Here are some mistakes your brand might be making

Overdoing the professionalism

Social media isn’t the place to wear a suit, read out a legal letter or ask permission to step out to lunch. It’s not work, so best not to make it sound like work. I like to think of it as semi-casual. It’s got a smart, savvy tone. It doesn’t take itself seriously, but doesn’t sound like a dork either. Unless of course that is the point.

Coming across like a sales guy

Please note, I didn’t say “car salesman”. But just don’t try and sell. Overtly. Let people be curious about your brand. Understand what there is to gain. And the right people will naturally want to buy what you’re selling.

Putting the record on repeat (regardless of how good the track is) gets annoying pretty fast.

Does your brand make gorgeous dining plates? Don’t jam up a feed with gorgeous dining plates. Too much of a good thing is still too much. Variation really is the spice of social media.

Missing out on opportunities 

I spoke to a client about this. He was getting flooded with emails and wanted to reply to all. To cope with the back log he started pasting template replies. This would have been fine if he’d bothered to add a custom line or two. But he hadn’t. Now, we make sure he says something personal and genuine (or his social media manager does) and we’ve added more connection opt ins at the bottom of his emails to encourage people to engage with the brand on Twitter and Instagram.

Every email, every tweet, every comment is a chance to connect.

Don’t miss it when you’re busy because then you’ll really miss it when you’re not.

Going au naturel

Just because it’s meant to be natural and “home video like” doesn’t mean it is. Now social media is becoming scheduled, curated and extremely well thought thru. We’re getting smarter about it and we don’t even realise it. From selfie sticks, DSLRs and the newest version of LOLs – we’re upping our A-game. Leading profiles on social media (celebs aside) often feature excellent photograph and it’s not a mobile game. We’re taking the time to snap, transfer, edit, transfer. Captions aren’t “typical Friday night” anymore. They’re getting witty and sassy.

Fantastic, effective social media is not off the cuff. It’s a whole new ball game out there. What level is your brand playing at?

Some of the basics:

• good user friendly website
• basic level of SEO
• product photos
• sending out regular press release
• social media pages up and active
• a buy-able product

Conversions can be a quite a different ball game to product awareness. Think of it as your next tier. Now that people know about your product, why would they buy it? This post doesn’t talk about price comparison – so make sure you consider that. It talks about love. Getting love. Sharing love. Making your product speak the language of love.

Say for example, you have a leather accessories product range. How do we get conversion happening?

Here are a few things to think about and implement.

I’m looking for a wallet. I’m researching and asking around about which sort of a brand is best. What would I do? 

I’d go to a few of my favourite sites (perhaps Refinery 29, Broadsheet, Kickstarter, Hard To Find and a few independent blogger sites that I like; Ms. Critique, Reading My Tea Leaves etc)

I’d look for relevant hashtags on Instagram

Ask some of my friends who have a style I like

I’d search on Facebook

I’d definitely search on Pinterest

I might search for an independent brand on Etsy (this is actually how I found my phone cover, it had a wallet doubling up as a phone case)

Or perhaps a brand that featured at the Big Design Market

Or I might go look up that brand a popular Instagrammer shared a while back

What would you do? Would you shop the same way? What would your friends do? What would your target market do? Are you appearing in these ways? Get there and get bought.

The best sellers are the ones with the story. 

Its the reason why Kickstarter works. Aside from appearing in multiple places – another way of getting brand love is to have a story.

What makes friends from strangers? We get to know them. In the same way, people want to get to know your brand.

What’s in the name? What’s behind the founders? What happened when you took that photoshoot? How did you get to know that model? Who’s hands stitched the leather to the lining?

Tell us the details. We want to know.

Two great brands which tell a great stories are Matter Prints and Everlane.

Niche it

Perhaps your bag is best for designers or photographers.

Or perhaps they’re best for bankers.

Find out whom they’re best for and HONE in on that profile. Who doesn’t want something made for them? It’ll make me feel loved, understood and unique (of course there are a bajillion designers and a bajillion entrepreneurs out there – but in my group of 500 Facebook friend, I often feel like I’m one of only a few). Targeting everyone is the worst mistake brands make. Kish+Co targets interesting, creative marketing brains and entrepreneurs who value the edgy and creative. We actually don’t want everyone. That makes the relationships we have even more special.

Also – people will do the selling for you. Once you deliver an excellent experience and an excellent product, we intuitively WANT to share. We WANT to tell people about it. Trust this mantra and do the best you can on YOUR END of the deal. Here is another great niche brand btw.

That one crazy thing.

