If you use an image to replace those headlines, it hurts the site as far as the SEO goes, right?. Wrong. Using CSS there are plenty of ways to keep the markup for the web crawlers, and the viewer will still see the design with the correct font face. To do this, you just us a simple image replacement technique with CSS, probably ten different ways to do it. These techniques work great, but what happens when your client asks you to change that headline to something else? You have to then go back to Photoshop, edit that piece of text, re-save the image, and then update your CSS with the new image name. Sounds like a lot of work to change one line of text right?

Allow me to introduce my new friend, Cufón. Cufón is a JavaScript library that renders a font file into a script that allows you to replace HTML elements on a page with that specific font file. Pretty slick right? Now when your client asks you to change the text in a headline, you only have to change it in the HTML, instead doing all of that other work!

So, whats the browser compatibility? The good news is that it works in IE6. Need I say more? And, yes the standards too (Firefox, Safari, Chrome). You can see a full list here.

One more note worth pointing out is that if the user has JavaScript turned off for some reason, then they wouldn’t see the pretty font face, but they would still see the heading on the page. So for the next project you get, don’t stress because your designer used non-web safe fonts, go ahead and try it out — it’s easy to implement into any site. You can “see” Cufón in action at The Visual Click, or over at Press75.

Do you have any secrets to add or other pieces of advice? I would love to hear your thoughts.

• Stream live video
• On the fly translations
• Reader Comment API – client’s can setup their own chat application and reader can comment from mobile phones or external chat rooms
• RSS feeds – provide readers with writer and event feeds
• Moderators or Writers can cover their event from their iPhone, Blackberry or smartphone
• Publish up to 12 Twitter Accounts
• Invite up to 25 panelists to provide commentary
• Integrate 3rd party software like YouTube, WordPress, Twitter
• Branded templates – Viewer window templates allow you to add your logo
• News Flash and Scoreboards
• Manage readers comments
• Create a Media Library
• Embed Large photos
• Deploy Quick Polls for your readers
• Advertise

What would be the cost for such a cool tool? You’d be surprised at how inexpensive this software is. There are three different pricing structures: Basic, Ad Supported and Subscription. The basic package is free of charge  and there aren’t any ads and up to 5,000 unique readers a month are allowed to view your live event. Ad Supported is also free, but serves ads, and after 45 days revenue sharing is possible. The last package is a one-year subscription, which contains no advertising and costs $400 per month.

Here are a couple of examples of companies that utilize CoveritLive:

PhilliesNation
General Motors
NBA – The Boston Celtics
CBC National Post

The fact is, our clients often need work done quickly and efficiently, all the while having very specific target markets in mind. It’s the designers job to meet the needs of the client and instantly adapt to their brand. Especially if there is no brand. Take web design for example. Sure, we as designers all have our standard bag of tricks, our own styles of the trade, but at the end of the day, we have the same job to do. Goals to meet. A few of those goals would be to simply get your website in front of the right people, usually lots of them and then have them think or act certain way. Its our job to take control, guiding them through this online experience, until some sort of fulfillment is met. Oh yeah, what are we trying to achieve again?. Is your target market buying something? Maybe you need to them to register, leave their email address, donate, sign up or just plan be informed. All these things play a role in how you design.

For some designers a struggle is trying to find a balance between being a creative and having to design within the rules of the web. Most will tell you that web design is enjoyable for its interactivity and seemingly endless pool of design options. Web design provides many opportunities for one to be creative, especially with the tools we have today. However, over the years standards have been set and the bending of the rules has become harder and harder. For example, navigating websites is usually done by clicking buttons spanning in a row, left to right, usually somewhere near the top of a page. Another common layout of course would be to run the navigation points down the left hand side of a webpage. But those are your only options for a typical professional website. Why, you ask?  Because it makes sense. Ford Motor Company isn’t going to release the next Fusion model with the steering wheel in the back seat, are they? Just like cnn.com isn’t going to launch their new site with the main navigation crammed somewhere near the bottom of the page. Get it?

But what if you want to? What if you want to try something new? Most designers didn’t get into this business to keep adding to the great pool of mediocrity. No way. There isn’t one designer out there who wants to produce work that’s just okay. After all, we’re all just a bunch of showoffs who want to produce web sites that impress, making our clients say that great three-letter-word: “Wow!” Hey, we paid good money to go to that fancy art school and now we want to create the sort of designs that earn us a good reputation among clients AND other designers.

