The blogs were judged on the quality of writing, thematic relevance, professional and personal balance, frequency of posting, and the appearance/design. Every one of these five blog designs are powered by the WordPress web publishing system, and utilize the Canvas framework, which adds common features like social media integration to the sites, while still enabling us to create a completely unique look and feel for each blog, based on each advisor’s personal brand.

As you can see in the screenshots below, each site has its own distinct design, although they’re all powered by WordPress and built on the Canvas framework, which makes it easy for WIRED ADVISOR™ staff to update and provide support for each financial advisor in their blog network.

WIRED ADVISOR™ is dedicated to helping financial advisors accelerate their online marketing efforts, and have strategically partnered with LeftLane Designs to create strong online brands, custom blog sites, and effective social media strategies for financial advisors.

Here are the five blogs that were identified among the Ten Best Advisor Blogs of 2011…

Congratulations to each of these financial advisor bloggers on a job well done, and thank you to WIRED ADVISOR™ for the opportunity to partner together over the past year and a half to create these and other design projects!

View the full article, and the other five blogs. →

From the initial phone conference with the company’s founders, Stu McLaren and Tracy Childers, I knew that this would be a fun collaboration, and a great fit. To be honest, I’ve never had a client bring so much useful information to the table during the preliminary meeting. These guys had a clear idea of how they wanted the site to function and what features needed to be included — along with dozens of examples from other sites. This information was welcome, and made the design process flow smoothly, without wasting effort on multiple design iterations.

Custom Features and Functions…

In addition to the site being built on the popular WordPress content management system, Stu and Tracy made a few other requests, which were easily accommodated…

1. Build the site using WooThemes’ Canvas as a framework.

Rather than designing the entire site from scratch — which can take several weeks — we agreed to build the site utilizing a WordPress theme from WooThemes as a framework, inheriting the powerful functions and features of the WooFramework, while also leveraging WishList staff members’ experience with other WooThemes.

Since I frequently use WooThemes as starting points for WordPress-powered theme designs, and have even produced a series of tutorial videos for WooThemes, this was an easy request that enabled me to leverage my own intimate knowledge of this flexible theme and framework to create a unique web presence for WishList Products.

2. Utilize a “Child Theme” strategy to facilitate easy upgrades.

Instead of modifying the core theme files in the Canvas framework, I created a custom child theme, which inherits all the functionality of the parent theme, but allows me to modify and add to the functionality of that parent theme. When WooThemes releases a new version of the Canvas theme or the WooFramework, the WishList folks can easily overwrite and upgrade the original theme without losing the customizations.

3. Create color variations for easy use in related sites.

Because there are three individual websites under the WishList Products moniker, the final WordPress theme will eventually be installed across all these related sites. Stu and Tracy asked me to create an easy method to change the accent color for each site, thus ensuring that each site has its own unique brand, while also maintaining a consistent design across all the web properties.

This was accomplished through the addition of a new drop-down menu in the Theme Options panel, which allows them to easily toggle between color and style variations. Each style applies a unique CSS stylesheet, overriding the default colors used in key areas throughout the page layout.

4. Site Showcase

With more than 26,000 sites currently being powered by the WishList Member plugin, it was a “no-brainer” to showcase some of those sites via a dedicated page template. I designed a system that utilizes the Gravity Forms plugin to accept entries for inclusion in the site showcase via a public-facing form. This functionality makes use of a Custom Post Type in WordPress, which allow for the creation of other content types.

Once sites are submitted and approved, they appear on the site showcase page, as well being displayed on the homepage — or any other page in the site — through the use of a custom shortcode. Tracy and Stu can simply add: [insertShowcase] to any page or post, and the site showcase will be dynamically inserted at that point in the page.

5. Testimonials

Like the site showcase, testimonials may be submitted via a public-facing form, and are randomly displayed on the homepage — or any other page in the site — through the inclusion of another custom shortcode: [insertRandomTestimonial]

The custom page template for the testimonials not only displays the text, but also includes a photograph of the individual, hovering over a background map of their city. This idea was shamelessly borrowed from 37Signals, but I designed a fully-automated process for generating the map and other elements dynamically, using the Google Maps API.