Sometimes you just need to make it to Buzzfeed. Change your perspective and sit on their side of the desk. They’re looking for crazy things to post about that will ensure their links get some major clickage.

I met the talented Georgia Perry and we talked about how her pins went out the roof after she got some shares over night on posts like Buzzfeed. Have that one thing worth talking about. Perhaps one of your wallets has a Sound of Music print on it. Perhaps one of your totes is made of cheese holes. You might only have 100 of these made into production in the assumption that they won’t sell, but they make for a fine Cheese Lovers / Sound of Music lovers story.

I can see the headlines right now. 10 Things All Cheese Lovers Need Right Now. Boom. The traffic it will generate to your site will be worth the risky investment. Just make sure it’s well worth talking about and you send out your press articles in order of importance.

Hope it all helps. Don’t give up! Just keep thinking, refining and trusting

Powerpoint design is tricky territory – but that doesn’t mean it can’t look good at all. We recently worked with a lovely client wanting to clean up their formatting and styling.

Whilst no sane designer would willingly set up a file in Powerpoint, we know that you often need to – and it helps to have a strong base to leap from.

Here are a few tips to assist you.

Consistent Template Use

Make sure you stick to the template. It gives the viewer a sense of flow from section to section and they know where you’re headed with all that content.

Big, bold fonts for header pages and section breaks.

Don’t be afraid to use really large type (with few words). It makes a heading feel like a heading.

Speaking of fonts… There are some people who still use Comic Sans. Perhaps we need to take them out for coffee with Peanuts. Calibri. Calibri. Calibri.

Use images with thought

Which of these would look better? A picture of a sunrise?

A picture of a sunrise with a carrot on the ocean?
A picture of a sunrise with a carrot and a child playing the corner?
A picture of a sunrise with a lighthouse that was in the original picture?

The less, the better.
The larger the image, the better (unless it’s pixelated).
If something wasn’t in the picture in the first place, avoid photoshopping it in. One large image gives more effect than 5 mixed size ones.

Avoid centred type and too much type

Powerpoints aren’t meant to be content heavy. Supporting documentation is what your client can print and read at a cafe. The powerpoint? No ideal.
When possible, keep the supporting content in a word document and make the powerpoint your key point seller. If you do need to use lots of text, we recommend placing it in columns – much like a newspaper. You’ll fit more in and it’ll be easy to read.

Centred type has it’s place in poetry, engaging design (when used consciously) and maybe Enid Blyton books. But outside of that, you need a clean, crisp professional layout. Left and right aligned are ideal. When in doubt, roll with the left.

Be bold in your area of expertise

I can’t fake a conversation about BAS and GST. It just isn’t my forte. Neither is dentistry.But if we’re talking design, it’s where I’m at play. It’s my zone.
If design isn’t your zone, stick to what you know will work. Try a little play, but do your research and know what you’re saying before you dive.

Check the file size

If this is a beauty you want to email around, check the file size. Most large organisations have a 10MB limit. If you can’t crunch down your images any smaller, try sending them via WeTransfer instead of email.

Got any questions on more Powerpoint design? We’ve offered clients a review session where we give them feedback and recommendations. If it’s a small question – Kish is happy to help if you flick her an email :)

Our super basic photography tips post gives you access to the thinking behind the photographs, cheap camera suppliers, apps you could be using and ideal camera set ups.

1. Do I need to buy a new camera?
An iphone will cut it for Instagram and Facebook, but it won’t cut it for your website and stationery.

If you’re thinking of buying a camera, get the body and a lens to start off with. Don’t buy a kit, it’ll cost you more than you want from it.

I’ve got a Canon 6D with the “nifty fifty” lens which I bought from the Digital Camera Warehouse (cheapest deal I could find INCLUDING a comparison with Singapore prices as well. It sounds lame, but I got the model because it has built in WIFI which was worth every penny. If you do go for a DSLR, ask your photographer friend to prepare it a bit for you–get the images in RAW if you’re planning on doing some Photoshop and Lightroom work and ask them to fix up the auto focus (the lovely Emma at Haven Lifestyle Photography helped me out with mine).

2. What is it for?
If it’s for likes on Instagram, think food, coffee, scenic, babies, dogs etc. If it’s for your corporate brand, step away from the monitor. Get outside. Your office is likely to have shite lighting and won’t look amaze. Set up a blank space outside near some natural light. Before you start snapping, think. What are you trying to say? How will it be best received? Get a little tactical. After all, decades of Photoshop hasn’t survived for no reason.

