Instagram, the uber-popular iPhone mobile app that lets users edit, stylize and share their photos, added an impressive 2 million users last month, coming close to the 15 million mark. The mobile app company attributes the boom to the launch of iPhone 4 and the holidays – more party photos to share! But their growth rate is strongly outpacing the other leading mobile-based app, Foursquare. And what’s really impressive about that is that Foursquare is on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone and Palm.

Sure, Instagram had its eyes set on mega-growth before its 2.0 launch earlier this year. And as we mentioned in an earlier blog, usability was its number-one improvement. Users can choose from four new filters with the 2.0 launch. And now, if you change your mind after you’ve taken a photo, you can apply a different filter fast – up to 200 times faster than in 1.0. But ease of use explains coming BACK. Why do people use Instagram in the first place?

Why? TTIUWP.

“This thread is useless without pics.” Now more than ever, with mobile devices and tablets, we are visual internet users. Everyone who’s friends with you on Facebook or following you on Twitter wants to SEE your San Diego SantaCon pics. Instagram offers this still-by-still and encourages users to comment on each other’s pics. They make it easy. And having a funny username, commenting on other users’ photos (especially with emoticons) and engaging people who comment on your photos really helps create a community of followers.

The Real Story

But Instagram does more than document activity. It lets the user tell a story. Using Instagram means participating in two key components of interactivity – creativity and inspiration. Instagram’s filters help you tell your unique story by adding emotion – a sepia filter for nostalgia, a color-pop filter for irony – and help you connect with your audience in, well, the blink of an eye. A single snapshot of a San Diego sailboat can be romantic or retro, depending on the filter. And not only can you add filters and effects, you can also easily add depth of field (something that can be tough to pull off even with more complex software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop).

And the best part is, you get to play around until you decide. This is really the key to Instagram’s success. They let us play, get inspired and get creative. All from our phones and all for free. It’s no wonder Apple named them 2011 App of the Year!

Instagram photos above taken by President + Creative Director of Skybox Creative, Angelina Sereno. Follow her by name or @happygumdrops!

Skybox Creative is a San Diego based Branding Agency with an emphasis on Web Design and SEO. Get in touch for a free quote on your next design project or search engine marketing campaign! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

by Angelina Sereno

We love, love, love social media! What better way to gain favoritism with search engines, gain brand awareness and have fun!

Follow us on tumblr. here: skyboxcreative.tumblr.com

Or add your username in the comments box below and we’ll follow you!

With nearly 80% of online Americans using blogs, Twitter and social networking sites, social media provides a unique opportunity for businesses to reach and embrace their customers beyond traditional media, allowing businesses to define and communicate with a specific niche market. Business owners should no longer be asking if they should use social media, but figuring out how. We’ve put together a list 5 major factors to consider while creating and maintaining social media in your marketing and communications plan:

1. Know Your Customer:
Social media has nothing to do with you and everything to do with your audience. We have given way to a digital society and with all demographics using social media in almost equal portions, there is no typical social media user. That being said, all social media users do not frequent the same sites making it imperative to get to know your customer and find out which platforms are best for reaching them. Go where the attention is; visit forums that apply to your business and get involved posting and answering questions. This will not only create a following, but give you insight into specifics about your target market. Once you’ve defined your niche, keep thinking about your target, listen to your customers, and refine your content accordingly.

2. Start Small:
Social media is a never ending commitment that requires time, energy and effort. Instead of attempting to tackle every platform at once, realistically choose one or two that are the best for reaching your market. Establish specific business goals and objectives and define who will be responsible for keeping activity going. Do a little bit often, constant activity even in small quantities is much more effective than showing up inconsistently.

3. Be Personable:
Social media doesn’t equal self-promotion. Posting and tweeting exclusively about the company isn’t going to produce results. Let your customers in to show your humanity. Offer advice, information and be the conduit between your audience and valuable content and resources. Before you link to content, make sure it is relevant and adds value to your audience. Be social, comment and help others by asking questions, stimulating conversation and responding thoughtfully.

4. Measuring Success:
Relationships, trust and credibility are not built overnight, so be patient. Focus on who is engaging and grow your community from there. Rather than trying to acquire a whole new customer base, use social media to build relationships with existing customers. A loyal, devoted start will lead to organic growth and a stable future. SPAMMING= No Traffic, you wouldn’t sell out your friends, so don’t sell out your customers.