6. Featured Items and Announcements

From time to time, Stu and Tracy need to communicate important announcements on the website, so they asked me to design a system that would do so in an attention-getting way. First, I created a Custom Post Type for the announcements. When an announcement is present, a brightly-colored panel appears on the page, sliding down to reveal the contents of the announcement.

Additionally, there is a sidebar widget that resembles a Post-It note, which may be used in conjunction with the animated slider or independently.

7. Custom Widgets

As if this custom functionality wasn’t enough, there are also 11 custom-coded widgets for use in the sidebar and footer of the site(s). These widgets add a number of custom features, including displaying social proof, links to the other WishList sites, and even a counter that displays the current number of sites being powered by the WishList Member plugin.

The Design Process…

After our initial phone conference, during which the design objectives were clearly identified, I went to work, creating a simple wireframe illustration of the homepage and an inside page.

The wireframes were quickly approved, and I moved on to the next phase, creating a set of five sample pages in Photoshop, which established the common design elements, typography, colors, and layout. I created three different versions of these pages, to demonstrate the color variations which would be used across the various WishList Products websites…

The design comps were warmly received, and approval was given to move on to the coding phase. Over the next couple of weeks, I converted the Photoshop files to a fully-functional WordPress child theme, complete with custom widgets and the other features mentioned above.

The WishList Member Sales Letter

With the WordPress theme complete, Stu and Tracy then asked me to help them develop a compelling long-form sales letter for use on the WishList Member site. This single landing page bears the responsibility of introducing folks to the WishList Member plugin, its features and benefits, pricing details, and more.

The sales letter page relies heavily on the built-in shortcodes that are included in the WooFramework, to create the buttons, dividers, and toggle boxes that slide down to reveal more content, making the most of screen real estate.

I also created a custom pricing table, and a simple screenshot tour of the product, which displays enlarged versions of the product images when they are clicked.

Read what they had to say about the final results…

“I can remember the day when Stu told me that he had found the guy to revamp our website. He said, ‘Best of all, he’s using WishList Member on one of his sites, so I think he’ll be familiar with what we’re doing.’ It took me one look at Shawn’s work to agree with Stu that we had found our guy.

“What happened next took me by surprise. I knew that Shawn would be able to pull off the look and design we were hoping for, but I had no idea what a positive experience it would be throughout the entire process. From the first discussion, everything we mentioned was completely understood. There were additional things added that we didn’t consider. There were clear objectives of the project with a project proposal along with delivery dates clearly specified. When I saw the wireframes, I was floored. They looked exactly like what we had envisioned, and delivered on the date they were promised.

“Without a doubt, this was the most positive experience I’ve ever had in working on a project like this. Shawn seems to be good at everything he touches. We’re definitely reaping the long term rewards of having a top notch site design.”

Tracy Childers
Co-Founder of WishList Products

Click here to visit WishList Member now →

“How much for a logo?”

If I had a dollar for every time I was asked this question, I would never need to work another day in my life.

The truth is… it depends.

What role will this logo serve in your marketing efforts? Are we talking about a simple text-based logo, or do you need a carefully-crafted icon that will be instantly recognized worldwide? In what mediums will your logo be reproduced? Will this logo instantly distinguish you from your competition, or are you simply wanting your company name typeset in something other than Times New Roman?

Asking, “How much for a logo?” is not entirely unlike asking, “How much for a house?”

Well, that depends. Where will this house be built? How many rooms will you need? What are your unique lifestyle needs? Will you be entertaining guests in your new home? Will your new home be built using eco-friendly processes and materials?

Without the answers to these questions — and many more — your architect or designer would simply be “shooting blind.” The truth is, you want your logo — like your home — to uniquely represent you, your personality, how you conduct business, and how you live your life.

So why would you want to entrust something so critical to a junior designer who will likely spend no time with you, asking questions, seeking first to understand your unique needs, goals, or challenges? For $79, how much time can be spent researching your market, ensuring that your logo will effectively distinguish you from your competition, and be instantly recognized by your prospective customers?

