Here is what some schools are forgetting: Your brand, your reputation, the overall impression people have of you is comprised of many things. If I go to a party, get drunk, cause a scene, break expensive things, and offend people, then I will have tarnished my reputation, my personal brand. And, likewise, if I hear that a story is circulating about my antics at the party, I will know that I may meet people who have now formed an opinion about me based on that story. So, I manage my reputation by acting in a way that I feel best reflects who I am and how I want others to perceive me, even people I haven’t met yet. And here’s the real kicker: If I do go out and act inappropriately or embarrass myself, chances are that word will spread fast thanks to the social media networks that are becoming embedded in our daily realities. It’s not only words that are spreading; I should probably expect photos and videos to accompany the posts spreading like wildfire through my social networks about my less-than-optimal activities.

The above situation in corporate situations is called “crisis”. Many PR agencies sell “Crisis Management” services to help these companies deal with bad news in a proactive manner. This is very important for companies; they need to show their board, their stock owners, and the public that they are aware of the realities facing them, and are addressing them head on. However, higher education—especially top tier institutions—face an interesting dilemma. Since part of their appeal to those top-tier-seeking students is their selectivity, the last thing they want to do is advertise any bad news or address any unsavory situations. This creates a predicament: Do schools acknowledge difficult situations, or do they try to ignore them and keep up a good front? Regardless of the decision, schools need to recognize that others outside of their control will be speaking of it whether they like it or not. In my opinion, this makes the case for embracing all the realities—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Talking heads: Twitter avatars courtesy of fixoutlook.com, a Twitter-driven social site.

Now we arrive at the question: How do we embrace the realities being posted about us on these social media networks? Do we create a brochure talking about our Facebook page in hopes prospective students will become fans and get our take on things versus what they are finding elsewhere? Do we write long blog posts about things happening on campus with a positive slant? Do we hire a PR firm or advertising agency to help us spin things the right way?

None of those are the solution to the problem. The fact is, the people colleges and universities are seeking to communicate with are the very people who abhor direct marketing efforts, who can smell spam a mile away, who toss paper into the recycling bin with prickly disdain for the wastefulness of a mailer; all while juggling 20 text message conversations, checking their RSS feeds, commenting on a new video on YouTube, and posting to Facebook that they will not be applying to your school because you just ticked them off. Yes, the generation of the “entitled” and “self-righteous” may be one way to categorize this group. The other vantage point clearly shows a generation who places greater value on peer to peer networks, short blips of information, brands that put stories and reality in the forefront and embrace the “anti-marketing” approach. In the age of reality TV, social networks, blogger reporting, and instantaneous information sharing thanks to the newly-emerging real time sites like Twitter, a long winded page of copy about how great you are has a slim chance of getting any attention, let alone making a connection.

I was once given a very good bit of advice and some clever author made millions on this same tip when they published the book, The Secret. If you want something, ask for it. As a college or university, you undoubtedly have more fans than critics, especially if you consider not only current students, but also your faculty, staff and alumni. Chances are these fans are out there on campus right now, updating Flickr with some beautiful pictures they just took of their newly-decorated dorm room or of a speaker at commencement. Next, they are possibly shooting some video of friends at a party before they head off-campus for the summer. And most of them are probably posting their status, pictures or video to Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. With the exception of Facebook, you can see if my hypothesis is correct simply by going to these sites and searching for your institution’s name, then sorting the results by “most recent”. Amazing. All this great content is being poured out there on these networks, and most of it is probably benign, humorous or even flattering—it is, most importantly, real. Here lies the gold vein glittering in the mountain side. Now, how do you mine it?

Let me back up a bit and talk about Twitter. One of the reasons for Twitter’s meteoric rise to fame and popularity was due to the open platform on which it was developed. Any programmer can easily create their own app or Website, tweaking the way in which Twitter’s feeds are displayed and managed. Hundreds, if not thousands, of third party apps and Websites now jockey for a slice of this ever-expanding user group, and Twitter is happy to have so many dependents riding on its platform.

