Our client’s challenge:

StepWare, which offers a line of desktop computer software that helps people of all ages become better readers, wanted to create a web version of AceReader, its premier product. The online version would provide a subscription-based service to schools and allow educators and students to use the software at any computer in the school’s computer lab.

The Scott Design solution:

Scott Design created an online application that is almost identical to the desktop version of AceReader. The web version even uses configuration files and settings from the desktop version. Teachers can monitor students’ progress by viewing speed and comprehension graphs from any computer on the network.

The Summit EMA competition is based on the foundation that advertising is consistently at the forefront of the technological evolution of communication. It was created to identify the world’s marketing communication pioneers – those pushing the bounds of the communication badlands.

The Adobe/Amazon.com Product Selector is an online application on Amazon.com that removes the guesswork for Adobe customers selecting products to buy. Instead of a static banner ad, the selector is an interactive application powered by Adobe ColdFusion and AJAX technology with a back-end database that recommends products and brings the user right to the Amazon.com purchasing page to shorten the sales cycle.

“Those involved in today’s emerging media technologies are the leaders who are establishing tomorrow’s avenues of advertising communications.” Said Jocelyn Luciano, Executive Director for the Summit International Awards (SIA). “Most communication professionals recognize that established avenues of communication can be reliable and safe. However, audiences are becoming increasingly fragmented and difficult to engage, inform, and affect.  Developing, applying, and combining emerging media with creative messaging and market awareness is challenging.  Achieving this synthesis is what makes earning a Summit EMA a significant achievement.”

Since 1994, the Summit International Awards (SIA) organization has been dedicated to furthering excellence in the communications industry. It administers three distinguished award competitions throughout the year with the goal of raising the awareness of companies and individuals who have the creative and marketing talent to go beyond the ordinary.

This SIA organization stands apart by offering a true competitive environment where entries are judged alongside those of their peers, and makes its competitions affordable and accessible to the industry by offering multiple entry discounts, streamlined internet submissions, and a friendly, knowledgeable customer service staff. Companies and individuals from more than 50 countries and across five continents participate in its awards programs and choose to invest their promotional dollars for the opportunity to be recognized as an SIA winner. The SIA organization conducts three awards competitions each year: Summit Creative Awards, Summit Emerging Media Awards, and Summit Marketing Effectiveness Awards.

For the latest information on recent awards, visit the Design Awards page.

Here’s a quick rundown on how to use type like a pro on your website.

Typeface selection

There are five web-safe fonts that work on most Mac and Windows browsers. Here are the reasons you might choose one over the others:

Alignment

The appearance of type on your web page can change depending on the device, browser, screen resolution, and personal settings. Use left alignment instead of justified text for the best readability. When the browser justifies text, it inserts space in between words that cause the reader to pause or stumble when reading. Although you might end up with a ragged right edge when using left aligned type, it is still more readable. To help reduce the ragged right edge, put spaces before and after dashes so the browser puts the words before and after the dash on two lines if needed.

Column width

If your columns are too narrow, you break up your sentences into too many pieces, which slows down reading. If your columns are too wide, it is hard to move your eye from the end of a line to the beginning of the next line and you can get lost. Ideal line length for the web is approximately 12 words or 66 characters, however if a user changes the browser’s default font size, the number of words that can fit in a column changes. It’s best to use a measurement that changes depending on the font and size, such as an “em,” which is the width of a capital “M” in any given font. Setting the column width to 30 ems usually gives you the optimal column width no matter the type size.

Color

If you emphasize everything by using colors, you end up emphasizing nothing. Use colored type sparingly, only where it will help guide the reader, for example on subheads to help readers skim for the information they want. Don’t rely on color alone to convey information in case someone who is colorblind is looking at your site. Bold or italicize your type in addition.

Backgrounds

Use enough contrast between the background color on the page and the type. Colors that are too close in darkness are hard to read. Don’t put type on complex backgrounds or images with a lot of contrast or it will be difficult to read.

Smart punctuation

Professional typographers always use typographically correct punctuation on the web, including “smart” quotes and apostrophes, em and en dashes, and ellipses. Don’t use inch and foot marks, hyphens, and triple periods when you can use the real punctuation.

