Blog Creation Software

Blogging and Business Sustainability

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

This morning I was reading an interesting article on business sustainability and how it relates to blogging. It took a refreshing look at why a corporate blog is important to the sustainability of a company, as a communication tool.

A key paragraph stuck out to me, where the author describes how a blog ultimately holds a company and its employees responsible for the message they are delivering and the work they are producing. Which is something that happens internally in a company everyday, but with a blog - it holds you accountable to your customers as well.

"Simply having a company blog open to comments from readers gives a key message on the importance and acceptance of differing viewpoints to that company. When truly an expression of the views of an individual business executive, blogging provides a strong foundation for individual accountability. And through opening him or herself up to a more personal connection with readers I believe the executive blogger creates an environment in which the views of their external stakeholders [potential customers] are front of mind..."

A blog is a simple and effective way to engage with those outside of your company, and allows a business the ability to have a conversation with those interested in their products and services. It allows the company to share its knowledge and show why they are a reliable partner to their clients and customers, in a cost effective and environmentally friendly communication tool.

Full article: "Blogging Really Can Enhance Corporate Sustainability"

CNAME - What is it? How to set it up?

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Now that you're on board with Compendium and you've filled out your getting started form, the first thing you'll need to do is set-up your CNAME.

Now if your wondering what a CNAME is, well .... let me explain:
A CNAME record or Canonical Name record is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS) that specifies that the domain name is an alias of another, canonical domain name. This helps when running multiple services from a single IP address. Network administrators also use CNAMEs when running multiple HTTP servers on the same port, with different names, on the same physical host.

What does this mean for you ....
At Compendium, we require our client select a domain or sub-domain for their blog and create a CNAME Record for this domain. As a software as a service, Compendium hosts all of our clients blogs, including content and images. By using a CNAME Record, and directing to the Domain of www.compendiumblog.com, we have the ability to add to and modify our infrastructure when necessary without affecting service to our clients.

When a CNAME record is set for the URL of blog.EXAMPLE.com, and the CNAME record points to www.compendiumblog.com, the browser will resolve to the content at www.compendiumblog.com, but the browser would show http://bog.EXAMPLE.com in the address bar.

Now that you know what a CNAME is and why Compendium require our clients to create one, its time for you to get your set-up. Click here for some basic instructions. However, if you manage your DNS records through your registrar, here are links to some step-by-step instructions to some of the main registrars that will help you with this action.

After you get your CNAME set, your just a few days away from blogging for your business! So get your CNAME set and starting blogging today!

REMEMBER: if you have a question you can search Compendium's Knowledgebase RIGHT NOW - or fill out the online submission form.

Don't wait for the case study

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Jim Hyslop

I talk with a lot of people every week about Compendium's value proposition as an inbound marketing tool that leverages blogging for search acquisition and more often than not the conversation always ends up with the question "can you send me a case study?" the response is "of course I can"

We obviously wouldn't be in business if we didn't create success for our clients day after day. We have case studies that you can download directly form our website as any smart, results driven company should. The thing here is that success looks different for every business and every vertical.

There is nothing easier in the world than selling using a similar situation type of sell...trust me. But at the end of the day, I think it is important to ask yourself "do I want to read the case study, or BE the case study?" Chances are if you are reading it, it isn't about your company and you may have already missed out on a large portion of market share because you made the decision to NOT adopt new strategies for business growth. Some of the most successful companies today are where they are at because they were forward thinking and allowed someone to write a case study on them.

Get Out of the Way

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Brian Graham

I was talking with a business owner on the phone yesterday and the conversation went south on both his account and mine. We were getting in our own way. He was not getting it and not listening to me and I was not getting it and not listening to him. Traditional marketing, "push marketing", is a lot like the described conversation. You are trying to push your product, service, or message until someone will get it instead of creating opportunities to listen and help.

Blogging best practices suggest telling stories of how you help people in your business. By creating an inbound marketing strategy through a blogging solution you are letting your potential customers and clients find you on their terms. You are getting out of your own way and letting the process happen. You are letting the relationship grow. This is the "social" aspect of blogging that lets your company be human.

Try listening and understanding and get out of your own way to let progress happen. Start a blog for business. It is a great place to begin.

Corporate blog security

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Brian Millis

Are you one of the thousands of businesses trying to force a freeware blog platform to operate as a marketing tool? Yes?

The most obvious question then is; How is that working out for the company? Is it driving lots of organic search traffic? Converting that traffic into qualified inbound leads? How much revenue have you generated directly from blog leads?