This idea isn’t new; it’s been a critical element in the success of earlier Websites like YouTube and Flickr. This concept of aggregation allows users to access, gather and arrange all this great content in any variety of ways which cut down on the need for redundant behaviors (like uploading videos to multiple sites; who has the time?), makes sharing content in multiple places easier (I update my status in Twitter and it feeds into my wall on Facebook), and helps users stay connected with an ever-expanding social network. I get comments on my video, my blog, my Facebook status, a new follower on Twitter and I know about them all thanks to my handy email alerts. I check my RSS reader to see if any new mention of my brand has appeared on Twitter, on a blog, anywhere on the internet. I review Google Analytics to see who was visiting my Website, what they were doing and how long they were doing it. Are you seeing the trend here? All this information, content, everything—its portable and malleable. And trust me, the companies who are winning the battle to have the most users on their sites are spending millions ensuring they keep them there—by giving them what they want.

So, the key is to ask your fans to keep doing what they are doing, but ask them to allow you access to certain parts and in certain ways. You are asking them to become ambassadors for you, empowering them to shape the future of the place they love so dearly by being their own “reality TV star”. Of course, you will be keeping a close eye as some ambassadors may get overzealous or misguided in their efforts, but you won’t tell them that. As you find the real gems in their mix, you will encourage them further by giving them a $100 Flip Cam to ensure they can make a video of graduation; highlighting their photos or blog posts; praising them for their witty status updates. And you use the power of these open networks to aggregate all this great content into your very own social media site. You’re saying to your prospective students, “Here, have an unfiltered, non-marketing, authentic and real look at who we are. If you like what you see, get in touch.”

They’re there browsing the photos being pulled in from Flickr and the newly-uploaded videos from YouTube, and considering following some of the students on Twitter who are posting interesting things. Guess what? You just tricked them into letting you market to them. Now you are speaking their language, giving them what they want, and staying out of the way. You are letting them decide to share a funny video within their own protected network of friends, comment on something they find interesting, or simply browse through the short, random, unmediated blips of data which form their opinion of you. You have the confidence of knowing you do in fact have some control over what has made it to the site, while also knowing these visitors are now less likely to seek that kind of user generated content out on their own. Why bother? It’s just been served up to them in one convenient location.

Note: Facebook is one gigantic exception to this scenario due to their limited accessibility to outside programmers. However, they are slowly moving towards a more open network as a necessity to stay as relevant as newly-emerging networks such as Twitter. We hope to be pulling in Facebook profile data, wall posts and photos in a matter of months.

So, we propose this to our higher education clients: Are you giving your prospectives what they want? If not, we suggest you get in touch, we have lots of ideas to share with you on how to go about doing this. And, make haste as you read this because another photo or tweet or video that may be painting your institution in a less than vibrant palette is probably making the rounds out there somewhere.

Here are two sites that are using user generated content to promote their own marketing agendas:
Sharpie
Baltimore City
We expect to be adding to this list soon, and if you have any great examples please let us know!

Much conversation has been directed at Twitter recently, and it is proving itself as a valuable marketing and communications tool. The reasons include keeping up on breaking news—specifically breaking news within a vertical—keeping in touch, providing rapid responses to questions, efficient communication, competitive intelligence, and many others.

Download this post as a PDF here.

Working with Twitter

The first step is to set up a Twitter account and username. (You hopefully already know you do this at Twitter.com) Your username should reflect your organization and you should include all of the requested information within the “Settings” fields. Make sure you include an email address that is monitored; you will receive email notifications of new followers and any direct messages (private messages) you receive at this address.

Make sure you include the link back to your Website and the copy in the “One Line Bio” field that explains who you are and the purpose of your Twitter account; this can also be your organizational one line bio. Here is a critical reason why you should ensure your bio info and picture are unique: When you follow someone, they will see you in their list of “Followers”; all they will see is your username, real name, and picture. If they hover their mouse over your username, they will be able to take a quick look at your one line bio and this usually prompts them on whether they will follow you back or not. If you don’t share information about who you are, people will be less likely to want to follow you back, or even follow you at all.

If you choose, include your real name and upload a portrait vs. a logo. There are some studies supporting the notion that people prefer to make a personal connection as compared to following a corporate presence. Also, customize your profile. Don’t leave the default Twitter visual settings—picture, design, colors, etc.—in place.

