Time Flies When You're Having Fun

So it’s Friday afternoon and that means that my first week at Sticky Media Group is nearly over. I’ve written some Blog posts, critiqued a few websites and pondered over more social media than you can shake a creative stick at.

In between scribbling on sticky notes and working out how to record a voicemail message, I’ve been busy finding great addons and apps for social media platforms. So, allow me to share a few of the good ones with you so I can feel warm and fuzzy.

Apps for Twitter

There’s a whole host of apps and add-ons out there for improving the way you use social media, including connecting your accounts on Linkedin and Twitter using TwitterFeed, right through to saving your Tweets for a later time using TweetLater, and TwitRobot.



If it’s trends and hot topics that capture your attention, try Twist to see the latest Tweets on news subjects. Twitter’s own “Trending Topics” is also a great spot.

Useful Tools

We all know fitting links into 140 characters requires a bit of creativity, namely using URL shorteners like Tr.im and Bit.ly, but now try StumbleUpon’s latest offering: Su.pr. This one allows you to increase your web visibility on StumbleUpon and allows viewing of shortened links in the Stumble bar.

And finally, something almost completely unrelated that amused me today: Twitter Pigeon.

Have a good weekend, and let me know your most useful social media apps and websites in the comments below.

Day of a Web Designer in One Minute!

Just a bit of fun in this post - ive condensed the 'day of a video designer' as recorded from the cam on one of our macbook pro's into one minute using iMovie and a couple of other programs... see what you think!

5 Tips On Recruiting The Perfect Person Using Social Media and 5 Tips On Getting The Perfect Job Through Social Media

Afternoon readers. As you may be aware, there’s a recession going on. And in the true spirit of money-saving, many companies are turning to advertising for free on social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin to name a few) to save those all-important pennies.

This growing social media phenomenon can work to your advantage whether you’re a recruiter, a job-seeker, or simply using Twitter or Linkedin for your business.

Have a look at our handy tips below:

1. If you’re a recruiter, create a Twitter profile, a Linkedin Profile and Group, a blog, and a Facebook Page for your company. This way you can reach a massive user base of potential recruits. We’re going to assume you already have a website!

2. If you already have said profiles, are you using them effectively? Keep your tweets around 100 characters so that your followers can RT (Retweet) your posts to their contacts with more info if necessary. Make sure you are including the link to the advertised job as a shortened URL so it takes up less of your 140 characters. You can use a variety of websites for this. We recommend bit.ly, as it comes with free tracking stats so you can see how many people have viewed your job posting. Keep your Tweets, Facebook updates, and Linkedin statuses concise, clear and refer users to more information on your website.

3. Cross-pollinate your posts on all of your social media profiles and blog. Posting on all of those may sound like a lot of work, but it’s easy to post your update on Twitter, and then connect it to your Facebook and Linkedin profiles and your blog, saving you time and effort. Check out TwitterFeed for connecting everything together using RSS Feeds (Really Simple Syndication).

4. Add connections from Twitter, Facebook, jobseekers on Monster etc., and then go one step further by being a little more creative… Search Twitter’s “Trending Topics” for keywords like “job-hunting” and “unemployed” and add people who are in the market for a new job.

5. Of course, it’s easier to get followers (connections, friends and readers) to come to you, rather than hunt them down yourself, but this will happen naturally once you have a solid enough follower-base, and as users find your status updates, tweets and posts through other people they subscribe to. Don’t forget to keep marketing your profiles using your websites, business cards, and company documentation.

And for the job-hunters?

1. Follow recruitment companies such as @MonsterCareers, and @UKHub (and have a look at their blog) on Twitter for up-to-the-minute job Tweets, and register on their main sites too. @NickWalrond also provides great links to articles on CVs, Professional Networking and other interesting career and business info. Also, check out TwitterJobSearch. This great tool uses Twitter to find job posts.

2. Get on Linkedin to find job postings in your area and use the search facility to find the kind of companies you are interested in. Don’t forget to build up your Linkedin profile and seek a few ‘recommendations’ from old bosses to make you gold dust to employers. On the same token, make sure you have an up-to-date and proofread CV.