Amateur moves

These are web design choices that will instantly mark you as an amateur designer:

- Use of non-web-safe fonts
- Justified type
- Columns that are too narrow or too wide
- Too many colors
- Background color that’s too close to the text color
- Inch and foot marks, hyphens, and triple periods
- Two spaces between sentences
- Writing in all caps

Hopefully, this information has given you ideas about using type to strengthen your own website. Following basic rules of good typography can help produce professional-caliber results.

There are some great free tools to monitor your online presence. Most of these require a few minutes to set up and then a few minutes per day to monitor. There are some that you can use once a month to track how your online brand is over time.

Setup an RSS reader

An RSS reader aggregates web content such as news, blogs, and online searches in a single location for easy viewing. A reader helps you view new information from all the sites and searches you choose on one page. Google Reader is very easy to set up and use.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts let you monitor the web for new content. Just enter the search terms you’re interested in following and how often you want updates and you can monitor any word or phrase. You should set up Google Alerts on your company, your brands, keywords, your competitors’ companies, your key employees, and influencers in your industry. You can get updates via e-mail or add the RSS feed of your Google Alerts to your RSS reader.

Twitter Searches

Twitter searches are feeds of search results of keywords, brands, companies, people, and #hashtags on Twitter. Be sure to search for @mentions of your company Twitter accounts. The results are almost instantaneous and allow for time-critical monitoring.

LinkedIn Answers

LinkedIn Answers lets you ask and answer industry-specific questions. You can subscribe in an RSS reader to all the questions in a category relevant to your company and your customers. You can keep track of the kinds of problems your customers have, answer questions to show your expertise, and follow discussions in your industry.

Check your social media pages

LinkedIn

Visit your LinkedIn home page to see who has visited your profile, read status updates from your connections, and answer any messages you’ve received. Visit groups you’ve joined to see what kinds of discussions are going on.

Facebook

Look at your company’s Facebook page stats and activity using the View Insights link on the pages you manage. Scan your fans and page views count. Visit your Facebook company page (or personal profile if you use it for business) and answer any questions or address comments that visitors have made on your page. If you are a member of a group, check to see if any interesting new discussions are going on.

The ongoing buzz about your company

Sites such as Social Mention and  Addict-o-matic show you the buzz on your company across a wide selection of social networks. Topsy lets you search terms on Twitter over the past 6 months (Twitter’s search only goes back about a week).

Assess the quality of your online presence

There are a range of free tools that can analyze the quality of your online brand. Use Twitter Grader, Facebook Grader, and Website Grader to get a free analysis of how your pages rank compared to others. You can run these analyses once a month to see how changes you make to your site, pages, and online conversations improve your ranking.

Monitor in real time

Use software such as TweetDeck to monitor online conversations in real time. Set up custom columns that monitor @mentions of your accounts, searches on keywords and names, and activity by your Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections.

Use the information you find

Keeping track of your company online can give you the ability to spot issues before they become problems, find opportunities in your marketplace to grow your business, and build a reputation as an expert in your industry. Responding to people that mention you or your competition can help you win new customers and build relationships in your industry.

Six Revisions has a comprehensive list of monitoring options in ”12 Social Media Monitoring Tools Reviewed.”

Link to your site from social networks

Be sure to complete all the information in your social network profiles, including URLs of your site and/or landing pages. Be sure to include links to your relevant website content on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other appropriate networks.

Add yourself to online directories

Bright ideas
Before you get started online, you should develop objectives, goals, and strategies for your marketing efforts.

Good hearing
Don’t make a move until you listen and monitor what’s happening online in your market, including following all mentions of your company or brand, your competition, and industry keywords.

Big heart
You should plan on sharing your passions and company culture as part of your online outreach. And be as helpful as possible by sharing your expertise and knowledge with others.

Fast hands
Be prepared to put your writing skills to the test by creating plenty of valuable online content.

Funny bone
Make sure what you share is interesting and funny—and be prepared to take a ribbing for your ideas once you join in online conversations.

