This past week has been a pretty good week.  I worked on a variety of different  things, which I always enjoy!  I started working on my business card (a requirement for school), did a lot with blogging, and helped work on a client’s website.  I also did some research and created icons for a plug-in.

Because my graduation is coming up fast, I have a lot of homework to do in order to get credit for my internship.  Since it’s the last assignment, it is a big one.  Part of the assignment is to create a business card.  Since I don’t have Photoshop on my computer at home, my supervisor said I could work on it here and she even helped me come up with some ideas for it.  I thought making a business card would be simple, but when you are as indecisive as I am, nothing is simple.  Lauren, my supervisor, stressed the importance of the design of the business card in regards to who my audience is and what I want to do.  Sports Marketing is my desire, but Event Planning and Marketing in general are also interesting fields to me.  If the job market is lacking I may even have to do something else for a career.  That being said, the design has to be simple enough to not turn someone off.  So far, I’ve been struggling with finding the perfect font and I am trying to create a logo with my initials, but have yet to be completely satisfied.  Did I mention I am a perfectionist too?

Thankfully, I had other projects come along to take away the possible frustration that would onset from my indecisiveness.  Tuesday, Kay came in to help me with other blogs I had written.  She has her own blog, which she has been very successful with and I trust that she knows what she is doing.  She gave me lots of advice about how to set up my blog.  She stressed that it needs to be visually appealing and short and sweet.  This can be done by using bullets, a matrix, photos, short paragraphs, and bolding important words/phrases.  List, subheads, and/or Q&A format also work well.  The other important point she reiterated was about the headline.  Like in advertising, the headline needs to catch peoples attention and spark enough interest so that they want to take the time to read.  She gave me lots of good advice and I was able to edit and post a blog later that day.

Wednesday was a fun, yet busy day.  Right away, Lauren had something for me to work on for a client’s website.  I spent most the day on Photoshop, editing photos and creating additional photos for the homepage slider.  I also had to manually copy and paste 76 links to our clients vendors to their site.  I was surprised my hand didn’t kill me by the end of it.  I was very happy to be busy though.  Editing and designing is a lot of fun for me, so  I didn’t have trouble with this project.

Thursday, I was assigned to create icons for a Plug-in, in the same style Digital Tiki has on our website.  After spending a little time doing that, the rest of the day I spent researching the history of blogging and finding a color palette for our newest client.  I also began drafting a blog on how blogging started.

Overall, I had a great and busy week.  Until next time…

Well that about sums up my week.  Until next time…

• 5 things I learned
  • Blogging basics
  • Why hash tags are useful
  • What a bounce rate is: when visitors go to one web page and then leave the site
  • 9 out of 10 marketers use social media
  • How to structure a monthly website report for a client
• Projects
  • Research and editing blogs
  • Started my business card, other internship homework
• Memorable Moments
  • Breaks to enjoy the beautiful Minnesota weather

This past week I spent most of my time researching blogging topics and spending time learning more about the ins and outs of  social media.  I researched topics such as Facebook vs Twitter, different aspects of Facebook itself, and important elements of design. I learned a lot about Facebook in particular, and different ways businesses can utilize it to the best of their abilities.  I apologize ahead of time for the short post.  It will mostly be my opinion of why its important to blog and research, but I don’t want to give too much away!

With the rise of social media, many businesses don’t know exactly what they are getting in to and that’s why I felt it is important to address different topics within social media, specifically Facebook and Twitter.  Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinions about how best to use social media, especially since it is not an exact science.  The rapid  growth of technology amazes me, because it always causes constant change in the social media world, and even the marketing world in general.  Besides social media, I also feel it is important to stay updated on new and/or popular marketing trends.  In my opinion, businesses not only grow from implementing new trends, but if they are educated about them, they are able to serve a resource for people who are interested in learning more about those topics.  It also makes a company seem more reliable, relevant, and knowledgeable.

