Natalia Oberti Noguera used branding to help clarify her mission when she launched the Pipeline Fellowship.

Last year, one of my friends started a Mix Tape Club. We agreed to update the format (CDs instead of tapes) — but not too much (no iTunes playlists because it’s more fun to get something in the mail). Another friend, Paul Boucher, designed the logo because what’s more official than a logo?

And so it began. On or around the first of the month, one of us mailed a CD to the other eleven members. What fun it was to get a package in the mail on a regular basis! More…

Photo by lucybyhet

Six months after Drupalcon Chicago, Todd Nienkerk and I headed to Drupalcon London for a repeat performance of our Don’t design web sites. Design web systems talk and to generally geek out with our colleagues and peers.

Yes, it’s been 3 weeks since then – an eternity in Internet Standard Time. But there’s a benefit to thinking back over that kind of distance: I can be sure that the speakers, sessions and ideas that are still fresh in my mind, are the ones that really made an impression. Here they are, in no particular order: More…

Have you read Part I, Part II, and Part III of our social media series? If so, you are ready to launch your campaign and track its success. To take this last step, you will need tools that will keep your accounts organized, up to date, and consistent. Checking these metrics will help you map the success of your campaign and evaluate if your strategies are delivering results. Has your web traffic gone up? What types of content are generating the most responses? What platform is the least active? Tracking these numbers can help you address problems quickly and evolve your social media strategy based on the rates of response.
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After working at established brands like Travelzoo, Mandy Gresh discusses the new set of challenges with her start-up Waglee.com, a website designed for urban dog owners.

In this series, we reviewed how to lay a solid foundation for a social media campaign. If you have been reading along, you know how to set long-term and short-term goals and how to perform a situational analysis. Now it’s time to put that knowledge to work and come up with creative strategies to use during your campaign. More…

In Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, there are gorillas and there is mist. The foreground gorilla is a mother holding a newborn baby. More…

As the founder of Broadbridge International Group, Elizabeth Howard explains how to design, implement, and measure a successful branding strategy.

It is important to develop a strategic plan before starting a social media campaign. As I explained in my earlier post, the first step is to make a list of both long-term and short-term goals that you’d like to achieve. The second step is to take a hard look at your current situation online and perform a situational analysis.

This exercise helps you evaluate the effectiveness of all your online materials including any blogs you may be running, any social media platforms you have started, and even your website. It will show you what strategies worked in the past, what you need to change, and where you need to be focusing your social media efforts to achieve your goals.

Break this process down into two parts. The first evaluates search engine optimization (SEO), the back-end strategy for becoming more visible online. The second is an analysis of any and all social media platforms. More…

Lili Brown, the Chief Advancement Officer at Expeditionary Learning, tells us about her experience rebranding the organization after 17 years.

Before you start tweeting, sharing, commenting, and posting, it is important to have a solid social media strategy in place. Whether you’re a start-up, a non-profit, or a household name, a solid strategy will focus your campaign and help you to achieve your communications goals. More…

Sarah Kauss explains the relationship that emerged as she founded S’well Bottle between her product, her mission, and her design strategy.

It’s no secret that I like school. A lot. (Except for homework, gigantic term papers and exams. Those I don’t like.) So an academic conversation, with interesting readings and thoughtful, nuanced discussion, is pretty much my nirvana.

Imagine my delight to discover the Socrates Seminar. More…

Spotted: A flashy grasshopper in the rain forest of Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica.

This sign speaks for itself.

Blogging allows you to share ideas and expertise with your readers. These days, there are lots of providers to choose from, and it can be overwhelming to choose which blogging platform to use. So we thought an overview might be helpful. More…

The glacier known as “El Perito Moreno” is roughly the same size as the city of Buenos Aires — and it’s growing.

This is the third part of a three-part series reporting from Confab. Part I and Part II are good too.

One thing that we heard over and over again is that you have to curate social media content. More…

This is the second part of a three-part series. Part I is good too.

Content strategists are big proponents of usability testing. Because we know that miscommunications happen all too easily. The smart Confab organizers dedicated several sessions to this topic More…

Last week, we went to Minneapolis to attend Confab, the first ever conference dedicated for people who do what we do. It was fabulous. Make that confabulous. More…