High Rock Studios

2011 High Rock Marketing Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Daughtridge) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 02:26:00 +0000

We’re excited to announce the date for the 3rd Annual High Rock Marketing Summit – Friday, March 11th in Hagerstown, Maryland. Our focus this year will be solely on internet marketing, including the topics of website design, mobile-friendly websites, blogging, search engine marketing, social media marketing, email marketing and more. We have also reformatted this year’s seminar into a ½ day event and lunch is included.

As always, we’ll add our own unique twist on the “typical seminar”. This year our theme this is “Internet Marketing for the Unlucky”. Please find enclosed a brochure with all the details. To register, visit www.highrockmarketingsummit.com.

Annual FREE T-shirt Giveaway

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Daughtridge) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:21:00 +0000

It’s that time of year again! Each year, HIGH ROCK STUDIOS launches a FREE T-Shirt Giveaway via email and social media outlets. Last year, 200 t-shirts were given away in less than 48 hours. Some t-shirts made it as far as Indonesia and Denmark.

This year, we’ve printed 400 t-shirts (because we always like to outdo ourselves) and went with a retro theme and a bold green color. Jeremy Bohner, Art Director at High Rock Studios, did his thing and came up with another cool, hip design. We have also ordered Small, Medium, Large and X-Large by popular demand.

Hurry -- the shirts will go fast again! To place your order, go to HIGHROCKSTUDIOS.EVENTBRITE.COM. Limit (1) per person. While supplies last.

The Making of "Hub City State of Mind"

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Wilkinson) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 17:26:00 +0000

High Rock Studios recently produced a rap video promoting Hagerstown and the Leitersburg Cinemas. As the video team here at High Rock, we’d like to tell you more about it.

We were inspired by numerous other YouTube parodies of Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” (a shout-out to New York City), so decided to call ours “Hub City State of Mind”, a shout-out to our very own Hagerstown. (You might be familiar with other similar parodies of Jay-Z’s hit song, such as the Minnesota and Weston versions.) With this interesting and somewhat peculiar trend in mind, we set out to give the Hub City some proper recognition.

Our star was Spencer Jackson, a Hagerstown hip-hop artis. Spencer raps about local businesses, events, and familiar places we all know in Hagerstown, so writing lyrics for the video was easy. For the female vocalist, we recruited Melody Belotte (wife of High Rock project manager Jonathan Belotte), who sings the chorus “Make this town yours, It’s what underdog dreams are made of, There’s nothing you can’t do...”

The video was released on YouTube on New Year’s eve, and since it’s debut, we’ve gotten an overwhelming viewer response. The current view count is over 70,000! We’ve also gotten a ton of comments on YouTube, and it’s been fascinating to see the hometown pride in our city! Many comments congratulated Spencer and Melody, and we’d also like to congratulate them on a job well done. Spencer and Melody’s performances really blew us away. Even when shooting outside at night in nearly unbearable cold, our stars held it together and pulled off a fantastic performance.

What you may not know about this rap video is that it was produced in less than a week. Spencer had already written and recorded the song when High Rock president Rich Daughtridge made plans to produce the video, and we originally intended to release it sometime in January. Rich then came to us with the idea of starting 2010 with a bang by releasing the video on New Year’s eve. It made perfect sense, as New Year’s eve would be an exciting kickoff for a video like this. Suddenly we were faced with pulling together the video by our New Year’s deadline less than a week away.

We wanted to make the video as much like the original version as possible. Spencer had done a great job rewriting Jay-Z’s lyrics to give the song a Hagerstown twist, while still maintaining clever similarities to the real song. We noted the original video was comprised largely of still images of New York between video sequences of Jay-Z rapping and Alicia Keys singing the chorus, so we tried to duplicate this format as much as possible. Over the course of an afternoon, we drove around town photographing various buildings, signs, and businesses. Josh Youngbar’s wife Erin also helped out by taking additional photos the same afternoon.

Once we had all of our images, we imported them into Final Cut Pro, converted them to black and white, and placed them in the editing timeline. Our placement of still images was based on either simulating the placement of images in Jay-Z’s video, or matching Spencer’s lyrics. We tried to stay consistent with the exact timing and size of the images in the original as well.

For Spencer’s appearances in the video, we chose different locations around Hagerstown for each verse. As you can see in the video, he is standing on Jonathan Street in the first verse, downtown in Public Sqaure in the second verse, and at Leitersburg Cinemas in the third. The video in each verse consists of a combination of different angles at each location.

With all the images and video in place, Spencer and Melody’s great performances, and the original video to guide us, everything fell into place. It was a fun little project, and we noted (with some amusement) that someone in nearby Frederick, Maryland jumped on the Jay-Z bandwagon with their own attempt. (We’ll let you judge which is better!)

The Concept of Friction on the Web

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Wilkinson) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:36:00 +0000

Ever have one of those mornings when nothing seems to go right? You sleep through your alarm…have to squeeze the last dribbles of shampoo from the bottle…you’re out of coffee…you hit every red light on the way to work. This is friction—the kind of obvious friction we’re all familiar with in everyday life.

Friction also exists on the web. Sometimes it’s obvious (such as not being able to get to a particular website at all), but most of the time it’s far more subtle. And that subtlety is why so few people notice it on a conscious level. On a subconscious level, though, it can wreak havoc on the experience of a visitor to your website—and keep them from returning.

Here are some real-world examples of friction on the web:

EXAMPLE 1 - Search fields that are too short. Many search fields are so short that if you type in a long phrase or group of keywords, you can’t see all of what you typed. (This is a real pain if you change your mind and have to select and delete what you just typed.) A search field needs to be long. Long enough so the user can actually see all the words they type. Here’s the wrong and right way to do it:

WRONG: Exxon-Mobil

RIGHT: Amazon.com

You might think “What’s the big deal?” Well that’s my point—it’s really not a big deal (people can still use search fields that are too short). But not being able to see all of what you type adds subtle friction to your experience.

EXERCISE: Go to that Exxon-Mobil page and type “financial and operating review” into the search box. Then delete it with the mouse (you can’t use Ctrl+A to select all, because many web users don’t know that shortcut). Then type “refineries in southern Louisiana.” Get the idea? Imagine doing this over and over. It would get really annoying. That’s friction. Now look at Amazon.com's search field—it's really long. This is good. People can type a novel into that field and see it all.

EXAMPLE 2 – Infuriating dropdown menus. Dropdown (or pulldown) menus have become common on the web. They’ve been a standard feature of software applications for years, so it’s logical to use them for website navigation. But there’s a lot of friction in how people implement them. Not everyone has the hands of a surgeon and is capable of ultra-precise mouse control. (And even if you are a surgeon, ultra-precise mouse control requires more time. Which means more friction.) Here’s the wrong and right way to do it—look at the primary (horizontal) navigation in both these sites…

WRONG: Flower Pot Heaven

RIGHT: Garden.com

In the first example (Flower Pot Heaven), to activate the dropdown menus you have to position the mouse cursor precisely over the tiny, down-facing arrows before each label. That’s friction. (Imagine someone with shaky hands trying to hit that bullseye with the mouse.) In the second example (Garden.com), the entire label is “hot,” and activating the dropdown menus is easy.

