Resources for Infographic Creation

Posted by McKinneyBrown on February 22, 2012 in News

Human attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. The average person is less likely than ever to purposefully sit and read long texts for long periods of time. As people’s attention spans shift, so does the need to create content that will catch and hold your readers’ attention for longer than a nanosecond.

One of the most effective ways to do this is to create eye-catching visuals that will both inform your readers while also keeping them on your site longer. Enter the infographic. The usage of these visual representations of information has exploded over the last few years, and has transformed the way data is presented on the Internet.

Interested in learning about creating your own infographics or improving your skills doing so? Check out these awesome resources that will connect you with some of the hottest infographics tools on the interwebs.

The Next Web Blog

 This blog post from The Next Web gives a great introduction to the history and uses of infographics and how they can be used to ramp up the quality of your content. It also provides several useful tools to get you started on generating interesting and informative images for the data you want to display.

To get the statistics and visuals you’re seeking for your infographic, TNW gives several extremely helpful sites. The first of these is Chartsbin, which lets you search through a stockpile of different graphs and charts that you can apply your statistics to. This post also gives detailed uses of Google’s Public Data Explorer ( an arsenal of both public statistics and charts), Stat Planet (a free Windows Flash download with similar functions as Chartsbin), and the IBM generated data visualization tool, ManyEyes.

Image from ChartsBin.com

The post also offers some helpful information about where to create visually pleasing graphs and charts, namely Hohli’s chart builder and Creately. There are also links to good places to pull photos and icons to spice up your infographic. Finally, TNW gives some examples of good infographics to inspire you to get working on your own.

Image from alternativeto.net

Make Use Of

Make Use Of is chock-full of tips, tools, and tutorials that will ramp up the quality of your content. This article on creating your own infographics is especially helpful. Including loads of infographics examples, this is a great place to start looking for inspiration for your own graphs. Like the The Next Web post, this article features both online resources and free downloads.

Tableau is a neat software that is listed in this article that really stood out to me. Its simple  and colorful displays are a fantastic way to display information in an easily-digestible format.

Image from http://www.chiefmartec.com

Wordle is also noted as a simple yet effective way to display information. The site generates word clouds with text pulled from your site in formats them into a host of different shapes, color schemes and fonts. Although not a traditional way of visualizing data, it can give your readers a fun and easy way to get a taste of what sort of text lies on your site.

Image from http://www.angelamaiers.com

In addition to these tools, Make Use Of also lists some other useful and free downloadable software for generating your infographics. Although these can be a bit more time consuming, these tools give you the freedom to create the exact look that you want for your images.

Finally, Make Use Of includes examples of its own infographics to give you some ideas and inspiration for your charts and graphs.

iLibrarian

iLibrarian offers some great resources for softer, more personal statistics from social media. Included in this list of tools is the Twitter Visualizer, an image generator that pulls information from you twitter account an creates a cartoon avatar that reflects the content of your tweets. Also mentioned is Visualize.me that syncs your LinkedIn and creates a fantastic infographic based on you experience, education, skills, etc.

Image from http://cdn.yourdigitalspace.com

Queness

Queness walks you through a detailed and efficient way to generate infographics.  Along the way, the tutorial features examples of a wide array of data displays for you inspiration. Among the tools mentioned in the post include: Daytum (a site displaying personal stats like budget breakdowns or hours spent at the gym), TouchGraph (an interactive infographic tool showing relationships between people on your social network), and Inkscape (an open source graphics editing program that is perfect for generating all types of images).

Image from http://www.zeusjones.com

Vector Tuts +

Vector Tuts+ leads you through a detailed 40-step process of creating a complicated infographic in Adobe Illustrator CS4. This is especially useful for people with little experience creating infographics, but who want to have a greater degree of control over the layout of their images.

Image from http://vector.tutsplus.com

Do any of you readers have a go-to site or software to create your own infographics? Let us know in the comments!