Managing Twitter

Whoever is managing your Twitter account should be willing to “tweet” several times a week at the very least on topics related to your organization and area of focus. Ideally, you should contribute useful content, links of interest, upcoming program or event information, etc., as often as possible. The more content you contribute, the more likely you are to gain visitors who may be searching for words included in your tweets or simply watching the public timeline. You will also appear more “active” to a prospective follower, which will encourage not only more followers but “retweets”. Remember, Twitter is quickly becoming a search resource, so the more content you have out there and the more your content is “retweeted”, the more likely you are to grow your audience.

The person managing the Twitter account should also be available to answer questions and should browse Twitter’s search engine (http://search.twitter.com) for any mention of your non-profit or other related topics. It is important to keep the account active so potential followers will feel that they will get interesting posts and answers to their questions. We recommend you check your Twitter account for posts directly to you in the form of public tweets or private messages. You will also be able to see in the @username listing if anyone has mentioned your twitter account in a message to another Twitter user. If you see anyone mentioning you, make sure you follow the contributor or reply to a question they may be asking.

Twitter protocol is rather vague, but here are some good rules to follow: If someone follows you, follow them back; however, when you review your followers, we recommend you take a close look at each follower’s bio (by hovering your mouse over their username in your “Followers” list on the Twitter.com Website). Make sure they aren’t a spammer or completely unrelated to your organization. Follow anyone that seems to be a legitimate person or organization. You can always opt to “Unfollow” them anytime in the future or block them if they become a pest.

Twitter Tools and Applications

There are many useful Twitter desktop and mobile applications which make the service even more powerful than it is in the twitter.com browser experience. Consider using TweetDeck for your desktop application. If you are using a BlackBerry or iPhone, try out different apps until you find one you like. TweetDeck lets you spread out all of your messages and replies and sort those you follow into categories, which makes staying up on the posts much easier.

TweetLater.com lets you set tweets up to be automatically sent out over the coming hours and days. It’s a very useful Website if you are going to be traveling or want to enter a batch of tweets but not have them all go out at the same time—something we don’t recommend doing, as you will annoy your followers by taking up the entire browsing space with all of your posts.

I am a big fan of Twittelator Pro on my iPhone, but have heard great reviews of other iPhone Twitter apps, as well. Each has its pros and cons; try a few of the free versions out and see which one suits you best.

Another tip and perk to using an application like TweetDeck is the built-in URL shortening functionality. This will automatically shorten long links to be more Twitter-friendly and take up less space. Additionally, Twitter apps usually include tools for embedding pictures in your posts. Most studies show that tweets most likely to be clicked on, generate followers or get retweeted include links or pictures. The Website Bit.ly (http://bit.ly/) also allows you to create shorter URLs, as well as track your click through rates.

Twitter for Marketing and Promotion

Here are some great ways to consider using Twitter to promote your marketing and communication initiatives—and grow overall awareness of your non-profit.

Generate traffic. Twitter can be used to get traffic to your Websites or the sites of partner organizations. If you ask your Twitter friends to tweet about it (”retweet”), the message will spread faster and further as other active users pick it up.

Remember, don’t be afraid to join the conversation. If you see someone asking a question or asking for advice, jump in! Also, if you want your message to be spread, ask users to retweet it for you. Usually, if you end your post with “Pls RT” (RT meaning “retweet”) and keep your original post short enough to make the RT easy, you will get your post spread to more readers.

Tip: Since each tweet is limited to 140 characters, if your original post is 135 characters and you ask people to retweet it for you, their newly-created message will automatically be too long. retweets append the post with “RT@yourusername” included to give credit back to the original poster. So, keep it short and sweet!

Help generate interest in fund raising. If you are running any kind of contest, give away, etc., Twitter can be a great way to spread the word.

Hire People/Find Volunteers. Need a new employee, freelancer, intern or volunteers? Send out a message asking for recommendations or resumes or send out a link to your site with more information on the open positions. This is a very quick and easy way to find good potential matches for your staffing or volunteer needs.

