Broadstreet Blogs

QR Codes: Why Yours Isn't Working

QR codes are not seeing the rate of success I expected when they first hit the scene. I'm not surprised to see businesses using them poorly, however I am surprised to see a large group of people who still don't know what a QR code is.

QR codes are basically square images that, when scanned with a smart phone, will take you directly to a web page with information you are seeking at that point. QR codes should be helpful and rewarding to the customer while building brand awareness and revenue for the business.

I have been increasingly frustrated at the amount of QR codes being used improperly. It takes a little time to use a QR code and a person should be rewarded for the effort. Using the QR code takes a few minutes - you have to dig out the phone, slowly focus and take the photo of the code, then wait for your phone to get to the website. When you finally arrive, if the destination is disappointing, you probably won't want to bother with a QR code in the future, thus giving the QR codes a bad rap and tossing the baby out with the bathwater as grandma used to say.

From my experience, here are some good and bad uses of the QR code.

Great uses of the QR Code:

  1. State Fair. Signs around the state fair had QR codes on them. The codes included links to a map of the fairground, a schedule of events for the day and a listing of vendors, among others. When I really needed a restroom, I scanned the QR code and quickly found the nearest restroom.
  2. Events.  A few signs with QR codes can give attendees quick access to schedules, meeting times and locations, speaker bios, after-parties, etc.
  3. Magazines. I loved a QR code at the end of a magazine that led me to the author's bio on his/her website.
  4. Coupons. If your QR code on your store window or in your magazine or newspaper ad leads me to a coupon I can use in the store by just scanning my phone at the checkout, I love you.
  5. Instructional Video. Place a QR code next to a product -- say a Husqvarna Chain Saw -- and have that code lead me to a video that explains proper use and care for that product.
  6. Customer Reviews. Place a QR code next to a product that leads me to online customer reviews.
  7. Email subscription. A QR code that leads me to the place to quickly subscribe to your email is very helpful for both of us.

 

BAD, BAD ideas for QR codes:

  1. On a billboard. I can't possibly scan the code from a mile away going 60 mph.
  2. On a website. I'd rather click a link than scan a code if I'm already at the computer.
  3. Non-mobile websites. Don't let the QR code lead me to a place that is not smart-phone friendly.  For example, while I was on the beach, I scanned a QR code in a magazine that led me to a helpful how-to video. However, once I got there, the video would not play properly on a mobile device. I was disappointed.
  4. Unrewarding destination.  If the code just leads me to your website or to something boring, forget it.  Make it worth my while, give me fun trivia or videos, helpful tips, or a coupon.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Scott Stratton's 2-minute video (see below) explaining the great QR code frustration. He is my hero for making this video, I hope people pay attention. Happy Coding!

 

Extra reading:

Mashable:  5 Steps for a Successful QR Code Marketing Campaign

QR Mania: Mobile Codes in Magazines Rise 228%

 

The New Facebook Timeline Will Benefit Your Business

Update, 10/11/2011:   Facebook has postponed the beta version of timeline after Timeline.com filed a lawsuit. Timeline is currently only available to those who have Facebook’s Developer application installed.

I've been playing around with the Facebook changes recently announced at f8 in San Francisco and freaking most of the public out soon thereafter. The real-time ticker and subscribe button makes sharing quicker and easier. The popular stories and recent stories seem to be confusing.

The feature that's really caught my eye is the timeline. The timeline rolls out to the public around October 6. To sample it ahead of time, you can access it through the developer apps. For personal users, the attraction of the timeline is obvious: it's attractive, artistic, much like a scrapbooking page layout. The timeline is fun – with one click you can go back to any year, any month and see status updates, photos and important events. It was described by Nir Refuah, vice president of McCann Digital in Israel, as “a digital autobiography.” Refuah said, “First Facebook became the digital ID of everyone, and now it will try to gather our whole life story,”

For brands, the attraction is more subtle. I had trouble at first understanding why a brand would like the new timeline, then the content developer in me kicked in. The timeline's all about story – history -- content.  Acquiring as many 'likes” as you can is no longer a driving force.  For content-driven non-competitive people like me, that is great news. Awesome content is what will get you in the stream.  The popularity contest is no longer about star power, it's about authenticity and the human component of your business. Campaigning for the most “likes” won't do much for you.