 

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Power Tweeting Tools & Tips

Posted by McKinneyBrown on February 21, 2012 in News

Twitter has indeed taken over as one of the biggest hubs for personal, business, political, and news activity on the Internet. Maximizing your presence on Twitter should be among your chief strategies to developing your online presence. Frequent tweeting alone won’t get you very far though. To become a true power user, you should have a well-planned tweeting strategy that capitalizes on Twitter’s structure and the habits of Twitter users. Here’s some suggestions to follow:

1)      Schedule your tweets

Scheduling your tweets can have a tremendous impact on increasing the visibility of your Twitter account by capitalizing the times of the day when your followers are the most active. This has proven to be an effective strategy if executed properly. Some resources for tweet-scheduling during peak times throughout the day can be found on these sites:

Timely.is - Tool for scheduling tweets at different times throughout the day.

Tweriod – Matches your tweets and your followers’ tweets to schedule the tweets that match up best with the times of day particular followers are active.

Tweet Deck - Another tool that lets you create a calendar for tweets.

2)  Interact with your followers

Interacting with your followers can have a very positive effect on the effectiveness of your account. Tweeting at and Retweeting your followers can greatly increase the loyalty of your network. Creating simple contests, posting riddles or taking polls can also increase interest in followers looking for your tweets in their newsfeed.

Twtpoll – Allows you to create polls and surveys for Twitter

A good blog post on interacting with your Twitter follower base.

3)  Be interesting

Sure, you want to promote your blog, business, or organization, but spamming your followers with nothing but tactless promotions? This sort of activity will have your followers fleeing towards the “Unfollow” button. Make sure that you are tweeting about things that your followers are interested in, regardless of whether or not they relate to your business. Need some inspiration for interesting topics? Check out Google Reader or Story Crawler for finding links to fun and informative content:

4)  Integrate

Post links and badges to your Twitter account on your site, blog, Facebook page, and any other site related to your account. If people are checking out those sites, there’s a good chance that they will take up an opportunity to follow you. Check out these unique tools for integrating other your other sites with Twitter:

ManageFlitter- Gives you tools to manage your Twitter account and links it to Google+.

5)  Generate Retweets

Generating retweets should be among your chief concerns when looking to increase your Twitter presence. Getting your followers to repeat your tweets ensures that your message is gaining traction in the twitterverse. Get three people to retweet you, three retweets from each of their lists of followers… you get the idea. So keep the tweets flowing, but remember to post things that would appeal to a wide audience.

6)  Grow your follower base

You can’t increase your Twitter presence without increasing your follower base. Getting people to follow you is evidence that you are keeping things active, fresh, and interesting. Getting users to follow you directly can have some benefit as well by going through the follower lists of similar Twitter accounts and selecting accounts to follow.

The idea behind this is to get these users to follow you back If you’re a small business or organization that is just getting started, this can be a good way to get the ball rolling. This can be time-consuming though, and a bit of an annoyance on the other end of things. If you’re following the above tips, however, and you have a critical mass of followers, you shouldn’t have too much trouble in people opting follow your account. The following are some sites that help you manage your own account and offer some tools for helping you to get followed back.

Twilert – Alerts you when someone mentions your brand name, Twitter handle, etc. Great tool that makes it easy to follow people who are interested in what you do.

 

Commun.it - Lets you discover leads that have shared links to your site and manage other content; a great tool to connect to potential followers and get them interested in following you.

What are some strategies that you have used to increase your presence on Twitter? Post in the comments!

 

 

 

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Resources for Outsourcing Web Content

Posted by McKinneyBrown on February 20, 2012 in News

There are a number of different reasons to outsource your web content to freelance writers. Maybe you want to focus your energies on other aspects of your company or you don’t quite feel comfortable with your writing skills. Whatever the case, there are many resources out there that can help you focus on what you do while leaving the writing to someone else. New to outsourcing or want to reevaluate your approach? Here’s a few suggestions to get you started.

How do you outsource your content? Do you use freelancers? Interns? How did you get them on your team?  Let us know in the comments!

Students

If you or your organization happens to be situated in or near a college town, you’ll find that students can be a great freelancing resource. They’re looking for professional experience, and you’re in search of writers that are curious and willing to apply their smarts to simple, focused  writing assignments that require a fast mind and great research skills.  Connect with local colleges and universities and their English, journalism and communication departments, or the school’s career resource center.