Now, don’t get me wrong. Just because a logo is expensive doesn’t mean that it’s effective. In fact, it’s not really about the price point at all. There are logo designers who can do amazing work in a short amount of time. Likewise, not every logo needs to cost a small fortune. If you just need a simple logo or header graphic for use on your blog, you don’t need to invest in a full-blown discovery process with 8-10 variations from which to choose.

But, if you’re looking for a compelling logo that will effectively communicate your brand to the world, you want a designer who will carefully listen to — and understand — your goals, and then deliver a creative, unique design solution that will exceed your expectations. You want a designer who will truly partner with you… not just on the creation of a “killer logo,” but also in the strategic implementation of your newly-designed logo across all your marketing materials, creating a cohesive brand that will serve you for years to come.

I’ve been designing logos for my clients for more than 21 years. In that time, I’ve developed a streamlined — but thorough — process that enables me to understand your needs and create a solution that will accurately represent you to your audience, and grow with you in the future. But what I most enjoy is getting into the “trenches” with my clients, partnering with them for the long-haul, and creating strategic designs that can be leveraged across a wide variety of marketing materials.

I’d love to discuss how we might begin partnering together. Why not get in touch and let me know what you have in mind?

I recently purchased a protective case for my iPhone. After weeks of online research, I had finally settled on the Racing Series iPhone case by Trexta. I instantly fell in love with the embroidered white racing stripes against the matte-black leather, so I ordered the case from a 3rd-party vendor on Amazon.com. It was a little more expensive than other cases I had found, but I have no problem paying a bit more for a well-designed product.

A few days later the case arrived, and I anxiously tore open the package. Imagine my disappointment when I realized that the case I was holding in my hand did not match the one depicted in the photos online. Instead of matte-black leather, the case was a high-gloss, almost patent-leather, and the white stripes were equally glossy.

I might have gotten past the glossy appearance, were it not for the other—more obvious—difference. The leather was adhered to a white plastic shell, and it stops about an eighth-inch shy of the outer edges of the case, creating a white border all the way around.

Many folks may like this look, and perhaps find it consistent with the white stripes of the case. But I felt that it gave the case a very “cheap” look that was not consistent with the trim and polish of the iPhone itself.

Because I had ordered the case from a 3rd-party vendor, and the original packaging had been completely destroyed during opening, I had little hope of securing a refund from the seller. Further, I wasn’t completely sure that this wasn’t a knock-off version of the case I had seen online; there was a clear and obvious difference in quality between the photos online and the actual product I held in my hand.

Just to be sure, I pulled up the photos on the official Trexta site, and sure enough… the case depicted in the photos was quite different than the one I had received. So I sent an email to Trexta’s customer support department.

It was after business hours on a weekend evening, so I was pleasantly surprised when I received a personal response via email almost immediately.

“Shawn, I am so sorry to hear about that! We will contact you tomorrow to resolve the issue promptly! Respectfully, Eren Maral”

Sure enough, I received a phone call the next morning from Trexta’s customer relations expert, Cris Monge, who informed me that the photos used in the product descriptions online were, in fact, different from the actual product. But, he said, they’d like to “make things right.”

“I’m holding two other cases in my hand. One is black with blue stripes and the other is black with red stripes. While I know these aren’t exactly what you ordered, they do have the black plastic shell that you prefer. I’d like to send you both of these cases at no charge. Would that help to make things right?”

No need to bother with repackaging and returning the original case. The two new cases were mailed the same day, and a tracking number emailed to me immediately. I just received my two new cases… now three, in total.

As I mentioned before, these aren’t the least expensive cases on the market. In fact, Trexta has now invested nearly $100 into our relationship.

Setting aside my original feelings about the stylistic shortcomings in the design of the original case, my experience with their people has converted me into a happy customer for life (and even an evangelist of sorts, if this review produces the desired result).

Going beyond the call of duty…

One important thing to note here is that Trexta does not sell cases directly to the public. Like many product manufacturers, they only sell to 3rd-party vendors like the one from whom I had purchased my case. Most companies would have been happy to defer me to the reseller, where my complaint would no doubt have been lost in the shuffle, or at most, routed through a series of poorly-informed call center employees who would read from a script and prescribe the usual, “return it and we’ll see what we can do” shuffle.

