15 Amazing Twitter Tools for Increased Productivity

Published February 1st, 2012 in Social Media - 8 Comments

Twitter provides designers (and other service providers) with the ability to communicate and network in a way that can be really productive for business. However, spending too much time or not having a specific purpose with social media can become a major drain on your time. There are plenty of tools and resources available that can help you to get more out of Twitter in less time. In this post we’ll profile 15 of those efficiency tools for Twitter users.

Connect with us on Twitter: @vandelaydesign.

HootSuite
HootSuite allows you to manage multiple social media profiles from one dashboard. It integrates with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and more. You can schedule tweets to be sent at a specific time in the future, monitor mentions, send and read direct messages, see how many people click on links in your tweets, and more. The features mentioned above are all available on the free plan. A premium plan is also available for $5.99 per month that ads features for teams and provides Google Analytics integration.

21 Resources for Effective Facebook Fan Pages

Published October 26th, 2011 in Social Media - 22 Comments

Most businesses now recognize Facebook as an excellent platform for connecting and communicating with their customers and/or users. As businesses have become more active on Facebook the number of resources available for fan pages has increased as well.

Setting up an effective Facebook fan page isn’t always that easy, but there are plenty of resources out there that can help. In this post we’ll look at some of the best places to get fan page templates that can serve as a starting point, services and apps that allow you to easily create custom fan pages, and apps that help businesses to sell products from their Facebook pages.

Create Fan Pages:

If you’re looking for an easy way to create a fan page for your own business or for your clients, here are some resources that may help.

Pagemodo
Create fan pages with no coding required. Pricing from free to $33 per month. Pro templates are available for plans starting at $13 per month.

40 Sets of Free Social Media Icons

Published July 6th, 2011 in Social Media - 33 Comments

Designers love free icon sets. Having quality icons can help to make a site’s design look complete, and can also help with the usability of the site. Social media icons are some of the most commonly used icons, especially in blog design.

Fortunately, there are a number of free sets of quality social media icons. In this post we’ll feature 40 social media icon sets from various designers. Click on the links to be led to the source where the icons can be downloaded. As always when you are dealing with freebies, check the terms and conditions to be sure that you’re using them in a way that is allowed by the designer.

ElegantThemes Social Media Icons

45 Design Blogs on Facebook

Published October 28th, 2010 in Social Media - 19 Comments

Last week we launched the official Vandelay Design Facebook page. There are a lot of other design blogs on Facebook, and we thought it might be helpful for Facebook users if we put together a list. So if you’re interested in design and you’re on Facebook, here are some other places where you can get connected.

Vandelay Design (Blog, Facebook)

5 Steps to a Stronger Social Media Presence

Published September 29th, 2010 in Business, Social Media - 21 Comments

Social media and social networking sites present tremendous opportunities to all kinds of business, including web design. If you’re not currently active with social media you are missing out on one of the best methods for networking and for free or low-cost marketing.

Many designers who are using social media are not getting the most out of it. In this post we’ll look at 5 simple steps that you can take to improve your effectiveness with social media, regardless of whether you are already a user or if you have not yet gotten started with social media.

Step 1: Identify Your Goals and Priorities

It’s important to set a solid foundation for your efforts with social media by first defining what you hope to get out of it. This is a critical step that many designers and freelancers overlook. Yes, social media can have a significant impact on your business, but you need to have some direction or else you will be wasting your time.

Some common goals or priorities for designers who are using social media include finding new clients, networking with other designers, increasing traffic to their website or blog, improving name recognition and branding, finding a new job, and simply enjoying activity with the community of users. It’s possible to improve your business or career in any number of ways with social media, but you need to be aware of what is important to you because it should shape the way in which you use social media.

Design Bump: A New Niche Social Media Site for Design-Related Content

Published June 8th, 2008 in Social Media - 10 Comments

A few days ago I was contacted about a new site that targets the web design community. Design Bump is a niche social media site that was launched recently and is already building a bit of an audience.

Being built on Pligg, the popular open-source option for social media sites, Design Bump functions in a way that will be very familiar to many of you. The site has similar content and a similar audience to Design Float.

50+ Designers to Follow on Twitter

Published May 19th, 2008 in Social Media - 452 Comments

Twitter seems to be gaining popularity almost every day. As a new user I decided it would be helpful to do some research to find designers who would be worth following. This list is not intended to be all-inclusive (so please add a link to your profile in the comments if you like), but it should give you a great start to following some talented designers. This is a list of over 50 designers, in no particular order, with a link to their Twitter profile.

cssglobe - Alen Grakalic of CSS Globe

chriscoyier – Chris Coyier of CSS Tricks

snookca – Jonathan Snook of Snook.ca

zeldman – Jeffrey Zeldman of Happy Cog

vpieters - Veerle Pieters of Veerle’s Blog

How Design Impacts Social Media Success

Published April 14th, 2008 in Social Media - 17 Comments

Web design and social media marketing are two topics that I enjoy studying, and the two certainly impact one another for website owners and bloggers who are attempting to increase traffic to their site. While social media is intended to put a spotlight on the best and most popular content, the look and appearance of a page will often influence social media users and their decision of whether or not they should vote for a particular submission. The design of a site can be either a positive or a negative influence on the voting decision, and social media marketers need to consider appearance as much as they consider the content and headlines.

8 Ways Design Influences Social Media Users:

1. First Impression

The first impression of any visitor, regardless of how they arrive at your site, will be heavily influenced by the appearance of the site. Generally, opinions are formed in a matter of seconds, not minutes, so creating a positive impression is critical. While most of your website’s visitors will have a short attention span, social media users are notoriously quick to leave a site that doesn’t impress them right away.

Which Social Networks Provide the Best Design-Related Content?

Published April 2nd, 2008 in Social Media - 20 Comments

For those of us that enjoy and appreciate reading great articles on web design and development, we’re fortunate to have access to a vast amount of quality information. Of course, subscribing to blogs is one of the best ways to stay up-to-date with the best content available, but most of us can’t manage a feed reader full of every post on web design.

Social networking and social media sites are a great alternative, as they give you an opportunity to quickly find information that other users have submitted and appreciated. But with so many social media sites to choose from, monitoring them can be just as time consuming as subscribing to hundreds of blog feeds.

Secondary Results of Social Media Success

Published February 20th, 2008 in Social Media - 19 Comments

Social Media Marketing is attractive for several reasons, including loads of free traffic and the increased exposure that comes along with it. However, achieving success with the major social media websites can produce many other results as well. Most of them are positive, but not all. Here is a look at what you should be prepared for as a result of hitting it big.

popurls

The most popular submissions on major social media sites including Digg, Reddit, and del.icio.us are displayed on popurls.com , which has a significant amount of traffic itself. So, if you are fortunate enough to get thousands of visitors from a particular social media site, you may also get hundreds or more from popurls. In a few cases I have received almost as much traffic from popurls as I have from del.icio.us on the day that a particular blog post made it to the del.icio.us front page.