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Final Outcome
I had trouble with printing my publication as the pages didn't line up correctly when printed back to back. I corrected this by trimming down the final publication, but this has left the edges sort of frayed.
Also, I found that the printer cut off a small part of the top of each page. I'm not really sure why this is, it may be because of my printer but it does make the design look a bit rough and not as clean as I would have liked it to.
Bibliography
I could now apply my bibliography and opinion to my 'twitter' page. I designed this page as if it were my profile, and showed each post by each company as well as my own being posted by myself.
My Opinion
Design agencies use social media to raise both their profile and revenue. Which campaigns have been particularly successful and why?
Through researching about social media in design industry, I have come across a number of different views and opinions on the matter. From reading through this information I have found that if used correctly, social media is of vital importance to raising the profile and revenue of the company, and if it is used incorrectly, it can do the complete opposite of what you were intending it to do. For instance, if a company were using Facebook, and posted too many things that didn’t interest their viewers they would be overlooked and wouldn’t get the attention that they wanted from the social media. It is similar to emails, people don’t tend to pay attention to things like newsletters that are emailed to them, and in the end it tends to annoy people and viewers are lost in the process. It also works the other way though, if you do not keep your viewers up to date and don’t post anything then they will also loose interest. There is a very fine line between being interesting and annoying.
It is also important to use the correct social medias for the correct use, ie. Twitter is used for short snappy updates, pretty similar to news headlines. They are there to give the reader important updates, possibly with links to further information about what they have posted. The only thing that I find a bit of a down side for design companies using twitter is that you are able to post images, but they are links to the images. With design being an almost purely visual thing, this doesn’t work too well in the industry.
Facebook, on the other hand, allows you to be a lot chattier and post longer, more informative posts as well as post images that are including in images relating to your post, this creates a much more visually pleasing post. But again, there is still the risk that your viewers may ignore you if you post things that aren’t of interest to them.
With social media, you are able to get your viewers involved a lot more than you would if you couldn’t communicate online. For example, the use of social media allows you to update constantly, whereas with publications that are printed you are never completely up to date because everything happens so quickly in the world. A perfect example of this is newspapers; they only used to be available in print form, but modern days mean that new reports can be published online almost intently to when the event happens. This is the same principle for design industry, as well as nearly every other industry.
In my opinion, social media is vital to the design industry as long as it is used in the correct manor. It is a quick and easy way to promote yourself, as long as you are posting things that interest you audience. We are living in a new modern online world and companies must embrace this otherwise they will end up being left behind and forgotten.
Facebook Page (of publication)
I could now apply my interview with Rob Alderson to the page in my publication. I have made the profile look like It's Nice That's page so that the viewer knows what agency the interview is with.
It's Nice That Interview
I finally heard back from It's Nice That's editor, Rob Alderson.
These are the answers that he gave to my questions, they were really helpful and insightful:
1. How successful do you feel that the use of social media is in raising both your profile and revenue?
Profile definitely, it's a constant way of reaching an audience who have made the conscious decision that they are interested in what we do and a way to remind people multiple times a day that we're always updating the site and publishing new work. And of course it's a way for our existing audience to share our work with their networks therefore bringing us into contact with new readers. Revenue is much more difficult - as with many other publishers the models for raising money are always adapting and apart from driving traffic which helps advertising rates I wouldn't say we see social media as a great revenue raiser.
2. How do you choose which work to publish on your website?
We have an editorial team of four (myself, two full-time writers and an intern) and we have regular meetings to decide what gets posted from things we come across and things we are sent. Overall the mission is to :champion creativity across the art and design world" so that always has ti be at the back of our minds and beyond that we look for work that is original, exciting and/or fulfill its brief really well. The big things we want on the site if breadth of creative disciplines and a mixture of established names and new talent.
3. Which social media platform gives you the most popularity, and which do you enjoy using the most?
In terms of actually driving traffic to the site it's Facebook, but on balance I really like Twitter. It's so immediate and you can get into discussions more easily we've found. Because we don't have comments on our articles (except the weekly Opinion pieces) we have to embrace Twitter and Facebook giving readers the right to reply and giving us a chance to explain things when asked.