EXAMPLE 3 – Misleading and/or confusing information. This is a black hole’s worth of friction all over the web—sites that lead you on chases around the web for something you could have gotten to quicker and easier with the right info. Here are two examples: Try looking for information on rail travel on the following sites…

WRONG: Orbitz

RIGHT: Expedia

On the Orbitz site, after searching the navigation a bit, you see a link along the top of the page that says “Cars and Rail.” Clicking it takes you to a page with a form where you select the radio button for “Rail.” Then a graphic appears below the form that says “Rail Travel On Orbitz” with a “Find” button…and clicking this opens a completely different website (Amtrak) in a new browser window. (Huh?) So now you’re at Amtrak’s site (going through all their online forms), and Orbitz is still there. What do you do? Do you pay through Orbitz? Does Orbitz have anything to do with Amtrak? What if you still want to rent a car after you arrive on the train? This is friction.

Expedia, on the other hand, just doesn’t go there. Go their site looking for rail travel, and you see nothing. Some might say “Well Orbitz is better because they’re covering all modes of travel.” I disagree. Expedia knows they don’t handle rail travel, so they don’t send you off on some wild chase with misleading claims like “Rail Travel on Expedia!”

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I could go on and on citing examples of friction on the web. It’s everywhere. But the most important point is this: friction does not have to be significant to damage your site users’ experiences. Friction doesn’t mean people can’ t use your site. But it usually means it will take them just a little bit longer to do what they want to do. And this is not good.

Usability tests and eye-tracking studies have shown that friction can be as small a delay of a few milliseconds. Think of it this way: if it takes someone just a half-second longer to find something on your web page than it does on a competitor’s page, you lose. Because the insidious thing about friction is that it builds up in the subconscious—like plaque on your teeth.

If there are many friction-inducing elements on your website—even if each one requires only a half-second more of effort from the user—it leaves a “bad taste” in the user’s mind. And they’ll remember that, particularly if a competitor’s site is friction free.

On the web, no matter how much we love our great designs, no matter how much work we put into our text, no matter how much money and time was spent developing the site…the ONLY thing that matters to a user is…can they do what they came to your site to do with NO friction?

So take a look at your website. And in the best Zen tradition, be aware of anything that slows you down. And I mean anything. Make a list of typical tasks people might do on your site (e.g. finding specific information). Then carefully observe how long it takes to accomplish those tasks. Get different people to try it. And for every hesitation or pause—no matter how short—make a note and analyze what caused the hesitation. Then get rid of it. The more you do this, the more you'll give your users a friction-free experience...and the more they'll want to return to your site.

Apple’s iPad: A cool toy? Or is there more to the hype?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Wilkinson) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:17:00 +0000

PREFACE: This blog entry is not intended as advertisement for Apple’s iPad. High Rock Studios is in no way connected to Apple, and we use both Macs and PCs in our work. There are other similar tablet devices in the works, most notably HP’s “Slate,” which is based on Windows 7 and will display Flash content (unlike the iPad). But the iPad is the first tablet to really make an impression on the market, hence my focus on it. All tablets will potentially have a big impact!

It’s hard not to have heard of Apple’s iPad, soon to be in the hands of countless Apple fans (the device is officially available on April 3^rd.) But the iPad appeals to more people than Apple fans. I’m a lifelong PC user, and I’m planning to buy an iPad. Why? Read on…

The iPad will push the print publishing industry farther into the digital realm than ever before. We’ve been hearing for a long time that one day print won’t exist (and many trees will be saved). It was a pipe dream for years, and then devices like Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eReader started the revolution. The problem with these devices is that reading is all they’re good for. People still balked at the clunky tablets and limited grayscale displays. They still preferred the simple lightness and comfort of paper.

Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone became phenomenally popular due to a brilliant display, a well-designed interface, thousands of really cool games, and (most importantly) the ability to do really useful things—like level a picture on the wall, tell where the sun will be in the sky at 10:30am next Thursday, and wirelessly control other devices.

The iPad puts all these qualities into a sleek, beautiful tablet that’s a pleasure to hold. The sharp, well-lit display is as easy on the eye as any electronic device can be, and what makes it superior to previous
e-reading devices is that it does much more than display text. It displays video, photographs, websites, plays music, and runs applications in what is arguably the best form factor of any device to date. And it even lets you turn pages. Not just “click to advance” to the next page…but literally peel the leaf from side to side, in the same smooth, slow rolling motion we use with paper. This might seem like silly eye-candy to some, but I think it’s a crucial detail for the widespread adoption of e-reading—because it’s familiar. And that’s a good thing.

What this means for the print publishing industry is now there is a device that can display (for example) an e-magazine with all the brilliance and beauty of its paper counterpart. And it’s comfortable to hold and easy to use. That’s what distinguishes reading a magazine on the iPad from reading it on your computer. Publishers will be able to offer periodicals via the web—formatted for the iPad—at reasonable prices (less than the printed version). This is huge. And people will go for it. (Even your grandmother will go for it.)

Better still, the iPad has the potential to increase sales for publishers and get more people reading their work. Here’s a perfect example: as a teenager, I loved National Geographic magazine. My mother bought me a subscription, and I couldn’t wait to get lost in those amazing photographs and stories. Now, as an adult, it’s been years since I even held a print copy of National Geographic, much less bought one. And I never go to their website, because when I’m in the mood to get lost in stories about exotic places, I don’t want to sit at my desk or have a hot, clunky laptop on my legs. But I’d be happy to pay a few dollars for the iPad version of the magazine and be able to sit on my porch on a spring morning and rediscover this great publication—without fear of accumulating 100-pound boxes of old issues.

Beyond reading, viewing photos, watching movies, playing music , and surfing the web…a question that’s being thrown around a lot is whether the iPad will have any legitimate business uses? This is a good question, because all of us business folks would love an excuse to justify getting a handful of iPads for the office. Let’s take a look at some of the potential business uses for the iPad, and preface it with this caveat: like any device, getting the best use of an iPad will depend largely on recognizing the device’s strengths and weaknesses. Too often we’re obsessed with the “One Device to Rule Them All” concept…and this just isn’t reality. We can’t maintain our yards with a single tool, and we shouldn’t expect to do business with a single device.

The Top 5 Business Uses/Reasons for an iPad

1. It’s a great presentation tool. Nothing will look as slick (nor be as convenient) as sliding an iPad from it’s case and lighting up the screen with your…umm…Powerpoint presentation. Okay, so maybe your Powerpoint show needs work, but it’ll be a lot friendlier on an iPad. And regardless of whether Powerpoint will ever exist for the iPad, you’ll likely be able to create the show on a PC and import it into Apple’s Keynote on the iPad.

2. It’s easy to pass around. How many times have you wanted to show someone a photo or diagram on your laptop, and you had to shove your laptop over to them or they had to get out of their chair and stand over your shoulder. With the iPad, no more—it’s as easy to hand off as a legal pad.

