Article Using Google Analytics? Here’s a tool that I find useful. published on September 3, 2009 I recently started using a plugin for my browser (Mozilla Firefox 3.5), which allows me more control over the data that Google Analytics has collected for me. For more information about what enhancements are granted and where you can add this plugin, click the read more link. Read Now About
Article Content Strategy Guest Post by Eric Holter: Agency Website Gaffe #1 – The Browser Re-Size by Christopher Butler on August 31, 2009 Now that Eric, our former CEO, is off to new heights in his career, I've invited him to contribute a few guest blog posts. This is the sixth of several that he'll share in the coming months... As an agency consultant I spend a good deal of time visiting agency websites. I haven’t counted precisely, but a large percentage of the agency sites I visit attempt to take over my browser. These sites either launch a new window, or maximize my browser to fill the screen. Before I calmly explain why this is a very bad idea and a poor web strategy I must vent some rage… PLEASE STOP! STOP STOP STOP. YOU ARE NOT INVITED TO REARRANGE MY DESKTOP... Read Now About
Article Coping with Complexity by Christopher Butler on August 31, 2009 In his book "What Leaders Really Do," John P. Kotter defines management as "coping with complexity," a discipline that emerged as a necessary component of operating large, complex organizations. Just as coping with complexity is needed for managing groups of people and processes, it is also critical to managing a website. Over the past year, we've attempted to focus in on and refine the process of web development and design, beginning with the planning stages and moving all the way through to quality assurance. Time and again, the management techniques stand out as the defining characteristics of a successful process. While many of our clients begin their relationship with us primarily concerned with production issues, it is not long before coping with the complexity of the process becomes the thing they care most about. Read Now About
Article Google Analytics Individual Qualification published on August 30, 2009 "I am qualified?". Months of using Google Analytics and two weeks of studying "Google Conversion University" and "Google's Help Center", I've passed the Google Analytics Individual Qualification Exam. What does it mean to be qualified though?I'm still struggling to find out that answer as well. However, I now feel justified for taking the time while at work to study Google Analytics material and the time I spent studying while at the comfort of my own home. (Thanks to Newfangled for always advocating personal growth and development even during work hours.) The rest of the blog post will discuss preparation for the exam as well as what to expect before and after the exam. Read Now About
Article A Good Presentation on Measuring Social Media ROI by Christopher Butler on August 27, 2009 I was pointed to this presentation by the smart guys at dtdigital who posted to Twitter that it was The best "measuring ROI of social media" preso we have seen so far. I agree, it's pretty good. Although, I'm left wondering why the 'big boss' wasn't able to access the data that eventually vindicated his social media team when he decided they needed to be cut... Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media RoiView more presentations from Olivier Blanchard. Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Guest Post by Eric Holter: A Critique of Closerlook’s Website by Christopher Butler on August 25, 2009 Now that Eric, our former CEO, is off to new heights in his career, I've invited him to contribute a few guest blog posts. This is the fifth of several that he'll share in the coming months... Chicago agency Closerlook is a relationship marketing firm specializing in healthcare (pharmaceutical, health insurance, and health information technology). They have an excellent agency website that builds upon tight positioning with a significant content strategy. So let’s break it down... Read Now About
Article The Long-Term Relationship is Where Things Really Get Interesting by Christopher Butler on August 21, 2009 This morning, I started reading a blog post by Joshua Porter called The Agency Problem, in which he asks why web projects continue to be done through agencies in one-off fashion. As I read this, I shouted in my mind, "Aha! That's why it's all about the long-term relationship!" A typical web project for us at Newfangled can take anywhere from 6-9 months, from initial consulting, through prototyping, design, build, design application, quality control, content entry and going live. It's a long, involved process during which we build a very close relationship with our clients. Why would we ever walk away from one another after go-live? We, as the web partner, are best positioned to know exactly how to assist in the continued use and growth of the client's website, not to mention their web marketing and content strategies as they evolve... Read Now About
Article Synchronicity of Ideas in Contemporary Web Culture by Christopher Butler on August 21, 2009 In responding to a comment from @MaggieB on our May, 2009 newsletter, A Practical Guide to Social Media, who credited us for devising a "Newfangled" marketing method, I brought up the concept of "multiples," or the phenomenon of simultaneous discovery. Obviously, our approach was not even a "multiple" in this sense, but simply a practical response to the daily goings-on of our industry, or in other words, a result of being tuned in to the zeitgeist of the web. But the idea of multiples has stuck with me all the same- there is something about it that must apply to what we're experiencing today. Read Now About
Article The Importance of Listening to Your Client by Christopher Butler on August 20, 2009 Earlier this year, I read a business book called What Got You Here Won't Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith, who, as a corporate coach, takes executives through what he calls "360 reviews," evaluating people from peer feedback and identifying bad habits and traits that hinder growth. He points out that these traits are often in place prior to the achievement of success; indeed, that many are often successful despite having some significant bad habits, yet continued success is hindered by them. I found myself wondering which of the 20 bad habits I didn't have, but was relieved when Goldsmith assures his readers that most people tend to only really have 2 of them in a significant sense... Read Now About
Article Questioning the Value of Online Content by Christopher Butler on August 19, 2009 Consider this an echo to my post from July on "A Value-Based Content Strategy": I really enjoyed and appreciated Tad Toulis' Core77 post, "No more feeds please! How abundant information is making us fat," which definitely touches on something I think most people are sensing- the overload not just of available information, but also the individual compulsion to create and consume more information. Anyone working in a web-related field, not to mention news and entertainment media, likely spends the majority of their time with an anxiety fueled by trying to simply keep up. Toulis compares this economy of information with industrial food, which can be simplified to a law of more is less- more calories, less nutrition, or more content, less value... Read Now About