Well, those are all great business questions to consider. But what about an even more basic consideration than measurable results . . . what about:

Is your business blog more of corporate RISK rather than a useful marketing TOOL?

Just check out this recent post from Kyle Brady about a hack-in through a Wordpress blog. In case you don't want to read the entire article, here is what happened:

a list of hundreds of URLs to assorted pages, mostly porn, appeared after the </html> tag on all pages of the site
for content created after the attack, it somehow embedded itself inside the Wordpress content, and all links redirected to a malware site – in addition to breaking the entire page

Now thankfully, the post details out the lengths that were taken to discover the issue and how to fix it. I consider myself pretty technologically savvy, and even I thought it was confusing.

Doesn't that seem like a lot of work to fix a tool that most likely produces very few results? This is the second time just THIS WEEK that I've heard about similar security issues. I think that all businesses out there should be considering third generation corporate blogging. The differences are pretty simple:

Security
Automation
Measurable Results

Don't be THAT Business!

Monday, November 16, 2009 by P.J. Hinton

Businesses come in all kinds of aspirations, sales figures, and revenue. Some businesses are comprised of teams which include tech savvy staff, and then there are others who don't. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. There are some fields where it just doesn't make sense to pay the salary of a full-time tech guru.

Regardless of your orgainzation's technical savvy, chances are there is a substantial number of potential customers who are looking for what you have to offer via search engines. If you're not showing high up on the rankings for the keywords they're using, then you are as good as nonexistent to these people.

Buying into the growing marketing wisdom of the age, you decide to line up a corporate blogging initiative. When it comes time to pick a platform, you ask around. Some point you to free hosted services. Others tell you to use this or that particular open source package on your own servers. Chances are, you'll opt for the open source package that a large number of businesses are using.

Then the fun begins. Suppose you're one of those businesses whose technical skill on the low end of the spectrum. You'll be faced with a sea of arcane knowledge that will be confusing at worst. Is setup that hard for non-techincal people? Look no further than a blog post published today by Kit O'Toole over at BlogCritics. In setting up a WordPress blog for herself, she ran into a steep learning curve with PHP and CSS, and she learned the hard way what damage can be done when the database gets corrputed.

So then you plonk down a few grand to bring in a social media expert, or you roll the dice and put up an ad on craigslist's computer gigs section offering some amount of money for someone who knows what they're doing. That will cost you maybe a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars just to get up to speed.

Once you've gone live and started creating content, you'll face the challenge of ongoing maintenance. When your blogging platform choice ships a new upgrade, or when there is an advisory about security that needs patching (see Tech Crunch story from June 2008 and Robert Scoble's blog post from September 2009 for some good examples), chances are you'll need to track down that guy who did the original setup (you did keep his contact information, didn't you?) or expend effort getting someone to help you out.

This problem is one of the core value propositions of Compendium. Not only are you buying into a platform for your SEO efforts, you're also getting the backing of a multitenancy application. There are no more installs or upgrades for you to fret about. In fact, new code releases occurring ruing the middle of the week ensure that you'll always have the latest and greatest version of our platform. We worry about uptime, maintenance, and backups, so you don't have to!

Take a lesson from the NFL: Momentum Matters

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 by Michael Burton

After watching football all day Sunday, specifically the Colts game, I realized how much momentum plays into a game of football. It can either hurt you or help you, but the important thing to realize is that it just takes a small jolt of success to get the ball rolling and everything else just starts to fall into place.

Take the Colts game for example; in the first half, Texans quarterback Matt Schaub had about 60 yards, completed very few passes and was sacked multiple times. By the end of the game, he had completed 75% of his passes for over 300 yards and came up 5 feet wide left of winning the game.

This just goes to show that it only takes a small push and some precise adjustments to turn things around and find success. It wasn't until I really started thinking about the ideas of momentum that I realized how much that relates to the world of business blogging software.

No matter what your former marketing strategies looked like, taking the step to starting a blog for you business will be the perfect jump start to getting your new marketing campaign underway. Once you get into a "blogging groove" and find your niche, creating powerful, effective posts comes naturally and helps to further the success of your blog.

Peyton Manning leads all current NFL quarterbacks in most 4th quarter comebacks, meaning that he is the expert in changing his team's momentum when it really counts. He does this with a great coaching staff leading him along the way... Take a page from his book and contact Compendium today for some great coaching on how to utilize blogging in your business!

