the blogs I posted on

1. http://socialmediamilieu.blogspot.com/

2. http://eduardorandom.blogspot.com

3. http://mattsmindcsit.blogspot.com/

Newsletters, are they right for you and how often should I use them?

   I have not used newsletters, yet. I have read a little into them now and feel like I understand them better. I tend to look at business's news letters as a annoyance, but there are times I do check them out. If I check one of these newsletters out, then these emails are a success. you could be sending newsletters out to tons of potentional customers who might then read your newest info or buy your newest products. It can only really increase your business. If a person opts out it is no loss and if a person opts in well your customer base just grew.

   Now, for my business, I would do a newsletter once a month. I am more of a news and part training type website. The more people subscribe and check my website out the better. I would want to create a newsletter as a highlight reel of the month, so customers who might be interested in something they missed can head over to the website and read up on it.

   In my newsletter, I would try to do a highlight of this month gone by. I would do a layout like a magazine with tiled section talking about the different areas of my website. For example, I would have a MechWarrior Online LearnTheGame which would show one of our big training programs this month on mechwarrior. Then MechWarrior Online News. Showing a brief synopsis of what was the biggest changes this month for Mechwarrior. all of these would have a read more button which would link to that page. I would also have Elder Scrolls Online news, Defiance News, Defiance Training, league of legends training and League of legends news. Each showing the biggest article of the month with a tab to read more. It would almost look like a front page of the newspaper, but instead of a page number you go to you would click the "Read More" button. I would also have a subscribe to website button at the top, so they could become a Krimson member.

Blogging the right direction? what categories to use to stay organized and hit my target.

   My blog would be on gaming. I would be talking about three games that I would be focusing on and I would really want to stick with these games. I tend to get distracted with other games and want to talk about them, but that is why I would want my categories on the games I am focused on. I definitely would want the name of the games in my categories so I would have a better chance for people finding mine. I also would want to put in what I am talking about in these blogs in relation to the game For example, I would say the  game name and News together.

   The categories the I would choose for my gaming blog would be first, Defiance News. Defiance is one of the games I am focusing on and I would want to try to talk about the newest things going on in the game. It would hopefully be great for my target audience because I am sure people are searching for defiance news. The next name would be Defiance How to's? I would talk about in each blog how to do something in the game I found out. There are always people searching how to do a particular thing in a game and it would help them find out. Plus, there are always new tricks I learn in games that I would love to share. I would do the same for my other two games, Mechwarrior Online and Elder Scrolls Online. This would help me keep focused on what I care about and hopefully bring my target audience to my blog.

Being Personal in Blogs

Today, I am going to discuss being personal in blogs and specificly my blog. Now, every business is different, which I know is a generic answer, but some businesses can't really get personal. In my business, I am doing game reviews and game teaching, so in some cases it is good to show passion and some cases its not.

For my blog, When I am doing training for a game, it is very important to show some personality and show that you care. People want to know you care about the games your playing and you should show it. Alternatively, I also do game reviews and in my game reviews I try not to show my personality or bias, as much as  I can. The person watching wants a factual review of the game. As I was saying earlier, it really depends on your business and what your trying to portray. If your representing your business and they don't have any specific stands, you do not want to put your own personality to represent it, that could portray your company in a bad light.

Twitter Advanced Search and what I found

   I used three functions in advanced search to get what I want. I used the "all of these words" option and put Gaming community, because I am looking for people that want to play, talk and  hang out with fellow gamers. I used "any of these words" function to try to help narrow it down to the games that we play and help teach with. I used the words MechWarrior, Elder Scrolls, and Defiance. Finally, I used the language function to narrow to English only, because I only read English. These results got me exactly what I was looking for in my community.

   I found many results. Most of the results I found were people or experts I was looking for. I followed a couple of people who were interested in communities in these games. I, also added some gaming news twitters that were related to the games we talk about. Over all I found it to be a great success and hope I draw people into the community I am trying to create.



 

Gaming review Businesses Using Visual Social Media

    I found two websites that are doing similar things that my business is doing. They are doing reviews for many different games. The first one is IGN.com, now they don't have the gaming community I am working for, but they are doing the reviews and training similar to what I do. IGN is using Youtube to distribute a lot of there videos. It is highly effect. They have over 86,000 views just on there most recent video which came out 2 days ago and 2500 comments.

   The next website I found doing similar things to me is Gamespot. They are also doing gaming reviews and learning videos, but like the other website, they are not really creating a gaming community. They have also decided to use Youtube to show there video reviews and learning videos. They also have been very effective. There video from yesterday has over 13000 views and 300 comments. They were not as effective as IGN, but they definitely are successful.

The Visual Networks - Do they work for you?

     I would find it hard to believe that any company would not want to use any visual networks. It is a great way to get your company out there or get a message across. Most people engage with a image or video much quicker then they would a paragraph like the one I am doing now. I think Visual networks are great for my brand especially videos.

