Mashable recently worked with EyeTrackShop, a company that runs eye-tracking studies for advertisers, to find out what users look at on different social media sites. You can check out the study here.

A couple of takeaways we learned from this study:

• On Facebook, profile pictures and recent content are king. However, Google+ users are less inclined to study profile pictures as they are to spend time looking at your recent content and your circle of friends.
• Recent content is extremely important on Facebook and Google+, but Flickr and Twitter users are more likely to browse through your older posts in addition to your newest content.

We've optimized our website around "Kansas Web Design" as one of our top keywords. We're now the ranked #2 in Google for "Kansas Web Design".

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of optimizing your website around specific keywords so search engines rank your website higher than other websites. SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, is the process of building online advertising campaigns around search engine results (Google AdWords is a great example of a popular SEM vehicle).

If your website isn’t quite drawing the number or type of visitors you’re looking for, there’s a good change SEO and/or SEM services may be your answer. By starting an SEO campaign, you can increase your website’s organic (free) search engine rankings for specific keywords related to your website. This will draw in new, high-quality visitors who are more likely to fill out a contact form on your site, give you a call or make a purchase.

When designed and managed properly, CPC advertising campaigns, like Google AdWords, can effectively draw new high-quality visitors to your website.

However, there are also times when you may not be able to rank in the first page of search results for some of your top keywords. This can often be the case if you’re in direct competition with many larger companies or organizations. This is when SEM can come into play. With well-built SEM campaigns, you can get your website featured on a search engine’s first page of search results for just about any keyword you like. And unlike traditional advertising, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad and visits your website!

If you’re interested in increasing traffic to your website, ranking higher in search engine results for your keywords, or even marketing a new service or product, visit our SEO / SEM page to read case studies and learn more about our search engine optimization and search engine marketing services.

I think the general direction Google is headed in is great–as designers we’re happy to know that our sites will not only be judged by their technical aspects but their aesthetic appeal as well. I’m sure there will be some rough patches as they work to figure this out, but I like the direction they’re going!

Two of us at Flint Hills Design are serious Kansas University basketball fans. Neither of us went to KU, and our only real association with KU basketball is the fact that we live in Kansas. Living in Kansas doesn’t make us fans of KU though; we could have chosen to be Kansas State, Wichita State, Emporia State, or Fort Hays State basketball fans if that was the case. We’re KU fans because of the experience, the personality and success of the team/coaches, and our belief that KU basketball represents something about us as individuals. Everyone who is a fan of a specific sports team shares similar reasons for associating themselves with the team, whether their team is the New York Yankees, the Manchester United football team, or the Garmin-Transitions cycling team.

This is also the basis for customer loyalty within most companies. However, very few companies reach this level of loyalty. I’ve been happy with the tires on my car and would be glad to buy them again, but because I don’t feel a close association to my tires I may try a different brand or model based on customer reviews, price, or the salesperson. However, I can guarantee I won’t switch my basketball team loyalty if K-State ticket prices are lower, other friends try to persuade me that Duke is a better team, or KU starts performing poorly.

This is the type of loyalty that every business should strive for, but it’s true that hardly any business achieves this level of loyalty. Apple has come close due to their buying experience, customer service, and the fact that Apple customers can associate themselves with a “different” computer company. Even so, Apple still doesn’t match the loyalty that most sports teams generate.

Businesses can begin generating a more loyal customer base by creating a unique buying experience, offering exceptional customer service, or pricing their products/services lower than the competition. However, businesses ultimately won’t reach this level of loyalty unless their customers feel a close attachment to, and want to associate themselves with, the company’s products, services, or experience. While it’s a lofty goal, and one that most businesses will never quite reach, aiming for this level of brand loyalty will help make your business stand head and shoulders above the competition.

Let’s build our social media presence!

For people who use social media sites on a regular basis (I can think of at least five social media sites that I visit every single day), learning how to use social media to market ones products or services isn’t very hard. However, there are many people who don’t visit social media sites but are then told to create a social media presence for their company or organization. To make it easier for all readers, I will break out the process into four steps.

Become familiar with your options

With so many social media sites on the web today, it can be exhausting trying to determine which one to use. Sites like Wikipedia (hey, that’s a social media site!) have a lot of general information relating to social media. It’s also very helpful to have first-hand experience with the social media site you are interested in, so set up your own personal account and begin learning about the site.

Develop your strategy

This is the most overlooked part of the process. Many companies simply use their traditional marketing tactics when creating a social media presence. Don’t do this! Other companies will completely change their marketing message when using social media marketing. Don’t do this either! Your message must stay consistent through ALL of your marketing outlets. However, you must also recognize that you’re marketing a different audience. Therefore, your tactics, promotions, and audience interaction will likely be much different than your traditional marketing efforts. Make sure you’re also building in ways to track your successes and failures. You’ll want to do this during this upfront, instead of trying to incorporate it once you’ve already built your social media presence.

Implement (and keep implementing!)

Once you have a strategy, put it in place and begin building your social media presence. However, don’t forget to keep updating your social media pages. Just because you have 5 posts and 20 friends/followers doesn’t mean your presence will keep growing without your help. There are many helpful tools out there (like Tweetdeck) that help you organize all your social media sites and keep on top of updates.