5. Get Help:
It’s impossible to be an expert at everything, so don’t hesitate to hire a social media expert to help in maintaining your social media presence. Remain involved by communicating what voice you want portraying your brand and by delegating what content and information is discussed. Don’t be afraid to respond and comment even if you are not responsible for the main content.

Skybox Creative is a San Diego based Brand Consultancy with an emphasis on Web Design and SEO. Get in touch for a free quote on your next design project or search engine marketing campaign! info@skyboxseo.com or call us at 619.381.3825

AOL and Nielsen recently released a study which showed that nearly a quarter of all social media messages, and about half of all industry-specific social messages contain links to content. There is definitely a direct relationship between content sharing and brand messaging — a staggering 60% of content-sharing messages mention a brand or product name. At 66%, email remains the primary sharing tool, but social-networking platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, are quickly taking over due to their pervasiveness.

So what is the significance of these numbers? They show that marketers need to use content to become involved in the social conversation — content is what fuels the social media boom, and is therefore key to any marketing buy.

So how can a business take advantage of these tendencies? Here are some tips to maximize the benefits of content sharing:

Blogging: Use relevant keywords to create brief, engaging headlines. Also, you should obviously strive to make your content interesting, but above all, it is most effective to write about a recent topic, or to offer a unique perspective or opinion — readers want to be the first to share in their social circle. Additionally, it has been found that new blogs posted around 7am are most susceptible to sharing.

Facebook: Post every other day for maximum sharing. Avoid technical jargon, and complex phrases — people prefer to read well-written, but simple sentences. When deciding when to make a post, accommodate to the times of highest Facebook activity: early evenings and weekends. Also, try to include graphics or video — these have been shown to generate the most links and sharing.

Twitter: Keep your tweets short and grammatically-correct, but avoid using abbreviations or special terms that may be too technical. Google key words that are effective in marketing (“you”, “free”, “new”, and “great” are a few), and include them in your tweets for best re-tweeting. Also, the best time to promote new blog posts on Twitter is around 10am, weekdays.

About the study: Findings are based on Nielsen’s NM Incite Social Media Monitoring tools, Online Behavior Panel and Attitudinal analysis, tracking more than 10,000 social media messages; and on a survey of more than 1,000 Nielsen Online panel members for 10 consecutive days, December 14-23, 2010.

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Elevate your acclaim with effective brand + web design.

You may have noticed that despite the fact that you have over 300 friends on Facebook, the up-to-date News Feed you see every time you log in seems surprisingly manageable… So how do they do that? Facebook developers use an algorithm called EdgeRank. EdgeRank, also known as “News Feed Optimization“, helps keep the social media outlet simple and keeps people coming back for more. With over 500 million active users spending over 700 billion minutes per month on their website, they’ve turned the concept of social media into something completely different, into a tool with which we guide our lives. Businesses and individuals alike know you have to have a Facebook page to stay on top of the world today.

Is your business up to speed with Social Media? Do you have a customized Facebook profile image? Branded Twitter page? Using a variety of tools, Skybox Ceative can get you up and running with our Cross Media Campaign. For more information, contact us: info@skyboxcteative.com

Want to learn more about Facebook stats, activity and global reach, click here.

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Elevate your business with phenomenal brand + web design.

The Art Institute InSite Interviews Skybox Creative on how designers can effectively use social media to promote themselves. Read the Q&A below.

1.   Why do you use social media platforms?

We utilize social media to build relationships online that we further strengthen offline and vice versa. Say we go to a networking event and meet a few people, we usually try to add them as a friend on our company Facebook or LinkedIn, this allows us to stay in front of them and open up ongoing dialogue. We also search social media sites for companies/people with similar interests, for example being eco-friendly. We will add them as a friend and then post specials for our green printing company, this way the message is more targeted.

2.   What is the best way for an artist or designer to use these outlets?

Well, a lot of the sites are interwoven now, so it’s important to do a little research and make a list of things to do/profiles to set up/link together. For example, Behance.net allows you to display your portfolio on LinkedIn.com, that’s huge. LinkedIn is still the top Professional social media site, so to be able to have your portfolio displayed on your profile is huge. LinkedIn also offers the option to share your updates on Twitter, we linked this feature, now we primarily use LinkedIn and it will automatically keep our Twitter up-to-date. There are a ton of portfolio sites, like CarbonMade.com, Behance.net, Coroflot.com, etc. I think a designer looking for work should be on all of the top portfolio sites and actively add friends, get involved in discussions, join groups, etc.