3. If you have a blog, write about what kind of job you are looking for, and similarly keep followers, friends and connections in the know about what you are doing and what jobs you are trying to find. Chances are one of your contacts will know someone who knows someone and will get in touch.

4. On a similar note, subscribe to the Blogs of companies you’d like to work for and you’ll be one of the first to know whenever a job is advertised.

5. Whilst Facebook is used more for keeping in touch, job postings are put on the Marketplace fairly often depending on your location and you never know when you might find something promising there.

For more great tips and info, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our Blog. And whether you are recruiting or jobseeking, let us know how you get on in the comments below.

In other news, the UK Government has launched a 20-page guide to Twitter today encouraging MPs to start using the service to keep citizens informed. [Source: http://bit.ly/kFzP2]

Someone’s got the right idea eh?


Posted by Ady Harold - Web Marketing Manager

If you would like to get in touch with Sticky Media Group please visit our web site for contact information and further details on our web services.

Proverbially up to our eyeballs in websites...

Good morning! It's action stations at Sticky Media Towers again this week. New site went live yesterday - http://www.resource-management.co.uk - created for market leading Recruitment Process Outsource 'Resource Management'. We received a great brief for it and are all very pleased with the outcome - the feedback has been great which is always a bonus obviously!


At the same time we have been working on updating the Sticky Media Group website to accommodate our new web development capability. It's a lot harder to live up to one's own brief than you might think! I've attached a picture of the pilot site at the foot of this post - feel free to have a look and see what you think, personally I think it's getting there... but at some point I'm gonna have to man-up and actually launch it, at which point Sticky Media Group can all breathe a huge sigh of relief...

The team is growing again round these parts, got a new starter next week to give us the extra capability to provide results quick as a flash. Looking forward to meeting her properly (and to delving into the petty cash for the introductory meal!)




Posted by Mike Wedge - Creative Director

If you would like to get in touch with Sticky Media Group please visit our web site for contact information and further details on our web services.

Recruitment Microsites - What's the point?

Recruitment microsites are fast becoming the tool of choice for the recruiting employer, but what's that I hear you shout? we have Monster! Jobsite! newspaper ads! our own candidate database! Ahhh well let me tell you - the microsite is not simply the candidate magnet that you may think... Brand development is a principal force behind the popularity of the microsite, and I intend to explain this.

Microsites offer a chance for employers to explain their background, promote their brand, history, working ethos, current market position and all manner of messages that any company may wish to communicate to the masses.

Imagine you receive 25 CVs through a microsite, 4 of which lead to a hire. The number of people likely to have looked at that site without submitting their CV could be well in excess of 100. All those people looking through your carefully chosen words about your company, that's a potential candidate who would usually have been lost in the web of a national job board, has now visited a branded site specific to you on a personalised URL, and is therefore far likely to return to your job spec at a later date (or impart some useful information taken from said microsite to a chum).

The microsite offers your company it's own little space of absolute freedom to promote any message you so choose in a manner that is as concise or as detailed as you wish; with your level of branding, images, downloads, logos, maps, whatever you so choose as an added bonus.

So is that it? Brand Development?

Mais non! Important not to forget the following:

• Small site = small set up time
• Small site = reduced costs
• Ongoing improvement: Easy to maintain a small site
• Widespread job advertising: Job aggregators can be signed up to the microsite, meaning you post your job once - it gets posted to 10+ national job boards FREE OF CHARGE
  
• Links to your own site and other sites of interest, all helps SEO and your Google-presence, plus offers an increase in your own company web traffic.

In short, microsites are not a painful process, and come with a whole goodie-bag of benefits to a business, its not a suprise they are being snapped up like wildfire. We like making them and our clients love them. Long may it continue.....


Posted by Mike Wedge

If you would like to get in touch with Sticky Media Group please visit our web site for contact information and further details on our web services.

twitter, blogbook...err...facespace...flickr...what?

Online networking! or (as depressing as it might be) - "social networking" as it is increasingly referred to. Yes those troublesome days of actually having the stress of meeting someone face to face seem to be coming to an end. Anti-socialites and recluses rejoice, there need never be a reason for you to leave the house ever again.