Improving a Call to Action

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

One of the most important pieces of information to have when measuring the success of any marketing or SEO tools is the number of conversions, leads generated, or data captured to put into nurturing campaigns. All of this data will eventually lead to a larger pipeline and more sales!

A corporate blogging software, such as Compendium Blogware, allows a company to increase their online marketing efforts, as it is a platform built for search engine optimization. Our powerful blogging software takes on all of the heavy lifting and allows the user to focus solely on creating content.

Another piece that makes our our blogging solution so easy is that we incorporate CTA's (Calls To Action) on every blog network with us, to help track visitors that come to the blog then click through to the company wanting more information or to take that next step towards conversion.

Recently Compendium held a Client Only webinar focused on understanding and improving the calls to action (CTA's) on your corporate blogging network. This webinar allows you to get a better understanding of what makes a great CTA, and how to incorporate best practices to draw more leads into your sales pipeline.

For a replay of this webinar, contact your dedicated Client Success Manager or our Product Support Team at help@compendium.com.

Keyword Strength Meter: What it Does and What it Does not Do

Monday, November 9, 2009 by P.J. Hinton

Compendium Blogware's post editor features a small widget known as the Keyword Strength Meter (referred to by the development team simply as the "KSM"). It's a display that gives the author a quick indication of the current keyword usage in your post. Starting at a bright red, the appearance will transition to green as keyword phrases are added to the post.

I wrote an introductory post about the KSM soon after it went live in the summer of 2008, and since then it has gone through many changes.

There were revisions to make sure that it was able to compute the score on the fly without imposing too much overhead the host browser.
When we switched editor technologies at the beginning of 2009, we made the code more modular so that it wouldn't be as tightly coupled to the editor that it was monitoring.
Also during the editor revamp, we changed the display to emphasize that the meter is a qualitative measure.
This past summer, after introducing a new moderation dashboard for network administrators, we added a keyword strength meter to the post preview so that network administrators could view the value.

One thing that hasn't changed as our user base has grown is the intense affinity that users have had for the widget. From Sales and Client Success, I have heard stories of users who endured great frustration because they couldn't make their posts turn the right shade of green. I've also heard of network administrators who have rejected posts because they weren't green enough.

As the developer of the original implementation of the KSM and the designer of its scoring algorithm, I think it's important for content authors and network administrators to have an awareness of what the meter measures so that it can be used effectively. I'll also talk about what it can't do for you.

The meter looks at three things in determining its score:

Does the post contain any keyword phrases?
Are the same phrases being used over and over, or is there a variety of keywords being chosen?
Are too many keywords being used relative to the length of the post?

These measures are combined in a way that simultaneously rewards keyword usage and penalizes keyword stuffing, a practice that Compendium discourages because it runs counter to what we are trying to help our clients achieve.

Keyword usage is but one piece of a successful corporate blogging program. Other significant factors include:

Creating Content Steadily -- The primary axis of content organization within a single blog is time. Newer content appears on the lead pages. Older content takes more mouse clicks to reach via pagination. Assuming that search ranking algorithms place greater emphasis pages closer to the root of a URL hierarchy, the new content is what gets the greatest weight. A steady stream of new content ensures that indexers know you're alive and relevant.
Choosing Topics Relevant to the Customer -- If sales of your products fluctuate over time and change of season, you'll probably want to adjust the emphasis of your posts accordingly. Sometimes the keywords you chose initially for your blogging program don't take these topics into account. If you focus too narrowly on the original keywords, you'll wind up creating posts that miss opportunities to convert.
Being Real by Letting the Rank and File be Themselves -- Our application makes it easy for organizations to add new user accounts for blogging. We do this to encourage our clients to a wide variety of employees blogging. Packing the blogging team with people exclusively from the Public Relations team runs the risk of making blog content read like those newsletter inserts that come with utility bills. Do you read those things? I didn't think so. Overemphasis on using exact keyword phrases in every post also runs the danger of making their usage look forced, which can be spammy looking.

What's common to all of these points? They cannot be measured by the KSM.

The content creation time line graphs on the network administrator's dashboard can help keep an eye on frequency. The content ideas panel on the user dashboard can provide timely reading for new ideas. Producing real content requires human beings with inspiration and knowledge of the customer's needs. No computer can replace that.

The bottom line? Use the KSM as part of a comprehensive strategy to make sure that keywords are being used in reasonable measure. Treat it as a rough guide, not an all-knowing oracle.

Where Do Communities Make Sense?

