on that product will raise your profile quickly while generating interest/informing potential clients. If you can get links from grateful recipients the effort will pay for itself, and the people you come in contact with are very likely to draw in more clients due to the way that social media is sharing business leads via friend connections.

Typical of Spring, the sooner you plant this ‘social seed’ the sooner it will grow into something that can support your on-line efforts.

Speaking of growing, Chia Bart is getting a little leafy already!

Bart’s beans are sprouting!

Getting Intimate with Google Personal Search

In a further effort to make search results more relevant to it users, Google will begin to provide more personalized search results for users of the fledgling Google+ social networking service. The new service will draw search results by drawing on the photos, news and comments posted from within the Google+ network and should be rolled out in the next few days.

A new service called "Search, Plus Your World" will display users own content from Google+, along with posts from friends, said Amit Singhal, who focuses on improving information retrieval at Mountain View, California-based Google. If someone searched for a dog, for instance, pictures of friends’ dogs might show up first in their search results.

"At Google, we always want to return the most comprehensive and relevant answers to your questions, and many times those answers are in the open public Web, but many times those answers are in your own personal content," Singhal said. "This is the first time we’re bringing personal content right into the results page."

Other changes to the Google search include a new feature called “Profiles in Search” which will include an auto complete function that will display links to your friends (from Google+) accounts while typing in queries in to the search box on Google. The new service will also offer suggestions of people to follow. This information will be drawn from Google+ accounts or from Google’s photo-sharing service, Picasa.

Despite its best efforts, Google still struggles to compete with the social media giant Facebook. As of October 2010, Google had 40 million users, compared to the 800 million Facebook users.

Which Social Sites Should I Use? Part 2: Breakdown of the “Big 5″

Continued from Part 1 of “Which Social Sites Should I Use?“:

Once you have established a strong following across these main five sites, you can consider participating in a few niche social sites based upon your industry, services or geographical location. The social properties you employ define your overall social persona. Subsidiary aspects of social media can be realized in terms of company branding, building company legitimacy and trust, and online reputation management.

Breakdown of "The Big 5"

Facebook

Traditionally, Facebook was typically best for personal relationships and getting reacquainted with friends and acquaintances. You can also use it for work colleagues with whom you have personal relationships.

With the advent of Facebook Pages, businesses can now separate their personal and business faces into different "pages" You can think of this as a Yellow Pages advert promoting your business. It gives your viewers a chance to see some of your products and get to know a little about your company and their online social presence.

You can build Groups and add Events to further engage your followers. The success of a Page is based upon the number of "Likes" from visitors it receives. It is important to have a strong and reputable personal profile that will be connected to the Business Page to act as an administrator.

Facebook is best for "private networks" but is useful to generate an online business presence

LinkedIn

This is the most popular site for maintaining your professional business networks. You can search and connect with former work colleagues, business partners and network with people that you may not know but may be in a related industry.

Different sections of the site allow for employee recruitment in order to facilitate the hiring of your next employee. This is a particularly great feature as people in your business network may be able to personally recommend an individual in your industry. You can list current promotions and have colleagues or clients recommend you which helps to build a more credible profile.

LinkedIn is your "professional network"

Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform as it only allows for posts (or tweets”) limited to 140 characters. Although Twitter is not a website in the sense that Facebook or LinkedIn is, it is starting to adopt similar functionality. Recent additions of pictures, follower suggestions and groups seem to indicate that Twitter may be moving toward more of a destination site, rather than only a platform.

Twitter allows you to connect with a much broader group of people. Because you can follow someone that does not necessarily follow you back, connections can be one-way or two-way and allow you to broadcast status updates, links, etc without needing to have an involved conversation. However, those businesses that do pro-actively engage their followers find that Twitter is an effective medium for connecting with a large number of people and organizations without the formality of a "friend request".

Twitter is for your "public network"

Google+

Google+ is considered the company’s fourth foray into social networking. The New York Times have declared it as Google’s biggest attempt to rival the social network of Facebook, which had over 800 million users in 2011.