Unfortunately sometimes getting too creative is a tough sell in the business of web design. Believe me. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any room to showcase or express your design abilities. Its up to us to balance the rules of the web and our creative minds by finding new ways to achieve the client’s goals. I feel it is important to break out of that standard bag of tricks as long as you can remember to never let your finger too far off the pulse of what matters most. Good effective design or our company’s flashy portfolio?

Photo: juhansonin

Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. All seemingly innocent names, right? However, the aforementioned sites can all be directly linked to one of our generation’s ultimate fictional, yet realistically diabolical villains. So, in honor of the sequel of cult classic (especially of suits and MBA-wielders), Wall Street, recently being announced, I thought I’d take a look into how the many lessons GG taught Bud Fox can be applied to social media.

Information is the most valuable commodity. It should be no shock that people are on social media sites to connect with their friends and family, so when utilizing social media to spread your message, make sure it’s not viewed as an interruption, but as an asset. How exactly do you do that? Quite simply, post things that you know (or at least think) will add value to your viewer’s life, day or that particular moment in time. The best (and sometimes arguably the worst) thing about social media is that you’ll be able to get a pretty good sense of if what you’re posting is of value, based on the interaction with the post. It’s no secret that we’ve been in a message-laden culture for some time now, and as that increases, consumers will all start to value how they spend their time over how they spend their money. Providing relevant, useful or entertaining content will make your brand an asset, as opposed to a nuisance.

Always have a back-up plan. In the flick, Gekko reevaluates his plan with Bluestar Airlines and determines what he believes to be a better course of action - social media campaigns need to be met with the same sort of flexibility. Of course, your Plan B probably won’t involve turning an entire company into a garage sale – but, if you go in with one set plan, you can at least expect to modify, if not completely change, said plan. As stated above, fans and followers will offer their feedback, and some will even go as far to be brutally honest. When that honesty isn’t exactly in support of your organization’s initial strategy, you’ll need at least a solid idea of a back-up plan.

It’s never a one-man operation, and it always helps to have eyes in the field. Just like Gekko had employees in his office and hot on the trails of anyone who could potentially mean anything to his business, the same goes for social media. With any social media campaign, you need multiple sets of eyes and sources of brainpower. Regardless of whether your running a political campaign or launching a new product or service, there are going to be many employees and people in your organization that are all a part of the process. And, therefore, their voices and perspectives should be included in your social media campaign. As far as keeping your eyes in the field, we don’t necessarily think you need a spy, but it always helps to solicit feedback from your followers and fans about the content you’re sharing and the tone your outreach has.

Watch your competition closely, and look for opportunities to differentiate, not copy. As Gekko follows the every move of his arch nemesis, Sir Larry Wildman, your organization should be following your competition’s strategy and messaging, specifically in the social media space. And, just as he looks for opportunities to outsmart and differentiate himself from his competition, instead of following in their footsteps, it’s important for an organization to do the same on social media.

Lunch is for wimps. Don’t get me wrong, I avidly recommend three square meals a day, and even a snack or two, but the point is that while social media may seem fluffy and fun, it has a lot more in common with the cutthroatness of Wall Street. You see, social media is ever changing; your audience can shift and platforms can drastically rearrange and morph all within an instant. There’s also more risk involved than the traditional campaign since it’s success or failure can be much more visible, and in most cases, people can offer their feedback for all to see. Also – if you’re doing it right – it’s a fulltime job. It takes planning, analyzing, determining strategies, creating content and implementing it all. Thus, not always leaving much time for leisurely lunches.

One of the most catastrophic natural disasters in recent history has been met with more than $22 million in $5 and $10 text-message donations, an unprecedented show of charitable giving made possible by the ease of small-scale mobile donations. And beyond these times of need, micro-support is gaining traction as a straightforward, accessible way for everyday people to support the causes they believe in, finance promising new businesses, and make their creative visions a reality in small, easy steps. – AdAge

Years ago, during a time of need such as this, most would have directed people online to make quick, easy and secure donations to help provide support. Raising funds online has now become the norm, and as many politicians, political groups and non-profits have demonstrated that it can lead to unprecedented success. However, taking that trend of pervasive, efficient donation campaigns to the next level is doing so via text messages.

The devastating situation in Haiti has demonstrated the widespread effect that a text message donation campaign can have on mass support and charitable giving. Many are attributing the huge success of the campaign to the fact that the barrier to entry is so low; most can afford to lump on an extra $5 to $10 to their phone bill, especially for a cause that they believe strongly in, and it takes all of thirty seconds to donate. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

As the AdAge article points out making micro-donations easily accessible, especially via mobile phones, opens completely new doors to reaching new and diverse audiences. And, with over 75 percent of the US population using cell phones, it only makes sense to take it to the mobile playing field.