3. It will run the 150,000+ iPhone apps in Apple’s App Store. Not all of these apps will be formatted specifically for the iPad at first, but developers will be converting their iPhone apps quickly. (And you can still run them even if not formatted for the iPad—they’ll just look a little small or a little large on the iPad’s screen.) And while a lot of these apps are games, many are brilliantly-designed, functional tools. Depending on your business, this could be a big advantage. From ballistics specifications to music composition to video storyboarding to language translation, I believe some of the best, most creative software development in the world is going into App Store apps. And you’ll no longer have to have an iPhone or iPod Touch to use them—you can keep your BlackBerry and have the best of both worlds!

4. It will make working-on-the-go easier. I hate that cliché, but it’s true. Some have pointed out that you can’t do with an iPad what you can do with a laptop or desktop computer. Maybe not, but you can review documents, videos, presentations, and edit/annotate them on an iPad. I’m a writer, and I’d have no problem writing on an iPad with the addition of a physical keyboard (which you’ll easily be able to use with an iPad). The iPad will be easier to carry than a laptop, and it will be more pleasant to use for reading and reviewing than an iPhone or BlackBerry.

5. It will be a great portable reference tool. Whether you need to find information on the web or refer to business-specific documentation, the iPad’s strengths as an e-reader will make it an excellent reference tool—not just because of how it looks, but because people won’t mind hauling it around. Yes, it’s bigger and heavier than a smartphone…but it’s a heck of a lot nicer and easier to use than a laptop.

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As with any new technology, there are plenty of people smugly disparaging the iPad as a legitimate business device…but their arguments in my opinion ring hollow. The most common complaints come from corporate IT managers who dismiss the iPad because it can’t easily be locked into a hyper-controlled, secured link in the corporate network chain. But it wasn’t meant for this.

Above all, the iPad is meant to be a communications tool. Its strength is how it can convince and motivate people and compel them to action through photographs, sound, and text. For businesses that rely on good communication (and who doesn’t?), this is big.

SEO & PPC That Pays For Itself: 7 Questions You Have to Answer

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:00:00 +0000

We all want more traffic, no question about it, but why? It sounds like a stupid question, but it’s one that many small and medium businesses fail to thoroughly answer. Let’s get it out of the way; NO, “To get more business/customers/clients” is not an acceptable answer. That’s like saying “Why did I start my own business? To make money of course”. To determine why you want more traffic, you have to seriously answer these 7 basic questions:

Who should be coming to your website?
Identifying your target visitor can be a relatively simple procedure if you have an ecommerce site selling hardware, but can be a little trickier for business to business. This step really should be thoroughly defined, checked and redefined before even building a website. Even if you have a general idea, you need to write it down.
Where do those potential visitors search?
Don’t know where to start on this one? Check your site statistics to see how people are getting to your site. Talk to employees that have direct contact with the customers. Talk to existing and potential customers/clients in person or through an email survey. Don’t have a database of your customer’s email addresses? Open a MailChimp account and start collecting them now.
How do they search?
Are visitors coming to your website to research or make a purchase? Keep in mind that shoppers often use the internet to research a product or service before making the buying decision. Are they clicking on paid links or organic results? Sometimes the only way to answer this is by testing low-budget Adword campaigns. Most important, what words are they searching for? While this particular point will be researched thoroughly by an SEO/PPC professional, you can check ahead of time for yourself with free tools like Google Trends, or the Google Keyword Tool.
How do they browse page results?
If you don’t have log stats or analytics on your site, immediately stop what you’re doing and get a free Google Analytics account. If you do, go through your site navigation and content sections thoroughly to see how visitors are navigating through your site. If you know where you would like them to go, and it’s not apparently where they are going, then you’ve identified an opportunity to improve your site’s usability. For more information, check out Useful Usability or read through this article on Smashing Magazine.
What do visitors do when they get there?
This is a big one folks! What the heck could you possibly have to offer that these visitors would want, care about, or be able to get elsewhere? This is really only something you can answer. You know your business better than any consultant, marketing firm, or SEO guru out there, so define this or you’ll end up paying them to do it for you. What really distinguishes you from your competition? How do you that translate to your website?

Brainstorm:
- Are visitors coming for information that you possess?
  Inform them succinctly, but don’t be withholding -- nobody likes a tease. Convince them it’s worth giving you their name and email address in exchange for a whitepaper or article that they can download and print out. Content is king!
- Do they want a better way to do what your company offers?
  Hit the competition where it hurts by explaining to the visitor why they need you.
- Are the majority of your potential visitors unaware that your product exists?
  Find and educate them.
- Do they want to buy what you’re selling?
  Remind them why in your content and especially in the titles above your content.
How will you capture leads and track results?
This is a freebie and we touched on it before: Google Analytics. If you’re using a paid tracking service, that’s fine too, as long as you’re collecting tracking information and constantly reviewing it for opportunities to improve your conversion rates. 
How much is each visitor worth?
The most unanswered question, hands down: what’s the traffic worth? If this wasn’t the most intimidating, it would have been the first question and in all caps, but that would have scared most of you away so we’re saving it for last. While you probably can’t answer this without having a good 3-6 months of conversion tracking data, you need to start with something. If 15% of your visitors are captured in the form of leads, and 10% of them become customers/clients, and your average client/customer spends $1,500 a year on your products/services, each unique visitor is worth about $1.87. As important as it is to define this number initially, you have to CONSTANTLY monitor these numbers in an on-going basis. Luckily with robust and free tracking solutions like Google Analytics (yes, there are others, but why bother? Go with Google Analytics!), you can set trackable goals (visitor arrives, completes contact form to get to the contact confirmation page --boom -- visitor to lead) and assign values to each goal. Easy as that.*

Great, now we know the who, what, where, and how but what does that have to do with the why?

Have you thoroughly answered the 7 questions above?

I know you haven’t, but that’s okay, because who stops in the middle of a blog to do an assignment? But you’re going to sit down and answer the questions, right? Good!

Okay, enough stalling:
Why do you want more traffic to your website?
That’s a stupid question! It’s to get more business/customers/clients! HA! You should have seen the look on your face...classic.

But really -- now that you know why the traffic will come, how much you should spend getting it, and what you should expect to earn in return.

*Serious Note: We’re having fun, I like the light sarcastic approach when it comes to intimidating subjects like SEO, but this last question is the difference between knowing what your website’s doing for you and throwing money away on marketers. If you don’t know how much your traffic is worth, than what is it doing for you and why are you spending money to get it. Tracking this and correlating it to your website stats is ultimately the responsibility of the company handling your online marketing efforts, but not all of them force you to define this and if you don’t understand it, than you have no way of knowing what you’re paying for and they have no way of proving the value they’re providing you.

Getting Your Feet Wet in Social Media Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Miller) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:40:00 +0000

For many businesses and businesspeople the prospect of getting into social media and social networking is overwhelming. Even for veterans of web and social marketing, the ocean of social technologies can appear daunting at times. With thousands of new networks, communities, blogs and widgets hitting the Internet every day, it’s easy to feel like you’re going to drown. But, social media marketing is like other skills that can be learned.