Also, StudentGems is a great site that can help you look for student freelancers who can assist you with content generation.

Freelance sites

Freelance sites are also a good place to look to solve your content quandaries. Guru, Elance, Textbroker, and oDesk are all resources worth checking out. These sites not only offer  freelancers for web content, but for an array of different tasks, such as legal writing and consulting.

Although these are all legitimate sites, always remember to provide extremely specific assignment instructions for the best possible end product. You don’t always know who will be writing your piece, and the less direction there is on your end, the more likely it is that you’ll receive lackluster content in return. Remember, the point of outsourcing is to lessen your workload, and there’s no need to waste time editing other’s mistakes!

Social media
Another great way to outsource content is through Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other social networking sites. What friends of yours are writers by trade? What friends of friends are writers? What writing-focused organizations, local or otherwise, can you reach out to? Don’t be afraid to drill deep into your network, you never know what you’ll find.

Your Personal Contacts
Another way to find freelancers is to simply talk to your friends, co-workers and professional acquaintances. Chances are many people in your professional circles have used freelancers for their web content. What strategy did they use to produce quality content?  Networking with friends and co-workers can also prove beneficial in creating your own action plan for content generation.

 

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ASO Weekly Digest, February 13-17

Posted by McKinneyBrown on February 17, 2012 in News

Hello readers! In continuing with our “Weekly Digest” theme on Fridays, here’s a round-up of the links and content we’ve shared through the week. Also, if you’d like to see us cover a certain topic, let us know in the comments!

This Week’s ASO Blog Posts

Social Links From The Week

Beat Creativity Blocks by Embracing Your Bad Ideas and Writing Tons of them Down
LIFEHACKER

Valentine’s Day Google Doodle Depicts All Forms of Love [VIDEO]
MASHABLE

How to Include JavaScript and CSS in Your WordPress Themes and Plugins | Wptuts+How to Include JavaScript and CSS in Your WordPress Themes and Plugins
WPTUTS+

How to Write Interesting and Effective Reviews Online that People will Actually Read
LIFEHACKER

ASO’s Social Outposts 

Join ASO on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Visit us on Google+.

Your Weekly Moment Of Frivolity

Car Problems

Image from XKCD

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

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Using Social Media to Find a Job: Student Edition

Posted by McKinneyBrown on February 16, 2012 in News

It’s no secret that the job market is bleak these days. Whether you’re graduating in this spring (like me), or plan on slogging it out in the academic ivory tower for a few more years, proactivity is absolutely essential to landing a job. Creative, strategic methods of networking and marketing yourself to potential employers can have tremendous payoffs when looking for your first full-time position.

This is where social media comes in. Developing a simple, solid social media presence that exhibits your skills and potential is a great way to let yourself stand out amidst the mountains of dull one-sheet resumes in the HR department.  However, there’s a lot of variables to be considered before you go attaching your Facebook and Twitter feed links to your resume.   Here’s a few things to keep in mind:

Clean up your profiles

The most important tip in using your social media accounts to find employment is damage control. Those Facebook photos from your house party junior year or obscene .gifs and memes on your Tumblr page that you might think are harmless will probably not go over too well with a potential employer. In fact, in a recent study of 300 randomly selected employees involved in their company’s the hiring process, 91% said they use social media as a way of initially screening applicants. 69% of the same sampling said that they had rejected an applicant because of material posed on one or more of the applicant’s social media profiles. Those statistics along should adequately illustrate the importance of cleaning up your internet spaces and making them professional and presentable. Remember that employers are not only looking for employees but also for people who will represent their company well. Bear all this in mind when controlling and uploading content associated with your profile.

Update your profiles

Not all content on your social media profiles needs to be hidden. In fact, in the same study mentioned above, 68% of employers said they hired someone because of what they saw on a social media site. Social media can (and should) be a place to put your best foot forward by expressing your personality, creativity, originality and well-roundedness in the best possible light. This can definitely have a positive outcome in your job search and set you apart from other candidates.

