Blog Articles from Fawkes Digital Marketing

When working with Facebook images the images may upload in a way that you don't like and need to be rotated, they may need to be removed as after uploading you don't realize the image is the image you want, etc. Below we will outline the steps for handling the most common image options that we see users needing to do.

1. For all of the options below you will go to either your personal page or a page you are an administrator on.
2. Once you are on the page click on Photos
3. Navigate to the photo if it is not in an album, click on photo album and then click on the photo you wish to edit
4. As you hover (no clicking) over the image you will see options at the bottom of the image appear. We are going to focus on the Options part for this post. Click on Options and then choose one of the options beneath the image for complete details on what each item does.

How do I and how should I market on social media?

Social media is unlike other advertising that is designed to provide information about a product or service. Social media is designed to establish a conversational dialog with your customers. We find that companies that have been in business a few years or longer already have marketing plans for their print, radio or television already and are clearly defined. Your social media plan should be similar for consistency but take into account the bidirectional communication you will have with your customers.

Your social media plan should take many aspects of your current marketing plan. Your current marketing plan will have logos, images and how content is to be presented clearly defined and standardized. Consistency in your branding and message is key to any successful campaign. Please do remember though that social media has the word social in it and communicating with your customers should be a key part of your strategy.

Business leadership acknowledging, accepting and setting a budget based on how you wish to market your company socially needs to be thought of, discussed, and be expected to be revised as you continue to grow and learn more about social media.

This Fall, two lucky Purdue University North Central students in the Computer & Information Technology program can earn $1,000 scholarships. The JM2 Webdesigners JumpStart scholarship is open to all incoming and existing full-time PNC students in the C&IT program with a minimum GPA of 3.0. Interested students must write an essay that will be due September 30, 2014.

This scholarship was created in 2013 by JM2 Webdesigners, a technology company located in Michigan City, IN that was founded in 2012. JM2 Webdesigners specializes in custom application and website development for small to mid-size businesses in the Northwest Indiana area. Owners Jon Meyers and John Marx are both incredibly proud of the service they provide to businesses in the Northwest Indiana area. Their passion of providing excellent service goes beyond their business. Marx and Meyers annually give a scholarship for Purdue North Central Computer & Information Technology students to assist the recipients in pursuing their passion in computer systems. There are many reasons why the JM2 Webdesigners scholarship was developed, but one of the catalysts creating this generous gift was because of both men's diverse educational backgrounds.

Our philosophy is that your website is your 24x7 sales person and is an employee of your organization. Only by treating your website as an employee will you be able to benefit from the expertise that they bring to the table. Your website should obviously explain what your services are. Your website should not just "sit there" and collect what proverbial paycheck. Would you hire an employee, explain to them everything your business does and then let them sit there and do nothing to better your business? If the answer is yes, then stop now, as this post is not for you! If on the other hand you feel that to earn a paycheck that, your employee must provide a level of effort to promote your business than this article is for you.

We have been working with a lot of new clients recently that have wanted to improve their search results and update their marketing of their business. One recent client went from page 3 to page 1 in only 5 months (your results may vary) by proper planning and working to make a site that showcases what she wanted her business to show.

Below is what we provided to her for her existing site to achieve the search engine results she is getting today as well as getting qualified referrals from her website. With the proper graphic designer, web designer and the proper team at your company (which may be just you!) you can achieve some great results that help improve your overall brand image.

You have to think about your users as they are the most important aspect of your website. The second piece is that of the computer; search engines to be specific. You need to make certain your site is friendly and that a computer can understand it clearly without sacrificing the readability of your users. The speed and capacity planning of your site is critical in providing a great end user experience (think the government's health care site that didn't get good planning on the perception users had).

A small subset of the areas that we look at are below and with the list, growing based on type of audit the client desires. As we go through each item for each page of a website, we list all deficiencies found. Along with the deficiencies we will also presented some recommended solutions along with the anticipated effort to remediate the item.

Do we have your attention now? There is no guarantee with search engine optimization (SEO) success. We all wish we could guarantee results for our clients but we can't and those that do don't walk, run from. We do promise that we will use the best current techniques that the search engines state should be done for success. That we will not use any "black hat" SEO techniques as they may work for a week or two but they will hurt your site long term. This still doesn't guarantee success as much as we wish we could. When it comes to the push and shove of an SEO success strategy the only way it can be guaranteed is with the client themselves! That's right for SEO success with the search engines and a SEO company is determined by you; our customers. You are the experts in your field and can provide us with the information that you want your business to be known for. We are the experts in regard to the latest search engine technologies, techniques, recommendations and optimizations as this is what we focus on daily for you.

This month we have helped over a half dozen companies polish their website appearances. We evaluated their website and found the content to be exactly what they wanted to convey. The design of their company pages were dated and unappealing to their customers. The engagement on the sites were not bringing the results that they wanted.

We always talk about how your website should be treated as employee of your business. Businesses want their employees to present the company in a clean, positive, polished and professional manner whenever they are working for the company as well as when they are off duty. A person trying to sell a professional service and shows up in t-shirt and shorts may be appropriate if you are selling surf boards but not when you want to sell your products and services to another professional. They always say dress to impress. Your website should always be dressed for the success of your business.

A site that was first rate and top notch five or ten years ago is definitely no longer wearing or showing the best appearance. A site built a year or two ago may also be showing signs of wear as technology changes on a monthly basis. A website that may be showing its best foot forward to the people visiting the site may not be showing a good view for the search engines. A site filled with spammy words, black hat techniques or other malicious techniques to show on the search engines can not only tarnish your reputation to the search engines but make you fall off the first page of the results.

Each project that we work on has its own unique challenges. As we break our 100th project we look back and reflect on the one item that rings true for all of them. This item is essentially the most important aspect of any website. Every project begins with a blank slate. Whether we use a flow charting program or a pencil and paper we always start with nothing.

Fonts, Color Schemes and Logo

Most of the companies that we work with are well established, have worked with creative designers and marketing firms to outline the businesses fonts and colors the business uses. Along with that information we are given a set of parameters of how the fonts, sizes of the fonts, logo, location of the logo, and colors should be used.

When we have a project with a brand new startup it is a truly exciting experience as we not only work directly with the business entity but the designer helping build the brand. This also allows us to ask direct questions to both the designer and the business owner to make not only meet the businesses needs but help make the experience blend in more closely with the vision of the designer.