Blogging is something new to me and so far I’ve enjoyed it.  I plan on learning more about it and I will continue to blog on a regular basis, maybe even have my own blog someday.  Research on the other hand is something I’ve been doing for a while and although it can get frustrating, its crucial to getting where you want to go.

Until next time…

Week 9: Snapshot

• 5 things I learned
  • More about Facebook analytics and where they come from
  • Reviewed design subject: whitespace and how to use it
  • How to use Facebook Questions
  • How to add RSS feed of our blogs to Facebook
  • Used Facebook Question to find out why people use Facebook…most use it for several reasons with the number one reason being “To keep in touch with friends far away”
• Projects
  • Researching and drafting blog topics in the world of marketing, media, and design
• Memorable Moments
  • Listening to Matt rant about Leprechauns

Want More Interaction with your Facebook Fans?  Try the New Facebook App Questions

Facebook is constantly updating and now has added a new feature to Facebook called Questions.

What is it?

This is a new default application that cannot be removed from Profiles.  It is a new Poll-like feature that allows users to ask any question and quickly get short answers from people they trust.  Users can simply ask an open-ended question or add options to create a poll.  It can be used to learn more about your friends, see where people stand on certain issues, get advice, and share information.  It can be used for a specific purpose, perhaps a research paper, or just for fun.

How Does it Work?

This new feature is designed so that anyone on Facebook can view and answer it.  Once the question is posted, it will appear in the News Feed of the user’s friends/fans, and if they choose to answer or follow that question, it is then shared with their friends, and so on and so forth.  Users will be able to see their friends answers first, but can view others answers as well.  They will also be able to view any question activity and the questions of others by clicking the Questions tab on the left side of their profile.  Users can also follow a question to receive notifications about any answers.  This feature has automatically been added to Facebook Profiles, but can be added to or removed from a Facebook Page.

How Does a Business Benefit from Questions?

This new addition to Facebook is similar to the application Polls.  It can be very useful to businesses because they can now encourage easy interaction.  A company could take advantage of the Questions option to learn more about their customers.  They could create a poll regarding their products/service, what media their customers prefer, or even what their customers think of their business.  Providing options makes it easy for a quick response, but the application also allows a fan to create their own answer.  I would suggest that businesses add and utilize this application, and keep track of how effective it is and whether or not it helps the company grow.

Any Questions or Comments?

This week I only worked two days because I was planning on going up north for the rest of the week for a mini vacation.  The two days I was here were pretty busy though.  I spent all day Monday working on a new blog post, and all day Tuesday working on the Vasa Children’s Home brochure.  I learned something new and useful working on both projects.  I also spent some time updating and creating different accounts for Digital Tiki.

Monday I continued studying the differences between having a Facebook page and a Facebook profile.  I had read somewhere that if a business used a profile instead of a page, it would be a violation of Facebook’s terms of service, but after examining it, I couldn’t find anything saying this.  Obviously, Facebook changes a lot, or I could have just simply missed it, so I would advise you, if you are creating a Facebook for your business to double check those terms.  I was able to finally finish my first draft of the blog by the end of the day.

Tuesday, I talked to Lauren about the chart I made for the readers to easily compare and see the benefits and drawbacks to each Facebook option.  She liked the idea and gave me some options for how to include it in my blog.  I could either save it as a picture, which might not have the best quality but would be an easy way to do it, or I could learn the HTML coding for creating a table on a web page.  I decided to learn how to do the HTML code because I love a challenge and learning something new that I know I could utilize in the future.  Lauren found me a great website and helped explain a little about how it works.  From there I took off and learn a lot by trial and error.  I even ended up figuring out some things on my own, like how to merge several cells into one giant cell.  That was a great feeling, being able to do some coding on my own.

