Feb
8th

Try Not To Get Lost Out There

Posted by Nick on February 8, 2010 at 10:02 am

I am, as my sister recently called me, a “Lost Junkie.” You know, that television show about a plane crash on a mysterious island full of whispers, monsters and all sorts of other crazy stuff. With the recent start of the show’s final season, I’ve switched back into full addiction mode, which has naturally caused my pondering of the show to cross over into my day-to-day thinking about digital marketing. Specifically, it got me thinking about marketing strategies as a whole, which led to the following idea:

When it comes to your marketing strategy, don’t get stuck on an island.

Yes, it sounds cheesy, but hear me out. What I’m basically saying is that from time to time it pays to step back and take a look at the big picture. Take a look at your marketing strategy and ask yourself what’s working, what’s not and whether there any areas of your business that could benefit from additional marketing efforts. There are a variety of exciting, new marketing methods available to businesses today, but not everyone is utilizing these channels to reach their existing and potential audiences.

So what do I mean when I say, “Don’t get stuck on an island”? I’m talking about not being afraid to try new marketing initiatives and not focusing so much on a single marketing effort. Sure, a single method might be working like gangbusters for you and that’s great. You should continue to pursue it. Just don’t be afraid to try something new. Perhaps you’ve already established your business in its specific natural search space. But have you thought about branching out into social media? Maybe you’ve promoted your business through PPC for years and have never given much thought to your site’s natural presence in the engines, or the site’s design and how it might be affecting your user experience. Some SEO or design work might be just the thing you need to establish yourself in the natural space.

The overall lesson here is that there’s a lot of opportunity out there. While your current efforts might be working great, if you don’t take some time every once in a while to look at your total marketing strategy, you may find that you’ve also become stranded on a veritable marketing-island. And monsters or not, that sounds a little scary to me.

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Feb
5th

Square: Accept Credit Card Payments On Your Phone

Posted by Mike on February 5, 2010 at 9:10 am

So you’ve heard of this little thing called Twitter, right? Well, one of Twitter’s co-founders, Jack Dorsey, is already moving on with plans for the next big thing and it’s called Square. Square is a combination of hardware and software that will allow for anyone with a supported mobile phone to accept credit card payments on-the-go. Square is currently up and running on the iPhone, iPod Touch and Android phones. Other devices are likely to be supported in the future.

The hardware part of Square comes in the form of a square (hence the name) adaptor that plugs into a mobile device’s headphone jack. Once connected, all that’s needed is a swipe of a credit card through the device to begin the payment process.

Signatures are collected from the cardholder by signing on the device’s touch-screen. Receipts are sent to the purchaser via email and contain the location where the purchase was made (assuming the device is GPS-enabled), signature, merchant information and amount of the transaction.

The best thing about the Square adapter is that it will be FREE. Also, one penny of every transaction will be donated to charity. Expect for Square to launch sometime in March, and in the meantime, you can watch the video below to see Square in action:

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Feb
4th

Oneupweb Founder and CEO Named 2010 Enterprising Woman of the Year

Posted by Natalie on February 4, 2010 at 4:59 pm

On one of my first days here, Oneupweb’s Founder and CEO Lisa Wehr sat me and a couple other new employees down to tell us a little more about herself and the history of the company. I was shocked when she finished! How could she go from racing sled dogs through the Alaskan wilderness to becoming the Founder and CEO of a digital marketing agency? I’ve since found out.

I learned very quickly that Be Relentless™ isn’t just the tagline at Oneupweb, it’s the lifestyle. And Lisa Wehr continues to serve as a testament of how far this frame of mind can take you. The advisory board sifting through the hundreds of nominations for the 2010 Enterprising Women of the Year award must have agreed because they’ve just named her a winner of a 2010 Enterprising Woman of the Year award. And we couldn’t be more thrilled!

Despite a collapsed economy, Lisa led by example. She stayed focused and determined—relentless in her pursuit to tread through the economic sludge. And she did just that.

