CONCEPTS & STRATEGIES RELATING TO SOCIAL MEDIA & DESIGN THINKING

Thinking outside of the box, forming your own logic and making it work is what I apply to all of my projects.

"Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose."
- Charles Eames

Here are a couple of concepts & strategies that I've written about. I've used each of them in my online business ventures. My next goal is to dive deeper into design thinking and how it can be used to create a positive experience between users and social media... and maybe change their perception of looking at not only the internet but visual media through:

  • Breaking down complex concepts and data into a simplified visual language (infographics)
  • Helping artists & designers with indepdance by exposing them to the various benefits of non-traditional marketing strategies that are organic and sustainable.
  • Designing an Experience

    These usually don't result from headaches :)



    The Blog Network: A Symbiotic Ecosystem
    July 26, 2010



    At the surface level, you can notice that each blog advertises another blog in a one way direction, there are no reciprocation in benefits. However, when looking at the network as a whole ecosystem, they are all connected to eachother. As one blog benefits, the whole networking flourishes as well.

    1) SEO (search engine optimization): it does not allow the maximum potential of SEO benefits

    2) User's views: the user might view the reciprocated advertising as simply an exchange..

    3) Shuffling: this also allows visitors to shuffle along the blog network, spreading the users and traffic across the network in a controlled maze. If the relationship were simply between two blogs, the benefits would only be exclusively exchanged amongst them.

    Acquiring a large blog network leads to several benefits for your dominant and secondary businesses. How can you intertwine all of your projects so that they can form a symbiosis relationship between each other?


    Make Your Business Bring You Business
    July 23, 2010



    How can your business bring you business so that you can increase your business with direct profits?

    I had a random thought one day when analyzing affiliate programs (or programs that pay their referrals through commissions). Many businesses start referral programs because they are looking to increase their profits through more marketing. They leave this into the hands of 3rd parties, which they pay through commissions.



    I then had a separate thought that hypothesized why Google bought Youtube. If you put the concept of “making your business bring you business” it makes sense that Google would invest in such a site.



    Google Adsense: This program consists of text based ads. Every time a user clicks on an ad, the webmaster gets paid by the advertiser. Of course, Google takes a % of the profits for being the bridge between the advertisers and webmasters.

    A huge percentage of webmasters on the internet use Adsense revnues as their main income. Some people make tens and hundred thousands of dollars a day from such a program.

    Keeping this in mind, why wouldn’t Google want to be one of those webmasters gathering daily large earnings? This is where Youtube comes in. Since it is one of the most visited websites on the internet, it has a great potential for gaining a lot of clicks from it’s users. So, of course Google would enroll Youtube into the Adsense program.

    A smart business move: in turn, Google becomes one of those high profiting webmasters (under Youtube), but they are directly profiting from the advertisers because they do not need to pay commissions to third party webmasters. This is how their business (Youtube) is bringing profits to their own business (Adsense).



    Putting this concept into practice
    Imagine offering someone a commission each time they bring you business. Your profit would be project quote - % commission = your profit. Now, imagine if you were the person who brought in the commission to yourself. What are they doing different to bring in new business to yourself? If they brought business to you through their design blog, why not start your own design blog to promote your own work?

    Another way this concept can be taken would be to start a business that requires the use of your own skills. An example would be a clothing line… if you are a graphic designer and can design the graphics for a clothing line, you are saving your business money because you are essentially hiring yourself to do your own work.