Stamina
Any social media marketing program takes a long time to bear fruit, so be prepared to keep the energy up in the long run.

For more information on planning a social media program, check out “5 steps in a social media marketing plan” and read how to get started with Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Last night’s SVAMA panel explored how marketers can use social media for business-to-business lead generation. The answer in a nutshell: create remarkable online content and lead prospects to that content through Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Panelists included Brian Halligan, CEO HubSpot, and author of Inbound Marketing; Mike Linton, formerly the CMO at eBay and at Best Buy, now writing for Forbes.com; and Zack Urlocker, from MySQL, now part of Sun Microsystems/Oracle. The panel was moderated by Lilia Shirman, author of 42 Rules for Growing Enterprise Revenue, and MD of The Shirman Group.

Brian kicked off the discussion by contending that a winning marketing professional today is half marketer and half content creator. A marketer today should create content, optimize it for search and social media, promote the content on social networks, and analyze the results to concentrate on what generates the best results. His caveat is that the content needs to be “remarkable” so that it gets spread from the original recipients to others, extending your reach to new prospects.

Zach was able to get a huge increase in leads in his group at Sun through a series of refinements, including the creation of informational content (white papers, case studies, etc.) and an optional registration form for each piece of content. His team optimizes everything they do around lead generation, noting that each page on a website or blog should have a call to action—otherwise, why have that page?

Mike‘s experience with the B2C market has given him some different insights on the creation of content. Sometimes, the best content you can create is an online dialogue and relationship with your potential and current customers. And, sometimes the customers make the most valuable content. In some markets, the best way to do lead generation is just to keep the conversations going in your community.

All three panelists agreed that you should find out where your customers are and then make sure you interact with them there. Brian suggested that instead of hunting through the jungle of the internet, find the watering holes and hunt for leads there. The watering holes could be forums, wikis, Facebook Fan pages, LinkedIn Groups, blogs, and Twitter.

Once you find your targets, lure them to the remarkable content you’ve created on your website and blog, and capture their contact info for your sales team.

Here’s a quick rundown of the who, what, where, when, why, and how of using social networks to help kick-start your social media plan.

Who

You should use social media if you have a business and want to do any of the following:

• Reach new customers
• Build relationships with existing customers
• Create awareness of your products or services through PR and marketing
• Decrease customer support costs
• Drive traffic to your website
• Find new employees
• Improve teamwork at your company

What

Social networks are now used by millions of people every day:

• Social networks are web-based, online communities of people with shared interests who communicate with one another and share information.
• Social networks allow you to connect with friends, family, colleagues, and customers online.
• Social media marketing is the use of social networks to promote your company’s products or services.

Where

You should create a presence on the following websites:

• LinkedIn: Set up profiles for key employees. See “Getting Started with LinkedIn.”
• Facebook: Create a Facebook Fan Page for your business. See “Getting Started with Facebook.”
• Twitter: Set up a Twitter profile for your company or brand. See “Getting Started with Twitter.”
• Local Search: Set up listings for your business on Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Best of the Web Local, and Bing Local Listing Center, by visiting GetListed.org.
• Reviews: Set up a listing for your business on Yelp.

When

• Today: Set up profiles on the major sites. It takes about a day.
• Every day: Keep up with what’s happening in your industry or marketplace.
• Every week: Spend a few hours participating in conversations with people in your networks.
• As needed: Post news about your company.
  

Why

There are five main reasons companies should do social media marketing:

• It is now considered a best practice.
• It drives traffic to your website.
• It improves your search engine rankings.
• It lets you join the conversation.
• It amplifies your marketing messages.

For details, see “5 reasons companies should do social media marketing.”

How

It’s easy to get started with social media:

• Sign up for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, local search engines, and Yelp.
• Fill out the basic information (you can add more later).
• Join groups of peers and/or customers.
• Listen and get a feel for discussion etiquette.
• Get social by joining into conversations with your peers and customers. See “Connecting with customers through LinkedIn,” “Connecting with customers through Facebook,” and “Connecting with customers through Twitter.“

More information

• For more in-depth information about using social media marketing, take a look at “5 Steps in a Social Media Marketing Plan“  and “Promote your business using social media.”
• For an overview of the components in an online marketing strategy, check out the Marketing Treasure Map video.
• For details on the most popular social networking websites, check out the slideshare presentation called “Free Online Tools to Create Conversations.”