But in this case (no pun intended), Trexta did the right thing. They gave a shit. I have no idea how many cases Trexta sells, but I was made to feel as though my purchase truly mattered to them. My perception of their brand mattered to them. Most importantly, my satisfaction and happiness mattered to them.

Wine-guy-turned-social-media-guru, Gary Vaynerchuk, refers to this trend as the “Thank You Economy.” It’s an economy built on meaningful, two-way relationships. It’s the result of a cultural shift in how we perceive ourselves in relation to the brands, products, and services we use.

Our expectations have changed completely.

We’re no longer satisfied with merely purchasing a good product at a great price. Rather, we have an expectation of interacting with the people—the real, live, human beings—who make up the companies and brands with whom we choose to do business, no matter how big or small.

In short, “You wanna go where everybody knows your name.”

We all want to feel as though we truly matter. As further proof of this point, recent studies of our purchasing patterns reveal that we’ll even pay a premium for this type of interaction. It is no longer enough to merely compete on price point or ambiguous attributes like “quality” alone; you’ve got to make an effort to truly connect with your customers in a meaningful way.

I consider Trexta one of those companies who truly “get it.” They clearly understand that every single customer interaction is important. And they’ve demonstrated to me that they’re willing to put their money behind that belief. It cost them to send me those two additional cases, but the value of the relationship is worth far more.

Ironically, your participation is the very proof of this process. When you click this link to check out the iPhone cases and other products by Trexta, you’re proving that the extra effort put forth by the folks at Trexta is resulting in a positive return already.

Learning to truly care for our customers—especially those who take the time to voice their complaints to us—can create priceless opportunities to improve our products, processes, and brand. But most importantly… we’ll be building mutually-beneficial relationships that could last a lifetime.

In fact, it is often true that relationships born out of adversity become those that are most meaningful to us in the long-term. Who knows what future impact that complaining client could have on your business and your life? Who’s to say that he or she won’t become your most important customer, or better yet, future business partner, collaborator, or lifelong friend?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

In what ways has your thinking about “customer service” been challenged recently? What changes have you made in your customer relations that could convert “complainers” into “collaborators”?

And, have you checked out the gorgeous iPhone cases and accessories by Trexta?

Despite having built a strong reputation for themselves in the industry, upper management realized that their website and marketing approach had grown stale, and felt it was time for a change. Due to my previous work and ongoing partnership with Senior Service Match, I was invited to participate in the redesign of Hearthstone’s website.

Initial Discovery Meeting

For our first meeting, company executives were flown in from around the country to share their input and valuable perspective on the goals for the redesign. It was clear that the staff and leadership of Hearthstone do not fit into the negative stereotypes of “nursing home” workers, but rather exude an upbeat confidence, high energy, and a genuine passion for fostering a high degree of independence for their residents, as well as a holistic approach to their health and general well-being. The tone of this first meeting was fun and upbeat.

Across the board, the leaders of Hearthstone made it clear that they were ready to shed the antiquated image of their current website (shown at right), in favor of a more modern, clean, and decidedly “not senior” look and feel.

Throughout the meeting, I took copious notes, carefully jotting down keywords, adjectives, and key phrases that would later inform the design phase. I asked specific questions about the unique abilities and strengths of Hearthstone versus her competitors, and was blown away by the level of passion with which these folks began to respond.

They told stories of individuals who had left the company, only to return a few months later, as they realized that this work was truly their life’s ambition. The depth of experience represented by the Hearthstone staff is a clear indication of their unique love for their work.

As a result of this line of conversation, we arrived at a new tagline for the company which was eagerly adopted on the spot. The new tagline, “Our Heart is in It.” has already made its way into other elements of the marketing plan, and will soon make its way into corporate training and new employee orientation materials.

Mood Board Development

Because the new design objectives represented such a dramatic departure from the current website, I proposed that we develop a series of “mood boards” to explore new colors, textures, and typography before diving into the actual site mockups. This step turned out to be critical to the success of the project, and I plan to incorporate it into all future design projects of this scale.

(Thanks to Amy Lamp at the venerable Forty Agency in Phoenix, AZ, for this inspiration!)

Mood Board v1.0

The first mood board suggested a very fresh and modern color palette, contemporary textures, and vibrant imagery that would clearly differentiate Hearthstone from her competition.

