I often get questions like, “Why does my logo have to be in the same place on everything?” or “Can we change the logo color to yellow, just in the Powerpoint templates?”.

There is no quick answer for either of these questions but if you keep in mind that you are projecting a “personality” and that everything created should advance that objective and be in a consistent “language” then these questions become a little easier to answer.

Let’s take the first question, Why does my logo have to be in the same place on everything?
Putting the logo in the same place on everything sends the subconscious message that you and your company are consistent and well organized. You also get the benefit of recognition and expectation when you send your client something new. Over time, a quick glance is all that is needed to alert your audience that this piece of business collateral is from you. Which may make the difference between being read or being tossed in the garbage. That being said, for every rule, there is an exception. When consistency is the norm, a break from that can shock the consumer into taking a second look. The trick is to make the rules work for you by being aware of them and always using them to your advantage.

“Can we change the logo color to yellow, just in the Powerpoint templates?”
Of course you can, but do you want to? Go back to the “personality” filter. What does it say about your company that you arbitrarily change the color of your logo to suit your short term needs? You did not plan ahead for all of your logos uses when you were designing it, you are not that organized, your attention to detail is not your strong suit, your into quick and easy fixes… you get the picture.

Designers are not here to make your life harder and more complicated, we want to make things easier and help you project the right “Corporate Personality” for your business. We do that by creating a set of guidelines that safeguard your “look” and “personality” and actually make future marketing easier by choosing the “language” that we use to describe your company and sticking with it.

Samepoint and BoardReader are search tools for finding conversations by topics.

Commentful is great for businesses who want to monitor comments/follow-ups on blog posts, Digg, and others to be actively conversing with customers.

I attended a great Social Media Marketing Seminar yesterday sponsored by the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Social media marketing can be hit or miss these days but I was surprised at the enthusiasm and the quality of attendees and speakers.

Below are links to the speakers and some other good stuff.

Special thanks to the speakers I saw:
Jessica Kizorek – Founder of The Viral Pulse
Jason Beukema- President of Whet Travel
Mande White- FreeSocialMediaHelp.com
Courtney Recht- Manager, Public Relations Norwegian Cruise Line

A few worthy links too!
Search Twitter Feeds- find who is tweeting in your zip code!
Tweetbeep – track conversations
Twitter Karma – manage friends

Before watching this video I truly believe mobile is the future. For the past six months I have been actively researching and working in mobile. If you follow trends and the research it is pretty evident that mobile marketing will have an impact on the future.

This video by MOCOM2020 clearly and convincingly outlines how mobile is the next game changer.

It was fairly easy to do with very little coding knowledge. I wanted to share a few links that I found very helpful.

How to add a custom tab to your Facebook fan page – This is a well documented “how-to” resource.

An overview on Facebook Pages – also download Fan Page product overview pdf.

The App Static FBML – you need to add this app to the tab to use FBML.

Wiki documentation on FBML (Facebook Mark-up Language).

APPARATI EFFIMERI Tetragram for Enlargment from Apparati Effimeri on Vimeo.

I have been blogging since 2006, but in 2007 I started reading a lot about the idea of “the Conversational Architect”. A few articles really inspired me to start this blog about conversations and engagement. It took a whole year of thinking and reading before I started to understand my role. There are many blogs that focus on strategy and I wanted to approach it from the practitioner. My goal is to report on real world projects and campaigns. I am very interested in the process and practice of creating these campaigns for conversations.

I may turn U-SKA.com back into a portfolio only site. Time will tell.