Here are a few first steps that we recommend to help you get your feet wet:

1. Gear up.
I always do a bit research before diving into a new endeavor. There are many reliable sources online and offline that provide trending news, instruction and information on social media.

Online publications like Mashable and MediaWeek feature the latest social media news and articles.
There are literally millions of blogs on the Internet. There are blogs specific to social media that provide first-hand, experiential knowledge, stories and web tutorials from the beginner level basics to advanced metrics analysis and everything in between. Outside of social media, there are ones that are specific to your industry or interest. Underwater basketweaving anyone?
Most social media sites themselves offer How To’s and Best Practices.
If you are a more traditional learner there are a few good books that bring the fundamentals of social media offline:

The For Dummies series has books on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube as well as Social Media and Social Media Marketing
Groundswell by Charlene Li is an introduction the current state of social networking and what to do about it from a business perspective.

2. Splash around.
Before you go signing your company up for a bunch of social media accounts, start with your own personal accounts. It’s important to understand how to use the tools and controls available within various social media networks.

Begin with social networks that are relevant to you or your line of work. That way, you’ll have more to talk about. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the dominant social networks for business professionals.
Personalize your accounts. Many social media networks allow you to customize your public-facing pages including avatars, images and colors.
Observe how people in the community act and communicate.
Get to know your audience and their social media habits. If you want to know where to fish, casting your line where the fish are is always a good move. Figuring out where your audience is spending their time is not too difficult, however. Look for conversations and activity within the social networks that you can eventually participate in.
Learn the terminology and vernacular – tweet something; poke someone; become mayor
Be polite and courteous – use good manners especially if you’re representing yourself professionally.
Social media is not all business. In fact, social media is an entertainment outlet for millions of users. So make sure you have fun.

3. Create a plan.
If you want to create a sustainable, effective social media presence you have to create a plan.“Without a plan, there's no attack. Without attack, no victory.” One Crazy Summer, 1986.

Make sure to first focus on strategy, not tactics. Strategy is the bigger picture goal. Tactics are the tools you will implement or put in place to help you achieve that goal. Some good questions to ask yourself:

What do I want to achieve with social media?
How can we effectively use social media tools to reach my audience?
How will I measure success?

Pick a few social media networks. Determine which communities your audience is most actively engaged and gear you efforts to those environments and tools.
Budget your time and efforts. An hour a day should cover most small social media campaigns.
Set realistic goals. Don’t expect immediate results. Though overnight success has been known to happen online, the majority of social media efforts take time and work.
Delegate responsibilities (unless you’re a one-person operation) among two or more people. Divvy up responsibilities – that way no one person is burdened and more people know what’s going on.
Send a consistent message across social media networks. Everyone should follow the plan and be aware of what the goals are.
Make sure your message is actionable in some way. Measureable actions can be used later to determine the success of your efforts.
Use a social media management tool like Hootsuite to schedule posts. This can not only save time, but also help you track posts.

4. Dive in.
You’ve done your research, you've played around with the tools and you have a plan. Now its time to take off the floaties and start your social campaign.

Marketing a product or service in the social web will undoubtedly fail if it’s a one-way communication. In this environment sharing, collaboration and interaction are key. Don’t just broadcast a message into the social stratosphere.
Create content that adds value to the community. You won't attract the right followers if what you post is not relevant to their interests.
Listen and be responsive. If someone asks a question, answer it. Encourage good comments, i.e. "Thank you for the RT." Respond to negative comments only if you can resolve the issue or put a positive tone on it, i.e. "I’m sorry you had a bad exp at our restaurant. We'd like to make it up to you. Come back & ask for our Mgr, Joe." Be careful giving things away to negative commenters. Otherwise, be prepared for a lot of complainers expecting free stuff.
Be authentic and truthful. Building a loyal audience will require establishing trust.
DO NOT SPAM!

5. Measure.
Numbers on may be difficult to gage when determining the effectiveness of your campaign. It may take a little digging and cross-examination to find the information you require.

The number of subscribers, fans or followers you have are “soft" numbers. Meaning, they do not directly increase your revenues. However, they can indicate the popularity and spread of your brand, your product, your service or you. Be careful not to place too much value on quantity. These numbers can be artificially influenced. So take some time to evaluate who is following you.
One way you can tell if your social media efforts are working is to look at the traffic reports of your website to see where people are coming from.
If you use Google Analytics or Urchin you can set up specific “goals” to track and measure if people are taking desired actions on your site.
Using URL-tracking services like Google's URL Builder, bit.ly or HootSuite can give you some insight on the number of clicks, date, origin (region) and user ratings of the links you post,

To the social media outsider, this can look like a vast abyss with a host of uncertain challenges, strong undercurrents and unpredictable surges, not to mention, some really odd creatures. Navigating the social web and casting your lines in the right place takes a bit of experience. And, like any venture, a measure of risk is involved. You need to put yourself out there, plan, work hard and keep focused on your goals. Success doesn’t happen easily, but for the businesses willing to take the plunge, it’s an ocean of opportunity.

Marketing Summit Q’s and A’s Part 2: Email Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Wilkinson) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:01:00 +0000

At the 2010 Marketing Summit in January, we collected questions from the attendees on a variety of topics. Some of these questions were answered during a Q&A session at the end of the summit, but some weren’t. We continue our responses below in Part 2: Email Marketing.

Can anyone sign up for MailChimp and use it? Or do you need to be a High Rock client?

MailChimp is a service available to anyone. Even better, you can sign up for an account that allows you to store up to 500 subscribers and send up to 3,000 emails a month for free. (Of course by working with High Rock Studios, you can escape the standard MailChimp email templates and get a beautiful design uniquely your own!)

Regarding spam, can you send email marketing messages to people with whom you have a relationship— for example, a prospect you met but who hasn’t opted to receive your email communications?

It generally isn’t considered good “netiquette” to send marketing emails to anyone who hasn’t requested them. We recommend using your normal email client (Outlook, Mail, Thunderbird, etc) to let your prospect know they can choose to subscribe to your newsletter, then link to the MailChimp signup page for your newsletter (which you’ll get when you sign up for a MailChimp account). MailChimp requires double opt-in, which means anyone added to your list receives an email requesting confirmation of their addition.

If someone emails your business or organization, can you automatically put their email on your “blast list?”

Again, good netiquette requires that you let the sender know where or how to sign up for your email blast…and give them a choice. You could make it easy by setting up an email autoresponder that automatically replies to email sent to a generic address like info@domain.com. You thank them for contacting and provides a link for them to subscribe to your email blasts. See MailChimp’s online video, “List Etiquette.”

What constitutes permission to send email blast?

This is pretty simple: If you’re at all unsure, then you do NOT have permission. Or to put it more concretely, permission means people requested email marketing from you. check out MailChimp’s excellent article “Common Email Marketing Rookie Mistakes” for more.

Does the customer need to specifically give approval? Or, if they are an existing customer is that construed as approval?

Yes, a customer must specifically request email marketing from you. (See the questions and links above.)

Help describe ways I can educate colleagues that sending full press releases is NOT email marketing.