Since the individuals responsible for reviewing the mood boards were scattered all around the country, the mood boards were posted online, using a fabulous tool called GetSignOff.com. The initial feedback to the first mood board was positive, but a completely new set of adjectives now entered the equation. Turns out what they really wanted was not modern, contemporary, clean, or fresh. Rather, they now communicated that they wanted a look and feel that was “warm, home-like, classic, and transitional.”

A completely new mood board was created and posted for review, exploring this new design direction, along with specific colors and imagery that were now being requested. Deeper, warmer, colors, more traditional typography, and more classic photos and imagery were brought into this design.

Mood Board v2.0

At this stage, the client was still not happy. They really liked the “swoop” from the first mood board, and requested a third mood board consisting of a “blend” of warm, classic, and contemporary elements. Because we would be shooting custom photography for the site, we agreed to simplify the final mood board by dropping the photos and imagery from the mood board, moving forward with a simple color palette, on which the client happily signed off.

Color Palette v4.0

With the color palette finally approved, and new parameters for the design direction, I was eager to get started on the actual mockups for the site. Thankfully, we were crystal-clear on the content for the home page, as well as the action points we should feature. Three mockups were requested: the home page, an inside page, and then a sample landing page for each of the 37 “micro-sites” to be developed for the individual communities themselves, featuring content specific to each location.

Home Page Mockup

Inside Page Mockup

Microsite Page Mockup

These mockups represent a nice blend of warm colors, modern typography and layout, subtle gradients which add a “home-like” texture to the site, and simple, easy-to-understand calls to action. The layout is instantly intuitive, and the client feels it is perfectly suited to their target demographic, which is made up primarily of “baby boomer” women.

The client approved the mockups with only the most minor of revisions, thanks in large part to the ground covered during the mood board phase. Without that critical step, we would have no doubt made countless revisions to the site mockups, which is considerably more time-consuming.

Custom Photo and Video Shoot

In addition to the website redesign, we were also asked to shoot custom photography in the studio and on-location. To further leverage this time, we also shot video testimonials, which will be edited and used throughout the site. Bellus Images in Houston, TX, shot both the still photography and the video testimonials, over just two days. The resulting images are stellar, and will definitely help to further distinguish Hearthstone.

The site designs are now being converted to a WordPress template, after which the new site content will be built. Stay tuned for the site launch and more details!

Hope you enjoyed this inside peek into my design process. If you’ve got any questions or feedback, feel free to post it in the comments below. I look forward to hearing what you think!

At TEDGlobal in London, Tim Brown talks about how design got small—and why it’s becoming big again. Design is moving beyond the sculptural object displayed in lifestyle magazines or on pedestals in museums of modern art. It’s returning to its roots, when design thinkers like Isambard Brunel created innovative breakthroughs.

It’s time to begin thinking of design as a process for problem-solving, rather than merely for the creation of products.

About gary vay•ner•chuk

Nobody has succeeded at utilizing social media to create a personal brand like Gary Vaynerchuk. After primarily utilizing traditional advertising techniques to promote his family’s local wine business, Gary rapidly adopted and leveraged social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to promote Wine Library TV, his video blog about wine.

As his viewership swelled to over 80,000 a day, doors opened to a book deal, several national TV appearances, and a flurry of speaking engagements around the world. Gary’s dual identity as both a business guru and wine guy has made him the “Social Media Sommelier.”

About the book…

This book is a 90-minute read, and weighs in at just 140 pages. The tone and pace of the book is not unlike listening to Gary speak, and it’s simply loaded with practical advice, step-by-step instructions, and real-world examples. In addition to a complete, 21-step outline for building your personal brand online, Gary even “threw in” about half a dozen phenomenal business ideas for anyone with the ambition to go for it!

Because this book primarily addresses folks who are relatively new to internet-based business and social media, there wasn’t a lot of new information in this book for me. But keep in mind, I’ve been creating web sites and utilizing social media for more than a decade. Gary’s book is simply a gold mine for newbies, and is the first book I can honestly say that I will recommend to anyone everyone who is considering moving their business into the online arena.