Additionally, if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile by now, get one. When talking with my friends at school, I was surprised by how many of them (even those actively looking for jobs) don’t have one. Simply having a LinkedIn profile and keeping it up-to-date will establish you as someone who is not only has a professional presence online, but also someone who is serious and proactive about finding employment. It also gives you a chance to easily highlight your professional achievements and showcase your resume.

Market yourself

Social media is all about, well, being social. Use your different platforms to let people know you’re interested in employment – most people have been in the same boat as you at some point or another, and will be happy to offer helpful advice. Tweet and give status updates about your qualifications and quest for employment. Post links to your other profiles to give the potential employer a good idea of who you are across your different platforms. Update the “Interests” sections of your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts to reflect your professional goals.

Connect, Connect, Connect

As you launch your career, be sure to build contacts along the way. Even if an employer cannot offer you something right now, a job opening may open up later. Connect with the professional contacts you make along the way through LinkedIn. Also connect to friends, family members and LinkedIn groups to grow your professional presence online. Remember, it only takes one connection to end your job search!

Do you have any creative ideas that you’ve put into practice during your job hunt? Have you had any positive or negative experiences related to social media and your quest for employment? Post in the comments below!

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4 Apps Worth Checking Out

Posted by McKinneyBrown on February 15, 2012 in News

Here’s a list of a few interesting apps we came across. A social network for gamers, social weather applications, a virtual DJ booth and more!

What apps are you using? Anything interesting? Let us know in the comments!

The App: Playd
The Price: Free
The Function: This innovative app can be run on any game that has UPC-reading capability and allows gamers to “check in” to video games, letting their friends know which games they’re playing. The app also lets users earn points and Playd rewards while chatting with each other in real-time. Gamers can also connect via Xbox Live, PSN or Steam.

The Compatibilities: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android.

The App: DJ Spooky
The Price: Free
The Function: Compatible with both the iPhone and the iPad, this app gives users their own virtual DJ booth to scratch, filter and fade their own tracks. According to the iTunes description, the app will, “play sound effects over the tracks, including special sound effects created by DJ Spooky for this App. The App will mix music for you automatically or you can use the built-in DJ Spooky Mixer to mix the tracks yourselves in a party.”

The Compatibilities: iPhone, iPad.

The App: Metwit
The Price: Free
The Function: Metwit is a social weather application that allows users to get accurate weather updates through their iPhone. Using bright and colorful local and world maps, users can see real-time weather updates for activities like outdoor sports, commuting or traveling. Metwit also encourages users to give updates about the current weather themselves, adding value and accuracy to the app for other users.

The Compatibilities: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch.

The App: Skip Tunes
The Price: $0.99
The Function: This app sits discretely in the OSX Bar of the users Mac and allows users to easily control their iTunes, Spotify or Rdio (through the F-keys) without interrupting the other computer functions. This app has gotten special attention for its ease of use and great looks.

The Compatibilities: Mac OS X 10.6 or later

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6 Sites That Will Help You Blog Better

Posted by McKinneyBrown on February 14, 2012 in News

Blogging can be a tremendous asset in promoting your business’ online presence. It’s also a simple way to communicate with both customers and employees in engaging ways that creates a forum for dialogue. Finally, an effective blog can provide a personal touch to your company that your customers and potential customers can easily relate to. It’s always reassuring to know that there’s a human voice behind the company logo.

Maximizing your blog’s effectiveness can produce great results for your business. Listed below are five great sites that can help you increase that effectiveness by offering tips on content creation/curation, persuasive copywriting, SEO, and more.

Copyblogger


CopyBlogger is one of, if not the best online copywriting source out there. It provides an endless surplus of simple, easy-to-use tutorials that can quickly maximize the results of your posts. In addition, CopyBlogger offers tools for email marketing, SEO copywriting and landing pages. The site also features a free internet marketing course divided into 20 lessons that over 60,000 people have used to build their online presence.

Men with Pens

Men with Pens is a blog that features tools and resources that will help you hone your writing skills with speed and eloquence (posts range from “How Breakfast at Tiffany’s Teaches You to Become a Classis Writer” to “The Difference Between Simple and Easy and Why it Matters to Bloggers”). Heralded by the Washington Post and Newsweek, Men with Pens has also received great praise for assisting bloggers everywhere in maximizing their time and improving writing ability.