So does this mean in 20yrs we'll all be doomed to a life of solitude save the companionship of our laptop and and 10 million MB internet connection? perhaps. But first, it's time to use the big players of the new online networking craze to our advantage, take Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for example.

Facebook is addictive, there is a chance that lots of people you know are on it, its highly sociable, and everyone knows how to work it. From a business point of view however it can be of questionable relevance. When one tries to promote corporate business on Facebook it can feel like you're the one who talks about his career when on holiday, it feels unwelcome in an otherwise bustling social atmosphere.

Close in ideology but with far greater professional benefit is Twitter, allowing you to shout any sentence or two that you feel others may have an interest in - you may follow and be followed. Excellent for job advertising, special offer promotion, or quick promotion of any web based product for that matter. The only issue is the collection of relevant followers. Can be tricky to acheive, but the results will pay off once a healthy audience is amassed.

Finally comes the messiah of business networking, ooohhh its like Facebook has grown up - yes ladies and gentleman we're talking about LinkedIn. Business connections... introductions... recommendations... experiences... company profiles... interest groups.... the shear wealth of information available boggles the mind. Particularly useful should you be lucky enough to possess cunning detective Sherlock-Holmes-style skills when on a fact/contact-finding mission.



There is SO much documentation out there about use of LinkedIn you can bury yourself if you arent careful in the quicksand that is internet-based-research. Have a nose around and if you have any specific concerns, put a well worded question into Google, that should ping up some relevant, decipherable answers... If you havent already, sign up, have a look for people you know on there, then you'll see the people they know, you can even search the people they know - looking for introductions, exchanging services, the works.

At the rate things are going there are going to be ten more sites this time next year, best thing to do is try and keep up where possible, heads up for 'Google OS X' and 'Google Wave'... They could be big news in the near future. But for now Link yourself In and shout about it on Twitter!!

Training in a recession... risky business surely?

One would imagine that luxuries such as often-expensive training courses are greatly diminished when there is a downturn in the market - businesses commonly stick to what they do best, there is little or no 'broadening the horizons' or horizontal integration to be found.

After a little tentative research however we have found that the impact on training course providers has led to a mass reduction in pricing. Therefore we've decided now is the time to fine tune our staff's skills and send them off to marketing/advertising boot camp to return with an even greater palette of tools and ability to make use of throughout the projects we are working on.

It's an exciting time in Sticky Media Group, the team is growing due to the large amount of work we're acquiring, employees are embarking on training and returning ready to rock and roll with the new skills they have at their disposal, meanwhile the design briefs and testimonials to our work keep landing in the in-tray. One such large website due for completion this Friday, will of course add it to the portfolio gallery so you can see some of this hard work for yourself!


Posted by Mike Wedge

If you would like to get in touch with Sticky Media Group please visit our web site for contact information and further details on our web services.

Small Business, Big Web Presence...

The internet is having an undeniable affect on small businesses, particularly in the tourism and leisure sector.

Perhaps most significantly, customer attraction through brochures, images, background and other relevant information have been ripped from the brochures and dumped online, with varying degrees of success.

With the growing use of tools such as Google maps, and the increasing importance of search engine optimisation, several small businesses are overlooking the potential golden ticket of a prominent position in the search engines.

Take 'bed and breakfast bristol' for instance, imagine a nicely presented online brochure of your small business falling near the top of a Google search for these terms? You'd be looking at an online traffic measuring hundreds, possibly thousands over the course of a couple of weeks - compare that to the number of people realistically thumbing through your hard copy brochure in the same time span and you see my point....

At Sticky Media we have recently completed a web site for the highly prestigous Clifton Club based in Bristol (http://www.thecliftonclub.co.uk). The project started as a website 're-rub' and turned into a full re-branding exercise which was completed with great success (testimonial is on the way...). This effort has shown a massive impact in their membership attraction through the correct promotion and presentation of their services on offer.


From this site we have recently received a brief from the proprietor of a local residential home to ensure the same online presence with their business, interest is hotting up around this topic and it's something we consider ourselves highly experienced in.