4. Without the use of social media, do you feel that you would be as popular and have as much attention?
No, social media has definitely helped us in a big way in terms of amplifying what we do but it shouldn't be seen as the be-all and end-all. At the end of the day if you're not providing exciting and engaging content the best social media strategy in the world isn't going to help you.
Intro Page
I chose to continue the design from the front cover through to the first page of the publication, I just changed the colours round again to draw attention to certain parts of the text.
Cover Design
With my cover I knew that I wanted it to be purely typographic based, as well as being big and bold making the viewer want to pick it up and look through it.
↑This is the text just centered on the middle of the double page spread.
↑I decided that I wanted the text to be further onto the main part being the front cover, I also decided to experiment with colour.
↑I still felt that the design needed something to make it feel more bold. I decided to make the word 'design' white to bring more attention to that word, to inform the reader what the book is mainly about. I chose to include a hash tag symbol '#' infront of the word design to reflect upon the idea of its use in social media, mainly Twitter, and how it is used to 'tag' subjects.
↑I felt that the blue was a bit overpowering for a front cover, so I swapped the colours around a bit and I am now much happier with the result.
Alterations
I have decided to make my 'tumblr' theme pros and cons page into a double page spread to continue with the fluidity of the publication.
Digital Designs
These are my finished layouts with text content added to them, I havn't been able to finish my 'facebook' page as I have not yet heard back from It's Nice That.
I will use this page for my bibliography of elemets used in the publication, as well as my 500 word opinion.
Social Media Fonts
I wanted to find out what fonts were used in the logos of each social networking site:
"Oswald"
This is used for the logo for YouTube, but isn't used in any other way on the site.
"Billabong"
Again, this is used for the logo but not the content.
"Bookman Old Style"
This is also used for the logo.
"Klavika Bold font"
Unfotunatly, this font is not free to download. It is also only used as the logo.
"Helvetica"
The content of any website differs from the logo font. A common font used is this helvetica.
"Arial"
Another common font used is arial.
Social Media Design Elements
I wanted to look at what elements build up each of the websites, these could be included into my layouts on my publication.
Tumblr
Youtube
Digital Experimentation
I thought, what better way to present a publication on social media, than the layout of the social media sites themselves.
On the left are images of the layouts that I have based my layouts of my publication on. These are the simple layouts just to give me an idea of the content that I will need to include.
Youtube
Tumblr
Initial ideas for my publication.
It's Nice That email replies
↓I have recieved a reply from Will Hudson at 'It's nice that'
↑He gave me the email of the editor of 'It's nice that', Rob. He would be able to help me out with the questions that I want to ask.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
↓I sent this email to Rob Alderson, the editor. This time I included my questions.
↑I recievd an automated email saying that he would be out of the office until tomorrow (4/12), and a few emails of people that you could contact instead of him. ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
↓So, from these emails, I chose to email James Cartwright, the editor assistant to see whether he could help me too, just in case I don't hear back from Rob in good time.
Social Media Layouts
I wasn't sure about the layout for my publication, but I knew that I definetly wanted a theme running through it, whether it be colour or the grid itself. As my question is about social media, I thought what better layout to have than to actually base them on social media layouts. I looked at what the profile/main pages layout would be like for each of the main social networking websites:
Facebook Many people don't like the new 'timeline' layout, but I quite like it. It is quite easy and simple to understand and use, and only shows the highlights or most recent updates. The only thing about it is that it doesn't use a lot of the page as it is mainly in the center, this seems to be quite a regular thing for social networking websites. Also, the colour scheme of the actual layout is really minimal, apart from the blue 'Facebook' banner, which means that any images/content that is uploaded is the main feature and isn't altered by any distractions in colour from the layout.
Tumblr Tumblr is quite a simple layout, but I find it really nice to use. I like how each post is in its own sort of speech bubble, but again the whole layout is placed in the center and there is quite a bit of wasted space around it. The colour scheme works okay because of the white boxes around the posts which means the posts wouldn't get lost in the background as the blue is quite over powering, without these boxes it probably wouldn't work so well and there would be too much distraction from the posts.
YouTube Again, Youtubes layout is simple, the colour scheme is monotone meaning there is no distraction and this layout is constant through all the pages within the website (with a few subtle changes here and there). The video, being the main feature of each page, is the largest thing within the layout, and there is no mistake where to look.