While I didn’t take away many new strategies from this book, there was still plenty of material that challenged me on a personal level. Gary’s “three simple rules” to which he attributes his success challenged my to take a fresh look at my own priorities:

Three rules:

1. Love your family.
2. Work superhard.
3. Live your passion.

“I measure success by how happy I am, not how big the business is or how much money I’ve made. And thanks to following those three rules, I’m 100% percent happy.”

Don’t believe him? Listen to him talk for 5 minutes and you’ll become convinced. Very few people share Gary’s level of passion for what they’re doing.

What does it mean to live your passion?

According to Gary, “it means that when you get up for work in the morning—every single morning—you are pumped because you get to talk about or work with or do the thing that most interests you in the world. You no longer live for vacations because you don’t need a break from what you’re doing—working, playing, and relaxing are one and the same. You don’t even pay attention to how many hours you’re working because to you, it’s not really work. You’re making money, but you’d do whatever it is you’re doing for free.”

When you start thinking about how to live your passion and create a livelihood from it, have the following conversation with yourself…

“Is this my ultimate passion?

“Yes.

“Okay. Am I good enough to be the best blogger about this in the world?

“Uh…”

If you can’t answer both of those questions with an emphatic, “Yes!” you are not going to win.

Summary of the book from Amazon.com…

Do you have a hobby you wish you could indulge in all day? An obsession that keeps you up at night? Now is the perfect time to take that passion and make a living doing what you love. In Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses.

Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed here, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. By the end of this book, readers will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, Crush It! is the ultimate driver’s manual for modern business.

This was probably the best 11 bucks I’ve invested in my business, as I’m sure I’ll be recommending this book to all of my clients and friends. Click here to check out the book on Amazon.com [affiliate link].

When you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts. What stood out to you? Post your thoughts in the comments field below. Looking forward to the dialog!

Over the past several years, I’ve tried just about every contact form plugin out there, including cforms and Contact Form 7. I was frustrated with the apparent trade-off between functionality and usability. It seemed that the more flexible the plugin, the more confusing the UI. This is where Gravity Forms simply blows away the competition! They’ve managed to create an incredibly flexible plugin, adding innovative features while still maintaining a drop-dead-simple AJAX interface that feels more like a desktop app than a web plugin.

In fact, this plugin is so good, you’ll wonder why it doesn’t just come standard in WordPress! (hint, hint)

Just a few of the innovative features…

1. Seamless Integration with WordPress 2.8+ – If you know how to use WordPress 2.8, you know how to use Gravity Forms. From the colors to the way it functions, Gravity Forms looks and feels like a part of WordPress.
2. Visually Create Forms with Our Sleek Editor – The visual form editor enables people with no HTML skills to create complex forms in minutes. Just add fields, choose field options, and drag them into the desired position.
3. Prevent Spam with Built-In reCAPTCHA Protection – The reCAPTCHA field will shield you from spam by preventing from submissions from automated scripts. You will also be helping in digitizing books for online use.
4. Allow Users to Automatically Create a Post – Let your users help with data entry. When added to a form, our Post Fields create a post when the form is submitted. Great for user submitted stories, job postings, directories, etc.
5. Manage Entries from the WordPress Admin Panel – Search, edit, delete and keep track of all entries from the Entries page in your WordPress administration panel.
6. Easily Export Form Entry Data to CSV Format – Need your entry data for other applications? Easily export all or part of your entries to CSV. Our export tool makes it a breeze to export only the fields that are needed.

Gravity Forms also sends automatic emails to users in response to a submission, enabling you to create professional and personalized messages.

If you’ve been searching for a simple way to create custom forms for your WordPress pages and posts, look no further than this plugin! Honestly, Gravity Forms is unrivaled when it comes to creating custom forms for WordPress.

Ready to learn more? Why not jump over to their site and take a look at the video tour?

But wait! There’s more…

Thanks to the good folks over at WooThemes, you can use the coupon code: WOOFORM20 when you purchase Gravity Forms, and they’ll give you a nice 20% discount. So what you waiting for? Go check it out already!

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT GRAVITY FORMS FOR YOURSELF!

During a recent conversation with one of my clients, he raised these concerns and asked me if I thought Twitter was just an “overhyped trend” that would soon disappear. “Why is it,” he asked, “that so many businesses have had poor results using Twitter to promote their products or services?”

