Side-Benefits of Collaboration

We take a great deal of pride in the work we do for our clients. But we also have a great time collaborating with other developers, designers and marketing people — helping to meet their clients’s needs and enhance their suite of services.

It’s always a two-way street. Yeah, the money is nice. But it’s also the chance to work with talented, driven people who take pride in their own abilities and appreciate how we are able to add to the mix.

And then there are the surprise extras. Just today, we earned an extra-special side-benefit from our collaboration with designer Nancy Ruzow of Ruzow Graphics: We won two 2012 American Web Design Awards from Graphic Design USA magazine! And we didn’t even have to enter. Nancy signed up for the contest, providing the details on two projects that we worked on together:

Toy Space – a custom-built e-commerce site for a shop located in Brookyn, NY (see the blurb on the Chrein.com website)

New England Pediatrics – a customized Joomla site for a large Connecticut medical practice (see the blurb on the Chrein.com website).

See the awards on the GD USA website: http://www.gdusa.com/contests/awda12/types/se.php?x=171-172

Nancy sent over a nice, quick email to announce our good fortune, saying: “you and me!”

Thanks, Nancy!

Should You Pay to be Tweeted?

Among all the ways you can spend your marketing dollars, one option is to send some of that money to Twitter. Like Google AdWords and other search and social media marketing programs, Twitter’s paid options get you in front of more people, faster. Sure you can tweet for free – but who, other than your followers, is seeing those tweets? With the pay-tweets, you might be able to broaden your reach.

But should you pay just to be tweeted?

There are three flavors of paid tweets:

Promoted Tweets. These are displayed in Twitter search results or in user timelines. You pay when someone retweets, replies to, clicks or favorites your Promoted Tweet. You don’t pay for impressions on retweets, and at any time you can extend the reach and cost-effectiveness of your campaign (or cancel).

Promoted Trends. “Trending Topics” let users find out what’s hot on Twitter right now and join the conversations. With  Promoted Trends, you can purchase a trending topic. Your tweet will be displayed on the top of the trend search results. One caveat here is that Promoted Trends are shown to all users, not just your targeted group.

Promoted Accounts. This lets you pay to be one of the “Who to Follow” set, and it’s mainly used to grow your followers.  Promoted Accounts are featured in search results and within the Who To Follow section. Your account will be recommended to users who are most likely to have interests similar to your account. With a Promoted Account, you can target your campaign to specific geographical user base.

Twitter lets you set a budget, choose run dates and (except for Promoted Trend ads) select your target locations. You can get more information on each of these options in Twitter’s Start Advertising section.

Is this a fit for your business? It might be if you…

Tweet Often Enough. There’s no use drawing people to your Twitter account if there aren’t any tweets there. If you can post informative or interesting tweets at least twice a week, then it’s worth paying to get people to read them. If people are flocking to your account, only to find the latest tweet is a month old, it’s a liability to your company.

Are in a Twitter-intensive Industry. If your competition is all over Twitter, and you want to catch up quickly, paid tweets are the way to go. Start by searching on Twitter for keywords that apply to your industry, and for the names of your competitors and their products/services. If they’re on Twitter, and they’re using it actively with lots (hundreds at least) of followers, then you should be there too.

Have an Immediate Offer. If you’re running a special promotion or event, or if perhaps you’re trying to quickly rent up a property, you can run a limited-time Twitter campaign to generate views. You can then devote time to voracious tweeting within a limited period of time, and then back off when you end the campaign.

If you think your business could benefit from Twitter ads, and you would like our input, please contact us today!

Collaborate with Chrein

While many interactive agencies might bristle at the idea of working on a project with another design or technology company, we embrace it. Chrein.com has been collaborating on projects of all sizes and types for more than 12 years. We’ll be the technology partner for a design firm, the design partner for a technology firm, the usability consultant for a small partner, and the wireframe builder for a large partner.

We embrace collaboration because we’re good at it. It suits our nature and our mind-set — which is to make each project the best it can be. No ego. No bad attitude. Only creativity, efficiency, good ideas and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Recent collaborations include:

Pico | Little Architecture – We built the robust e-commerce back-end, with Lyde Spann of Netamorphosis as the project lead and Laurie Fink as the designer.

Toyspace – We built the robust e-commerce back-end, with Ruzow Graphics as the project lead and designer.

Energy Sherlock – We coded and integrated a customized Joomla content management system, with VC Graphics as the project lead and designer.

If your agency is looking for a mission-critical partner on an upcoming project — Chrein.com is here to take the worry and the challenge out of collaboration. Please Contact Us to learn more!

Fun with Forgeries

We wanted to publicly thank one of our clients, Mark Forgy, for so generously sending us a valued item from his collection — yes, a real “fake” by notorious artworld bete noir Elmyr de Hory. Mark’s site at http://www.elmyr.net provides some of the saucy details on Elmyr, and Mark’s forthcoming book on Elmyr will provide all of them. For our part, we now have a cool conversation-starter to hang on the wall. “Wow, is that a real Matisse?” Er, yep.

Managing Social Media Within a Company

For businesses, social media can be a many splendored thing. It’s free publicity. It’s a way to maintain client contact with less effort. And it’s a way to help perpetuate your reputation as a thought leader in your field.

It can also be a major PITA (you’ll need to Google that expression) to manage, especially in an organization where there are many “thought leaders” who want to get their thoughts out onto Twitter, Facebook, Linked-in and/or your company blog or website.

One solution that we’ve been developing with clients is a “Social Media Management Tool” — a way to control the flow of “thought” before it goes out for public consumption. In a nutshell, it is a clear, simple web-based tool that 1. allows people in your company to suggest ideas, write stories, craft Tweets, or jot down information, and then 2. funnels that information through one or more people who have the authority to select the information to be used, edit it, and then post it to one or more social media outlets with the click of a button.

The Social Media Management Tool solves the PITA problem – by making sure that nothing gets out into the Twittersphere (and beyond) without first going through the proper channels. And it makes sure the thought leaders can freely and comfortably share their thoughts without risking immediate, public repercussions…

Contact us today for more information!

Venture Press

Venture Press offers a full selection of publishing services for successful people. Partners Madeleine Morel and Amy Edelman selected Chrein.com because of our long-standing track record of helping literary agents and authors market their services online. The website is both professional and fun, a reflection of the partners’ personalities and business philosophy.

See the website at http://www.venturepressinc.com

New York City Audubon

New York City Audubon champions nature in the city’s five boroughs through a combination of engaging and entertaining programs and innovative conservation campaigns. Chrein.com worked closely with this dedicated group, mostly comprised of volunteers, to design and develop this new site. We built on the Joomla CMS platform, allowing the staff to maintain/update the website going forward.

See the website at http://www.nycaudubon.org

Pico | Little Architecture

Pico Design, formed by designer Andrea Panico in 2005, explores the concept of architecture as inspiration for personal keepsakes and jewelry. This new, ecommerce website features Pico’s Little Architecture collection of jewelry, its first merchandise collection under the PICO design umbrella brand. Chrein.com worked with long-time collaborator, designer Laurie Fink, and project manager Lyde Spann to create this completely customized e-store.

See the website at https://picomeanslittle.com