Sunday, November 8, 2009 by P.J. Hinton

Many months ago, I blogged about how the goal of using a corporate blogging program to build a community is not a universally applicable principle. There are some businesses whose product lines are readily amenable to community building because the customers have an ongoing relationship with the company, but there are many where the concept doesn't make sense.

A recently published Information Week column by Fritz Nelson underscores just how difficult it can be to build a community. Some of the takeaways:

There is no formula to success. An approach that worked in one context will not necessarily succeed in another.
The common theme among successes is that they try to "create something out of real social need, or passion".
Identifying that need and meeting it requires listening, following, and persuading the customer to take action.

Where are some areas where this works? Fritz offers some examples:

Social gaming
Enterprise software and hardware
Frequently used services, like utilities

If you look at these three areas, they all wind up being deeply ingrained within the workplace or lifestyle of the participants. Social games, like Farmville, require regular back-and-forth interaction. People whose job involves working with enterprise software and hardware usually spend so much time on it that it they want that close connection to the vendor. Lots of people watch TV, and many of them get their TV from cable, and they are all too happy to vent online about their travails.

Fritz makes a good case for how an airline could use data it already has available to figure out how to establish good customer relationships. For business travelers who rack up the air miles, positive engagement within the context of a community could build loyalty. As an example of how easy it is to get it wrong, he points to videos made by Microsoft for the release of Windows 7.

All of this should be a reminder to businesses that the question of community building should be approached with seriousness and openness to the possibility that it simply does not make sense. And even when it does make sense, there's no clear path to success.

Applying more SG to business blogging

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Brian Millis

Ok, so I try not to do double Seth Godin references but he seems to be so timely for what I'm doing. His most recent blog post begins with this quote:

"The problem with "everyone" is that in order to reach everyone or teach everyone or sell to everyone, you need to so water down what you've got you end up with almost nothing."

This is what I find so hilarious about most of the corporate blogs I read. Often time these busy business men and women spend time manually tagging or categorizing their freeware blog for things like: social media, agency, advice, technology, etc. etc.

These are such general topics for organization. Most of these people tell me that they spend time blogging for SEO and do this organization so they will be found in the search engine by qualified prospects. If you are a branding agency, why would someone search just "branding" or "agency"?! They wouldn't. They would search something like "branding agency in charlotte".

Seth's advice is great to heed when thinking about corporate blogging. If you try and make your blog about EVERYTHING or appealing to EVERYONE . . . . almost NO ONE will find you. Or you could look at it this way: A company that creates one blog and fills it with info ranging from industry news to product information simply waters down the blog, trying to make it about EVERYTHING. This means it will not be found by ANYONE or be a useful vehicle for getting found in search and driving traffic.

And this is why Compendium's structure is brilliant. Blog about EVERYTHING and let the software take care of the organization that actually makes it relevant to the searcher and the search engine.

Common Mistakes in Blogging (#4)

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

(4th in a series of 5)

Common Mistake #4:

The reason blogs are successful SEO tools is because they allow you to update them as frequently as you want. This is what the Search Engines love! They will send their web crawlers to your site looking for new content, and if they continue to find new content every time, they will come back more often and more frequently.

On the same hand, if the web crawler does not find new content, it will be trained to not come back as often or as frequently. Allowing your competition to surpass you.

Your business blog will not be very successful if the web crawlers aren't able to find new content. Make it discoverable and both the web crawlers and your readers/potential new customers will be able to find you.

Answer:

There are a few ways to make a blog more easily discovered by web crawlers, but the #1 way is to always be creating new content, and posting it frequently (on average a blog network should be generating at least 25 posts per month).

Other ways include:

Adding a link on your company home page to the blog.
Publicize the blog in newsletters, email signatures, and marketing collateral.
Integrate the blog with other social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.
Optimize content for search engines by always using at least one exact keyword phrase in your blog post and post title. (do not keyword stuff though - its spam!)

Common Mistake #1
Common Mistake #2
Common Mistake #3

How to use your Corporate Blog for inbound links

Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Corporate Blogging is all about credibility and search marketing. By organizing relevant content that is frequently updated you are essentially building targeted organic landing pages. Content drives this strategy, but don't forget ever that inbound links are really valuable too. Generally I fall into the camp that if your company bloggers create great content and that content targeting search, then you will dramatically increase the reach of your blogs and links will come naturally.

Sometimes however you might need to 'Prime the Pump' and engage in some strategies to legitimately go out and get some links.