To sum up what I've learned so far, the timeline benefits for your business include:

  • The cover. The cover is a big photo across the top of your page. It is prime real estate and very easy to change. This will be great for promotions and product roll-outs.
  • The Information blurb. Currently, a viewer has to dig deep to find a company's information tab. When found, it is surprisingly limited, weak and bland. The new timeline will feature the information right under the cover, above the fold, in an easy-to-read format, easy to click through to more info.
  • Infographic format. The new timeline format will propel brands to focus more on engagement and back story rather than getting more likes.  Getting more comments and likes becomes less valuable than sharing authentic content.  I believe the mom and pop shops that I serve will benefit more from this than the big corporations. Mom and Pop have real stories involving real people. Mom and Pop shops have a back story and biography that is generally more personable than the giant conglomerates.  Admittedly, I'm a little biased on that.

The timeline rolls out soon for personal facebook pages.  I'm not sure when it rolls out for brands and business pages.

Just when I was starting to flirt with Google+, Facebook has gotten back in the game and lured me back.   Imagine that. 

 

Increase Your EdgeRank on Facebook Pages

 
Sure.... your customers like you.
Your friends like you.
Your mom likes you.

 

But does Facebook like you?

Edgerank is Facebook's way of "liking" you.  Edgerank is a search ranking algorithm designed to help Facebook choose which posts should be placed on a person's feed.  

Creating a business page and updating your status does not necessarily mean all your fans will see that status update in their wall feed. The default view for all personal facebook accounts is the Top News view rather than the Most Recent view.  The Top News will show the updates that Facebook has determined the viewer is most interested in.

There are several things you can do that will increase the chances of your page landing in the status stream on a person’s facebook page.
 
Post a video with your update.  Posting a link doesn’t help that much anymore, but photos and videos are still effective. If you don’t have a video to upload from your site, you can go to any video site like vimeo or youtube and get the embed code.   Include that embed code right in your status update.
 
Post a photo with your update. A small thumbnail will automatically appear if you include a link in your update, but simply using the thumbnail is not as effective as using a different photo. Using the “Upload a photo” button is much more effective. Either load a photo from a file on your computer or you can go to your website and take a screen capture photo and upload it to facebook. 
 
Post an update that will encourage your fans to interact with your update. If it’s not interesting to you, it’s probably not interesting to them either.  Interaction includes when a fan clicks “like” or “share” or clicks the thumbnail, clicks through to your page, or comments, etc.  Comments carry the most weight -- asking a question is usually very effective. The more popular your update, the stronger the edge rank and the more likely it will get into the Top News feed on your fan’s wall. Everytime a fan interacts with an update, it increases the edge.
 
Post daily if possible. The frequency of activity on your page will increase your EdgeRank. Having said that, you don’t want to post too often. You’re a business, not a “friend” and facebook users will just get annoyed and block you if you fill up their feed with your updates.  Also, don't let the pressure of posting daily cause you to post dry, boring updates.  You have to up the awesome, social media marketing loves awesome and is brutal on boring.

 

Google's Instant Preview Feature

 

Google’s Instant Preview feature gives new meaning to the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words.” 
 
The Instant Preview feature was rolled out without much fanfare so you may or may not be aware of it. Opinions vary on how much it affects SEM (Search Engine Marketing) or SEO (Search Engine Optimization,) but most strategists agree it places much more importance on design than ever before.
 
The Instant Preview feature provides a graphic overview of search results and enables people to preview the results right on the results page. This is done through the use of a magnifying glass icon to the right of your search results.
 
When you search on a word or phrase, a whole page of search results will be produced. To the right of each result is a magnifying glass icon. Click this icon and a preview of the website appears in a pop up with a snippet enlarged that contains your search words highlighted. Once activating Instant Previews with that one click, you can hover over any other search result to see a preview of the web page. It is easy to skim down the page quickly and glance at the websites, almost like flipping through a magazine.
 

The benefits of Instant Preview:

 
  • Saves time. You can quickly compare between search results before clicking on any.
  • Accuracy.   You will know at a glance if this site is what he/she is looking for. Also, this feature will decrease the bait and switch tactic of using keywords to lure traffic only to disappoint upon arrival. 
  • May reduce Adwords charges. Currently for Adwords, you pay per click. The Instant Preview (free) will prevent clicks as searchers see the site before going there.
  • Should increase CTR (click-through rates) and decrease bounce rates.
 