First, your customers are fragmented across the web. Your corporate website is no longer the sole destination for customers seeking information about your company. Your customers may be discussing your products and services on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo Answers, CNET, and eBay, as well as on countless forums across the web. It is up to you to make sure that you monitor the conversations going on in all corners of the web, hook into online communities that already exist, or create your own new communities. And get involved in the conversation whenever and wherever you can.

Second, there’s a rebellion inside your company fueled by social media. Marketing has spread throughout the entire enterprise through the adoption of social media tools, so more and more people are becoming the voices of your company. Teams no longer have to go through the public relations department to get messages to news organizations, and product groups no longer have to work with an analyst relations department to get their products into the hands of reviewers. You need well-developed strategy that will guide your company in the best uses of social media, plus internal processes that make it easy for employees to learn from one another, collaborate, and keep the messaging on track.

Finally, you should have a long-term strategy about social media that transcends current tools and tactics. You should think about mobile marketing, augmented reality, social media mail instead of traditional e-mail, and technologies that are still being developed today. And you should think holistically about your social media strategy to make sure that every department in your organization is using social media effectively.

You can’t afford to ignore the effects that social media is having on marketing across your enterprise.  You should be proactive and get involved, create standard processes for using social media, and plan for new social media technologies down the road. As one attendee said last night, “You can ignore social media if you don’t make any other mistakes.”

One of the great things about social media is that people who interact with your company through online social networks have chosen to connect with you. Either they have networked with you on LinkedIn, became a fan of your Facebook business page, followed you on Twitter, or searched for you online. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call these people your “fans.”

In all of these cases, your fans have decided that they want to hear from your company through online networks. But they also have joined with the understanding that social networks provide a forum for conversations, not one-way communication. Your job is to make sure you keep up healthy conversations between your company and your fans.

Post information on a regular basis

Once you have fans for your LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter profiles, everything that you post on your page or profile appears in the stream of information on your fans’ pages. Post regularly to your profiles, including a helpful, informative collection of stories. It doesn’t have to be every day—depending on your industry, once a week could be enough.

Share a variety of posts

The information you share on social networks should help create awareness of your company’s products or services, but you also should include helpful information that isn’t directly self-promotional. You should certainly share information about recent business successes, current products, the latest news about your company, and current promotions. But you also should include information that is helpful or interesting to your customers, but not necessarily directly related to your company. You might share information about your customers’ industry, events related to your products or services, or news about complementary products or services. You can share photos of company staff members, video from events, the slides from a recent presentation, or images of your products in use.

Encourage conversations

Research shows that customers who interact with you online are more likely to purchase from you in the future, so it makes good business sense to encourage your fans to interact with your company. Your fans might like to comment on your posts, share their own photos or stories, and recommend your company to others. You can also encourage participation by creating online polls, requesting feedback on your services, creating a contest, or even asking for product ideas. Register on local search sites and product review sites to create a forum for customer reviews and recommendations. And be available to answer questions asked by your fans. Social networks are a great way to provide instant customer service, getting real-time feedback on your company and creating long-term relationships with your customers.

Lead fans to your regular website
When researching purchases, the majority of Americans use online searches, and most of them visit company websites before making a purchase decision. Having high-quality links to your company’s website improves your ranking in search engines. Creating links from social networks to your website helps lead visitors to pertinent information on your website and helps improve your ranking by providing more links to your site. And when your fans link to your website, their links give your site’s ranking a further boost.

Expand your business
Social networks let you connect with customers, colleagues, and vendors who are anywhere in the world. You can use online networks to reach out to people who you normally wouldn’t get a chance to meet, sharing resources, getting recommendations, and promoting your company in markets or distant locations.

And through the relationships you build online, you can grow a thriving business with a healthy, active online community.