Hmm. This is a difficult question. Generally speaking, the rules that apply for email marketing apply to press releases—that is, you shouldn’t send a press release to random individuals who didn’t request it. On the other hand, sending a press release to an established media outlet is okay, because the media expects to receive press releases (that’s how they get a lot of their news). Is a press release a kind of email marketing? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Use your best judgement.

Proper Typography

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:03:00 +0000

Sensible use of typography in web pages is often over looked. Commonly is it just content copy and pasted from an email or Word document, placed on the page with little or no thought. Subtle changes / edits to a paragraph or paragraphs can make a big difference in readability and visual appeal. Here are three examples of the same two paragraphs, each with an individual problem: (I have abbreviated the Gettysburg address .. I do apologize to Mr. Lincoln)

Example 1:
Double spaces after each sentence

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

In a larger sense, we can not dedicate this ground. The brave men have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Problem:
Double spaces after a period leave gaps in the text and when those gaps line up they can create what is called a ‘river’ (which can be very distracting to a reader)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Example 2:
A return and an indent to separate paragraphs

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

In a larger sense, we can not dedicate this ground. The brave men have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Problem:
To separate paragraphs there is no need to hit the return key and then the tab. One or the other, not both.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Example 3:
Changing justification

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

In a larger sense, we can not dedicate this ground. The brave men have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Problem:
Justification is the alignment of a body of text. Left Justified, Right Justified, etc... Pick one and stick with it. It is very distracting to change justification in the middle of body copy.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Example 4:
The right way

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

In a larger sense, we can not dedicate this ground. The brave men have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

No Problem - summary:
All text is left justified, paragraphs are properly spaced and not indented, and there are no rivers or gaps. It is subtle — but if these ‘minor’ problems were expanded to a full page of text it can make for difficult reading. Little changes and an attention to detail can turn a boring page of text into designed typography.

Marketing Summit Q’s and A’s Part 1: Social Networking

noreply@blogger.com (Dave M. Schleigh) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:36:00 +0000

This is the first in a series of responses to questions we collected from attendees at the 2010 High Rock Marketing Summit in January. Check back, as we’ll be posting answers to other questions soon.

How can one find someone reliable to help setup social networking sites?
Start with someone you trust that's already using social media sites on a regular basis. The initial setup is very straightforward for most of the big social media sites. The difficult part is regularly updating them and replying to comments and questions. Because social media sites were pioneered by “regular” people, it isn’t easy to find “social media professionals”…but that’s changing. (A web search on “social media consultants” is one place to start.) For interested local organizations, High Rock Studios offers a Social Media Toolkit to help you get started. Call High Rock Studios at (301) 791-1221 for more information.

How do you stay on top of what’s “in?” How do you stay in the loop?
Keeping up with social media trends, tools and best practices requires you to perform two tasks at least 15-30 minutes a day: first, login and use the site as it's intended—the majority of the latest trends start and spread on the very sites that they're impacting. Second, check out each of the social media sites’ and search engines’ corporate blogs, as well as sites that are dedicated to discussing these services (like mashable.com).

Why don’t you like MySpace?
MySpace has, in the last two years, lost a significant number of users 18 and older. The majority of their users are younger than 16 or are registered on MySpace as musicians and use the site to promote their bands and projects. Roughly 60% of Facebook's 350 million users are 18-54, over 50% of their users are 25-54. So when deciding where to devote your resources, Facebook is (for now, anyway) most likely where your potential customers are located.

How can I boost the number of people who see my Fan page on Facebook?
Include the Facebook page on your marketing materials and business cards. If you have more than 25 fans, set up a custom web address to make it easier to get to your page (just visit facebook.com/username (where “username” is your Facebook username),and click Set Username for Pages). You can also include a link to the Fan page in your email signature or email marketing campaign...but most importantly, update your Facebook page at LEAST 1-2 times a day and reply to the comments left on previous posts...social media requires you to socialize!

How do you handle uncontrolled comments and/or negative comments across social media?
It's pretty easy to tell when a comment is from someone trying to cause problems (which, believe it or not, has yet to happen on any of the Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter pages that we've setup or managed for our clients). Conversely, it’s easy to tell when an actual customer or client has an actual complaint.

If the latter occurs, you have the unique opportunity—for the first time—of publicly responding to what would have otherwise been negative word-of-mouth. Had that person not posted that comment online, they most likely would let their family/friends/clients/etc know what they thought, and the strongest form of advertising is (and has always been) word-of-mouth. If the comment is just meant to be malicious or rude, and you don't see a productive way to address the statement, you can always delete it and remove the user as a fan. It's as simple as that.

How do you post a comment on the “Wall” of Facebook? Do all of the friends on Facebook see the “Wall”?
The terms used on these sites tend to overcomplicate the way they work. And unfortunately, there’s no way to explain how they work without using their terms, so…you'll have to take our word it when we say, it's harder to explain than it is to actually use and understand! So signup for a personal account, start using it, and if you aren't sure what's going on, there's always a help button at the top. (We know that’s not the best answer, but it’s better than a detailed, step-by-step response.)

What is the difference between views vs clicks for Facebook ads?
Facebook offers advertising options in two fundamental ways. CPM, a term that comes from print advertising, means Cost Per Thousand (Roman numeral M). So, for a company wanting to improve brand recognition, this method probably makes more sense. The other way is Cost Per Click, which is how Google's AdWords works. You specify a daily budget (limit), and pay a certain amount per click (usually less than a dollar, depending on how competitive your location/keywords/etc are). Both methods allow you to specify the location, age, sex, keywords, education, workplace, relationship status, interest and languages spoken when determining who sees your ad.

When you find someone praising your company can you link to that post or do you need their permission?
To date, you can legally link to any post or page that's publicly available on the Internet. However, if you want to reuse that comment, you need to ask the permission of the person that left it—which you can do by simply responding to their comment with something like "Wow, thanks— we're glad to hear you like our product. Would you mind if we post your feedback on our website?" If someone took the time to leave a nice message about your service, they'll most likely be tickled to have it show up on the website of the company they're praising.

Some of the success of this technology is the “wow” factor. Is there a way to determine which venues are temporary & which will endure beyond “wow”?
Nope. For the majority of us that are trendsetting mavens, it works in much the same way fashion trends become popular. That being said, if there's a particular aspect of a service or site that you find difficult to understand (or tedious to accomplish), then you're most likely not the only one, and you've probably identified a solution that could be solved by the next 'big thing'.

Do a “Fan” page and a ‘Group’ page on Facebook have to be tied to a ‘Friend’ page?
You can’t create a Facebook Group or Fan page without first having a personal account (a ‘Friend’ page). Put differently, everything on Facebook begins with a single individual (a personal account).

If you are staff who has setup or is taking care of a Facebook page, how do you separate the business page from a personal account?
Personal accounts are not tied to Facebook pages—you can set up a Facebook Fan page with your personal account and without being listed as a fan of the page. If you don’t “Fan” that page (which would be silly) you don’t appear on that page anywhere. Also, other fans don’t know the identity of the page’s creator—the admin is simply listed as one of many fans.