  How can you take advantage of Instant Preview:

 
  • Fix your landing pages. More images, less copy writing. Larger headers. Small print won’t show up on the Instant Previews, but the headlines will.
  • Design matters. Does the look of your page convey your message? Potential visitors will decide whether to visit your site without even reading any content, they’ll decide from just one view. 
  • Reduce your clutter. Sign Up boxes, social media icons, ads, sidebar clutter will not show up well on the preview. Put them near the bottom of the page. Get rid of rotating flash headers.
  • Eliminate Forms. Nobody is attracted to a site where they have to fill out a bunch of information.
  • Clean-Up a little. Eliminate a few colors and typefaces, be consistent.
 
 
 I peeked through some of our sites to see how we were holding up. I was very happy with The Race Shop’s look:
 

 

 

I think Tyler Brothers has an appealing look and is very clear on what you’ll find at their site, however, the slideshow at the top doesn’t show up. There’s just a blank white space. The video shows up as black space, too, but I can live with that. The white space has to go though.

 

 

When I search on TroutU Perfect Fly, one result looks great, but another doesn’t look so great. The first is their facebook page:

 The second is a page that discusses Abram’s Creek, it’s all text and not visually obvious that I can purchase Perfect Flies here. The highlighted snippet, if I read it, tells me where to go to purchase the flies. It’s just not obvious that this is the site I need if I want to purchase a Perfect Fly. But honestly, that’s not the purpose of that page anyway, it just got sucked into the keyword search vortex.

 I had one glitch in my Instant Preview experience – I could not get it to work on IE7. Apparently, this is common. If you experience this, you should be able to click on Tools > Compatibility View Settings and uncheck the "Display intranet sites in Compatibility View" checkbox.   I still could not get that to work and I think it’s because on my computer, the system administrator controls that.

Go out and play around with it, see what you think.  Is this a strong enough tool to affect website design and banner advertising?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Fun with Drupal's ImageCache

I had a problem appear this week that I've seen before, but couldn't remember the best resolution for it.  

If you don't setup your ImageCache Presets correctly, you sometimes get caught with black stripes down the sides of your images.   In my case, this was happening in a view used on the Tyler Brothers website, in this case the page for Youth and Children's Carhartt clothing.

The solution to the black stripes is to define your "canvas" color within your imagecache preset.   Here's what I believe to be the best way: 

First, install the ImageCache Actions module.  This module gives you a great number of options to transform your uploaded images.  

Then, add a Define Canvas action.  The position of this action is important.  In my case, it needs to go between the Scale and Crop actions. 

In my situation, I set the canvas to white (#ffffff), make it appear under the image, and it works like a charm. 

No more black stripes!

 

Broadstreet 2010 in Review

Seth Godin had a good post called "What did you ship in 2010?", which listed out all his accomplishments for 2010 and asked readers to think about our own.  Read it at Seth's Blog.

Sometimes we get caught up in the daily busy-ness of business and don't take a breather to see what we've accomplished.   Well, here's a list of things we've done  Broadstreet Consulting, 2010.

On a personal note, it's been a year of wins and losses.

  • I lost my Dad at age 79, who was always a good friend and supporter, and my favorite golf partner.
  • I've seen my youngest daughter complete her first year of college with excellent grades, and make some great decisions along the way.
  • I've seen my son earn his college degree and demonstrate amazing talent in music, art, and Web design.
  • I've seen my oldest graduate from Law School at the top of her class, and demonstrate a servant's heart and a mother's heart with consistency and grace. 

All in all, it's been a year to remember, and 2011 is shaping up to be even more memorable.

Barcamp Charleston - Notes about the Day and Drupal

I'm a little late sharing this but I just wanted to take moment to mention the very successful Bar Camp Charleston (www.BarCampChS.org).

There were dozens of interesting sessions covering everything from Linux to Web Design to Salsa dancing. There were 3 Drupal sessions. The first was 'Intro to Drupal' which was given by Nikolai Burton.  Nikolai runs Charleston Drupal Users Group (http://chsdug.org/) and also presented a session called "A Whirlwind World Tour of Film."  Nikolai was asked to do this session att the last minute and he filled in admirably. He presented to a packed classroom of more than forty people and it was a valuable session.

Later, I presented a session called 'Drupal - which Modules to Use' which also had a good turnout.'  My slides for this presentation are at http://www.slideshare.net/tsliker/bar-camp-charleston-20101113-drupal-which-modules-to-use-tom-sliker.

