Twitter for Business

Twitter is successfully being used from pop culture icons, well known athletes, businesses to every day folks. But what is to say for twitters true usage rate? There are around 6 Million users that have signed up for twitter as of August of this year. This equates to 3.8 of all internet usage. So what does that mean for you?

Twitter is expected to at least double within a year to an estimated 12.1 Million users. For brands to understand this power and available accessibility, it is at the least, very powerful. This mean "brands", you have the opportunity to search a database of millions of users and find out if they are talking about your company, service, product. If customers have issue with your service, believe me, they will tell the world. Stop the fire before it catches on and show how responsive your company is to it's customers.

What about using twitter for business? A novel idea, perhaps. Out of 6 Million people, someone is interested in your product or service. Send DM's to your people on your twitter list and let me know how successful this is for you. We want to know what kind of success you are having with any tips we are planning to give weekly. Our blog is not a daily blog. We will report on the most important information relating to digital marketing, iPhone marketing and social media tips.

Let me know how this works for you.

PPMG Featured in Fuel Your Branding

Fuel Your Branding is a great online magazine about branding and design. We were recently interviewed by them talking about using digital media to enhance your brand. Here's an excerpt:

"FYB: What about when the CEO wants to to see the numbers?
Jason: The problem with brand marketing on the web is that people want ROI. They want to see clicks that lead to conversions. It’s incredibly hard to quantify. Everyone wants a million hits on YouTube. Anything less is somehow not acceptable. They immediately want high traffic and what they often get is a slow curve of overall acceptance and awareness.

There is a choice every company makes; to be a direct marketing company or a branded company. If you want to be a branded company that does direct marketing you can. But you can’t be a direct marketing company that attempts branding. The brand has to come first."

Read the full article here: http://www.fuelyourbranding.com/brand-builder-perfect-pixels

On a related note, we also received a mention in Techvibes in regards to our new partnership with a great dev house, Appnovation.

Trusted Places : Social Media in Europe

Trusted Places is a community website based in the United Kingdom. It is a forum for user-generated reviews of neighborhood pubs, services, and restaurants. Trusted Places came to Perfect Pixels Media Group because of our expertise in Social Media and Branding in order to help Trusted Places create a better user experience overall.

PPMG first spent time in a discovery phase where we came to understand Trusted Places’ audience, business goals, and the competitive space. From this we were able to work from an informed basis and we were able to effectively evaluate the registration process, create a refined information architecture, recommend A/B testing, and extend the brand.

We first engaged creating in a moodboard. This excellent tool allowed us to show Trusted Places a visual language that would articulate the brand going forward. Trusted Places readily bought into our vision because the Discovery phase allowed us to quickly show Trusted Places’ value through images, iconography and recommended messaging. From the moodboard, we were able to tweak the logo in a way that users would still relate to the old branding, but would emotionally connect with the new direction. This was also a basis for the design, value proposition, and message extensions.

PPMG is always cognizant of our clients’ budgets. In the spirit of offering the most value for the least amount of money to our customers, we suggested a short User Experience Definition phase. This high level study, through simple user flows, allowed us to confirm Trutsted Places core strategic user scenarios. These were based on existing pathways and the desired traffic flow per each business objective. PPMG helped Trusted Places create a larger, strategic view of their key user activities and we were able to propose enhanced user engagement. This exercise saved Trusted Places money because we had a solid base from which to work on the tactical user experience change requests. With a deeper understanding of the site and its users, we were able to make cogent, educated solution suggestions as we continued to work with the Trusted Places stakeholders. Changes during the design phase can be very costly; however, these sorts of targeted deep dives can provide rich information in a short period of time that can then be extended to the remaining phases of the project.

Trusted Places came to PPMG with a myriad of requests. Through the above, PPMG was able to identify that many of the ancillary requests looped back to the registration process. PPMG reviewed this and we were able to recommend email improvements, a more user-friendly and efficient registration flow -- which included the gateways to the registration page, follow-up emails, and the confirmation pages on the site. Our recommendations drove people to register while creating a better experience while doing so. Upon implementation of our recommendations, Trusted Places’ registration numbers went up, and there was higher user engagement and retention. Our research and recommendations also created a roadmap for PPMG to solve the ancillary requests of Trusted Places more efficiently.

The groundwork had been laid for an efficient re-architecting and redesign of the Home Page, the My Trusted Places page, and the Place Page. We worked to up the conversion opportunities, clarify the value proposition while driving registration and user-engagement. We also created a virtual “black book” experience for the registered Member. Users became much more aware of existing features and our changes drove usage, engagement, and stickiness.



PPMG is known for its holistic approach in helping its clients solve their new-media issues. We work closely with all of our clients to ensure their best interests are at the forefront. The layman may not initially understand the value of high-level studies and deep dives, but they ultimately pay for themselves in cost savings. PPMG works to base all of our recommendations and designs on the client’s strategy, business goals, and user profiles. Making something pretty has no value if it is not driving the significance of the brand while presenting information in a consumable manner.

Earthly Inspiration

We are regularly asked where we get inspired for creativity. For us, it can come from anything. A painting, an innovative design, architecture, or just a stunning view. A latest source of inspiration has come from some satellite photos we came across of the locations across the earth. They are magnificent pieces of art in their own right. The color combinations, textures and negative space are all elements to draw upon in design. You can view the entire set of photos here at Environmental Graffiti. Here are four favorites that represent their beauty from space of the terrain, as they are completely different perspective and experience from the ground eye view of those same locations. Feel free to click on them for hi-res versions.

Shifting Sand of the Terkezi Oasis, Chad
Kalahari Desert, Namibia
Under Water Ocean Sands, Bahamas

Farms in Garden City, Kansas, USA

Three Steps to marketing your iPhone app.

You've heard the news, seen the commercials and now you are excited to get started creating an iPhone application for your brand. Now you find yourself asking how do I get started?

First: You must establish a direction for your "new creation", are you going with a brand driven application, or an application "brought to you by" your brand? There is a distinct difference and value for both.

Second: Pricing matters in the competitive iPhone market. 0.99cents is the most common, $1.99 is a growing starting point. Here are a couple of strategies used by iPhone Developers

Strategy "Lite Version": If you believe that your app has the legs to crawl out ontop, then you may want to consider creating two versions of your application, a "lite and full version". Offer the lite version for FREE and with the right app, your user base will climb. The extended full version needs to also be available at the same time. This way, you allow the user to play one level or two, get them excited to download the full version, all within the app.

Strategy "Price it and then Promote the drop": You price out your app at say $1.99 or $2.99 and then run a special promotion for a price drop after you believe your app has hit it's highest point of sales, promote it like crazy as a limited time offer. You will see this happen quite a bit in the app store. But make sure you price it right. Too high can yield low returns. The lite version is a proven method, as it stands today.

Third: Create a microsite, viral campaign, and special twitter promotional that will get your app recognized. Viral Marketing is power!

We would love to help you with your application next steps. If you are interested, please contact jake@perfectpixels.com for details and a marketing evaluation.