Get Feedback. Need an impromptu focus group? Send out a message asking for advice and you’ll receive replies from other users. This is especially effective if you offer an incentive, like a free T-shirt to the tenth person who replies, etc..

Networking. Twitter can be used as a great platform for you to interact with other like-minded people and organizations. It can be used to establish relationships which you may call upon in the future for a variety of needs.

Real-Time Event Updates. Organizations can use Twitter as a means to inform event participants and announce latest event happenings/changes. Use hashtags (#) as ways to universally tag and group tweets in one place.

Tip: Hashtags can be anything you want to make them so, if you are hosting an event called “Give Our Non-Profit Money”, you can add “#gonpm” to every tweet and your followers or fellow tweeters will be encouraged to do the same for any related tweeting. Then, clicking on that hashtag within any tweet will take the user to a listing of all of the tweets including that hashtag. It’s a quick easy way to group tweets so other readers can follow along with the thread or event postings.

Find people who need you. Twitter can be used as a means to find potential resource recipients online. Do a search for keywords related to your non-profit on Twitter Search and then follow those users.

Twitter Resource Links

Morning News article on Twitter Etiquette: http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/the_thoughtful_user_guide/writing_my_twitter_etiquette_article_14_ways_to_use_twitter_politely.php

Another great site for Twitter information on getting started: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/03/the-ultimate-guide-for-everything-twitter/

Cold Kiwi posted “The Top 15 Reasons to Use Twitter” and they cover many of the benefits Twitter provides: http://larrison.blogspot.com/2008/01/top-15-reasons-to-use-twitter.html

http://cutedogtheory.wikispaces.com/

http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2009/01/05/social-media-target-strategies-for-a-better-2009/

http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/03/social-media-marketing-strategy/

http://www.twitip.com/whats-in-it-for-your-followers-how-to-be-a-useful-on-twitter/

http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/01/creating-your-organizations-social-media-strategy-map.html

Have some other useful tips for non-profits or are you a non-profit using social media in new and successful ways? Let us know by adding a comment to this post!

You can follow me here. See you on Twitter!

While usability and customization were our top priorities, we also wanted the design of the site to tell the story of this brand. We looked at Emeco as a great example of how a brand’s story and marketing can help support a high price for a high quality piece of furniture, especially when cheaper, lesser quality knock offs are easy to come by. We certainly stand behind the importance of well conceived and produced interactive design, but this was the first time we would be putting that to the test with online purchases in a retail environment. And it didn’t help that as we neared the launch date, the economy continued to nose dive.

So, the site quietly launched in late February 2009, and on March 3 an email went out to about 2000 names (gathered from past customers, people who had requested catalogs, or who had simply provided the info so they could get emails) announcing the new site and offering a 2 week discount offer for online purchases. We waited, and as the weekend approached (when we expected these shoppers to actually sit down, discuss with the significant other and make the purchase) the sales started coming in.

I am very happy to share with you what Russell & Mackenna shared with us recently. When they compared their sales from March 2008 to March 2009, they were up 425%. Yes, you read that correctly, 425%. And yes, most of that was from the Website. They were making money while they slept, while they ate breakfast on Sunday mornings and while they juggled more orders than their builders had ever seen. Needless to say - we have a very happy client.

So, next time you think about ROI and how much the Internet can impact a business and a brand, think about this post. When you compare the impact to that of a traditional print ad, billboard, commercial or even a physical store, there is simply no comparison. Not only is the Web accessible to millions, 24/7, it is accessible to the exact people who are looking for “you”. How many people flip past an ad because its not compelling to them, or drive past a billboard and never think of it again? Online, these same buyers are actively searching for the brand, the company, the product. And with the Internet, you can tell who they are, when they come, what they do, what they look at, where they leave from, how long they stay, the list goes on. In fact, the next post will be a long long list of all the reasons why every company out there should be devoting their budgets to Interactive, I have too many for this story.

Feel free to join the discussion, and if you are a retail brand that isn’t doing what Russell & Mackenna is, I suspect you are already dialing our number. In fact, I will probably be expecting to hear from you since I will have seen you in our analytics.

