With that in mind, Justin Wise of Social Media Examiner shares 20 ways to promote your Facebook fan page.

It all starts, of course, with putting a link on your personal Facebook profile.

Then, add the fan page URL to your email signature, your business cards, your Twitter profile, your Keynote or PowerPoint slides, and anywhere else that’s relevant. Tag other popular fan pages in your updates. Place a widget on your blog and/or website. And tag your YouTube videos.

Invest in Facebook ads, which are easy and pretty cheap. And use targeted keywords in Google AdWords.

And finally, invite your friends. But as Justin points out: “Pester your friends only as the nuclear option. I’ve given you 19 other ways to let people know about your fan page. Give your friends a break!”

So many times a client comes to us with the need for a refreshed website, a print mailer, or a new look for a presentation, product packaging, or trade show. And like so many design professionals, we often jump right in with the visual design and content development.

That can be a mistake, however, if the client hasn’t really identified their target audience and positioning in the market, or defined their own brand identity and how their offerings provide true benefits to customers.

And that’s when we find the collaboration bogs down, direction shifts, and frustration starts to build. The problem is, we have no true guide that can direct our design processes. We’re driving somewhere new without a map.

Define the Brand

We all know how to ask our clients: “What is it you do that’s different, and why is that important?”  Yet too often we include these valuable discussions as part of our design process.

At Indigo Creative, we try to begin any new project by taking a step back from the requested website, print piece, or other tactic.  We ask to review our client’s current brand identity, and create a “brand platform” that will serve as the foundation for all of the design and messaging that follows.

In that platform, we provide a snapshot of where our clients are at currently and what opportunities they are targeting. We define three key components that make up their core brand identity. We help them position themselves in their market, and review their competitor’s brand positioning. And we start to develop visual “look and feel” concepts, along with preliminary taglines and messaging that express the brand.

Build the Platform

This brand development process inspires our clients to take a good close look at themselves, and really define what they’re all about. It’s heavy lifting, but provides valuable benefits.

Once we have this brand platform in place, then just like an ad agency’s creative brief, all design and messaging decisions can be developed based on its findings.

Aim for Consistency

The other key advantage is that we now have an agreed-upon guide, a “Brand Bible,” for all tactics that follow. There’s a consistent visual design that is shared by the website, the print collateral, the digital media, and all other client-facing tactics. And as we’ve learned, consistency is essential to building a strong brand.

For more about how to develop a brand platform as part of your design services, contact us, or visit www.indigocreativestudio.com

Doug Bartow and his colleagues at id29 have come up with a list of 29 things they think all new designers need to know. The list appeared in the January 2011 issue of HOW magazine, along with a limited edition poster designed by id29. 

Perhaps it’s no real surprise, but an international psychology journal recently found that an individual’s success in the virtual world doesn’t appear to carry over into the real world. In other words, spending a lot of time online through instant messaging and social network sites was not linked to having a larger number of “offline” friends.

“Moreover,” says an LA Times report on the study, ” the relationships of people who socialized online weren’t any closer or stronger than people who didn’t socialize online.”

Previous studies were mixed, with some suggesting that online networking had a negative effect on social life, while others believed it broadened social circles.

The idea that social media may have little effect on real-life relationships may prompt us to wonder about the effectiveness of our branding and marketing efforts that rely on Facebook, etc. to spread the word.

There’s so much to like about this. First off, they use video effectively rather than rely on text. It’s all delivered in plain language. They feature their own people creatively. And they take ownership of every single word.

Rackspace offers managed hosting, and cloud hosting, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s the human element that comes across.

With the proliferation of so many new marketing tactics and points of contact with our clients’ customers, we’re constantly on the lookout for new ways to link the various tools we’re designing and producing. That’s why the QR codes are perhaps the most exciting development in some time.

For those not yet familiar, a QR (or Quick Response) code is a matrix barcode of sorts that can be read by camera phones. The information encoded can ultimately be text or other data, but the movement seems to be toward linking to a specific URL for more information beyond the product or ad containing the code.

This graphic from JumpScan shares some data they’ve gathered about QR codes, including who’s scanning them, what kind of devices they’re using, and what brands are running QR code campaigns.

And, yes, the infographic itself contains QR codes, so have your iPhone ready!

I think this is an amazing tool, but there are rumblings that despite their ever-widening use, few people are actually taking the time to actually scan a QR code.  But that’s gonna change.

We’re talking about  a client that is unorganized with resources, inconsistent with direction, unfocused on objectives, and not particularly open to taking advice from the marketing experts she had hired.

What do you do when you find yourself in these situations? After all, she’s the client. She pays the bills. How do you live with that?

I like the approach shared by The Mad Ad Man in his recent blog post. He writes that once you realize that drastic changes have to be made – yet your client is unwilling to upset the status quo – you have two options.  There really are three, but the last is unacceptable.

“You can radically challenge the status quo,” he writes. “You break down the house, clear it out completely, and then rebuild it from the ground back up. This will require a lot of schmoozing, and diplomatic relationship management on your end, but this has a chance of success.”

The other option is “slice by slice change” – “For you, this means, being extremely patient, and starting with smaller projects, making her part of the process, making her buy into the process, and hence, get her support. Then, you will move on to larger projects, until you have gradually changed the status quo.”

The third option is to simply surrender, give up, and wave the white flag. But our author reminds us: “You should be ashamed of yourself though, and I am sure you will feel like a prostitute, only doing it for the money, not for the love of your profession. You won’t last long this way. So no, it’s not an option.”

We go through our creative process. We name the steps. We define the deliverables. And we preach about the value of a powerful brand. It’s our way of differentiating ourselves from others who may be competing for the work.

Yet so often the prospect is still a bit confused. Plus, of course, this approach is not always smart once we remind ourselves of the importance of talking about our client’s needs rather than our own internal processes.

In response to this challenge, Luke Mysse of Crossgrain is suggesting the use of a single case study as your presentation to a new prospect. We’re developing these now for our business-development efforts. But foremost in our minds are the following ideas:

• Choose one — just one! — that’s relevant to your audience.
• Make the presentation highly visual for impact.
• Define the challenge, the tactics used, and the results. That’s it.
• Trust that your designs are distinctive enough that you don’t have to emphasize their importance.
• Instead, focus on the tangible business results that your efforts helped deliver for that client.
• And finally, treat the case study as the start of meaningful dialogue, rather than as a call to action.

In a similar way, Fast Company magazine tells us that tech conferences have all but banned boring PowerPoint slide shows in favor of short, fast-paced product demos.

“It’s not about bullet points or the company, but what have they built?” says Finovate CEO Eric Mattson.

For those used to sharing portfolio samples and client lists, or walking prospects through a discussion of design methodology, etc. this can be quite a departure.

How effective can the single case study be as a presentation? Stay tuned.