We’re thrilled that our leader has received such a distinction. As an employee, it gives me great honor and comfort to know that despite the nation’s current economic circumstances, our CEO did an exemplary job of towing us all through it. And a result of her relentless leadership, Oneupweb has become a stronger company.

2009 was not kind to many businesses, and unfortunately, many are still fighting their way out of the economic rubble the recession left in its wake. But this award serves as proof that a relentless mindset can carry nearly anyone or any company through just about anything. Congratulations Lisa!

Here’s a link to the Oneupweb press release.

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Feb
3rd

Stay The Course

Posted by Krista on February 3, 2010 at 4:51 pm

As we move steadily through 2010, some of the old habits we resolved to change have managed to sneak back into our routines. Our schedules have accelerated back to overload and in an attempt to get it all done, we’re constantly looking for ways to make things easier. Let’s face it, we like to check boxes for the sake of seeing one less thing on our “to-do” lists. But be careful…

We have all experienced the repercussions of using shortcuts. Take SEO, for example. When organizations stuff websites with unfocused keywords or employ spammy linking strategies in order to appeal to search engines, it can detract from the user’s experience. A much better course includes implementing a focused SEO strategy that keeps usability a priority.

Let’s be realistic. Set goals that you want to achieve, take the necessary actions to accomplish them and when you hit the first road bump, keep going. Those issues will only add focus to your goals and present an opportunity to make it right. Throwing in a bunch of content and manipulating a site for the eyes of search engines is like a piñata at a kid’s birthday party. It may rain candy, but you may also have a swarm of users on a sugar kick that just learned how to wield a stick. Keeping your customers’ needs at the forefront of your marketing efforts will pay off

Take the time to formulate a strategy and stay the course, because anything worth doing is worth doing right. And if you’re looking for people who will get it done right from the get-go, contact Oneupweb. We are digital marketers driven to communicating your brand to an exciting online world.

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Feb
2nd

Thoughts On The iPad, Flash And Online Video

Posted by jprentice on February 2, 2010 at 10:12 am

Ah yes, the iPad. Shrouded in secrecy until its recent unveiling, this newest gadget from Apple was the subject of nigh rabid speculation regarding its features, form factor and name. Post-launch, the product is still being hotly discussed, but one feature in particular (or lack thereof) seems to have grabbed quite a bit of attention: no native support for Adobe Flash.

This is nothing new for Apple. The iPhone and iPod Touch have lacked any support for Flash since coming to market, relying on custom apps to allow access to content on sites like YouTube (which ordinarily streams content as Flash video files). As described in an earlier post on this blog, Adobe has once again found themselves with the ball in their court. I wouldn’t be surprised if Adobe Flash Professional CS5 winds up able to compile apps for both the iPhone and the iPad. Or who knows, maybe that’s a CS6 feature?

But why take such a hard line against Flash with the iPad? First, Apple has been consistent in its position that Flash is too resource intensive for its mobile devices, citing decreased battery life and processor strain as the two primary examples of why it could be considered advantageous to drop support altogether. Secondly, Apple is pushing standards with the launch of this device—HTML5 specifically.

By supporting HTML5, Apple has enabled the iPad to stream video content without the need for a browser plugin. Most mainstream video content providers, including YouTube, are already moving to adopt HTML5. Currently, web browsers Opera and (unsurprisingly) Apple’s own Safari boast strong support of HTML5, while Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer lags far behind.

It would be unwise to take all of this as reason to be dismissive of Flash altogether, however. Roughly 96 percent of internet users have some version of Adobe’s Flash installed on their computers. While HTML5 may be the future of video distribution on the web, Flash developers continue to push the platform’s boundaries, delivering not only video, but games, advertising and interactive media to a steadily growing global market.

We may be just catching a glimpse of the end of Adobe’s market dominance on the horizon, but in the meantime, it’s still the 800 pound gorilla in the room when it comes to the multimedia content being consumed by the one billion plus global internet users online in 2010. Apple’s decision to essentially “lock out” its iPad users from this type of content may have been intended to be a push toward the future, but could wind up hurting them in the end.

Pushing standards is one thing, but denying people access to content they have become widely accustomed to consuming is another thing entirely.

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