Monitor and Assess

How are your social media pages performing? What are you followers saying about you? Have you seen positive benefits from this endeavor? Is your social media marketing still conveying the same message as your traditional marketing? Monitoring your performance will tell you what you need to change, and what tactics are really worth your time. Hopefully you will see positive results and find that the time you’ve put into the process has been worth your while.

We understand that for some people this process is extremely overwhelming and intimidating. If you would like help developing your social media marketing strategy (or any marketing strategy), implementing your social media presence, or assessing your current presence, we would love to help!

Contact us to learn more about how we can work together to build a strong marketing strategy for your business or organization!

To be completely honest, I know this post won’t cover anything that hasn’t already been covered by 100 other people. So why write about this topic, when so many other people and marketing companies are doing the same? Because there are still too many examples of poor social media marketing out there today.

Nearly every time I’m on Facebook or Twitter I find a new example of a company using this new technology with marketing tactics that are wildly out of place. It is very easy to find hundreds of companies that don’t design their marketing strategy to meet the needs and desires of their audience. It’s also relatively easy to tell that many of these companies and organizations don’t put the same time and effort into their social media marketing as they do with their traditional marketing efforts. Even though social media marketing is generally free, like all other marketing you still have to invest time and effort into social media marketing if you expect to see positive returns.

Yes, one can argue that having any marketing presence, regardless of the quality, on social media sites is a good thing. However, if you’re willing to spend time on traditional marketing, why not spend some more time to create a social media marketing strategy that really interests your audience?

I bought my iPad from an Apple store. I didn’t order it online, and I didn’t just run down to the nearest big box electronics store. Both of these options would have been easier and more convenient. I specifically held out until I could make a trip to an Apple store because every time I’m in one I have a great experience and I learn something new.

This time was no different. I learned about their in-store ordering and delivery system, which allows the “genius” who you get assigned the minute you walk through the door, to complete the order on any of the available devices in the store and get it hand delivered to you in a matter of minutes by a runner from the back warehouse. And while you wait the minute or so to get your new equipment, it leaves a perfect opportunity to ask any last minute questions or shop for the must-have accessories.

Once the equipment arrives, and you have your accessories picked out, they scan your loot with tricked-out iPhones that process the order and credit card payment. And then you’re on your way, with the sales person who guided you throughout the entire process and never left your side for one second, walking you out the door.

Talk about seamless. And reassuring. Exciting. Addicting. Profitable!

Picking peaches was great–we talked to the owner of the small orchard for awhile about what to look for in a good peach, and I of course asked about proper picking technique (which annoyed my more experienced wife). Anyway, we picked our peaches, drove to their house to pay, and had a short conversation about finding something to eat in the nearby small town. The daughter who weighed our baskets was pretty sure we could go to the cafe on Main Street, so we paid, thanked her, and went on our way to find the restaurant she had described.

As we were driving, I got a phone call from a strange number. It was the owner of the orchard calling to tell us that she had heard we were looking for something to eat and her daughter had been unsure if the cafe she had recommended really was open. So the owner took it upon herself to call all of the restaurants in the tiny town to check their hours. Sure enough, the recommended cafe was closed, but the next door pizza place would be happy to stay open for us if we were already on our way.

Wow. Talk about amazing customer service. Both businesses went out of their way to work together to accommodate us out of town strangers for no good reason. We weren’t asking for anything special and we weren’t spending much money at either place, but both made an incredibly strong impression by making a small and inexpensive but valuable (to the us, the customer) extra effort. It made me want to give them even more of my business and promote them to everyone I see for the rest of the picking season.

Pretty powerful stuff. I sure hope our company is doing one-tenth as well in serving our customers.

Oh, and if you’re anywhere near Whitewater Kansas, be sure to stop at Entz orchard off of Hwy 196 and Webb road, and then head down to Whitewater Pizza for dinner….

Today we’re proud to introduce fhdMail, a new email marketing campaign manager from Flint Hills Design.

We’ve been doing HTML email campaigns for a while now, and they’ve been great. But, being the perfectionists that we are, we started wondering if there was a better way.  And so we created fhdMail.

We invite you to read about why fhdMail is better than your standard email campaign delivery service by visiting the website.  But we’ll give you one concrete reason why fhdMail is better right now: the cute, furry little prairie dog character that we’ve affectionately named Flint.  I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy being greeted and guided by this fun little guy in the midst of serious marketing work?

To learn more about how Flint and fhdMail can help your organization do effective email marketing, give us a shout. We know you’ll enjoy it.

Phoenix felt like a place with way too much money that grew far too fast. Companies sprung up all over the place but were firecrackers then fizzled. Acres upon acres of car lots seemingly overflowing with the latest and most expensive models sitting full but lifeless, abandoned. Endless office buildings with for sale/lease/rent signs posted on all sides, competing for space with the ancient saguaro cacti relegated to narrow patches of immaculate landscaping. It made me wonder why we try to force so many things that seem unnatural and out of place with the environment.

For the marketing purposes of my trip, it made me realize the importance of highlighting a good company’s history and vitality. Those companies which are doing good work and thriving, even in this down economy, would benefit from not hiding this fact. Likewise, companies with long histories and scores of satisfied customers might benefit from making their history known.  They should be proud, and their customers should be proud, that the products or services they sell were valued in the past and still are today, despite all the economic ups and downs…