How do you do that? Here are some steps:

1. Use a profile photo that tells your followers who you are and what you have to offer: If you’re a single store location, it might even be advisable to put your store hours on the photo. Add URLs to other websites and social presences. Facebook’s limitations on photos vary; some say that they can successfully upload a 200×600 image whereas others claim that 180×540 is the current limitation. Experiment and see what Facebook allows you to do.

2. Choose a name for your page that your customers can identify with: Don’t be cute or silly. This is your brand’s page. Use the name of your business, and if necessary, add the city name as well.

3. Use a vanity URL that your fans may guess to find you: There have been many companies specifically sought out on Facebook by simply typing facebook.com/businessname. It is surprising that some of the business names actually pointed to personal profiles and not the business profiles. Instead, reserve the business URL for your business page. You can allocate a vanity URL by going to facebook.com/username.

4. Give your followers information about you: Fill out as much information as you can in the About box under your profile and on the Info tab, and make sure to offer keyword rich text so that your Facebook presence shows up for search engine queries for your business.

5. Personalize your page: One of the ways to do so is to create a Facebook page with FBML, Facebook Markup Language. This entitles you to add custom tabs. You can create tabs to invite users to connect, let people find your store locations, or offer exclusive features to your fans. Whatever you do, keep the engagement level high.

6. Tell your customers where to find you! You probably have a web presence, right? Make sure to encourage your followers to find you on Facebook. Add links to your Facebook profile (and any other major social presences) in your email signature. When an individual becomes a new Fan, it shows up in their news feed, so others can also find out where they’ve been — and this could potentially have a viral effect. Once you’re found, the rest is up to you. Being actively engaged is a critical part of success on Facebook. Once your fans are there, make sure they stay by giving them reasons to regularly participate.

Tamar Weinberg is an internet marketer who specializes in social media strategy. She is the author of The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web and is Mashable’s Community Support & Advertising Manager. Follow her on Twitter at @Tamar and read her blog Techipedia.

If you want to discuss some of these strategies, please drop us a line or call Hawthorne Media Group at 503-238-4024. Thank you!

Most of you may not know the difference between Outbound Marketing and Inbound Marketing. It’s not any more complicated than it sounds. Outbound Marketing consists of what I used to call Conventional Marketing Techniques: trade shows, seminar series, email blasts to purchased lists, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and tv/radio/print advertising. We have begun to refer to them as “Push” marketing techniques. It casts an extremely wide net, hoping to catch enough fish to justify the massive expenses needed to support it.

Inbound Marketing is a concept forwarded by the two creators of the enormously valuable Hubspot.com Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.

It is the process of setting yourself and your business up to “get found” by people who are already shopping in the industry for services offered by professionals just like you. It’s much easier to grab the attention of (and secure new business with) a potential new client (who is already looking for you) with a targeted and specific message and specific CTA (Call-To-Action) than to hope to hit the bull’s eye of an indifferent and moving target with a generalized and diluted message.

Obvious, right? Then why does it seem like such an original and forward-thinking philosophy? That one is easy. Because of the internet, businesses are now able to gain access to potential new clients around-the-clock and around-the-world immediately and, in most cases, at a very low comparative cost to conventional marketing. With the effective use of search engines, social media sites, and a presence on (or at least an awareness of) industry specific blogs, you can set your website up to be a “hub” for your industry, and promote yourself as the expert that you truly are.

Instead of wasting time and money trying to reach and sell to the people who are already trying to screen your calls, block your “junk” mail and filter your spam, why not spend some time on your website, its content an how effectively you can use it to communicate with interested potential clients? Instead of interrupting your prospects’ lives with ineffective and way-too-general message, just be standing there, bright and bold, offering quality information and content, a path that is clear and focused, and open arms and a smile, instead of sneaking up behind then and tossing a net over their heads.

I quote Brian Halligan:

“The best analogy I can come up with is that traditional marketers looking to garner interest from new potential customers are like lions hunting in the jungle for elephants. The elephants used to be in the jungle in the ’80s and ’90s when they learned their trade, but they don’t seem to be there anymore. They have all migrated to the watering holes on the savannah (the internet). So, rather than continuing to hunt in the jungle, I recommend setting up shop at the watering hole or turning your website into its own watering hole.”

More great information from the two chaps mentioned above can be found in their book “Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs.”

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.

QR Codes are common in Japan, where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional codes. Moreover, most current Japanese mobile phones can read this code with their camera.

Although initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR Codes are now used in a much broader context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging).

QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that users might need information about. Users with a camera phoneequipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks. Google’s mobile Android(OS) supports the use of QR codes by natively including the barcode scanner (ZXing) on some models and the browser supports URI redirection which allows QR Codes to send meta-data to existing applications on the device.

Users can also generate and print their own QR Code for others to scan and use by visiting one of several free QR Code generating sites.