Another smart thing to remember is that “to give is to receive”, its a good idea to give recommendations to people you know on LinkedIn, then you can ask for the same in return. Or help a friend get introduced to someone via LinkedIn, these kind of selfless actions can really help in building relationships and helping you get more recognition for yourself. Also when posting updates and links on Facebook for example, try to offer an idea or resource that will help others instead of only being focused on your work.

3.   How has Facebook and other social media outlets affected your business?

It has helped keep us in the forefront of people’s minds. Whether they are a potential client or not, if they are thinking about us, they tend to refer their friends and clients to us when they mention “web design” or “cost effective printing”. We host a lot of networking mixers and this has been a great way to promote the events as well.

4.   Are there certain social media musts for artists and designers or does it depend on the individual?

I think you should pick a few and focus on them. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed with social media because it can really be a full time job. As technology moves, more and more sites will pop up too, so it’s important to try to watch the trends. Sites like Mashable.com help keep you up on the latest trends. There are sites like Ping.fm that allow you to update several profiles at once and other applications like Tweetdeck.com that allow you to streamline the Twitter process, schedule tweets and sort your contacts into groups. One thing we’ve done several times is submit our designs to the Designer Spotlight on iStock. If you used an image from their site in a design, you can submit the artwork. If they accept the design, you get free iStock credit, but more importantly it is a form of recognition you can use to help promote yourself (as profile updates, blog posts, etc.)

5.   Any tips and tricks for successfully using social media for art/design work?

Networking is key to success online and offline. Sites like Meetup.com have great niche groups like “Web Design San Diego”, I would recommend finding groups that have similar interests and attend an event or two each month. Even if you are surrounded by your peers, you might be surprised by how many clients you can get from it. We’ve gotten quite a few clients from web design meetups. Not only can you learn from your peers but since people typically have a specialty, they often need good referral sources for everything they don’t do (and are asked for all the time).

Hope you found this information helpful! Feel free to add us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn!

Skybox Creative, an award-winning branding and web design firm, attended the San Diego SEO Meetup Group in Clairemont Mesa last night, and we wanted to share some of the quick and easy WordPress SEO tips we learned. (One of the most important themes of the evening being that WordPress is an EXCELLENT tool for SEO, so if you aren’t familiar with the open source blogging software/content management system, we suggest you get on the bandwagon!)

1. Use a question in your blog post titles. Why, you ask? Because when people are searching for information, they are often asking a question in their search.

2. There are thousands upon thousands of plug-ins for WordPress out there, but beware. Older plug-ins often don’t work with the most recent versions of WordPress (which is on 2.9, but getting close to launching 3.0). There are some great SEO plug-ins however, such as the SEO All-in-One and Ping Optimizer (Check out: WordPress Plugin Directory)

3. Utilize Blog Directories and Social Bookmarking Sites. They can be really great ways to drive traffic to your site, and the more niche the directory, the better!

Check out:

StumbleUpon
Mister Wong
Delicious

4. Don’t be a victim. Read up on WordPress Defender so that you can figure out the best methods to secure your blog from hackers. Always make sure you’re using the most recent version of WP and downloading all security updates are good starting points.

5. Blog at least once a week. An inactive blog doesn’t help anyone – especially you or your business. Blogs are meant to have fresh and changing content on a regular basis.

SIDE NOTE: Did you know that the word “Twit” comes from the English? (You Monty Python fans out there no what I am talking about).  Actual meaning is a drunken, upper-class Brit – happy tweeting!

Greenwala is a Philanthropic company focused on harnessing the power of a community to create opportunity for people to “Go Green” and improve their lives. They believe that every individual has the power to foster change. Through that belief that they feel that the Greenwala community will be the destination for those wishing not to just Green their lives but to improve the lives of those around them.

Greenwala has created a contest called “What’s your story?” They have teamed up with helpareporterout.com. They want your help identifying stories about the most amazing eco-friendly, environmentally-conscious companies, products and services on the planet.

All of our friends + GREEN advocates, please vote for our Green Printing company! http://www.greenwala.com/greenwala_contests/all/7-What-s-Your-Story/entries/mine/565

If you wish to enter, submit a photo of the company (product, logo, or representative image) and a description – up to 500 words about how it is helping to reduce our impact on the planet and revolutionize the green economy. The story that gets the most votes will win a $500 Amex Gift card — and a featured article about the company, product or service on the Greenwala blog.

Greenwala is planting an additional tree for each entry with Trees For the Future. For information or to enter click here.

Winner will be selected from the top 10 vote getters by Greenwala.com editiorial staff.