People are more inclined to be interested in the personal vs. the professional. When I do a post on my family vs. my design work – I always get more likes for the family stuff. So if you’re doing it for a brand, it needs more thinking and creative to make it loveable. How can your viewer feel happy, inspired, motivated, creative etc about your brand and themselves when they see your picture?

3. How do you filter?
Subtle. Subtle. Subtle. If it deviates too far from the original image, you know you’ve gone too far. Just enhance! Best app I use is vscocam–the filters are super subtle and editing is too easy. I usually only use the first 4 filter options.3. How do you filter? Subtle. Subtle. Subtle. If it deviates too far from the original image, you know you’ve gone too far. Just enhance!

Best app I use is vscocam–the filters are super subtle and editing is too easy.

I usually only use the first 4 filter options.

4. More editing?
Straight lines are important. People look at images subconsciously, so if something is off, they won’t know why. Helps to tidy up your images as much as possible. Blurry images are unforgivable, unless of course, the blur was intentional. Recapture or don’t use.

Sometimes I find it really hard to crop (especially going from a landscape to a square). I’ve tried thinking in “square” and culling any excess as my starting point. But when in serious doubt, I use Square Ready to keep my images in their original form.

I usually edit heaps of images at once and keep them in my iphone photo bank so I can post at will.

5. Where can I go to learn more
To date, I’ve learnt from these people and resources:

• The School
• Photography Concentrate
• Haven Lifestyle Photography

and I also did “a photo a day” on my recent trip to Europe, which really, really, really helped me understand the basics and get my head around stuff.

This is all to hard, I just want to go somewhere to download great pictures for my brochure.

Lucky you. Here are a few “special” links that are not your ordinary stock photo.

http://deathtothestockphoto.com/

I feel like I should sign off with something corny like “Happy Snapping” but it’s making me want to vom just a little.

Even better–just start…

Feature image by Vanessa La Delfa

Little disclaimer. I know the word “authenticity” is thrown around a lot with marketing these days. This is my definition of it in action.

Before I had my son, I was the Queen of My Own Time. I had a clear concept of how much time I should be spending in business development. I also had a clear strategy and a clear approach. A blog post a week, a facebook post multiple times a week, a coffee once a week, etc etc etc. I felt in control. Except for those months when things were more quiet than usual. Those months or even those couple of days would send me into a minor frenzy.

When my son arrived, I had a delusional 4 weeks when he was premature and still at hospital. Between pumping, trips to the hospital and having my mum around, I had time to give. Bizarrely, I managed to wrap up a our website rehaul actually!.

But when my son came home? Oh gosh. Every single thing fell out the window. Thankfully I had a lovely, loyal designer whom I had (wisely might I add) trained well in advance. As well as a freelancer set up happening.

It took me quite some time to find this new rhythm and work with it.

The one thing I realised.

Do less.

But do it damn well.

I now fit into two hours what I used to take 6 hours to do.
I am fully present during meetings and try my best to keep a clear head as much as possible (days when baby wakes up at 4am aside).

The short story?

Our business has done consistently better since his arrival.

But whom am I to speak on authenticity? Read more here by this extremely authentic woman.

Feature image by Liam Anderson

The other night, we asked my mum why she never got into business. She said it wasn’t her forte. Then she added that the closest thing to business she ever did, was those Tupperware parties.

Were you around in the 80′s?

I certainly was. My mum wanted Tupperware. Excellent quality plastic containers with a relatively hefty price tag. How did my dairy owning parents afford it when they had 3 children and worked 7 days a week? Mum became a dealer. To this day, she has Tupperware in her cupboards. Next to no other plastic ware.

All my friends used to come home, open the pantry and chuckle. Seriously. It looks pretty awesome.
“You can return it anytime you want if something breaks and get a 100% replacement. Even if it’s just a lid.” 20 years on and my mum still sings the praises.

Then I started to think.
My mum has a pantry full of Tupperware.
Me? Nada. Only the free stuff she’s passed on to me every time she bakes something and sends over a container which I never return.

Tupperware has 60,000+ likes on their Facebook page but only 160 likes for a post.
None of my sisters have ever purchased Tupperware.

We KNOW it’s lifelong. We KNOW it’s practical, easy to clean and all things great.

But why aren’t we buying?

Here are some of the reasons

1. We don’t go to dealers.
2. We don’t attend “Tupperware Events”.
3. We want to buy at our convenience – online or at my nearest store.
4. Their ecommerce store is hard to find and once you get to it, it’s a disappointment.

Tupperware is relying on the loyalty of customers.

