 99designs conducted a survey of 1,500 respondents from March 2012 to May 2012, who were evenly split between 99designs customers and non-customers holding design decision-making roles within their companies. This is a snippet of what they learned ...Blue = success. Purple and orange = flailing. According to most small business owners, that is. (57% of respondents picked blue as being the color they most associated with success, followed by green (35%), white (32%), black (29%) and red (21%). Purple was the color male respondents least often associate with success, while women were least likely to select orange. Apple dominated for best logo and best website, while Wal-Mart was in dead last. Interestingly, Facebook made the list of best and worst websites ... at least they generate a strong response! Are you taking your graphic design seriously? You should be! And it doesn't need to break your bank. First impressions count, so be sure yours is up to par!
 If this sounds too good to be true, we understand. We didn't think it was possible either. Who hasn't heard of all these app building services or developers who charge you a ton to create an app for you - and that's just for one platform. Appsbar has changed all that. With their platform, you can easily and intuitively create an app for your business, event, organization, yourself, etc. and have it published for use across all platforms - iPhone, Android, Google Play, etc. - all completely for free! And yes you can personalize it with your own logo, photos, videos, content - absolutely. The interface is as simple as Weebly is for websites. They just came out of beta testing in May and we can't get enough of them. But don't take our word for it - try them out! (And then come back to tell us what you think!). Link here.
 Weebly just keeps getting better. Last month they rolled out a few new features, such as social media icons, action buttons, and a mobile app. All of which we love and were able to use right away. But it just got a lot better as today they publicly unveiled 25 new themes - hooray! And to make things even better, there's a great site, Weebly Forums, that has a ton of tips not only on how to navigate Weebly but also how to easily customize some features that most non-coders would shy away from. They make it so easy, you almost feel like a programmer. Almost. Anyhow, if you're looking to publish a slick website quickly and for free, Weebly is a definite must!
 It's in Spokane, at various times on June 21st, 2012, and it's FREE. Over the course of 1 1/2 hours you will create and publish a website for your business using Intuit Sitebuilder. Organizers provide laptops or a place to plug-in if you bring your own. You can also register for the Grow Your Business online 1 hour seminar where you'll be shown how other people find your business online, with methods like search engine optimization (SEO), web analytics, etc. and then how to run your business more efficiently with a variety of free online tools. WA GYBO is offered by Washington SBDC and Greater Spokane Inc., using Google tools and platforms. For more information and to register, go here.
 Join us at Newport High School from 6-8pm on Monday, October 24th, 2011 as we co-sponsor, along with Pend Oreille Valley Network, a seminar " All about Websites (& a little Facebook)". We'll cover the why, what, how, how much, where and who ... from Do It Yourself to fully customized - what's involved, what are the benefits and costs & what do you need to be thinking about? FOR ALL WHO ATTENDED:Please help us improve by taking a quick 10 question survey here. Should only take you a minute and we really appreciate your feedback!
If we sound a bit like a broken record when it comes to social media, it's because it is such a dominant force in today's market. And, it's free to use! Yes, it takes a little time to learn and even more time (and thought and creativity) to master, but it's not like you have to go hire someone to build a website for you or pay huge bucks to advertisers, etc. right out of the gate. It's something that even you can do, from the comfort of your own home. Still not convinced that social media is where it's at? Well, even Nielsen is convinced - and that should speak volumes. They just released a new report on Social Media for Q3 2011 with some incredibly compelling data points - read more to find out what they've found.
This infographic showing the growth of online social media is nothing short of astounding. Just check out how steep the growth curve is for users across all age ranges and demographics. Social networking is clearly here to stay in every facet of our work, play and day-to-day life. But don't take our word for it ... click on "Read More" to check it out ...
Intuitively we "know" that rural communities adopt, use and respond to social media differently than urban areas. But just what are those differences? Unless you're an insider at Facebook, Google, LinkedIn or MySpace, it's hard to find useful data. However, we were able to locate one paper, written in 2008 mind you, where more than 3,000 rural and urban social media (MySpace) users, 340,000 online friendships and 200,000 interpersonal messages were analyzed. Entitled "The Network in the Garden: An Empirical Analysis of Social Media in Rural Life", authors Eric Gilbert, Karrie Karahalios and Christian Sandvig from the University of Illinois shared a few interesting conclusions.
You can "claim" and influence your online presence in a number of different ways, as we'll discuss separately in "Taking Control of Your Online Presence". But at the end of the day, the most important part of your online presence is still your own website. Read more to learn why you need your own web site and what we consider to be the minimum information your website needs to have.
Hopefully we've convinced you just how important your own personalized website is to marketing your business and sourcing new customers. And now you understand the critical components that any good website must have. So now it's time to get your own! Read more to learn just how simple it is.
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