The rest of the day, I worked on the brochure for the Historic Vasa Children’s Home.  I was assigned to put the new pictures in the brochure, which I thought seemed simple enough.  it actually ended up taking a long time, especially when I was trying to make sure some of the pictures were the same size.  I eventually tried out an earlier suggestion Lauren had made to me about converting the images into smart objects.  Once something is converted into a smart object, you about then able to manipulate it on it’s own, and upon saving it, the changes will take place in the document you are working on.  (It is kind of hard to explain, so I would suggest trying it on your own by right clicking on the layer you want to convert, and select convert to a smart object, and then double click on the little box in the lower corner of the layer image.  The image should pop up in a separate window, ready for you to manipulate).  Anyways, I was able to re-size all the images to the desired size easily.  This still took some time, but was much more effective then trying to stretch the images to fit each other.

Although it was a short week, which may become more frequent with preparation for my graduation and job search, I felt like I was able to learn a lot in a short period of time and hopefully what I learned will help others out in the future.  Until next time…

Week 9: Snapshot

• 5 things I learned
  • The HTML code for creating a table
  • Converting images to smart objects is the best way to make sure multiple objects are the same size
  • Google provides basically every answer to any question
  • More about Facebook Page Vs Profile, couldn’t find any violation of terms of service
  • How to merge several cells into one giant cell using HTML coding
• Projects
  • Researching and blogging on a topic in the world of marketing, media, and design, Blog 1 focus: Facebook Page vs Facebook Profile for business use
  • Vasa Children’s Home Brochure
• Memorable Moments
  • Looking up home remedies for painful red zits, not really sure why I decided to share this…but I looked it up and tried almost everything.  If you find the salt water trick, try it because it kind of worked for me.

• I spent most of my time this week either doing research or working on updating social media.  Although it doesn’t seem like much work, I sure spent a lot of time and effort doing both, and I definitely learned a lot!

My week began with updating our social media accounts.  I spent time adding photos, editing profiles, following others, and updating statuses.  We have several different social media accounts, so this took up most of my day.  While updating these accounts, I also learned more about each different one.  For instance, Yahoo Pulse and Orkut by Google both allow detailed profiles, similar to Facebook.  Both enable photos, videos, status updates, groups, contacts, and applications.  Yahoo Pulse also allows blog posts and has a guestbook, but unfortunately has frequent kinks. Orkut has a scrapbook addition, and a unique promotion box, perfect for promoting a business.  You can also link twitter and Facebook to these accounts.  Other than that, since Lauren was out sick on Monday,  I made sure to print out things I had done from last week, and had things ready for her return.

In the middle of the week I began researching.  At first, since planning for Word Camp is coming up, I familiarized myself with what it was all about and came up with some questions to ask when we begin organizing this event.  I also was assigned to start blogging more about different topics with regards to marketing, media, and design.  Since blogging is something I just started doing recently, I was a little uneasy about this assignment.  I came up with a list of possible topics to cover, which Lauren (the owner of Digital Tiki) approved and gave me advice on where to start.  I had already begun researching SEO, Facebook Pages Vs Facebook Profiles, branding, and blogging.  Research sucks sometimes, but it is extremely important and very educational.  Most of the time I really enjoy doing research and being able to discuss what I’ve learned.  I spent time a lot of time studying blogging, since it is something I am not that familiar with.  I definitely learn a lot about each topic I’ve studied so far, and will soon begin an information blog about these and other topics.

That’s been my week in a nutshell.  Obviously, I’ve made an addition to my blog, the Week Snapshot.  This is meant for those who don’t have a lot of time to read, but want to see what I have been doing.  This should make it easy to stay up to date with my progress and weekly work at Digital Tiki.  Until next time…

Week 8: Snapshot

• 5 things I learned
  • Picking a topic to blog about is really difficult when you have ADD and like to multitask…I found myself researching several topics at once
  • The more you tweet, the more followers you get
  • The basics of SEO (title tag, meta tag, head tag, snippets, and how they all work, which I may blog about later)
  • The positives and negatives of businesses using Facebook as a page vs a profile, which I will soon blog about
  • Some useful Facebook applications businesses can utilize
• Projects
  • Updating Digital Tiki’s social media accounts
  • Researching and blogging on a topic in the world of marketing, media, and design
• Memorable Moments
  • First thing Thursday morning I went to get some water with my phone in my pocket and I ended up dropping my phone under the fridge.  Although, I tried to get it out with a hanger, we had to pull out the fridge in order to get it back.  Yes, everyone laughed at me.

