All the recent changes to Facebook have business people scrambling to learn how to make the best use of these new tools. If you want to make changes to your Business Page, but are at a loss, start with this video created by the Facebook team. You’ll learn how to customize the look of your Page using new features like cover photo. If you don’t want to tackle making these changes yourself, give us a shout and we’ll help you.
Social Media. Are you still thinking about testing the waters? We encourage you to jump in. The water’s fine. If you get stuck, give us a call and we’ll help you get started.
Apparently there are many busy young mothers these days treating shopping like a competitive sport, and in so doing they may be showing us in dramatic fashion just how much our shopping behaviors are changing.
This is all outlined by columnist Tina Sharkey of AdAgeDigital in her conclusions about a recently completed study, “2011 Shopping Rituals of the American Mom,” based on surveys of more than 8,000 online moms visiting the BabyCenter web site.
Sharkey has concluded that these young moms treat shopping as sport because she discovered in the survey that these moms are “developing strategies, rising to challenges, outperforming the competition, reveling in the big score.”
She says “84% of moms in our study agreed with the statement that: ‘When I save money on a shopping trip by using coupons, sales or other deals, I feel like ‘I won.’ “
This picture of the uber-competitive consumer is further reinforced, according to Sharkey, by this observation: “Moms who shop use every available resource to gain an edge. Almost two-thirds have a bar code scanner app on their mobile device to help them zero in on deals — 30% more than the general population. Three in five moms belong to at least one group buying service. “
Sharkey explains how this type of shopping has become something of a team sport:
“Moms may not shop in packs, but that doesn’t mean they’re on their own. Instead of calling a girlfriend into the changing room for a second opinion, moms reach for the smartphone: 34% have texted a picture of a product before buying it (compared with 10% of the general internet population). And when they hit the retail trail, they take the entire social graph with them: 44% share deals and discount codes through social media, and 62% post online reviews.”
Sharkey’s column is worth the full read; you’ll find many fascinating and useful nuggets of information in it.
I’ve found that there is a fair amount of confusion out there regarding web jobs and titles. Many lay people when seeking the help of a web professional use these job titles interchangably or even roll them all into one, mistakenly thinking that if you’re a “web person” you must do it all. But, in truth, the various components of a website and the people who work on them are not typically interchangable. A web designer doesn’t usually do the work of a web developer, and a web developer doesn’t usually do the work of a software engineer, though all parties are familiar with what the other parties do. Bottom line: Not all web titles are created equal. I’ll let Anardo parse out the particulars to help you gain a clearer understanding of the distinctions.
I am a senior Web Designer, and I am creating this post to educate the public about the differences between a Creative Designer, a Web Designer, a Technical Designer, a Web Developer, and a Software Engineer.
- A Creative Designer is an artist in the space; he is AWESOME at creative thinking, and at conceptual based design in the digital space, like UI, UX, Experience Design, and Brand Experience Design. (You will find this type of professional in Design Studios across the world, like Fantasy Interactive, and II Advance! The guys who win FWA awards!)
- A Web Designer is a “Designer” he uses Photoshop, and illustrator to create visually appealing websites for customers. He then uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the layout, and interactivity of the website, or web based application.
- A Technical Designer is the combination of a Web Designer, and a Web Developer, and at times a Software Engineer too! This professional is rare! I called them the Hybrids of our industry. (They can run an entire IT department by them self…)
- A Web Developer writes code, and only code for the web. He can usually write HTML, JavaScript, PHP, jQuery, Dojo, XML, Json, SOAP UI, he can generate a wsdl. (These guys suck at CSS!)
- A Software Engineer writes mother languages like Java, C#, C, C++, Objective C, he can be a DBA, he can easily set up an open source environment, and is for the most part pretty damn good at math.
All these professionals have one unique thing in common… THEY ALL HATE INTERNET EXPLORER
And, yes, it’s true– we all really hate Internet Explorer.
Hurry! You, too, can have this limited-time offer for one of the rarest gems on earth that normally sell for “well over $2,000″ for just $49.50!
Sigh… It’s stuff like this that gives advertising a bad name.