In my opinion, the majority of these negative articles reveal either poor practices, a gross misunderstanding of the purpose of social media, or both. One may as well write an article about the fundamental flaws of a hammer when used to brush one’s hair. You’re either using the tool incorrectly, or for the wrong purpose!

Twitter Facilitates Meaningful Relationships

In short, Twitter was developed with the simple purpose of building relationships. It is NOT a platform from which to repeatedly broadcast your products or services, announce your latest sale, or drive traffic to your website.

[Please re-read the paragraph above.]

It IS, however, a simple and effective tool to facilitate legitimate, meaningful, two-way communication.

The businesses and individuals who understand this basic premise are experiencing tremendous success in building their brand, reputation, and interaction with their readers. Those who are truly using social media to build relationships with their audience are discovering its incredible (and relatively untapped) power to supercharge their businesses.

Oh, and those same folks rarely, if ever, promote their own products or services outside the context of a conversation. Instead, they ask questions, solicit input from their readers, respond to customer problems in real-time, and share only relevant information — often from other sources outside of their own offerings.

Thankfully, the good folks at Twitter have just released a brand new tool for businesses seeking to make the most of Twitter (and other social media) to connect with their audience. In addition to a “Twitter 101″ primer on the basics, this microsite also includes pages of case studies and best practices for businesses. A brief excerpt follows:

How to measure the value of Twitter

Before you set up measurement tools, focus on the quality of your engagement, and use your gut to check how things are going. How’s the feedback and interaction with your followers? Are you responding to most or your @messages? Are most tweets about you positive? Or if they started out largely negative, are they coming around? Are more people beginning to engage with you and mention your company?

Next, think about quantifying your experience. Although it can be tricky to add up the value of relationships, Twitter does lend itself to measurement in a few ways, especially if you’ve already defined what you hope will be different for your company in three months, six months or a year if you succeed on Twitter. Tactics like these can then help you assess your progress in meeting that goal:

• Keep a tally of questions answered, customer problems resolved and positive exchanges held on Twitter. Do the percentages change over time?
• When you offer deals via Twitter, use a unique coupon code so that you can tell how many people take you up on that Twitter-based promotion. If you have an online presence, you can also set up a landing page for a promotion, to track not only click-throughs but further behavior and conversions.
• Use third-party tools to figure out how much traffic your websites are receiving from Twitter.
• Track click-throughs on any link you post in a tweet. Some URL shortening services let you track click-throughs.

Check out the Twitter 101 for Business microsite for more information, helpful tips and resources, and inspiring case studies…

Visit the Twitter 101 for Business Site

Those now-famous words were first spoken by Stewart Brand at the first Hackers’ Conference in 1984, in the following context:

“On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.”

Or, as Chris Anderson puts it in his latest book, Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business…

“Abundant information wants to be free. Scarce information wants to be expensive.”

Such is the premise of the compelling new book by Wired Magazine’s Editor In Chief, Chris Anderson. But tell that to the poor CIO who just shelled out six figures to buy another rack of servers. And what of the notion that “anybody can make money on the web?”

Today, the underlying technologies that power the Web are fast becoming too cheap to meter. Just as Moore’s law dictates that a unit of processing power halves in price every 18 months, the price of bandwidth and storage is dropping even faster. Which is to say, the trend lines that determine the cost of doing business online all point the same way: to zero.

Every year, like some sort of magic clockwork, massive banks of servers churn out more and more data for less and less, bringing the marginal costs of technology in the units that we individuals consume closer to zero.

Just last year, Yahoo announced that Yahoo Mail, its free webmail service, would provide unlimited storage. (Just in case that wasn’t totally clear, that’s “unlimited” as in “infinite.”) So the market price of online storage, at least for email, has now fallen to zero. And the stunning thing is that nobody was surprised; many had assumed infinite free storage was already the case.

Virtually every product Google provides is free to consumers, from Gmail to Picasa to GOOG-411. And yet, somehow they have created a $220 BILLION dollar global empire around their “free” products.