Instagram I wasn't too sure about the Instagram website. As it is mainly a mobile app it feels like the website is sort of less important, and so there hasn't been as much time spent on it. I like the header area, but I feel that it is a bit unnecessary as the same images are displayed further down the page. I do quite like the two tone colour scheme, as the black at the top of the page being behind the images in the header brings out the images nicely.
Flickr Flickr to me feels quite basic, there seems to be two layouts going on, with the header being wider than the column of main content being a lot narrower. The images also seem to be very small on the page and sort of get lost, I feel they could definetly use the page better and maybe have more of a colour scheme as there is a lot of white.
Twitter I like Twitter because it is really easy to customise the colour scheme and header, something that Facebook doesnt have. Even though the layout is centralised, I feel that the space is used very well within the middle column, it feels really neat and tidy and easy to read.
Twitter vs. Facebook
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/facebook-vs-twitter/
The best way to compare Twitter and Facebook is to look at the old children’s story “The Tortoise and the Hare.”
For those who don’t remember curling up in bed as a child, listening to an adult narrate it, this is the old fable of an arrogant hare who loses a race to a slow tortoise. The tortoise beat the hare because it followed the mantra slow and steady will always win the race.
In the world of social networks, Facebook looks like the swift and cunning hare, Twitter the leisurely and careful tortoise. This race is not judged by speed but by a stopwatch with a much longer lifespan, one that is tied to trust.
To run so quickly, Facebook exploded because it slurped up endless amounts of data about its users. It often did so in ways that earned it scorn from those worried about privacy and the implications of personal data used by others.
Again and again, Facebook pushed the boundaries of people’s privacy by making things public that had once been declared private on its site. It continually opted people into new features that clearly overstepped the company’s original privacy agreements.
As a result, Facebook users tiptoe through the site on eggshells. A recent CNBC poll found that “59 percent of respondents said that they had little to no trust in Facebook to keep their information private.” Eventually, the Federal Trade Commission stepped in to stop Facebook, but it was eight years too late.
Twitter, on the hand, has taken an opposite approach. The company has never made its users’ private information public when it has introduced new features. Unlike Facebook, Twitter has not endlessly changed its privacy policy.
Users of the site trust Twitter more.
The stark difference between the two companies’ approaches to privacy is evident with product introductions.
For example, on Thursday Twitter introduced a feature that is intended to make better suggestions of whom to follow on the service. To make the new service work, Twitter needs to do some snooping. Did privacy groups come out and berate Twitter for its actions? No. Did the F.T.C. announce an investigation into the company’s practices? Actually, quite the opposite. The government proudly announced Twitter’s ability to let people opt out of the new feature.
Sure, Twitter has made careless decisions, specifically with security. In the early days of the service, it was repeatedly hacked, putting users’ personal information at risk. Twitter’s negligence resulted in a settlement with the F.T.C., too.
In the long run, people will trust Twitter more than they do Facebook. And when it comes to building a long-term, trusting relationship with its users, Twitter will take it slowly and steadily, and in doing so, could win the race.
Why social media DOES work
"When you have content that becomes popular on sites like Digg, Reddit, or Delicious, you get in front of the largest body of linking individuals on the web. Most journalist, media, and bloggers/webmasters watch the front page of these top social news and bookmarking sites to get current and popular content to use for their own site, magazine, newspaper, or show. By having your content in front of this group of people, you are likly to get a lot of natural links to your content. Sometimes you can get links up to a PR9 level such as TBS, MSNBC, AOL, Wired, Huffington Post, all of which i have personally received off of successful campaigns." - Brent Csutoras, Online marketer
Much social media theory is nothing new. It's regurgitated brand theory. You create value by recognition and having customers engage and spread the word. It helps get the message out. Driving brand awareness, particularly with youth and wired demographics. Building brand, and the benefits that come from that - engagement, word of mouth, connection - are where social media can excel if executed as part of a coherent strategy. It's cheap. It's cheerful. It's fun. All good stuff.
Measure it
Find out how social media translates to your bottom line. If your social media guru can't demonstrate that, s/he is a waste of space. Social media must either increase sales, or cut costs, or both. If it doesn't, it's not business, it's just time wasting. If it can't be measured, then there's a good chance it isn't happening.
http://www.seobook.com/social-media-guruism-mostly-harmless