Facebook Etiquette: Is it appropriate to post events on Group pages you have joined?
First, ask yourself this: is the event you want to post appropriate or related in any way to the Group page where you want to post it? Use your judgement. You can always ask yourself “If someone else was doing this, would I consider it self-promotion or spam?”

How do you instantly update all social media sites at once? Integrate Social Media?
HootSuite.com is a powerful tool that allows you to write multiple posts to sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter…then (this is the cool part) schedule each of your posts to appear on their respective sites at specific times you determine. So if you were going away for a week, you could write week’s worth of posts at once, schedule one to go out each day, and nobody even knows you’re gone!

When posting images on social media sites, how can you protect against copyright piracy of such images and content?
If it’s online anywhere and someone wants it bad enough, they can take your content. This is just the reality for public pages on the Internet. But keep in mind that web images are typically low-resolution images that can’t be used for quality printing. Technically speaking, your work is copyrighted from the moment of creation, but you’d still need some way to prove you created it if you ever found yourself in court. This is where the old saying “you reap what you sow” comes into play. Be a good “netizen,” and chances are you’ll be fine.

Do retail businesses use YouTube or Other social media tools to find and learn about new products or services from their suppliers? Is there hard data to support the use of social sites for B2B marketing?
If you were to put B2B efforts in one place it would be LinkedIn, which is primarily used to maintain business relationships. As far as retail uses for YouTube---check out some of the view counts for
Will It Blend? Also see: YouTube Advertising.

I have a client who is involved in international defense. How can I ensure top secret security in a social media campaign?
If you wouldn’t make the content available publicly on a website, it shouldn’t go into a social media campaign.

Cure for the Common Marketing Cold

noreply@blogger.com (Dave M. Schleigh) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:40:00 +0000

[By Jonathan Belotte, Account Representative at High Rock Studios]

It takes a unique breed of person to fill the position of an “account rep” in the web and media world. It's definitely not a walk in the park, and actually, it's more like a day in the emergency room!

If you search Google, you'll find that an account representative is defined as "someone in charge of a client's account for an advertising agency…or other service business." I like to think of it instead as "a [medical] professional in charge of a client's marketing health and well being." You see, having poor marketing is like having the common cold and losing your voice. Sometimes you just need a good specialist to diagnose the problem and get you back on your feet.

My job as an account representative consists of three main tasks:

Diagnose the marketing needs of existing and prospective clients
Propose a solution to effectively address those needs
Deliver a prescription for success

Every day my inbox fills up like a waiting room in a busy doctor’s office. Every client has a different symptom (a different need), and it's imperative that I understand my clients inside and out to address all their symptoms appropriately.

To diagnose my client’s needs, I usually start with a face-to-face meeting, if possible. If not, a conference call will do, but it’s extremely important to actually take time to sit down and learn everything I can about who my clients are, and how they do what they do. The more information I gather about what they do and the challenges they face, the better I can make recommendations on how to address those issues.

The next step in the process is to effectively address the problem(s). There are a lot of marketing and advertising agencies out there that will take your money and design you a pretty picture. We want to make sure that at the end of the day, it's effective. You've heard us say this before, but the message is definitely worth repeating: A single [marketing] element may be effective, but High Rock works with you to develop a complete marketing system that makes an impact.

And finally, a visit to your physician wouldn't be complete without a prescription, and luckily I know exactly where to send you. We have an extremely talented staff that provides our clients with the tools for success day in and day out. We are the thought-leaders in our industry—and we can help you become the thought-leaders in yours!

jQuery UI: Our New Best Friend

noreply@blogger.com (Derek Beck) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:12:00 +0000

On the first project I developed with High Rock, a website called for a dropdown menu system to be implemented. I used an old JavaScript-based solution the firm had used on numerous sites…and it was—quite literally—painful to work with. Not at all web-standards compliant and a beast of a script.

On the next project, I tried using the purely CSS-based Suckerfish dropdown (Internet Explorer 6 requires a small JavaScript file to work properly, but it’s only 4Kb). This new menu was much more fun to use, very simple to implement, and completely customizable. The designers, developers and clients were happy and High Rock welcomed the change.

Suckerfish was a hit and we’ve been using it ever since. But let’s be honest: even the coolest thing a year and half ago can feel a little outdated today.

So we set out to create a simple, standards-compliant dropdown menu that would be a little more interesting than suckerfish. We wanted a menu that was easy to implement, had a more interactive feel to the user, and would work the same as Suckerfish if JavaScript was turned off. Our JavaScript library of choice is jQuery and we usually have it installed for other areas of the site, so it made sense to start there. After going through a bunch of plugins, nothing really caught our eye, and most were just a little too cumbersome for what we wanted to achieve.

That’s when we met our new best friend—jQuery UI, an open-source library of interface components. With just the standard download, we were able to add a couple lines of code and make the dropdown menus do some amazing things, while keeping the integrity of the menu structure intact.

Now our dropdown menus are subtly animated and quite a bit more interesting—and it only takes a few lines of code and a couple additional JavaScript files to really impress our clients and add a new dynamic to their websites.

Here’s an example of JQuery UI in action…

View Example

And just like with the suckerfish menus, the style and colors of the menu and dropdowns are easily edited in the style sheet for a custom look and feel.

jQuery UI also adds some useful features and functions such as the popular “Tabs,” “Accordion,” and other animations—which we’ll be happy to implement if that look is needed. With jQuery UI, the sky’s the limit!

An Inside Look at High Rock’s “Scooter” Video

noreply@blogger.com (Dave M. Schleigh) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:52:00 +0000

By Josh Youngbar & Tyler Pangborn

High Rock Studios held a Marketing Summit on January 15, and we produced a short introductory video for the event. We’d like to take this opportunity in our first video blog post to tell you more about it.

The theme for the Marketing Summit was “If you’ve been riding a scooter on the information superhighway, the High Rock Marketing Summit will move your small business into the fast lane.” the primary design element for our promotional materials was a businessman riding down the highway on a scooter, while bigger and faster cars fly past him.

We used this theme as the starting point for the video—to serve as both a trailer for the event and as an intro to play on the big screen during the actual event. the video was shot and edited in just a few days.

First, we hashed out a few ideas—one of which was getting web team member Nick Kline on board as our scooter man. We also wanted to use a scooter that was as close to the retro look in our graphic design as possible. Twigg Cycles in Hagerstown offered us the use of a Honda Metropolitan for filming. With our main character and prop, we were ready to shoot!

After some story-boarding and planning, we shot the video on a freezing cold Monday morning—the Monday before the Marketing Summit. Using a Sony Z1U HD camera, we shot a combination of tripod-mounted shots and hand-held shots with a Steadicam Merlin for the driving scenes.

As Nick rode the scooter through the streets of Hagerstown, one of us drove Nick’s Pontiac Vibe (a hatchback) in front of him while the other filmed out the back of the car with the hatch window open. The filming was a bit difficult, as the back of the Vibe didn’t provide much room to sit and support the Steadicam, but we managed to get some good shots. The big advantage of the Steadicam was that it greatly reduced the inevitable shake of filming from a moving vehicle.