I find it ironic how often clients overlook this very basic and important element during their design or rebranding processes. After all, how can you sell what you don’t truly understand? Once we help our clients really focus in and determine what makes them unique, it’s our job to go out and make sure the world hears about it and responds appropriately. This very simple, yet critical element can have a significant impact on a business— just ask our client Russell & Mackenna. Their revenue is up 425% in the month since their new Website launched compared to that same month in 2008. No, that isn’t a typo. Our next blog post will explore exactly how we accomplished those stunning numbers, by focusing on their unique value propositions.

Of course, I am biased. I went to art school at the Cleveland Institute of Art in the early 90s, pre-Internet, and where every occasion from house parties, to yard sales to impromptu gorilla art exhibits warranted a flyer bordering on fine art. Around that same time, bands like Nine Inch Nails were emerging and working with talented artists like Derek Hess to turn the promotional flyer from utility to collector’s piece.

We conceived of fly-post as something in between the local city paper, the bulletin board found inside an art school or other visually inclined location, the neighborhood telephone pole and an invitation service like Evite. We wanted to provide tools to help the flyer makers promote their event or service, provide ways for the community to easily find and peruse these visual artvertisements, and celebrate the art of the flyer by allowing users to rate and comment. Lofty goals indeed, but after many months of brainstorming, designing, programming and testing, fly-post.com (beta) has launched!

We have been letting the beta site gain traction organically while we evaluate user interaction, gather feedback, make improvements, and slowly leak the word out via Twitter and Craigs List. While we want to blast it out to every blog and tech magazine out there, we are also cognizant of the power of growing slowly and being flexible enough to make improvements based on our community and user requests. So far, so good.

Fly-post has already had over 6,500 visits, with users spending an average of 3:09 on the site since it launched in beta last October. Word of mouth has served to help grow the user base, with many local businesses and organizations located in our home town of Baltimore being some of the most active early adopters. Regular posts from The Walters Art Museum, Atomic Books, and crowd favorites Dr. Sketchy (figure drawing class meets burlesque) and local band We Read Minds. As of this blog posting, fly-post flyers cover over 140 cities nationwide.

The site offers users many tools to help them share and promote their event, or an event they are interested in. Easy links allow users to post flyers to Facebook, insert into their MySpace pages, or email to a friend. Soon we will be including Craigs List friendly code snippets, and additional sharing tools for Twitter, Digg, etc. Comments and ratings will soon notify the flyer poster via email, and we hope to offer analytics for flyer creators to track their traffic. We also have plans to significantly enhance the RSVP system. We are in discussions with “green” printers, so we can enable flyer makers to place print orders at the same time as they are uploading to fly-post, if they are so inclined. And yes, an iPhone app is in the works - for those flyer fans who spot good ones out in the wild.

While we quietly work away in the background, focusing on improvements and enhancements, we welcome the growing community that will turn fly-post into the Web’s very own local telephone pole. So, looking for something going on in your neighborhood or city this weekend? Check fly-post.com, now you know.

2. Our first big client / job was for McCormick (the spice company) to create a motion graphics Flash piece hyping their new spice labels.

3. Our Art & Technology Director, Curt Kotula, once spent the night in a tent on the office floor, after an evening of one too many networking events.

4. After presenting a session at Flash Forward in NYC, 2001 - we were courted by Wieden and Kennedy to come out and collaborate with their Nike team.

5. The first award we won was a Flash Film Festival award for our online experience, Memoire, at the Amsterdam Flash Film Festival.

6. The name “Fastspot“, originated in 1998 from an idea that eventually television and the internet would be interchangeable, and motion graphics advertising online would be pushed as heavily as television commercials (spots), once the bandwidth caught up.

7. Our Senior Programmer, Tim Buckingham, eats Burger King almost every day for lunch. It was a pre-requisite for him taking the job that there was a Burger King near by the office.

8. After something triggered a false alarm at the office, police nearly blew the head off Elvis, thinking he was an intruder in the dark hallway.

9. We were once asked to design T-Shirts for Maverick Records and Madonna’s upcoming tour. For inspiration we had one full work day where Madonna music was piped throughout the office.

