Last week Networkers attended both the ASAE Membership and Marketing Conference and the Association Media & Publishing annual conference, to share and learn with the association industry. Here’s 56 reasons it was time well spent:
BRAND
1. Trust and integrity are crucial to connecting with a brand. People care about your organization’s values, so let them know what you value most.
2. Marketers, consider how you can align your products with social movements and initiatives to have a greater impact.
3. What does your association brand mean to your members? Market? Space? Constituencies?
4. Magazines are still, and always will be, great brand builders. That can only happen when the content is valuable.
5. Every organization decision should focus on quality, brand and relevance.
DESIGN
6. Don’t be afraid to look at archetypes for your publication — titles in a similar genre or with a similar audience — for ideas about where you can improve.
7. Consistency, quality and dominance should be consistent from cover to cover regardless of illustration, photo, etc. That clear cover strategy helps brand the magazine.
8. Think about design and content as a cohesive unit.
9. When it comes to a redesign, the goal is to work for the reader. It’s not about personal choice.
10. Design isn’t a production function. It’s an integral part of how you communicate to your members.
11. Redesign for a reason.
12. A redesign cannot happen without considering content changes. Every aspect of your content and message should be evaluated and decisions about design and content should be made together.
13. Identify the stakeholders and make sure they are included early in the redesign process.
14. Stay focused on the original goals and intent of a redesign. Do not dwell or nitpick on the minutia. Every decision made should be because of the original intentions and goals.
15. Design is not personal. Design decisions are made because of an organization’s standards and goals, as well as particulars of a piece. Red may not be your favorite color, but if the communication warrants red, we will use it.
ADVERTISING
16. It’s no longer about selling just the market. Sell around content. Content continues to be king.
17. Marketers want to place their message around key content and they want their readers segmented.
18. We are moving from an era of mindless to mindful consumers — what will that mean to advertisers who need to earn trust and awareness in the marketplace?
19. Ask yourself: How has your market changed in the last 18 months? How have your competitors and their offerings changed?
20. Get inspiration and ideas from B2C titles: Use tactics like Magalogs to preview your content to prospective members.
21. Educate advertisers on how to create ads that ‘work’ in digital. Manage expectations and raise their knowledge level through group webinars. Give advertisers the tools to be successful.
22. You’re not the only one: Advertisers care about the relationship a reader has with your editorial.
CONTENT
23. Consider the life cycle of your content. How long is it online? What is the plan to move it or reuse it?
24. If members are NOT using content, why are you putting it out? Don’t be afraid to break the mold and let members shape the direction and delivery method of your content.
25. Don’t be threatened or scared that members are driving content through social media channels – embrace that process. The association is still the expert in its respective field. Members providing content does not eliminate the need for an association.
26. Rein in word counts. How long does a story really need to be?
27. Understand and connect with your audience. That’s always the goal.
28. Listen to readers and make changes accordingly if something doesn’t work.
29. Connect daily even if you only print weekly, monthly, or bimonthly.
30. Even readers who don’t have time to read are good at pointing out typos.
31. Stay relevant by providing content only you can provide. Know your audience, know your niche and give them something worthy of their time.
32. Concerned about copyright within social media? A new medium doesn’t mean a new law, just a new context in which those laws apply.
33. Stop trying to chase the new hot demographic. You will alienate your current readers and you won’t provide content that is valuable to either old or new reader. Your content will not be all things to all people…and that’s a good thing.
34. Use the golden rule as an indicator to when copyright or trademark use is over the line. Would you want the same thing done to you?
35. Don’t count on password-protected content for search engine optimization. Google does not read content under a password.
IN THE BOOK
36. Consider varying page count throughout the year. Having a few larger “special issues” tied to events or seasonal content can create excitement.
37. If you do it right, the front of the book can carry the whole magazine.
38. Use an “old-fashion” tip-on to alert readers of their last issue. Print once and then tip on by mail list.
MEDIA
39. The big question for our industry has been, where does digital go from here, and how can it work in tandem with print? The iPad and other tablet devices will likely provide a delivery method that truly showcases and enhances new media.
40. A digital edition can act as a preview of the print piece. Some Gen Y readers identified the value of digital: “We use it to plan what we are going to read in the print.”
41. Offer a different and useful online experience.
42. Both print and digital are distribution channels. Digital is not trying to eliminate print. They should complement each other.
43. Technology has fundamentally changed the accessibility of creativity.
44. If you offer something with value, people will pay for it.
EVENTS
45. Consider having free conference wi-fi and having it sponsored.
46. For your event, consider different splash pages for different audiences. Drive key traffic through those various pages.
BUSINESS
47. Flexibility is key right now in both business and marketing. Companies do not want to be locked into long term, inflexible agreements.