It’s relying on a hand me down system – “my mum bought it, so thats what I’m going to buy”.
Country Road is one of the few brands that has a hand me down system to lean on – yet it is constantly refreshing and relative to the next generation of buyers.

Tupperware – I love you. But not enough to choose you over the next cool thing I see on Instagram. I mean, check out SipSnap - these guys are going to make awesome and up and coming.

Tupperware, you’re up against new awesome. Better surprise us with a refresh and get in our zone to get us pulling out the credit cards.

Feature image by Chris Wilmes

If you’re job hunting or interning to build your industry experience as a graphic design student or graduate, you’ll know it’s a tough slog. You might have only half an hour in an interview, or a couple of weeks as an intern – so how do you impress a potential employer in the short time you have with them? How do you stand out from the crowd?

1. Don’t reject or turn your nose up at any work they give you. When they value you and your time, you’ll get much better work and opportunities – but they need time to recognise your value first.
2. Come up with ideas or share links to new findings. This is part of creating more value for you – if it’s something they haven’t seen before, they’ll be impressed that you found it first!
3. Think of the long term, not the short term. Today, you might feel annoyed that they’ve asked you do the coffee run or batch process some images. But it’s only by doing these things and doing them well, that you’ll get an upgrade.
4. No matter how much you settle into your role, don’t forget that you are replaceable. It sounds terribly harsh, but make yourself awesome. Design is a field which is FLOODED with talent. So you need to give them more than that. Give them great design, a rad personality, a thinking brain, and a well connected person! Make yourself more than just a good designer.
5. Use it. An internship is a great opportunity to get connected, to get feedback, to fill up the gaps in your folio. All you have to do is ask. Shyness gets you nowhere. Be humble and gentle, but always try. If you don’t try for yourself, no one is going to try for you. Like Sheryl Sandberg says, ‘Don’t have a tiara syndrome’.
6. Support the company you work for. Tell people about them. Think about ways that they can grow. Like them on Facebook. It’s an old-school attitude. If you want a loving place to work for, then you should show them some lovin’ back!
7. If you work really hard and they don’t hire you – don’t be upset. Chances are, they don’t have enough work or cash coming in. Ask them for a reference letter and use it to get your next gig. People’s attitudes matter more than talent – especially in this industry.

A good work ethic and an awesome attitude can get you a lot further than you might think. Some helpful tips will help you maximise your interview or internship opportunity. As important as it is to impress a potential employer, bringing a can-do approach will help you get more out of the experience as well!

Good luck and be awesome!

Feature image by Samantha Ciccia.

Think twice.

Actually perhaps thrice and then some.

Over the recent times, we’ve seen businesses shut their store front and move to online business.

The process?

Set up a brand with look and feel, if they haven’t already.

Set up an online store.

Take product images and prepare the copywriting.

Figure out shipping calculations and payment set ups.

Optimise the site for SEO.

Work to get the social media sorted.

And even then?

That is the absolute bare minimum. And even that won’t necessarily bring results that would have matched your bricks and mortar store.

Covert the thinking to a physical space.

Think foot traffic in a digital medium. How are you going to get maximum foot traffic browsing your site?

Think conversion. How are you going to display your products that get people considering them?

Think loving. How are you going to get them to pull out their wallet.

The online world gets trickier everyday.

It’s flooded.

Imagine your regular, popular mall.

Now imagine it spreading over the space of a city.

Too much right?

That is exactly what things look like online.

Too much.

So how are you going to stand out?

Feature image by Kirsty Dow.

Yesterday, I caught up with a friend for breakfast.

During our brief catch up session, we discussed:

Sam Smith
Harvard Social Media courses
EMBAs
Women’s Networks
Fussy childrens eating habits
Hours that babies sleep through the night
Purchasing houses in Melbourne (and buyers advocates)
Counselling
Creating a lifestyle of choice
Cafes in Toorak
iPhones and lenses on top of iPhones
Conversations with travellers vs. non- travellers

Before catching up with my friend, I was contemplating the purchase of three books.

The books were mentioned by a blogger and I had the tabs open in my browser for 2 weeks.

But I was not compelled to purchase them.

However, after catching up with my friend, she convinced me that the books were worth purchasing.

Sometimes that blog post gets read.

Then it gets forgotten.

Then you come back to it.

Then you open the link throughs.

Then you forget about them.

Then you talk to a friend about it.

Then you come and make the purchase.

Much like the real world, it isn’t always straight forward where your purchases come from. You need to allow for human behaviour in the middle of all the analytics.

Feature image by Kirsty Dow.