     There are four major players in the visual networks, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, and Pinterest. They are all very popular and have there own benefits. YouTube alone has 490 million Users. That is a lot of potential people around the world that have access to your videos. Youtube is a great way to show services. People can see that your a real person and you care about your product or service. You can show them what you do and how you do it. Instagram is a fun way to tell stories with your pictures. You can unveil a new product, show off a event taking place or slowly show your work coming together. Pinterest is a great way to share between services and products that go hand and hand through pictures. You can link great photos of games your looking forward to check out and pin photos of gaming shots you have taken in recent times to peak peoples interest. Finally Tumblr, which is like a blog in photos. You have a beautiful visual medium to keep people up to date on what you want to let them know.

     I am creating a community for gamers. To teach, to learn and to win together. We really want to bring everyone together. I think all these Visual networks are great and have amazing potential for my business. At this moment, the best one for me is Youtube for many reasons. For one, I am trying to teach people how to play different games. It is easiest and most appealing for people to be taught through a video, which I am already doing. I can also show teasers of what is to come in the future. Guys tend to respond best to videos also which is part of my target market at the moment also. Everyone loves visuals, you just need to find which one conveys your message the best.

Krimson Gaming Events!!!

These posts are the exact content we are trying to provide our clients. This is the exact content we want to be providing our clients. We doing training videos and news on particular games. These are our top focuses and we are excited to start a new Learn The Game series with SimCity. Our missions is "We Teach, You Learn, and We Win. We believe this is a great launching point for our whole program.

Facebook Featured Likes

Most of my likes are for the games I am teaching, for example, I am liking League of Legends, MechWarrior
Online and Elder Scrolls Online. The chose these games because the games I do videos and reviews for are these games. So, these people are my target market and are hopefully going to be visiting this website. I also chose business that do Gaming reviews, because people looking there might need more specific help in there games and want to see what I can provide.

This option gets my business out there and hopefully brings people to my facebook and then my webpage. It also helps me know what people are doing in my related area. This helps me expand my content on facebook and my website. I really do hope this helps get my name out there.

Facebook Insights, what are they and why do they matter?

Reach: This is the amount of people that have gone to your page over time including all your ads and promotions.

Engaged Users: This would be the people who have used something on your page, for example, clicking on posts or liking.

Talking about this: This is all the people who have posted on your wall, posts, likes, and tags.

Virality: This gets the percentage of people who take an action with your post. The basically create a story from your post.

Facebook insights is a great tool to use for your business. It gets you a great idea of what kind of people are interested or looking at your product. With these tools you can really find your target market. Then you can use that target market and make a great Facebook marketing campaign. On top of that, you will then see how your Marketing is progressing through the weeks. See if it really is taking the affect you thought it would. Facebook and Facebook insights specifically is a great tool for small businesses. Small business can't usually afford to pay for research on there market, but with this tool Facebook does great research for you. I think this will be a great help for me in the future and I am excited to use it.

my Target market

My business is KrimsonGaming.com


1. our potential consumers are..

• Male and Females
• all ages
• People who play PC Games
• Looking for new games 
• need help play games
• techie

2. the demographic we will target

• age 20 to 30
• male

3. The Pyschographic we will target

• Techie 
• Gamer
• Play Mechwarrior Online
• Play League of Legends
• Looking for reviews 
• streams 
• strategies

My go to websites and why I like them..

My first and favorite website I go to is IGN.com. I think they have many reasons why they are effective. One big reason they stay effective is that they stay true to who they are. They have a clear concept for the website, Gaming news, and they stick with it. They also have great alignment and proximity allowing me to clearly see and jump to everything I want. Plus, its easy to find there home button to jump back to the main page when I need to. I come back because they provide the information I want in a easy and clear fashion. I think they could improve one thing. They have a lot of sections at the top which could be combined in my opinion. They have all the main sections for gaming and tech, but they put separate tabs for news upcoming and reviews. I think they could put sub tabs under the tech categories because they will be under one of these sections anyway.

My second website I enjoy a lot is Cnet.They do have a clear concept of what there website does and it is tech news. The Typography is definitely easy to read and I think they show good hierarchy with there top stories. I come back over and over because the information I'm looking for is there and easy to find. Now Cnet change there website recently and I think its more cluttered. I think they made there Navigation a lot more complicated. They have there main tabs at the top which makes it easy to jump somewhere, but they also have main categories between there top stories and recent blogs. Which I think is random and does not make any sense.  I would just remove the other categories and just go top stories then recent stories. Leave the categories you have at top that everyone can see.41

Website design choices, Do's and Don'ts.

TecTorch.com Issues....across the board

1. First, I am going to discuss the website tectorch.com. This website has many issues, but I will go over three today. What popped out to me was the alignment and proximity right away. I believe he or she is trying to emphasise his company's history, but it seems a cluttered mess and makes me not want to read it. First his font appears to be centered and doesn't make me impressed with his business. Then, he or she has it randomly aligned to the left with no space between the font and the picture and makes it look like a kid did this in his spare time. As a visitor to this website, I wouldn't want to buy anything from this business, because I do not trust that they are a professional company.