48. Transparency within your organization continues to be a key attribute.
TOOLS & TECH
49. Google Adwords provide a lot of options to increase SEO and positioning. Experiment. Set a small budget. Get started and see what happens to your analytics. For associations looking to grow its Facebook presence, also consider the key ad words for sale there too.
50. Check out Compete.com: A resource to know more about your competitors and their web traffic.
51. Use the power of content for SEO success. Editors should manage SEO, not the tech department.
52. The best time for a web cast is Tuesday through Thursday at 2 pm.
COMMUNITY
53. Ask yourself: Who are your social media power users that push and evangelize the conversation?
54. Do you know if your community engages with video? And are they doing that somewhere else?
55. Let the immediacy and temporary nature of social media allow you to take chances. It’s not carved in stone, so try out a new branding approach or irreverent post to garner reaction from members.
56. Only tweet things of value.
June 21, 2010
There are a lot of file extensions to wade through out there. Here’s a run down to help you better navigate the production waters
To the uninitiated, the wide variety of graphics files out there can seem like an incomprehensible alphabet soup – and new file formats seem to pop up all the time. If you don’t know your PDFs from your PSDs, here’s an overview of some of the most common formats.
Video/Animation files
FLA (.fla)
Native Flash documents – these are files that can be created, opened and edited in the Adobe Flash application. They can include animation, video, and interactive elements. An FLA file would never appear on the web or in a digital publication: It is not the final product, but rather the working file that can be opened and edited again and again. It can only be opened in the Flash application.
FLV (.flv)
Flash Video. FLV files contain video content, which can be played back by Adobe Flash Player on the web. Many websites, including YouTube, use the Flash Video format. FLV files can be played back on their own, or embedded within a SWF (see below).
SWF (.swf)
Stands for Shockwave Flash, or alternatively Small Web Format. SWF files contain a finished animation created in Flash. They are designed to be small enough in file size to be published on the web. A SWF file is not fully editable the way a FLA file would be, but rather is the final product that appears on the web. SWF files originally contained only vector animation, but can now contain Flash video (FLV) elements and interactivity.
AVI (.avi)
Audio Video Interleave. AVI is a format that contains audio and video. One of the earliest multimedia formats, it is still in use, though less common.
Other image files
PDF (.pdf)
Portable Document Format. PDFs are files that can contain many different types of data – text, images, and more – in a single compressed file. They can be viewed in many different programs, as well as on the web.
EPS (.eps)
Encapsulated PostScript. EPS files are image files that can contain either vector or raster image data, or both. They are the most common format for vector graphics, such as logos.
TIFF (.tif)
Tagged Image File Format. TIFFs are bitmap (raster) image files, typically used in print, not on the web.
JPEG (.jpg)
Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEGs are bitmap (raster) image files that are often used on the web. They are compressed for smaller file size – some information is actually thrown away in order to reduce the amount of data contained in the file. The compression used in JPEGs works best with photographs, rather than images with areas of flat color.
GIF (.gif)
Graphics Interchange Format. GIFs are bitmap (raster) image files that are often used on the web. They can support animation by displaying a series of images within one GIF file. GIFs can also be static. (To view the animation in an animated GIF, you need to view it in a web browser.) Because of limitations on the number of colors they can use, GIFs are better suited to simple images with areas of flat color (such as logos) than to complicated photographic images.
Other native files
“Native” files are files that are specific to one application or program, and are designed to be opened and worked with in that application only. Typically, in order to open a native file, you must use the application in which it was created (usually, even the same version or newer of the application is required).
PSD (.psd)
Photoshop Document. Must be opened in Adobe Photoshop. PSDs can contain many layers and effects that remain editable.
INDD (.indd)
InDesign Document. Must be opened in Adobe InDesign. InDesign documents are the main layout file for many print pieces (and occasionally digital pieces as well) and often are linked to separate image files and fonts that must go along with the INDD.
AI (.ai)
Adobe Illustrator document. Must be opened in (you guessed it) Adobe Illustrator. AIso can contain many layers and effects that remain editable.
QXD (.qxd)
QuarkXPress Document. Must be opened in QuarkXPress. QXD files are layout files, similar to INDDs.
Note: File formats are typically referred to by their acronym (all caps: JPEG) but sometimes instead are referred to by their extension (dot + lowercase: .jpg). The extension is what you see at the end of the filename. Either one is OK as long as you’re consistent, but it’s probably better to use the acronym.
There are many more file types, but these are among the most commonly used in the design and publishing worlds. If you’re a non-designer, familiarity with these terms will make it easier to communicate with the designers you encounter in your work. They’ll appreciate it!
–Austin Stahl, Art Manager, Network Media Partners, Inc.
For his next act, Austin will uncover the mystery of raster versus vector…
April 27, 2010