This particular tactic is not my original idea but one I've been working on after a post by Rand Fishkin. The idea is sort of back to the Zig Ziglar quote that has been around forever:

"You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want."

There is really nothing new conceptually with Social Media. The ideas are the same as they were before brand corruption, now we just have the tools to actually execute.

Rand's idea is to target people you know and write a testimonial about them. The key is not to put this testimonial on your blog, but offer it up for them to put on their own blog.

Another spin on this is the offer to be a guest blogger. I use Google alerts to keep track of who's blogging in my industry, that gives me a steady stream of fellow advocates to reach out to.

Exciting Product Release to Preview your Blog Post within Your Template

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Abby Brosmer

This morning, Compendium proudly released the ability to preview your blog post within your live blog template. Prior to today,when creating post as a user the options available were to save as a draft, submit my post to the administrator for moderation or preview the post in new window to ensure video worked properly.

Today, when a user selects preview post, they will now view their content as it would appear live on the web. A nice enhancement to our easy to use blogging software which allows users an extra reassurance that their content will represent the company well on the corporate blog.

As a member of the product support team, we are always working to request enhancements to the product that will enhance each users experience and provide the best blogging software to our clients.

If you have a suggestion, fill our the web form and we will add it to our product log for enhancements. Yes, these enhancements are prioritized by customer request, so every vote matters.

Empathy In Blogging & Search Is Natural

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Jenni Edwards

Empathy doesn't come to natural to most of us. Potentially it is a lacking quality across my seemingly selfish generation, but I have to make a conscious effort towards empathy in any given situation.

Our friend, Seth Godin, recently wrote about empathy in marketing noting that marketers and the fact that as marketers we can try as we might to be empathetic and we may think we understand the hopes and dreams along with the woes of any given demographic, but we really don't. And when we think we do, we are likely making broad, incorrect generalizations.

What can we do about this? And how does empathy really work? I consider empathy to be very close to the idea of a "similar situation" sales approach (i.e. - I'm just like you; let me solve your problem like I did for someone just like you, etc.). The truest form of empathy is truly being in the same situation...not faking it or making assumptions. How do you create this feeling of empathy through blogging? You enable multiple individuals throughout your organization to create content. It's amazing even within a small company the socioeconomic, life stage and other diversity that exists and opening this up can be a powerful marketing tool.

Another way in which empathy is natural from a search perspective is through known data. Although I can agree as Seth warns that mixing empathy in marketing is rather dangerous --- the fact that through search and tracking tools we are able to tie back the search terms that an eventual buyer or "conversion" came to our website or blog from, therefore, as we learn more about the individual we can begin to make these somewhat dangerous assumptions such as "Stay at home moms generally search with terms such as XYZ where as working mothers usually search on terms such as ABC" and using these data backed assumptions to create better custom landing pages, blog templates, calls to action within a blog and so forth.

It might be a stretch and empathy may never be a natural quality in many of our everyday lives, but I believe that some of the benefits of empathy in marketing can be found through blogging and search.

Common Mistakes in Blogging (#2)

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

Recently I started writing about common mistakes we see when a company begins a blog marketing program. To continue with the series, I wanted to discuss the expectations regarding the amount and frequency of content generation.

(2nd in a series of 5)

Common Mistake #2:

This is one of the most common misconceptions we see with new clients, is the understanding of how a search marketing effort becomes effective. When looking at our most successful clients, it is when they continue to fuel their content machine, and frequently put out new blog posts.

Think about blogs that you read on a regular basis - how often do they publish content? Typically it is multiple times per week, and is on a scheduled basis. So that you as the reader begin to count on when you'll see new information. Same story with the web crawlers - the frequency that your network creates content will train the crawlers to come back and crawl your site more frequently and see you as an authoritative answer.

Answer:

Blogging on a regular basis is a hard habit to get into, but similar to going to the gym, once you get in the routine you'll find that it is an enjoyable experience, and the results will encourage you along the way. Get other individuals at your company to help write content, so that not one person is shouldering the load.

Also, with our easy to use blog software and post scheduling feature, you'll be able to schedule when a blog post shows live to the web, so that if you aren't able to put content out everyday, you'll at least look like you are! ;)

Remember that anything can be good blog fodder so talk about that great conversation you had with a client, or a new product that's coming out, or a recent article in your industry and how your company plays a role.

(Common Mistake #1)

5 Tricks for Fabulous Blog CTAs

Friday, October 30, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

In the spirit of the Halloween here are five fabulous tricks to help you get the treat (business blogging leads).