Damn Fine Words

Damn Fine Words is a writing course designed by one of the contributors of Men with Pens  specifically for internet writing. The ten-week course gives students a slew of tools to be more effective writers when it comes to creating websites, blog posts and messages to customers. The course gives you 20 lessons packed with tools to increase your ability to increase your writing ability with speed and style. The course is also designed specifically to better your writing skills after each and every lesson, producing quick results.

Build A Better Blog 

Another great resource for business bloggers is Build a Better Blog. This site covers a wide range of post topics, but is especially useful with many SEO related posts. Build a Better Blog is also chock-full of helpful step-by-step video tutorials that can give you an easy way to maximize the effectiveness of your posts.

Ghost Writer Dad

Ghost Writer Dad is a bit different from the other blogs on this list because of its personal and less professional nature. The site not only gives the professional blogger tips on marketing and dealing with problems unique to internet writing, but it also gives more literary types with author interviews and links to expository writing websites.

ProBlogger

ProBlogger is a social media tool for professional bloggers that allows you to collaborate with other bloggers in a private forum setting. For a monthly fee, you can subscribe to the site and interact with other users who are serious about maximizing the effectiveness of their own blogs. If committing to a subscription is not for you, the site’ blog also has some tremendous resources on its blog that will prove helpful to the novice or experienced blogger.

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5 Great Websites For Finding Creative Inspiration

Posted by McKinneyBrown on February 13, 2012 in News

Everyone needs some sort of creative outlet. Whether it’s music, writing, or what have you, a daily creative practice can be a tremendous benefit to your overall happiness and self-esteem. Research even suggests that cultivating creative habits can also have long-term mental health benefits.

Looking for some creative inspiration yourself? The following websites provide a broad range of resources for channeling your own originality and creativity, regardless of your preferred medium.  Dive in and be inspired!

What sites do you go to for inspiration? Let us know in the comments.

Tumblr

Most of you reading this have at least heard of Tumblr. Tumblr users have generated a staggering +10 billion posts since its inception. The vast site allows users (after setting up an account) to follow other Tumblr blogs according to an asymmetric follow/follower model. Although users do not select themes to organize their images (like Pinterest, for example), the site’s use of tags makes it easy to find and repost images on your own blog that are specific to your own interests. In addition, many Tumblr blogs follow a certain theme, such as architecture, photography, fashion, etc. This allows users to tailor their newsfeed to their own particular interests, and receive posts that are especially inspiring to them.

Drawn

Drawn is a fantastic resource for those interested in painting, drawing, design and animation. The site is managed by eight bloggers who post on a regular basis with images and videos that are discovered or submitted by followers of the blog. The site features a wide array of creative mediums, from short independent films to web comics. Submitting an image or video to be posted on the blog is also very easy and only requires a link the content you want to submit.

Typographica

Typographica is a great creative resource that features content related to typeface, fonts and print design. The site also posts reviews about books dealing with typeface, typesetting and printing. A host of featured typeface and font designers can be found Typographica as well, showcasing a slew of different inspiring designs. In addition to this, Typographica also encourages readers to share their own typeface and fonts.

Vi.sualize.us

VisualizeUs is also a good place to find visual inspiration. The site’s unique approach to photo sharing allows users to bookmark images from nearly anywhere on the web and submit them to VisualizeUs. Users can “like” images and in doing so boost the image’s chances of appearing on the front page. Users can also add other users of the site to their “watch list” to be informed when new postings occur. One unique feature of this site is emphasis on users giving credit where credit is due. In addition to listing the source of the image, users are also encouraged to list the copyright holder of the image when possible.

Swiss Miss

Swiss-miss.com is a design and studio blog run by an NYC designer Tina Roth Eisenberg that provides users with quirky, sometimes off-the-wall creative inspiration. The blog also showcases pieces from Eisenberg’s studio available for purchase through the site.  Finally, Swiss Miss features a slew of inspiring ideas for the with children, with images promoting healthy children’s activities and play objects.