My second Drupal session was at 5 pm when most of us were approaching a brain-dead state after a full day of information consumption. The Topic for this session was 'Drupal Next Steps - an Introduction to Drush & Performance Tuning'.  By this time the Drupal crowd had thinned considerably. It didn't help that the time slot put me in competition with he very popular 'How to Make Your Own Beer' session. All in all, it was a very productive day and I want to express congratulations and thanks to the team that made it happen.

Some links for Barcamp Charleston: 

Drupal Boost Module - Measurable Performance Improvements - DrupalCamp Asheville

Here's a Summary of my Presentation at DrupalCamp Asheville (NC), September 18, 2010.

You can download the PDF at www.sliker.com/DrupalCamp-Asheville-Boost.pdf

You can download the PPT at www.sliker.com/DrupalCamp-Asheville-Boost.ppt

 We tested Boost on www.busbeetruckparts.com and a test version of www.tylerbrothers.net.  Both of these sites have mostly anonymous users and fairly static content.  They are both hosted on a shared hosting service.  These factors make them good candidates for Boost.

You can get to the Boost Project at www.drupal.org/project/boost.

Apache Bench (ab) is a performance measurement tool that comes with Apache.  It comes natively on a Mac.  If you are using a PC, you need to load the WAMP or XAMPP stack to get Apache and ab.   Some links about ab and XAMPP: 

 XAMPP or XAMPP lite on a Windows machine:
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html#646

Step-by-Step procedures:
http://www.developertutorials.com/tutorials/php/load-testing-your-web-application-with-apache-bench-316/

Step-by-Step procedures:
http://www.onyxbits.de/content/quick-drupal-performance-test-boost-module-makes-huge-difference

More info on the process: 
http://alwaysthecritic.typepad.com/atc/2009/04/apache-bench-notes.html

The results for me were quite significant improvements.  Please see the PDF for data and charts.

 

 

Hosting - Why I Prefer HostGator to GoDaddy

Like most people, I started doing business with GoDaddy a long time ago, when I first started registering Domain names. Actually, my first domain—sliker.com in 1997—was done through Network Solutions, who I think had a monopoly back then. But like most people, when GoDaddy came out with $9.99 domains it was irresistible. Since then I have had hundreds of domain registrations and renewals at GoDaddy, and two different hosting accounts for my various customer sites and my own Web properties.

While I still host my domains their, I left Godaddy hosting for HostGator In 2007, when I first got turned on to Drupal. GoDaddy has a very unorthodox hosting system and does not support standard tools such as CPanel and Web Host Manager (WHM) for managing LAMP hosting. (LAMP is an acronym for Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, which is the open source platform that Drupal runs on. At the time I left, the only way to install and run Drupal was using Fantastico, which was very limiting. Since then, they’ve improved their Drupal support—I recent did a job for [county bounty] and created a Drupal Multi-site on GoDaddy’s hosting system. It worked out fine, but it was difficult due to the odd programs and interfaces we had to use.

The other reason I was glad to leave GoDaddy was due to the company’s marketing and the general attitude of the owner, Bob Parsons. When I want to login and check on my domains, I don’t want to feel like I’m checking in to a strip club. Now granted, there is no pornography or nudity on the site, but there is a lot of scantily clad women and a general attitude that makes me feel kind of … dirty. I would just prefer not to participate, or limit my participation to a bare minimum.

Meanwhile… HostGator has been great! They have great service. Their ticketing system and engineers are top notch. Their phone support is very good. And I love the online chat support—I can talk to a tech support agent via chat at any time of day or night. The HostGator experience has been all good, and I highly recommend them for your Drupal hosting.

The Purpose of Broadstreet Consulting

Whenever I hear something that makes me want to read a certain book, I right it down in my Outlook To-Do list.  I have an Agenda item called "Books to Read"-- I add it to my list. 

This week, before I left on vacation, I checked my list and found Roy Spence's "It's Not What You Sell, It's What You Stand For."    I don't remember where I heard about this book.  I thought maybe it was The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast or else Chris Brogan's Blog, but after a Quick Google search I don't think it's either of them.    Regardless of the source, I'm glad I'm reading it. 

Currently the front page of the Broadstreet Consulting site says:  

 Broadstreet Consulting specializes in helping small enterprises build and expand their business using the World Wide Web. 

This is an accurate statement but not exactly our purpose.    Here's what I'm thinking at the moment as a clear, succinct statement of our purpose:  

Help small businesses and non-profits leverage the Web to fulfull their mission. 

I will continue to work on this and refine this, but I think this is real close to what we are about and where our passion is and where we excel.