A new kind of free…

The idea that you can make money by giving something away is nothing new. But until recently, practically everything “free” was really just the result of what economists would call a cross-subsidy: You’d get one thing free if you’d buy another, or you’d get a product free only if you’d paid for another service.

Over the past decade, however, a different sort of free has emerged. The new model is based not on cross-subsidies — the shifting of costs from one product to another — but on the fact that the cost of products themselves is falling fast. “It’s as if the price of steel had dropped so close to zero that King Gillette could give away both razor and blade, and make his money on something else entirely. (Shaving cream?)”

A taxonomy of free

This new kind of free is forcing companies to adopt new business models, leveraging opportunities around the falling cost of doing business in a digital age. Chris identifies six broad categories:

1. “Freemium” – Web software, content, and services, free to users of the basic version, made possible by the more expensive, premium “pro” version of the site or software, usually with more features than the free version (think Flickr and the $25-a-year Flickr Pro).
2. Advertising – Content, services, software, and more, free to everyone, due to pay-per-pageview banners, pay-per-click text ads, pay-per-transaction “affiliate ads,” and even site sponsorships.
3. Cross-subsidies – Free products that entice you to pay for something else, one way or another. “It’s a free second-gen Wiii! But only if you buy the deluxe version of Rock Band.”
4. Zero marginal cost – Free items that can be distributed without an appreciable cost to anyone, such as online music. Between digital reproduction and peer-to-peer distribution, the real cost of distributing music has truly hit bottom. Some artists give away their music online as a way of marketing concerts, merchandise, licensing, and other paid fare.
5. Labor exchange – Free web sites and services, if you rate stories on Digg, vote on Yahoo Answers, or solve a few CAPTCHA codes. Users knowingly (or not) create something of value, either improving the service itself or creating information that can be useful somewhere else.
6. Gift economy – Free, or “open source” software or user-generated content to everyone. From Freecycle to Wikipedia, we are discovering that money isn’t the only motivator.

The economics of abundance…

Forty years ago, the principal nutritional problem in America was hunger; now it’s obesity. Forty years ago, charity was dominated by clothing drives for the poor. Now you can get a T-shirt for less than the price of a cup of coffee, thanks to China and global sourcing. So too for toys, gadgets, and commodities of every sort. Enabled by the miracle of abundance, digital economics has turned traditional economics upside down.

But money and physical resources are no longer the only currency in the online world. “Attention” and “reputation” are now very real metrics for determining potential value. How many eyeballs are on your site? How many followers do you have on Twitter? What’s your PageRank? If you can consistently convert those metrics into cash, they become a form of currency itself, and Google plays the role of central banker for these new economies.

A new generational reality…

During the course of researching the material for his book, Chris shares that there were broadly two different camps of skeptics: those over the age of thirty and those below. The older critics, who had grown up with the 20th-century version of free, were suspicious: Surely “free” is nothing of the sort—we all pay sooner or later. Not only is it nothing new, but it’s the oldest marketing gimmick in the book. When you hear “free,” reach for your wallet!

But younger critics had a completely different response: “Duh!” This is the Google Generation, and they’ve grown up online, simply assuming that everything digital is free. As this generation comes of age, they will discover entirely new ways to convert zero-cost technologies into meaningful ventures, transforming the world in the process.

So what does it all mean?

There is both good news and bad to be found in these new realities. First of all, the cost of doing business online is dropping by the day. Last month, I provided streaming video tutorials to more than 3,000 visitors to my WordPress tutorial video site. All that bandwidth cost me just $2.58, thanks to Amazon’s S3 distributed storage network. The cost of delivering HD-quality streaming video to my clients has effectively become a no-brainer.

However, the expectations of readers are changing just as quickly as the falling costs. Because the average internet user comprehends the zero-cost margins involved in the delivery of this content, they expect to read content and even receive online services for free. The challenge now is to provide relevant, quality content and services online, while exploring — and possibly creating — new models for making money online.

What do you think?

If Chris Anderson (and many others) are correct, and $0.00 is really the future of online business, what does that say to you? How will your own business model need to adapt to leverage this new reality?

Do you offer any goods or services for free? If so, are they merely “bait and switch” techniques of yesterday, or are you genuinely providing value to your clients and customers? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic! Weigh in below…