1. Use images of people. People respond to people and buy from people. Just make sure that the person in the image is looking at the action you want them to take not away from it.

2. Eye-catching colors are always good to use - in moderation of course. Get my attention but don't overpower me.

3. Say something that will really get them to think. Starting a CTA with a question is always a good start.

4. Make sure your offering a variety of Calls To Action. Your corporate blog will have visitors that are ready to purchase right now as well as visitors that are only ready to commit to a newsletter. Don’t miss out – cater to all of the groups.

5. Never give it away for free. Make sure you capture your visitors data.

While creating quality CTAs can be tricky don't worry we are here to help. Just reach out to your client success manager for strategy and guidance around improving your CTAs.

Blogging and Halloween

Friday, October 30, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

Part of the fun of having a corporate blog is that it allows the personality of the employees to shine, and allow potential and existing customers to engage with your staff.

So along that note, I wanted to share a bit of Compendium's personality during this festive weekend! Ladies and Gentleman....feast your eyes on one of our Business Development Managers - Brian Graham:

(Kudos to Brian for creating and sewing this Two-Face outfit together on his own - I'm sorry I missed the leopard print boot though...)

The best part about this picture is that Brian was on a demo with a client while allowing me to take advantage and publish his picture web-wide (Brian - any publicity deals you land from this, I get 15%).

Some might think this is a crazy office, but that's whats fantastic about working here. We are all passionate about what we do, and we have fun with it! That personality allows our customers to have fun too. The other thing that happens now, is that you probably feel a little closer to Brian, right? Feel like you might know him, would enjoy talking with him, etc - you've engaged with him!!

Obviously, a blog for search engine optimization is key, but don't forget to allow your human side to show too!

Here's hoping everyone has a safe and spooky Halloween!

What's the deal with social media?

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Michael Burton

So you may be asking yourself, "What's the deal with all this talk about social media? It seems like people are talking about it everywhere, but I have no idea what they're talking about..."

That is a common question these days. Social networking has been growing for the past couple of years and recently has boomed into playing a huge role in business and marketing.

At Compendium, we know the potential of social media and the seemingly endless ways it can be used in helping your business.

In a recent webinar, Compendium Co-Founder Chris Baggott teamed up with Kyle Lacy, the CEO of Brandswag, to discuss why marketers and consumers are becoming obsessed with social media and how it can play a role in your company.

If you would like more information on this topic, as well as ways to combine business blogging software with social media to create ROI, I suggest checking out the replay of the webinar.

If you still have questions after watching it, contact a Compendium representative, and they can help you figure out where exactly blogging fits in your business.

The death of Stock Imagery. (Yeah right)

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by mikey mioduski

Jay-Z called for the Death of Autotune, I'm calling for the death of Stock Imagery.

Yeah right. Stock images are ok I guess because you can find a visual that represents what you're writing about in your blog kind of. Like if you're writing about "social media" you can find a stock image of some little icon people in a circle... you know, to really drive the idea home.

Stock images are easy. But the most memorable blogs and websites in my mind are the ones that create everything from scratch. Obviously I don't practice what I preach... But I just want to give props to these very cool sites that really deliver one of a kind content, because content is really what separates a succesful business blog from an okay one.

IDEO and alistapart.com are two examples that I know of who create custom graphics and illustrations to represent their content. Not an easy task! But it pays off brilliantly. The old design saying goes something like this: you're supposed to design around the content. Chances are a stock image can't express exactly what you wanted to say and also maintain the graphic standards of your brand. Granted not all of us have the budget for such customization, but maybe it's as easy as asking a local art student to pump out some drawings for you. Or asking your buddy the aspiring photographer to get some shots. Whatever it is, wouldn't it make for a much more beautiful internet if each site we visited had it's own unique look and feel, even in the content.

Here's what the heck i'm talking about in case I've lost you.

Exhibit A. Ideo.com's patterns... Awesome illustrations (please don't tell me these are stock or my whole theory is kabosh.)

Exhibit B. Also from Ideo. Notice they have their own style, yet they still speak to the content with the imagery. Even the layout is super unique.

Exhibit C. Alistapart has a darn good illustrator pumping out top notch watercolorings (?) makign each article that much more compelling and interesting.

Exhibit D. See what I'm saying?

It's definitely more time consuming, but again, this customization is another way to make for a more engaging, more memorable experience for visitors to your business blog, which is not an easy task online.

Gracias for the inspiration IDEO and Alistapart.