Google+ integrates social platforms such as Google Profiles and Google Buzz and introduces new services called Circles, Hangouts and Sparks. Google+ is currently available as a web site and is reported to be available soon as a desktop application. It is already available as a mobile application.

Google+ is best for advertising your business, as well as for public and private interactions

YouTube

Created by three former members of PayPal and launched in 2005, YouTube offers a site for users to upload, view and share videos. Traditionally, YouTube did not seem to be advantageous to online business promotion and was considered a personal social site. Increasingly the video platform has become a standard medium for the promotion a business. By creating a YouTube account, users are able to create a public "channel" where owners can upload video files showcasing products and offer promotional information.

Remember that the larger your social network, the more time that will be involved to maintain it. Stick with the main 5 (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+) and choose only a few from the specialty niche oriented social groups. It is always best not to spread yourself too thin. It is better to have a closely formed network with a good number of quality followers than it is to have a larger network spread over many social sites that you are not engaged with.

You need to link accounts together to increase their effectiveness. Linking can become a bit complicated if you are dealing with many social sites. You may want to create a text document that shows where your feeds are being syndicated to (see example).

YouTube is akin to a "television audience"

In Part 3, we will discuss Linking Your Social Accounts

Top Nine Ways to Enrich Your Business Blog in 2012

Beanstalk’s Heather Jennings published an very helpful article today on the Beanstalk site offering tips on how to best utilize your business blog in 2012.  From whitepapers to eBook creation … video to just plain posting – Heather outlines some simple and actionable items to help stay directed to making the most of your online presence.  It would seem silly to outline the full article here when it’s an easy 5 minute read on site that’s worth every minute (note: I *may* be biased).

Her full article is Top Nine Ways to Enrich Your Business Blog in 2012.  And when you’re done reading that … get back to enjoying your weekend !!!

Spain-full SOPA Politics

The Jan 2nd news that Spain has full implemented it’s anti-piracy ‘Sinde Law’ was a blow to the Anti-SOPA community. It was even more painful to learn today that there’s deep allegations of US involvement and threats geared towards passing the law.

If you’ve been on Reddit, or Torrentfreak, you’ve probably seen the following allegations:

In a leaked letter sent to Spain’s outgoing President, the US ambassador to the country warned that as punishment for not passing a SOPA-style file-sharing site blocking law, Spain risked being put on a United States trade blacklist . Inclusion would have left Spain open to a range of “retaliatory options” but already the US was working with the incoming government to reach its goals.

United States government interference in Spain’s intellectual property laws had long been suspected, but it was revelations from Wikileaks that finally confirmed the depth of its involvement.

More than 100 leaked cables showed that the US had helped draft new Spanish copyright legislation and had heavily influenced the decisions of both the government and opposition.

Okay, so then if we hop over to WikiLeaks (the same uber-political anti-American site that’s been caught multiple times sharing carefully doctored misinformation) this should be all over the front page right? Nope. Nothing posted to WikiLeaks since December 16th 2011. Apparently the only thing the Wikileaks folks are excited about is getting more donations to ‘fight the evil US’.

So if we look around we should be able to find the leaked cables right? Nope. (Please correct me here if I’m wrong.)

What’s more there’s conjecture that the ‘supposed’ US involvement was a ploy to put the blame for the bill on the US when the Spanish government had long term goals to put the bill into effect. Apparently the furore over further meddling by the US in Spanish politics might distract the majority of the voting public and save the current political parties from losing support over pushing through the bill?

Talk about confusing! I have a headache just thinking about all these people standing in a loose circle pointing at each other saying ‘blame them!’.

It will be interesting to see how this news unfolds and if the US administration will dispute the claims or just lump it since the Spanish anti-piracy bill clearly falls in-line with current direction of the US policy makers?

On a slightly different topic of heads, Chia Bart has sprouted:

Sorta gross isn’t it?

It was a moisture issue, I had to put a bag over his head for the whole night to get the sprouting to happen. Now it should just need some light and regular water top-ups to get the green to start showing.

Microsoft’s Ballmer: If I had it to do all over again…

Steve Ballmer’s last three years as CEO is the subject of Businessweek’s cover story this week. Here’s what I found interesting in the story.