Please visit Island Graphics’ BIZNIK page at: http://biznik.com/join/david-sparks

Everyone’s linking in these days. But is anyone really connecting?

If you’re someone who thinks about business networking in terms of community rather than tool, Biznik is for you. Biznik combines the best of social networking with the best of real-world connection in a way that helps you:

* Get Real - Members meet online AND face-to-face at member-hosted events.
* Get Noticed - 93 percent of Biznik’s top members rank on page 1 of Google for their name or keywords.
* Get Published - build your professional reputation.
* Get Business - meet your next client or business partner.
* Get Current - keep up with the latest trends in business at member-hosted workshops and seminars.

Biznik is a business community for independent business people who are passionate about what they do and want to be part of a community of like-minded folks interested in seeing each other succeed.

–David

It’s probably been a dog’s age since you even thought about floppy disks — let alone had a drive on your computer that could support one — but floppies are actually still popular in India and Japan. Sony is the last manufacturer of 3.5-inch floppy disks, and while the company sold more than 12 million of them in 2009, Sony has just announced it will stop making floppies as of March 2011.

“Due to dwindling demand, Sony discontinued European production of 3.5-inch floppy disks in September 2009. The last European sale of a floppy disk took place in March 2010,” a Sony spokesperson said.

Although these disks have already drifted into the realm of hipster-fueled, retro-ironic nostalgia (see also: SNES cartridges), we have a lingering love for the floppy. It’s a symbol of a simpler time — a time before cloud storage and Google Docs made it impossible to wedge a corrupted disk under your professor’s door at 5 a.m. only to claim that the paper had been on the disk the night before, a time when it took nine disks or so to get an OS onto your hard drive, a time when 1.4 MB actually meant something. We invite you to browse our Floppy Retrospective Flickr gallery, where we trace the evolution of the floppy from Bill Gates’s best friend to dumpster fodder to dearly loved — but seldom used — archaic trinket.

What should a business expect to pay for quality logo design? Why do some designers charge different rates for different uses?”

FIRST OF ALL, WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR

There are a couple of online logo design services that offer logos at under $100. When you find one, hit the “Back” button.

You get what you pay for, and logos are no exception.

Of course, it depends on what your needs are. If you can find a pre-designed logo that you like for under $100, good for you. Just make sure that the logo company is willing to make alterations to the logo without charging extra for each round of revisions. Also make sure that the logo company you deal with does not resell logos.

LOGO PRICE RANGES

Pre-Designed Logos

Pre-designed logos are logos that are created beforehand. Typically these readymade logos are listed on the design firm’s web site and sold on a first-come-first-serve basis.

There is nothing wrong with pre-designed logos, provided that they are unique and that each logo is only sold once.

Price Range: $100 to $300

Custom Logos

With custom logos, an important consideration is the number of unique concept designs that the designer is willing to create. The higher the number of concept designs, the higher the price. Usually.

Price Range: $400 to $550

Cartoon Logos and Mascot Logos

Cartoon logos and mascot logos are generally far more time-consuming to create that regular custom logos and therefor they are more expensive. The critical thing here is to find a cartoonist, not a logo designer. Most logo designers offer cartoon logo design, but only a handful of them actually employ a professional cartoonist.

Price Range: $800 to $4,000

Logo Repair and Logo Redesign

If you already have a logo and just need it cleaned up and/or improved, you can potentially save a lot of money.

Price range: $50 to $250

HOPE THAT HELPS, Aaron and whomever else is reading this. As far as who owns the work, that’s a bit stickier. Technically and legally the designer owns the copyright to the material until it is released BY the designer to the client. Some charge, some don’t, there is really no set practice. This is why a good relationship with your designer should ALWAYS be important. For the same reason that you should NEVER PISS OFF THE BARTENDER! Cheers, All!

Do we always have to take everything about business identity and marketing so bloody seriously?? Don’t get me wrong here…I don’t aim to underestimate the value of logo designing. But, it seems like all the logo design topics available on the internetnet reveal it as an unexciting and boring industry. We ignore the multiple aspects of logo designing, including its fun part.

It is not important for a logo concept to be serious and somber to be successful. Skillful logo designers have the talent of conveying corporate messages through playful logos. They are capable of adding joy, fun and humor to their logo designs without making them look immature.

Today I bring you 25 logo designs, showing you how naughty and mischievous logo designers can get with their designs. Hopefully, these light-hearted logos highlight the joyous aspect of logo designing and fulfill your logo addiction.

Zoomania

Aquarius

Mr & Mrs

Ms. Behave & Mr. Lucky

Bee

Loud Beetle

Light Switch

Coffeenerd

Mister Cutts

The Loaded Daiper

Play

Unpugged

Milk Tooth

DogPaw

Hatapillar

FuoriSerie

Thoppai

Tickletweets

3 Rooms

Office Assistant

2 Boys In a bed

Run Rooster

Drop

Killed

Poop