2. The second thing I found very frustrating and would change in a heart beat is his home button. I felt lost and didn't know how to get back to the main screen. I had to scroll all the way to the bottom to just get back home. I would of left the website a while ago, but this just adds to the frustration.

3.The final part that I was annoyed about was his main links. He has a million of the down the left side of the page. I have to scroll down to get to some of his main sections and it seems completely unnecessary.

 Solution

The solution is very easy for most of his or her problems. Make a home button in the left it could even be the American flag. Make your Main sections links, for example, WeldTec, SpeedWay, and WeldTec TIG Accessories then give them sub links once your in that section. Final solution and easiest, align your font to the left and in my opinion move the picture to the right side and give it some breathing room, let it be on its own. It can handle it.

http://www.richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp 

Makes my headache worst!

1. This website makes my head hurt, but I do have a headache, so that could be the cause. I dislike the contrast and It took a while to realize what the title of this website was. I think at least, it is Permaculture articles. I Didn't even know it had a ad!!! It blends into the background and if I paid money for that ad, I personally would be pissed.

2. I think this website does not have a home button. I spent five minutes trying to find one and I couldn't find one. At that point, I wanted to block the website.

3. I found the spacing and emphasis on the links to the left to be horrible. I didn't know they were links and it just looked like a clutter of random words which in kind made my head hurt more. I was very unhappy while reading this website and don't recommend people to use it, ever.

Solution

The solution seems easy to me. Make a home button or if there is one, please put it in a visible area near the top left. This website is so subtle I think its going to vanish into the ether; make some better color contrast in the border area with your ads and links and title. I would just center the title and make it much larger. plus, I would choose a different color for the title, so I can see it. finally, space out your LINKS! Seriously, it looks like a word jumble and I feel like I have to decipher a hidden message looking at it. 

http://apple.com 

and 

my headache starts diminishing

This was a great change of pace. I look at the website and I know exactly what they want me to know. LOOK! Our amazing new shiny gadget, iPad mini. its clean and clear. I also can see they have other items to I can see and click on like Ipad, Imac, Iphone 5 and there supplier responsibility. They obviously want me to buy these things and I didn't scroll or search around for it. They also have a nice clean menu at the top that brings me all there sections, clear and concise, thank you. I also love that I can see a home button and its obvious/intuitive. I didn't even know that would be a problem till I visited the earlier websites. by the way, I don't like Apple, but there website makes me go Wow. It makes them and the products look clean, fun and stylish.

Swagelok.com 

The company I didn't know existed 

Till I saw there site.

I had no Idea who this company was till I entered there website. I was very impressed by the website. It was easy to see who they were, what they did and they are a great company to provide me fluid system products and solutions and I believe them. I love there contrast and alignment. Everything is easy to jump to and I can see what they want to emphasize. It was very easy to jump around. I could click on a main section and then see sub sections that I might want to check out. Plus, if I just wanted to get back home, all I needed to do was click on there logo which was easy to see and I won't forget who they are now because of it. They make me feel that are a high tech company that I can trust in my fluid system needs. I can go right to there website and get what I need. They will help me learn and provide what I need.

It amazes me, how simple spacing or alignment can make be dislike what someone is trying to tell or show me. I also can't believe how the simplest elements can change a bad website into a beautiful elegant website.

5 business website using social media

1. Gearbox Software

• URL: Borderlands2.com
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Forums

2. Bethesda Softworks

• URL: Elderscrollsonline.com
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Youtube

3. Barnes and Noble

• URL: BN.com
• Facebook
• Twitter

4. Piranha Games

• URL: mwomercs.com
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Youtube

5. NFL

• URL: Chargers.com
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google +
• Foursquare

Social media connection with businesses

       I think everyone at one point or another has had difficulty communicating with a business. Either through, a return, trying to purchase something or even just trying to understand there product. I know I have ran into communication issues with different businesses many times. One time especially comes to mind, because I was very frustrated at the time. I went to Best Buy with a defective power supply that was purchased for me from here, but I didn't have a receipt and just wanted a working power supply. I know they have done this before for me last year and it was not a issue. The gentlemen I talked to told me he had work for Best Buy three years and they would never do that. So basically he was calling me a liar and blowing me off which made me very upset. Social media would have made it at least easier for me to vent over the issue and let everyone know how I felt about the experience. Plus, if anyone else had a similar experience we could vent together and let people know how this business treated customers. Now, I have also had many positive experiences. I love to promote indie games or games in beta that I have been very impressed with by liking there Facebook or posting on mine to let people know. It helps get there name out there and lets my friends know about it too.

My first time.. blogging

Hi, I am Matthew. This is my first blog and don't really know what I am doing. I am excited to do my first post though and I couldn't really tell what template I chose. It seemed black with some interesting designs and I love gaming so I thought I would name it after my old gaming group "Krimson". The design and look appeared to be what I would choose for my gaming website. I hope to learn a lot from this class and get more excited about social media. I tend to shy away from social media and I am not very good at using it, so this is my first blog and I hope to do more.