This past week I’ve been very busy working on the brochure for the Historic Vasa Children’s House.  It has really been a fun project to work on so far.   Something else exciting that happened this week was completing my internship hours for school.  I was required to fulfill 192 hours of interning and by the end of this week I have completed 194 hours by the end of the week.  This was a big relief to me because it makes me feel that much closer to graduation, although I will still have assignments I need to do for the internship course.

With the brochure, I had a lot of work to do.  I am used to using Adobe InDesign, especially for brochures, but since my computer doesn’t have it, I had to figure out how to use it in Photoshop, which wasn’t that hard to do.  I went back to Lauren several times to make sure I had it the way she wanted.  Unlike many people, I enjoy going back and making revisions on my work.  I feel like it helps me  understand the direction the client, teacher, or boss wants to go and  how they think.  It also allows me to learn why some things work and others don’t.  I also enjoyed this project because it is the first project I’ve worked on for a client of Digital Tiki.  I really enjoy working on Digital Tiki’s website, but it is nice to work on something new.

Other than that project, I’ve just been updating social media accounts, working on content for the service page, continuing to photography past print materials, and researched a free service listing website called Thumbtack.  Thumbtack is a great way for small businesses to promote their services and great for those who are looking for a legit business to work with.  We are currently still updating our Thumbtack profile, but keep your eyes open for a full list of our services and a short Q & A about Digital Tiki, just search for Marketing, Branding, & Web Design.

Week 7: Snapshot

• 5 things I learned
  • If you stare at the computer too long, it messes with your eyes which in turn messes with your Photoshop abilities
  • How to make a brochure in Photoshop
  • How to print on 11x17w paper
  • What thumbtack is and how it can benefit us
  • Something could look great on the computer, but once you print it off, it is easy to see what you need to change
• Projects
  • Vasa Children’s Home Brochure
  • Digital Tiki Services Page
  • Photographing Digital Tiki Print Materials
• Memorable Moments
  • Watching a scene from the movie Cop Out with Lauren and Kate

After a rough last week, my sixth week interning at Digital Tiki was fairly busy and fun.  Most of my time this past week, was spent designing or in a meeting.  I was assigned to work on charts and buttons for the service and about pages.  Like I have mentioned in the past, I really enjoy working on my design skills.  I feel like my skills are growing and improving with every new project I work on.  After spending most of the week working on the service buttons, I feel very happy with how they turned out.  The charts I was working on are not quite there yet, but will probably become my design focus for this coming week.  I also did a small amount of work on content, mostly explaining the steps of one of the charts I created, with a little work on the about page, but my brain didn’t seem to be functioning in terms of writing on the particular day, which I will explain shortly.  Other than these assignments, I had several meetings with Lauren and Kate, as well as another meeting with the Tiki Team and Social Media Guru Kay Roseland, which I always look forward to.  I am very happy I am able to be a part of some of these meetings, especially when they involve brainstorming or are very informational and others where we discuss the company’s direction and progress.  I know meetings will be a frequent part of my “big girl job”, and I am very happy I can experience them as an intern.

