Instagram releases new image size!

Instagram released a new image size a few weeks ago and did so by partnering with the new Star Wars move. This was a great marketing move as lots of people were excited about the movie and its popularity allowed it to skyrocket up the new style without having to directly point it out.

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This new perspective width gives you more letterbox format. This means that you can now take a photo in landscape mode on your iPhone and get the entire photo onto Instagram.

For more people this just means there will be more food in your Instagram feed but it will allow some more creativity in the Instagram space.

Now if we could just schedule posts in Instagram and have multiple accounts…….

Facebook now has stock photos!

Facebook is making strides to be more friendly to advertisers. From the inclusion of a support staff for questions to increasingly opening more and more analytics and targeting options, Facebook is actively striving to make the experience better for advertisers.

One step they have taken is to add free stock photos for ads on their page. More than just stock photos, they are from ShutterStock, which is one of the premier providers of stock photos on the internet. Even if you have a photographer or imagery this might help in a pinch.

For example: While working on a recent ad for my business, the option was given to me to use “Free Stock Images”.

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They also preload some images they thought I might like based on my product.

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This is a great product upgrade for Facebook. But almost always, photos of your product and service will be better that stock photos.

 

 

Land Rover’s Storytelling on Instagram

Land Rover took creativity on Instagram to a new level recently. It uses Instagram in a way I have never see or thought of before. It uses the grid of all the photos to make its own image composite image. It took a lot of planning to pull off but when you go to either of their two accounts: Solitude in Sawtooth or Brotherhood of Wonderstone (click for the weblink but it looks better on your phone) you can scroll continuously down through a seem-less image story. Additionally  there are videos scattered throughout that have different tips for wilderness survival and fun. Beautiful job Land Rover!

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Candidate Logos Part 2: Republicans (Part 2)

Even though the election is not until next fall, the presidential campaigns have kicked off. While this is super frustrating to many, including myself, one of the upsides is you get to see lots of important branding. In this series of posts I am going to be evaluating the top candidates logos. How do I determine the top candidates? I used this study by the Washington Post.  This will be a three post series. The first post will be dedicated to the Democrat candidates and the next two will be dedicated to the Republican candidates (because there are currently so very many of them). (Read about the Democrats Logos Here and the first half of the Republicans here.)

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Rand Paul:

Visual appeal- 8
Symbolism- 8
Execution- 8
Total-24
Rand Paul is a man on fire. He wants change and with this aggressive logo, I think he communicates that clearly. It works well in different colors and it is my favorite. Simple but effective.

 

 

 

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Mike Huckabee

Visual appeal- 6
Symbolism- 2
Execution- 5
Total-14
Nothing crazy going on here for Huckabee. If there is intentional symbolism here, I am completely missing it! Instead it looks like they selected some random abstract shapes and threw in a few stars. And the kerning between the K and A is way to close.

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Jeb Bush

Visual appeal- 8
Symbolism- 4
Execution- 8
Total-20
Well someone is clearly trying to avoid associating himself with his brother. The natural move in a family such as this would be to invoke the fame. This is the most light hearted of the republican logos. I think the choice of an exclamation point is setting him up for a alternate logo with an upside down exclamation point trying to court the Spanish speaking vote. Also what an interesting b.

 

 

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Scott Walker

Visual appeal- 8
Symbolism- 8
Execution- 8
Total-24
Probably the most creative inclusion of American Imagery this year. The block flag in place of the E strangely works for me. I think it would even be clear in one color. I feel like this candidate is a strong American loving candidate. Mission accomplished logo.

 

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Donald Trump

Visual appeal- 4
Symbolism- 2
Execution- 4
Total-10
Trump doesn’t need a creative logo. Everyone knows who he is. I think that has more to do with his poll ratings then his true popularity. But this logo is exceptionally plain, thus the low rating.

How do people learn about new products?

How do people learn about new products? Guess what? Word of Mouth still reigns supreme!