Any difficulties we we had paled compared with what Nick had to endure! Our fearless actor braved freezing temperatures, riding a scooter at 40mph down Jefferson Boulevard and Dual Highway—while wearing only a business suit, helmet and gloves. We took several “thaw out” breaks throughout the morning, and Nick performed like a champ.

After shooting in the morning, we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening (with the help of some coffee) on post-production. The goal was to get the video edited and up on YouTube as quickly as possible, so the video could work as a trailer for a few days before the Marketing Summit.

We launched the event with the video, and had a surprise for the audience. In the end of the video, Nick rode the scooter into the entrance of Hager Hall (the event location). At that moment, the lights came up and Nick actually cruised into the event hall on the scooter! He took a “victory lap” around the audience to thunderous applause and parked the scooter in front of the crowd. It was a great way to make the video come alive for the audience, and helped make the Marketing Summit a big success.

If you haven’t seen the scooter video yet, check it out on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv9-tPSb8rg

Working with Complex Layer Structures in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Dave M. Schleigh) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:56:00 +0000

To Organize or Not to Organize when Designing for the Web

As the creative director of a small marketing and design agency, there’s nothing that gets me more fired up than when my design team gets lazy. No, I’m not talking about the kind of lazy having to do with daydreaming or making friends on Facebook. I’m talking about layer organization. Without it, workflow is hindered, team members become frustrated, and time / money goes right down the chute.

Having never attended a design class in my life (I’m a geographer by trade - strange, I know), I learned these principles through a lot of trial and error. Early on, like many artists out there, my file structures were a complete disaster. My layers palette consisted of a massive stack of items numbered one to one-hundred-and-something – and, they were out of order. Finding a particular element required endless turning on and off of layers until I found the correct layer. Not exactly a streamlined process.

I can’t recall exactly when I had the epiphany, but I gradually began naming layers. It started basic at first, but then became somewhat of an obsession of mine. Eventually, Adobe released a new version of Photoshop that introduced groups, which enables you to organize layers into folders. This made it even easier because now I could lump various sections of the website (header, body, columns, footers, etc.) into clear, segmented groups. This not only made it visibly easier to comprehend a massive layer palette, but it also made it easier to work with large sections of a website (moving, copying, activating, deactivating, etc.).

Working with a team of designers, coders, programmers, and content integrators makes file organization even more important. It’s critical to have an organizational policy in place so your team spends less time on layer translation and more time accomplishing their specific tasks. Also, let me be clear that good layer management doesn't only apply to designing websites in Photoshop. My team at High Rock applies these same organizational principals to all projects and applications. However, websites typically require many more layers than other projects.

By no means am I saying that I have all of the answers. That’s why I’m asking you to send in recommendations / best practices of what works best in your organization.

Contrasting Points of View During the Project Management Process

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Seifarth) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:42:00 +0000

By Lindsay Seifarth & David Dan, Project Managers

While doing research on common challenges of project management, we came across the following illustration and I couldn’t help but laugh and pass it around to my fellow co-workers for their amusement.

This picture is all too accurate in depicting how comprehension of information varies from person to person or group to group. One of the big problems we face when developing a website, or any marketing piece for that matter, is the transfer of knowledge and information ACCURATELY through the entire project lifecycle. By “accurately,” we mean how the customer expects it to look and function in the end.

As human beings, we all interpret information differently. What the client expects to see can be completely out of sync with how account representatives explain it, how project managers handle it, how designers create it and how developers build it. So the question is, how do we solve for the diversity in understanding what the client wants?

There is no textbook answer for how to prevent this breakdown from happening. But there are things that can be done to reduce the possibility. As Blake Newman explains in his blog, “if you want a great web design experience, it is important that everybody has a meeting of the minds and that expectations are aligned and communication is transparent and open.” He goes on to say that, “the best web project collaborations occur when clients…

Are web-savvy, tech-savvy and business-savvy
Know exactly who is their segmented target web audience
Know the purpose and objectives of the web site
Understand conversion, click-through and calls to action
Know what they want, i.e., sites they like and why they like them
Know what they do not want, i.e., sites or practices they want to avoid
Have a good understanding of their information taxonomy (architecture)
Understand their target audience’s language and search behavior
Know and appreciate search engine optimization (SEO)
Know and appreciate the power of social media “

Our clients rely heavily on us for our expertise, so it’s our responsibility as project managers to educate clients—as well as the whole production team—on any of the above. Our understanding and points of view might still not align exactly, but we’ll be much closer to hitting the mark. When knowledge of these key points is the common denominator, we better recognize the client’s expectations and deliver their desired end result.

High Rock Marketing Summit VIDEO TRAILER

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Daughtridge) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:46:00 +0000

We've launched the video trailer for our upcoming seminar - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv9-tPSb8rg. Special thanks to High Rock's own Nick Kline, the official scooter man!

Anti-aliasing text in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:31:00 +0000

The simple definition of Anti-Aliasing is : a method of fooling the eye that a jagged edge is really smooth.

Programs like Adobe Photoshop work with pixels to create the effects / images we see everyday. If you would ever examine the details of an image at close range you would see that the lines, shapes, and even colors are created by a combination of other colors, blurred lines, and or optical illusions. The examples and application of anti-aliasing could expand this article into a mind numbing bore, so please allow me to focus on one aspect of it - the use of text in a web design.

We read and see text printed on paper every day -- from our morning newspaper to the back of a sugar packet. When ink is laid down on a tangible surface (like a piece of paper) the ink expands slightly and the edges under a microscope become blurred. That is what is called 'ink saturation'. Not only is it allowed but encouraged for most applications for we don't (on the average) go around looking at the text we read under a microscope. At a normal reading distance 12 point body copy on a page read by the human eye appears to have smooth edges. In the web world there is no paper, so there for no ink saturation - it is just pixels on a screen. So how do we as designers make for a more comfortable viewing experience and compensate for the difference?

Thankfully the developers of Photoshop have given us tools to emulate the natural occurrence. The drop down menu for adjusting anti-aliasing can be found in the bottom right of the Character Palette.
(To have this palette active you must have a piece of text selected.)

When designing with text, make sure to adjust the different options in this palette to produce the desired look and feel for your layout. Here are some samples of the differences when working with the anti-aliasing drop down menu.

Body copy samples:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Header samples:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As you can see -- the differences are more dramatic when dealing with small point sizes, but at all sizes this option needs to be taken into account. Changing the anti-aliasing of text can make a drastic improvement to a layout, and shows an attention to detail that can take your designs to the next level.

Here are some found resources on the subject if you wish to read more:
http://www.pantherproducts.co.uk/Articles/Graphics/anti_aliasing.shtml
http://www.lunaloca.com/tutorials/antialiasing/
http://www.grafx-design.com/02gen.html
http://www.will-harris.com/webtype/anti-alias.html

Logo Development Case Study: Merritt Properties Green-Build

noreply@blogger.com (Dave M. Schleigh) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:26:00 +0000

// By Jeremy Bohner, Art Director //

Logo development can be one of the most difficult and subjective areas of design. And arguably, it’s one of the most important when trying to introduce a new identity. Everything about your company’s image—how your company is perceived by consumers—must be distilled down to a single powerful mark.