Photo: The U.S. Army

Measures of success obviously can vary from project to project, but they can also vary within a project. In most cases there exist three levels of measures, for our purposes we’ll call them primary, secondary and tertiary.

Usually primary measures of success relate to an offline activity. Although some people may spend more time in front of a computer than away from it, there is still a real world out there - a world that revolves around exchanging money, voting, construction and other human activities. Thus some examples would include making a donation on a mobile phone, getting people to vote for a particular candidate, or winning approval for a new hospital. One or more of these are usually the “problems” a client will have when looking to partner with another firm. These are easily the most important measures of success.

Secondary measures have to do with the activities that lead to one of the primary objectives mentioned above. Since primary measures involve a serious commitment on the part of the end-user, a gradual process of building up to the ultimate goal is required. These nodes of engagement could include participating in an online poll or survey, posting a message on a Facebook Wall, or forwarding an email.

The way to judge the likelihood that the secondary actions will be taken by supporters remains the hard data of the tertiary measures. These indexes - like pageviews, open rates or Twitter followers - are the things successful managers follow on a daily basis; and their analysis will uncover trends among your audiences.  This will in turn allow you to optimize campaigns to drive up the response rates measured in the primary and secondary goals.

Taking a step back we have seen that measures of success directly correlate to a campaign goal.  Measuring those goals can be done on a variety of levels in this case primary, secondary, or tertiary.  These levels could also be called Offline, Engagement, and Indicators, respectively.

The goal of this post was to pass on some knowledge for the offline world, I hope it is measured as a success.

Each week like clock-work, a flimsy plastic bag full of supermarket circulars inevitably ends up at the front door. You know what I’m talking about. Those bags that pile up with coupons that you trip over Sunday morning. Our clients Vertis Communications and Nash Finch Co. were looking to reduce the psychological and environmental damage of the never-ending stream of shopping circulars when they hired us to create an iPhone application for the Family Fresh Market brand of stores in Wisconsin. *iTunes link

The IWS-developed app has several features — all of which are managed by a custom content management system that allows the market’s supplier to publish specials in real time. Customers who download the app can easily check what’s on offer in the Fresh Meat, Produce, Deli, Fresh Bakery, and Floral aisles whether they’re at home or pushing a shopping cart around the market. With a simple flick of the finger, you can even add these items to a shopping list along with anything else you need to pick up at Family Fresh.

Users also benefit from Well Balanced tips which aim to help make healthy decisions easy. For instance, buying low sodium varieties of canned vegetables and rinsing them thoroughly is a quick way to lower your salt intake.

Creating a branded app like this is an excellent way to offer customers something they can use while also streamlining communication to them. eMarketer claims close to 75 percent of consumers with iPhones use apps. With this trend clearly growing, it’s safe to say that a relevant or entertaining iPhone app could build a stronger connection with your customers.

With unemployment and poverty at all time highs, IWS took to Twitter during the holidays to help raise awareness of the demand placed upon food banks during the past particularly trying year. The holiday campaign, dubbed “Tweets of Hope,” inspired Twitter users to retweet a simple message and $2 would be donated to the Association of Arizona Food Banks (AAFB) and Share Our Strength.

The campaign generated over 2,000 retweets, and has generated close to 200,000 impressions. Despite being slightly shy of reaching the goal of 2,500 tweets, IWS delivered a $5,000 check to both AAFB and Share Our Strength. The $10,000 donation to the two charities will help provide 240 tons of food, or 140,000 meals in Arizona and the Washington, D.C area.

At IWS, we’ve always strongly believed that we all have a responsibility to do more good. Max Fose, president, says he believes that, “…We all have a responsibility to give back. We’re fortunate enough to be in a position that we can, but even if we weren’t, we would do whatever we could.”

While social media is still somewhat in it’s infancy, is an excellent platform for charitable contribution campaigns. Social media, as a platform, is a lot more effective in generating widespread exposure and motivating the masses to participate, since activity is generally more visible. When people recognize that a large group is pushing an initiative forward, they become even more likely to participate. As opposed to ads and email marketing, it has the ability to showcase in a much more meaningful fashion just who is behind this cause and how many people are supporting it.

Want to be a part of future campaigns? Be sure to follow us on Twitter.

Kelly Watson delivering another $5,000 check to Share Our Strength in Washington, D.C.