In a new great chart from Marketing Charts, the reasons why someone would buy a new product come out. A few notes: there are different countries in the mix here and age demographics are not shared. That being said we can learn a lot from these trends. Here are a few notes:

•Word of Mouth is the best way to gain new customers. While listening to ‘experts’ talk about a product dropped 11%, friends and family told me about it it only dropped 4%. A rejection of ‘experts’ is something that is growing strong in our generation due to the flood of facts we deal with everyday. For more issues and products its easy to google something and find an opposing fact (or pseudo-fact). This survey shows a drop in word of mouth but I think they are drawing a line between word of mouth and social media which as I explain in the next paragraph is not really that different.

• Social Media is growing and its really word of mouth for the next generation. Someone once said, “If billboards are fireworks, social media is a bonfire.” Fireworks are short bursts of entertainment and could describe many forms of advertising but social media is designed to allow a conversation to happen about your product or service. Social Media will increasingly be a tool that is used to sway’s peoples minds about a product because it is the word of mouth in the tech world we live in today. [bctt tweet=”Social Media will increasingly be a tool that is used to sway’s people because it is the word of mouth in the tech world. “]

•TV Ads are prominent but faced a huge drop and I suspect this will only continue. Traditional media is going to continue to suffer from a drop in power due to demographic changes and the adoption of technology. TV is going to become less and less powerful unless they do something about it’s viewership and data.  Here are some of my other thoughts about traditional media.
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All of this is great data for us to help improve our sales! Lets put it to use!

Facebook’s 20% Rule

Facebook Grid Hate

Facebook’s 20% ad rule is terrible!

Facebook Grid Hate

I know this is nothing new but I have seemingly only recently starting running into this problem. The first time it struck: One of my clients has trivia on Saturday nights at his restaurant. I wanted to promote the trivia night and the logo for the trivia company was almost all text! I couldn’t promote an image with their logo prominently displayed because will it was more than 20%. It was extremely frustrating.

The most annoying part is the grid itself. If Facebook had a true 20% rule determined by text actually taking 20% of the screen, that would be more reasonable. You can work with that.

However if your text crosses into more than 5 squares your image will be rejected regardless of how little text their maybe. For example, some text that takes up 5% of the screen my touch 5 grids and therefore be rejected. (Of course this is assuming that you don’t squeak by somehow, which I have in the past).

In an attempt to preserve the visual aesthetic of Facebook they are in fact making marketers create less attractive images to meet their ridiculous grid system. So for marketers, I have created this Facebook sized image grid for standard timeline images. Just overlay this over the graphic you are designing and make sure that it doesn’t cross over the more than five grids.

I know this is a super low key solution but I am already using it to save time when trying to get an ad approved on Facebook.

Good luck!
Facebook Grid OVerlay

A Lesson from a sidewalk

This week I had an appointment on my alma mater’s campus. It was nice to walk around a place that was so meaningful to my development as a person. While walking across campus I noticed a corner where students walked from sidewalk to sidewalk without taking the path that was originally desired by the planners. This brought to mind two lessons we should take into mind when planning something for customers, attendees, users, etc:

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1.  Plan for customers. This design was an addition to the campus. The way it is designed is almost as if the designers failed to take into account the current structures in place. They also failed to anticipate that humans, not just college students, usually take the path of least resistance. Of course students wouldn’t walk the extra 18ft to merge with the current sidewalk! Take time to study what your customers might do, try to get into their shoes. In the tech world they build customer personas to try and learn this behavior.
2.  Plan to change. There is no way that you will be able to anticipate all the way your users will (mis)use your product. Humans are too unpredictable for that. But be prepared to make changes to better fit the user. This path has been trod for at least 5 years now. Instead of a new sidewalk being poured and fixing the problem an eye sore has developed in the heart of campus. Observe how customers use your product and make changes accordingly to make the experience great!