We approach logo design with a simple goal: that the logo be timeless. In other words, changes to the logo should never be needed (except of course in the event of a name change or other major business shift). Each time a customer sees your logo, you gain recognition and build more equity in your brand. Continued tinkering with your logo can be detrimental to brand equity because you are, in effect, asking your customers to remember something new each time. So it’s critical to get it right the first time…then leave it alone.

Logo development is complex. It’s sometimes hard to determine exactly what a client wants, but an initial discussion with the client is a great way to get details on preferences, color schemes, and the overall personality of the business. We consider all the possibilities and don’t limit ourselves to just one or two ideas.

An important factor in logo design is typography. The font family can significantly influence the look and feel of a logo. Font families vary greatly, and the possibilities are endless—so it’s important to get it right the first time. We typically start with 20-30 fonts based on the business identity and industry.

Brainstorming and quick sketches are a great way to start a design direction. These ideas can turn into effective iconic elements that can be paired with the right font. We generally develop 3-4 logos for a client and explain each design approach. If one isn’t perfect, elements from different designs can sometimes be combined.

With a wide variety of ideas and a good understanding of the client, logo development can be a key factor in correctly placing a business in the public eye.

Along with this blog posting I’ve included and highlighted the new branding structure of Merritt Green-Build. This structure introduces a strong balance between modern construction and green building techniques. It’s a good representation of what Merritt Green-Build represents and also accents their iconic Merritt “M."

For more information about Merritt Properties, visit http://www.merrittproperties.com.

Avoid Programming Shortcuts: How to Write Maintainable Code

noreply@blogger.com (Dave M. Schleigh) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:21:00 +0000

// By Debbie Koser, Web Team Leader //

After the last two weeks, I felt like I had to write about this. Not that I’m an expert, by all means, I’m not. But I have been creating and maintaining sites for more years than I care to remember, and have worked with enough developers to recognize the common pitfalls of programming. I find that many problems arise when programmers attempt to take shortcuts. Shortcuts in programming can cost in the form of valuable maintenance time in the long run, and we all know that time is money. I cannot stress more the importance of creating organized code, which will be easier to maintain in the long-term.

There are many methods a developer/programmer can chose to accomplish the same goal. However, the best and most efficient way is to be considerate of maintenance after the site is complete. I recently had to change some shipping rates on a site, which is normally an easy task. In order to facilitate easier maintenance, the variables I needed to change should have been set globally in one location. Just the opposite; I found that the exact same code had been copied and pasted in three different files and even multiple times in one file. It may seem easier, at the time, to copy and paste code from one file to another. But, afterward, you will have to edit two files rather than one. And, you will have to remember that you have that code in two different places, rather than one.

I have been guilty of doing this very same thing in the past, and in the process of having to maintain so many sites, have learned the importance of well-organized code. In the long run, it will reduce your amount of work.

I’ve written code in PHP, Coldfusion, VB and C# just to name a few, so I know this list can generally be applied to most programming languages. These are a few items I find to be very helpful when trying to efficiently code/program a website or application.

Create a directory structure that organizes your code. Depending upon how large your site is, you could have a simple to quite complex directory structure. There are many ways to structure a website. Put “like” files together. Put files that fall under the same navigation together. Most websites have an “About Us” page(s). Create a folder called “AboutUs” and place all files pertaining to this area in that directory. Create a folder for all your scripts. Create a folder for images and then organize your images under that main folder. The more organized your structure is, the easier it will be for you and others to find files.
Create a library that contains common functions used in websites. Examples of these kinds of functions are FormatPhone (a function written to format any phone number), SendEmail (a function written to send any email from your website by just passing a few variables), HideEmail (a JavaScript function used to hide emails on a website so that bots can’t find them) and many others that programmers tend to use. As you build this library with commonly used functions, it will lessen your development time.
Use global variables for the entire site. If there are variables that you will use throughout the site, store them in one location. If there are file paths, database connections, email addresses, rates that you will use more than once and that could potentially change, place them in a global file such as: application.cfc, global.asax, web.config, etc. If you have variables in one location, then, only that single file needs modified rather than multiple files. This also assures that you are using the same information throughout the site.
Use public variables in pages if there is a variable or string that you will be using throughout a single page. Declare the variable once at the top of the page, and then reference the variable. This makes the page easier to maintain.
Create components, classes or controls for functionality needed in multiple pages. If you find yourself wanting to copy and paste code from one place to another, stop. Ask yourself, “can this be written in such a way that it can be used in both places?” Write a single file that you can reference from multiple pages.

This list is very basic, but I promise that if you pause before copying and pasting code several times in a page, and consider the work you're adding to the maintenance of that page, you will find that taking the extra time to be efficient from the beginning will pay dividends in the end.

High Rock Marketing Summit T-shirts Announced

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Daughtridge) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:54:00 +0000

Jeremy can crank out some t-shirt designs!

Video Team Hard at Work

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Daughtridge) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:45:00 +0000

The High Rock Studios video team was working on the High Rock Marketing Summit video trailer late at night (see Tyler Pangborn's profile in the second floor window). That's how we roll.

Best team ever!

The 2010 High Rock Marketing Summit will be held on Friday, January 15th at Hager Hall in Hagerstown, Maryland. Register now @ www.highrockmarketingsummit.com.

Ray Lewis, EAGB and High Rock Studios

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Daughtridge) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:09:00 +0000

High Rock recently had an exclusive interview with Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis in Baltimore, Maryland. The interview is part of an upcoming video produced by High Rock Studios for the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore.

The High Rock video team in action...

High Rock Marketing Summit 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Daughtridge) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:03:00 +0000

We've recently announced the 2010 High Rock Marketing Summit. This year's event will be bigger and better than ever. High Rock representatives and guest speakers will offer insights into such topics as...

Integrated Marketing
Social Networking
Website Basics
... and more.

For more information and to register, visit the official website at www.highrockmarketingsummit.com.

FREE High Rock T-Shirts: Round 2

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Daughtridge) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:59:00 +0000

Back in the summer, we gave away 200 T-Shirts in less than 48 hours. So we're out to top ourselves and see how fast we can give away another 200 T-Shirts.

Limit 1 per person. While supplies last. Email freetshirt@highrockstudios.com with your name, address and size (L or XL). Rock on!

What does "Rock On!" mean?

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Daughtridge) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:32:00 +0000

We've been asked lately what does "Rock On!" really mean. We've used it recently in High Rock magazine ads, our e-newsletter, etc.

Well, after weeks of contemplation, it finally hit us. "Rock On!" is a throw back to the 80s and 90s and makes a statement of moving forward, advancing the interests of our clients and having some fun along the way. Speaking of the 80s and 90s...

A friend sent me the following "mullet-enhanced" image of our team!?!? All business in the front, party in the back!

(I have to say, Dave's mullet looks a lot better than mine.)

Look for more mullet enhancements to our team in the near future!