So back to my point about my thinking fatigue.  On Wednesday, Kate and I were assigned to work on some content for the about page and then compare our thoughts and finalize it in a meeting with Lauren.  I quickly wrote what I thought was supposed to be a new mission statement and focused my other time writing an explanation for the steps for the process Digital Tiki.  Later we met and attempted to crack out what we wanted our about page to look like.  For some reason, I felt like my brain was completely unable to form clear and concise sentences or maybe I was just too focused on designing.  Sometimes it is just so much easier to appeal to the eye (design) versus appeal to the mind (content).   I personally have a hard time writing when I feel a lot of pressure, but when I am having fun writing and am not so focused on it’s importance or the grade I am going to get, it turns out pretty good.  Although for this project I didn’t feel an immense amount of pressure, I feel like that had something to do with my brain fart, as well as it simply being just one of those days.  I am sure I am not the only one who has experienced this, so I hope this encourages those who are in the same boat.  Until next time…

Version 3.1, named “Reinhardt”, features post formats, internal linking, and an admin bar that can bring you to your frequently used dashboard pages faster! In this tutorial, I will explain each of these features. There are also a bunch of new features for developers, too!

Post Formats

Post formats allow the user to custom style a specific post. By utilizing this feature, the user can choose which format they want their post to be displayed in. Users can choose to assign a post as a link, video, status, audio, gallery, etc. and it will style the post accordingly.

Internal Linking

This new feature makes it easier for users to locate existing content and link back to it from a new post or page. In previous versions of WordPress, users would have to open a new tab in their browser, copy the url, and then paste. In order for this feature to appear, the user must be in the Visual Editor. To link to existing content, type a page or topic into the search box and then select the appropriate link.

Admin Bar

The new admin bar allows the user to access to the most used dashboard tools and features from the front-end. The bar defaults to five options, The User, Edit Category, Add New, Comments, and Appearance. Under User(your name) one can access their profile, dashboard, and log out. Under Add New the user has the option to add new pages, posts, and slides. Appearance allows users to manage widgets and menus. The admin bar also links to Edit Category and Comments.

No worries, if you are not a fan of the new admin bar, it can be disabled on the dashboard’s Users panel. Just simply un-check the “when viewing site” box.

Download Now

If you already use WordPress, you can get the upgrade from your dashboard.

This week has been a short week for me.  Monday I was stuck staying home due to the weather and lack of a car that has four-wheel drive.  It was nice to have a day off, but I don’t want to get to comfortable with not working.  Tuesday I had an appointment, so I didn’t get to the office until noon.  The rest of the day, which went by very quickly, I spent taking and uploading photos to Facebook and the website.  I also had a chance to begin working on an icon to show that the links on the website were click-able.

The next day I continued working vigorously on the link icons, as well as looking for a new slider plugin for the homepage, while trying to keep myself from getting sick.  That particular morning, I was feeling really tired and when Kate asked if anyone needed anything from the gas station.  I decided I would try an energy shot because many of my friends take them on a regular basis and say they work.  Since I needed energy, I decided to take the entire shot instead of just half.  Later, I would regret that decision.  Throughout the day, although I was awake and very concentrated on my work, I began feeling nauseous.   I don’t know if it’s because I was hungry or what, but I don’t think I will be taking another energy shot anytime soon.

The next morning was a rough morning for me.  The week had been a stressful one, not so much with work, but with other stuff going on in my life.  Thankfully, I had a lot to work on when I came in.  Lauren finally received the brand new chairs she ordered for her office, so me and Kate put those together, which was kind of fun!  The rest of the day I spent editing the icons using Lauren’s advice and creating a bar for the links.  I always have fun when I am using Photoshop, although I am somewhat of a perfectionist.  By the end of the day, we got the new icons and bar up online, and were very happy with the new look of the site.  Although I had a rough week, working on the icons and bar were definitely the highlight of my week.  Being able to show people what I worked on for the website is also a great feeling.

I know every now and then, everybody goes through rough times and sometimes its hard to hide at work.  Then it can be frustrating that it’s so obvious.  Lauren could definitely tell I was struggling this week and took some time to talk to me about it.  I am very thankful that I am able to talk openly with my boss about the distractions of my personal life and get support, especially since it helps me get rid of the distractions,  at least for a little while, and be able to get right back to work again.  I think it is very important and beneficial to have someone at work you can confide in with your problems and get support from.  Talking it out definitely helps, at least it did for me!  Remember to try and stay positive, and hope for a better week ahead.  Until next time…