A few clicks around on sites above also make it easy to stumble across other related websites that inspire creativity through images and videos.

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ASO Weekly Digest, Feb 6-10 2012

Posted by jimmoscater on February 10, 2012 in News

Since we’re going to be posting content every day here at the ASO Blog, we thought we’d close every week out with a “digest”-style post that rounds up what we’ve posted and shared from Monday through Thursday.

Hope you enjoy it, and as always, let us know in the comments if there’s anything you’d like to see more of in our Facebook, Twitter, G+, or blog posts.

ASO Haiku Contest

At the end of last week, we announced a Twitter Haiku contest for all ASO customers. The rules were simple: Tweet a poem in haiku format that explains why you enjoy hosting with ASO, and include an #ASOHaiku hashtag. The best 5 poems would receive a “vintage” ASO swag pack.

Here’s the list of winners ( in no particular order), listed by Twitter handle.

  1. @Sunfell Domain deadline missed/ Calm staff member helped me out/ Thank you, ASO.
  2. @EskimoJill A Small Orange knows / I am not just Customer / 85624
  3. @IBBoard “A Small Orange host/top notch service they can boast/homegrown quality”
  4. @fortinj1354 Industry Leading / Indubitably the Best / Homegrown Perfection
  5.  @olegb A small fish like me / Finds the web ocean unfair / Feeling safe with you   

If your name is on this list, please contact jim [at] asmallorange [dot] [com] with your name and address. We’ll send you your gift pack ASAP.

Congrats to the winners, and a big thank you to everyone who participated!

This Week’s ASO Blog Posts

Social Links From The Week

5 Early Birds Share Everyday Productivity Strategies :
FAST COMPANY

musicForProgramming(): Focus-Boosting Mixtapes for Everybody
LIFEHACKER

Help Wanted: Websites For Finding Design And Programming Jobs
NOUPE

Mobile Web Resources
MOBILE WEB BEST PRACTICES

Using WordPress Multisite 
WPTUTS+ 

Your Weekly Moment Of Frivolity

 (image via xkcd)

Thanks for reading, everyone. Have a great weekend!

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5 Free & Helpful WordPress Resources

Posted by McKinneyBrown on February 8, 2012 in News

The following is a list of six solid reference sites (aside from the ever-helpful WordPress Codex) that are packed with helpful tidbits for WordPress users, regardless of their level of expertise. What are your go-to WordPress reference sites? Let us know in the comments!

WPTuts

WPTuts is the WordPress-focused component of the larger “Tuts” network of sites, which specializes in a plethora of how-tos and tips for everyone from Adobe Creative Suite users to app developers.  WPTuts is a treasure trove of tutorials, videos and cheat sheets that will keep any WordPress user occupied for hours on end.

Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine has a super WordPress blog that is perfect for a user who has an established site, but may lack some technical proficiency. This blog features posts that deal with integrating social media and limiting the visibility of WordPress posts when dealing with sensitive content. Also, Smashing Magazine also has incredible resources for a wide variety of other topics including coding, design and graphics.

WP Candy


WPCandy is a good resource for frequent users of WordPress or for those who want to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to keeping their site new and fresh. WP Candy produces a daily video series that features a new plugin called “The Sweet Plugin of the Day,” among other series and podcasts dealing with WordPress news and themes. WP Candy also features an active forum community that provides lively online community discussion of WordPress topics.

WPBeginner


As its name suggests, WPBeginner is a site devoted to the novice WordPress user. The site includes tools like “6 Steps to Setting up Your WordPress Blog” and “Pick the Right Domain Name.” Through basic training videos and non-technical tutorials, this site is a fine tool for the beginning user. WP Beginner also has an active social media presence. With a vibrant Twitter account (over 76,000) and active Facebook and YouTube pages, it’s easy to stay up to date on site activity.

Cleverness


Cleverness is another fine all-around tool for the more technical WordPress user. Cleverness offers a good amount of resources on their site, ranging from creating your own plugins to print resources. The site also tends to cater to those users with knowledge of AJAX, JavaScript and other programming languages, with tools for users who program regularly.


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