With hard times ahead, local holiday-goers are keen to stay within UK borders so there has never been a better time to promote your business in a cost effective fashion through the use of a well presented online web site/brochure.

We can re-develop your existing hard copy brochure to fit your requirements, position your site prominently on sites such as Google maps to ensure your being highlighted amongst location searches, and we can even visit your premises to take up to date, fresh photographs (something we did with the Clifton Club recently).

Finally (and this is the bit you'll be most interested in), our experience in this field means we can produce expert work in a swift time frame, clearly this will reduce the cost for you. The best thing to do is drop us an email and we'll have a chat about how our services can benefit your business in both the short and the long term.


Posted by Mike Wedge

If you would like to get in touch with Sticky Media Group please visit our web site for contact information and further details on our web services.

Web Development in 60 seconds

So what is the actual process involved in making a website from scratch? here is a very brief and thrown together guide!

1. Domain name registration

Customer or design agency decides on where they want to go with the domain name - if the company name is available, perfect, if the desired suffix is also available, ideal. This is rarely the case however... so an imaginative use of hyphens, 'uk's or 'online's may be in order....

Suprisingly stressful given it seems to be such a small task!

2. Choose a hosting destination

Generally a case of shopping around for the most appropriate service, important to consider levels of customer service, pricing obviously, and also the technology that you expect to use with your site - greater levels of server activities (for a database driven website for instance) are only going to drive up your hosting costs.... Still on the whole can be fairly reasonable in price after a bit of looking about.

3. First draft web page design

The brief from the customer should provide enough information to allow the developer to compose a number of drafts for the customer to pick and mix certain elements they like and others they do not - leading to a final design.

The customer can of course provide as much or as little information as required - provide little information at your own risk, it will be a lot harder for the developer to pin point your preferences with minimal direction! otherwise not being too precise is also recommended - allowing the developer a certain amount of creative freedom can bode well for your design, after all they are the professional!

That being said, a decent designer will always work around their customer and find a means to provide the most affective solution to any brief provided. Creativity and customer satisfaction are foremost in their job spec...

4. Coding

A process that although weighs heavily on the developer - constant feedback is always preferable from the customer - this will ensure that any changes of preference are kept to along the way.

With a little dilligence and concentration this should be one of the swiftest parts of the process.

5. Adding Content

Usually prior to launch with the use of a Customer Management System, copy writing provided by the customer, or copy writing provided by the developer on the basis of previously decided online goals.

Suprisingly this is not something that is too common in the web design world. Given the use of web sites as an advertising tool it seems obvious to us that copy writing capability should be on hand at all times. We at Sticky Media have an in house team of word smiths badgering away at keeping our clients sites up to date.


Posted by Mike Wedge

If you would like to get in touch with Sticky Media Group please visit our web site for further details here.

What website best represents my business...

We've just been handed a spec for one of our largest projects. A web redesign for a market leading RPO consultancy to more closely reflect the scale and reach of their business.

It became clear to us right from the beginning that their current site (http://www.resource-management.co.uk) does little to demonstrate their capability and strengths, and provides us the opportunity (one that we relish) to grasp a company's core beliefs and ideology and truly reflect that online.

After a little research, we realised their is no better tool for a visually impactive yet professionally impressive web site than tailored use of CSS. Flash websites can be appealing on the eye but often it is all too easy to get carried away in the intricacies of animation and neglect the widely saught-after search engine optimisation for example.

Contraversely a lack of CSS or web graphics savvy can easily make a web site look cheap, aged or out of touch. It is again a case of finding the comfortable middle ground that both exceeds expectations yet meets with the coding, accessibility and search engine friendly criteria that simply cannot go overlooked.

After a few discussions with Resource Management about their online 'shop-front', and having pencilled over a selection of 'first drafts', we are now getting stuck in up to the armpits in web site production, beavering away at website coding while RM wait with baited breath for the end result. We pride ourselves on our ability to turn a brief discussion into a fully functional website as quick as a flash, prepare for the link to come in the very near future...


Posted by Mike Wedge

If you would like to get in touch with Sticky Media Group please visit our web site for further details here.