The New Yorker has a light color scheme, with Times New Roman used for headlines and body copy.

Our clients often ask us very interesting questions. One question which comes up time and again is, “Why use that font?” It is common enough and seems simple enough to answer, but the truth is, font selection is based on solid research and countless design considerations. Typography Design Patterns and Best Practices , by Michael Martin, from Smashing Magazine can help with the answer the question.

Believe in the power of social media and marketing? Do you think all that “stuff” is for young people or at least businesses who cater to young people? Not true. Consider this from Jack Humphrey’s article, Social Marketing is Here to Stay. Stop Complaining and Start Learning :

This fact is undeniable no matter what movers and shakers list you pull the data from. Presently the majority of all traffic on the web flows through all kinds of social or web 2.0 sites.

Welcome to the new world, and say hello to the future. The challenge is to simply accept this powerful means of communicating. The interesting part of this is the fact that as they continue to evolve, social media and marketing continue to present new opportunities for successful communication.

According to “2010 Marketing Trends Survey” from StrongMail, next year looks like it will be a big year for eMarketing, with email and social media initiatives leading the way. Besides these hot new trends for 2010, businesses are focusing on improving their ability to measure and analyze the success of their online campaigns. Read More

Here’s an example: on the web, if you are presented with the image of a person and that person is looking away, rather than straight on, where does your eye/attention naturally go? You would be surprised to know your eye will focus on where the person is looking, not the person’s face.

Check out Smashing Magazine’s article 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines by Dmitry Fadeyev, for some useful tidbits and ways to improve user experience on websites.

A call to action is really an invitation to a visitor to become a lead. So how do you get visitors to click more often than not?

One place to start is by checking what works for other successful sites, and why:

• BarackObama.com: three calls to action above the fold; well-optimized; action-oriented
• Salesforce.com: three CTAs above the fold with distinctly different destinations and offers; simple design
• Mozilla: it’s absolutely clear what you get when you click, plus the button is sized to get attention!
• Commercial IQ: action-oriented and attractive, the CTA button sits high on the page so the user sees it and knows what to do
• Basecamp – 37 Signals: everything above the fold is a call to action! See it to believe it by visiting their site.

Calls to action work when they are visible, attractive and contain a compelling offer. Read more about these five calls to action in the Hubspot article.

Have you started your company blog? How is it doing? Are you getting noticed, comments and reviews? With all the blogs out there, how do you stand apart? If you use WordPress, search engine optimization is a great place to start. Here is an excellent article, 20 of the Best SEO Plugins for WordPress , by Sean P. Aune, to start you on the way to getting your blog optimized and get the readership up.

These are some great examples of the layered use of Linkedin. They provide true thought leadership and show great knowledge of implementation of best practices. Check them out.

Kristen Luke: 3 Minute Marketing Assessment

Linkedin: 22 Ways to Dominate by Jason Baer

Communication in the Digital Age: It’s All About Socializing, Sharing and Creating by Marco Derksen

One of the benefits of using Twitter as a business platform is the ability to measure results. To find out where your profile ranks, go to Twitter Grader . This free tool shows the impact of your tweets by measuring their power and reach. The first rank is your bench mark, or the starting point by which to measure your account’s impact and that of future tweets. Another helpful site for Tweeting is bit.ly. This browser tool allows you to shorten URLs, share links, and even track the links posted on Twitter.

Building leadership requires engaging prospects in conversations that are not strictly about your company or your product. Forget about sales language and talk about what’s going on in your industry. Write about new research, or industry trends. As a matter of fact, you can conduct your own surveys and release the results to the media. Of course, you may need the help of a professional company with this. But if the data is solid, and you have added your expert insight to the findings, the media will look to you for more information. As you become a recognized authority, your customers will look to you as an industry leader vs. a company rep.

Your company blog is also a great place to establish yourself as a thought leader. Keep up with the news. Don’t just pass it along either, but think about its relevance to your customers. Again, provide your insight, based on the facts. That’s thought leadership.

Offer real solutions to problems. You know the challenges facing your prospects – make it your goal to articulate solutions they can use.

In Jon Miller’s article in FutureLab , he recommends joining the speaker’s circuit. There are plenty of opportunities to reach out to potential customers at conferences, meetings and conventions. You will not only be positioning yourself as a thought leader, but building relationships along the way.

We have experienced positive results in building thought leadership campaigns, and we will be sharing specific strategies in upcoming entries.
For now, if you are just starting out, establish a goal you can reach, such as a commitment to collect information for a specific blog topic. Set a deadline for completion of the goal, and meet it. Then go on to the next (bigger) goal. Developing thought leadership is an ongoing process!

Thanks again to all those who attended the online marketing seminar this morning. I hope you were inspired to learn more about social media and how you can apply it to your business.

As promised, here is the download link to a copy of my presentation. You can contact me via my LinkedIn profile if you have any additional questions.

Cheers
Steve