10. There are usually 3 dogs in the office, sometimes as many as 5 at one time. Office regulars are Truck, a Lab Shepard mix, Rufus, a Lab Pitbull mix, Leyla, a Boxer, and Stella, an English Bulldog.

11. There is a paintball gun and a target in the basement. The practice helped ensure our victory over Orange Element.

12. We like to take time out to kill each other in network Quake games, and Curt always wins - with the Rail Gun.

13. On a visit out to Tacoma to meet with our client, University of Puget Sound, we stayed at the wonderful Hotel Murano. Each floor features a glass artist and a collection of themed works, we ended up on the boob floor.

14. Our office was built in 1889 and you can see Baltimore’s Inner Harbor from the 3rd floor - confirming that Butcher’s Hill is really on a hill.

15. We talk allot about the beauty of restrictions - Being a painter, I like the limited palette metaphor.

16. There are several tattoos in the mix.

17. We are all borderline mysophobics.

18. Our “spot” for World Aids Day won first place in a competition run by MTVuk, and was aired all over Europe on TV and the Internet.

19. Fastspot “Fun Events” have included a Paintball battle with Orange Element, a trip to Dave and Busters, a rematch with Orange Element at Patterson Park’s Duckpin Bowling (we won), a trip to an Orioles game at Camden Yards, a ski / snowboard trip to Liberty, a poker tournament (Zach and his wife took 1st and 2nd place and all the money) and a BBQ / flower planting / happy hour. Of course, the happy hours are reoccurring fun events.

Do you know an interesting tidbit about Fastspot that you want to share? Just remember, some of our moms read this blog, so use caution!

“The critical role that Web sites have in the overall communications activities of colleges and universities has changed dramatically since most of them created their initial sites,” commented Halvorsen. “For example, potential applicants to colleges and universities now typically first experience a school through its Web site. Therefore, it’s really important that the site engages, excites and informs these applicants as well as establishes a foundation of trust.”

Fastspot is creating each site in collaboration with other marketing and communications efforts currently underway by each institution. “This team approach will ensure that their brand attributes are integrated through visual and message consistency,” emphasized Halvorsen.
Dickinson College, a four-year liberal arts institution founded in 1783 in Carlisle, Pa , has an enrollment of approximately 2,400 students. “We’ve been quite pleased in our work with Fastspot,” said Paul Dempsey, director of electronic communication at Dickinson. “They’ve provided a number of strong design options and have been very flexible with making things fit our unique needs. It’s been a very effective collaboration.”

“We’ve been pleased in our work with Fastspot,” said Paul Dempsey, director of electronic communication at Dickinson. “They’ve provided a number of strong design options and have been flexible with making things fit our unique needs. It’s been an effective collaboration.”
The University of Puget Sound, with an enrollment of about 2,600 students, was founded in 1888 in Tacoma, Wa.
Fastspot, with a recognized expertise in interactive communications for higher education institutions, recently completed a comprehensive interactive project for Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pa.

About Fastspot
Fastspot is a premiere interactive agency, widely recognized for its strategic award-winning work, collaborative approach with its clients and its ability to deliver successful, long-lasting solutions. Headquartered in Baltimore, the firm works with clients across the country who seek to develop highly creative and complex marketing, advertising or business solutions. The firm has a particular expertise working with associations, colleges and universities, museums and cultural organizations, architectural and technology firms. For more information, visit http://www.fastspot.com.

The William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, a Baltimore foundation with an arts focused philanthropy, contacted the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance about helping the Fund develop an annual awards program for individual artists of the region. GBCA suggested thinking about approaching Fastspot about how they might build on the concept of the People’s Design Award Website, created by Fastspot for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and National Design Week. A collaboration quickly commenced on how this concept might translate for the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund. We knew we wanted to make the nominating process for this particular foundation program much more transparent and community focused, but we had no idea how the artists and community would react. Obviously, we had little reason for concern. It is clear from the numbers, this type of awards program and online nomination process was something the arts community had long been hoping for, not to mention the success we saw from integrating a “People’s Choice” into the mix. We hope to see other cities and artists’ communities throughout the world adopt and build upon what the Baker Artist Awards Website has established for the Baltimore arts community. Here’s what we ended up with.

Nominees, Registered Users and Votes

656 Artists nominated themselves and uploaded their work and info, including painters, dancers, musicians, filmmakers, crafts people, performance artists, experimental artists, designers, sculptors, photographers, you name it.
10,372 people not only came to the site, they created accounts and registered to vote for their favorite artists or artwork.
8,531 total votes were cast (this includes people who found ways to unlock extra votes by browsing and becoming more active in the site.)

Pageviews, Visitors, Time on Site and Geographical Info

688,520 Pageviews (spanning from early October 2008 to Feb. 1, 2009) The site will remain online for people to browse and enjoy the vast amount of art that was uploaded, so we expect to see this number continue to grow.
66,252 Visits
34,976 Absolute Unique Visitors
7:44 Avg. Time on Site - this is a very long time for the average time spent on any Website.
Most visitors were from the US, but we had 530 visitors from Canada, 447 from the United Kingdom, 232 from France, 182 from Germany, 133 from Australia, 132 from Italy, 127 from Spain and 88 from the Netherlands. They spent on average between 2:12 to 14:30 on the site.

Who Was Browsing?

If we dive deeper into the analytics, we can see to some degree who was browsing. As expected, there was lots of traffic from local universities and educational institutions, including Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland, Catonsville Community College, Loyola, Towson State University, Villa Julie, Goucher and Morgan State. However, more interestingly, and probably of great interest to the artists who have their bodies of work on the site, we saw heavy site viewing from these organizations and entities:

National Gallery of Art - 86 visits
Museum of Modern Art - The MOMA spent 42 minutes surfing the site
Smithsonian Institution - 56 visits
The Baltimore Museum of Art - 50 visits
Standford University - 31 visits
Rochester Institute of Technology - 25 visits
Cornell University - 24 visits
WYPR (National Public Radio) - 17 visits
Discovery Communications - 16 visits
CBS Corporation - 15 visits
Duke University - 13 visits
Black & Decker - 12 visits
Apple Computer - 10 visits
Bank of America - 10 visits
Diamond Comics - 10 visits
Pratt Institute - 10 visits
Yale University - 10 visits

Other Visitors of Importance

Eli Whitney Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Art
Museum of Fine Arts Houston
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The New York Times
Corcoran
Brooklyn Museum of Art
Walker Art Center
Fuller Craft Museum
Harvard University
National Geographic Society
Tulane University
University of Southern California
California Institute of the Arts
The Kennedy Center
Boston University
Carnegie Mellon University
Intercontinental Hotels Group
Princeton University
Under Armour
Cooper Union
Dartmouth College
School of Visual Arts
Hunter College
Nike, Inc.
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
The Washington Post
Electronic Arts Inc.
Herman Miller Inc.
Liz Claiborne Inc.
Art Gallery of Ontario
Lucas Film

There were over 4,500 network locations logged, and while we don’t know exactly “whom” was looking, we can assume this kind of visibility is extremely valuable to artists who may have limited opportunity for exposure. Additionally, we feel the quality and volume of work entered into the Baker Artist Awards will bring national awareness to Baltimore as a creative city that nurtures and cherishes its artistic community.

Referring Traffic

Another important element contributing to the huge success of the site was the amount of traffic driven to it by artists’ self promoting in hopes of winning the People’s Choice award. While the primary grants will be decided upon by a select jury, the people’s favorites will also win smaller cash awards and recognition. This angle helped spread the word, by encouraging artists to get over their shyness and get busy marketing themselves. There were over 1,200 referring links logged, meaning that over 1,200 outside sources sent visitors clicking into Baker Artist Awards Website from a link on a blog, in an email, or somewhere else online. Here are a few referring links of note:

Facebook sent over 5,000 visits
Notcot.org sent over 1,500 visits
Commarts.com sent 1,366 visits when it featured the Website as its pick of the day
Bmoreart.blogspot.com sent 445 visits
Fastspot was happy to send 426 visits from our Website
Flickr.com sent 322 visits
Twitter sent 220 visits
Baltimoreclayworks.org sent 168 visits
Delicious sent 159
Baltimoreculture.org sent 142

Over 50 blogs linked up to Baker Artist Awards, sending a tremendous amount of virally generated traffic (traffic that wasn’t paid for or generated through direct PR efforts). That is the best kind of traffic you can get because it’s usually very targeted to the audiences most interested in the content.

What’s Next?

Well, the site will stay online as a virtual museum of sorts, and after the winners are announced, we will be working to make enhancements and improvements for next year’s competition and awards.

We would love to know if the site has helped your artistic career or helped you network with collectors, curators, etc.. We are also happy to hear any feedback regarding usability, functionality or features you would like to see incorporated into the site for next year. We can’t promise everything will make it, but our goal is to make the site even better every year, so your feedback is extremely valuable. So share your stories or feedback with us!

Hardware:

I use a 20″ 2GHz iMac (aluminum) with 3GB RAM running 10.5.6, an external 22″ monitor, a Logitech MX Revolution mouse and a Apple aluminum keyboard. Modest hardware, but plenty of power for web development.

Software:

I’ve never been a fan of virtual workspaces until Leopard came out with Spaces, and even then, the kinks didn’t really get worked out until about 10.5.3. But now they’re an integral part of my daily workflow. I rarely have to minimize windows to try to find what I’m looking for, I can just switch spaces. With 2 monitors and 4 spaces, I usually have enough room to keep everything open at the same time without overlapping. I highly recommend taking another look at Spaces if you’ve avoided virtual workspaces in the past. I use Spaces mainly to partition apps into different tasks, so I’ll breakdown software I use by task.

Space 1: Administrative

In this space, I keep iChat, Mail, Gmail (in a Fluid SSB) and Safari with Basecamp and Harvest open in tabs. These are basically all the apps I use for basic communication and administrative tasks.

Space 2: Development

I’m a developer, so this by far where I spend most of my time. The most important here is TextMate, which is where most of my day is spent. By far the best and most customizable text editor I ever found. I use TextMate with the Railscasts theme since I much prefer light text on dark background when coding all day. Next is Firefox with Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar extensions. My workflow is a lot of switching between TextMate and Firefox, coding and debugging. Firebug alone is why I use Firefox over another browser since it makes debugging web apps so much easier. I’m constantly outputting things to the console, viewing ajax requests, and checking how css styles are being applied.

I usually always have Terminal with a few tabs open for ssh’ing into a server, using subversion, or tailing some rails logs, and I use Transmit when I need to work off a remote server. I also use Sequel Pro for connecting to MySQL when possible.

Space 3: Design/Virtual Machines

I don’t spend a lot of time in this space, except for getting images from a design. For that I use Fireworks CS3 which I’m not a big fan off, but I hear CS4 is much improved. Also, in this space, I use VirtualBox with a Windows XP virtual machine for testing in IE6 and other windows browsers. VirtualBox may not be as full featured as Parallels or VMWare Fusion, but it’s free, open source, and so far I haven’t had any issues. It’s been working like a champ.

Space 4: Misc

In this space I keep iTunes, NetNewsWire, and Twitterific open. These are mostly some random apps that don’t fit anywhere else, but seem to go together.

Other

There are also some utility apps that I don’t use in a particular space, but can’t live without like QuickSilver and Growl. I also use The Unarchiver which is a great utitlity for uncompressing just about any type of file.

I think that about covers it for me. What does your setup look like?

I was fortunate (or lucky) enough to sit down via Skype with the charming hosts of Lucky Startups the other day (Aronando Placencia and Dennis Lankes), and chat about Fly-Post. Fly-Post is a project that started over a year ago, born out of a conversation about missing the “good old days” of looking at telephone poles to find out what was going on in the hood, via the flyer. It just kept nagging at us, the flyer, how the flyer wasn’t being accurately represented anywhere online, it needed a place to love and cherish it. Enter Fly-Post.com.

We worked on this site for about a year and finally launched it in beta a few weeks ago. We now look forward to seeing it grow and flourish and help promote the art and utility of the flyer, hopefully for your home town. Enough from me, check out the interview, and go post a flyer!