The BerryPatch

The Latest News on Website Traffic - Weekly Digest from Think Traffic Blog

Sun, 06 May 2012 03:07:00 GMT

The Latest News on Social Media - Weekly Digest from The Smart Passive Income Blog

Sat, 05 May 2012 22:46:00 GMT

Building Your Corporate Identity With Color

Wed, 02 May 2012 18:20:00 GMT

by Shafik Mansur -

Each of our Redberry Website Design clients recieves a branded color palette that features one or two very strong pure colors that we most feel reflect their personality or corporate image. We then build a complete palette around these colors including a wide range of tints, tones and shades for each of the chosen hues. We label each color with the correct Pantone, hex and CMYK value so that we can easily pull colors from the client's color palette into the website design and imagery. This keeps the branded color palette ready for both web and print usage. We will stay within established industry norms when necessary…medical prefers blue shades, legal tends to like conservative colors, midwives love purples and speakers often like vibrant reds, carmines and orange colors. However…even when we are confined by limited colors, we will still find a bright signature color to use as a restrained emphasis for bullet points, arrows or important headers/links…etc. Yes, color does matter in web design. Call us today at 770-783-0230 or visit http://www.RedberryDesigns.com/ to receive your free website evaluation.

Do Colors Matter In Web Design? | Business 2 Community

www.business2community.com hello

Have you ever thought about the psychology of colors? Colors are said to be connected to emotions and actions, two interesting ideas when you think about them

Do Colors Matter In Web Design?

ONLINE MARKETING

By Shannon Willoby, Published November 16, 2011

Have you ever thought about the psychology of colors? Colors are said to be connected to emotions and actions, two interesting ideas when you think about them in terms of business.

How do you want a customer to feel when they’re looking at your marketing materials or browsing your website? And have you ever considered how your business’ web design, logo, business cards, and brochure colors could be altering your sales, whether good or bad?

According to a design article on Daddu, colors can influence shopping decisions, making the graphic design of your website and marketing materials a very important decision.

Curious how your website measures up? Check out the list below to see what your web design’s colors could be saying to your customers.

Blue — Safe and secure. Good if you need people to trust you.
Green — Calm and confident. Good for making people spend money.
Red — Energetic and vigorous. Good if you want people to risk.
Yellow — Optimistic and cheerful. Good if you want people have fun.
Pink — Romantic and dreamy. Good for (young) female customers.
Orange — Willing to take action. Good if you want people to act.
Black — Powerful and wealthy. Good if you want people to spend money.

The article goes on to say that certain colors work best for certain businesses. For example, if you’re in the beauty or makeup industry, pink might be a good choice because of its strong association with youth and black due to its association with prosperity. If you’re in the auto industry, you might elect your graphic design to include red because it’s associated with energy and speed and black because of its association with luxury.

I asked one of our graphic designers, Will, his opinion on this topic. He said:

“It is important to choose the right colors for your website because colors don’t just make things look pretty, they create a persona for the website. A lot of websites are blue because blue is a comfort color — police uniforms are blue, it conveys trustworthiness and reliability. Other than color, the general brightness of a website is also important. A darker website could be more entertainment-oriented, while a lighter scheme would give a more corporate feel.”

What do you think? Can colors sway a prospective customer’s decision to contact you or purchase your products or services?

Redberry Designs offers our pro bundled website design, marketing and hosting package it delivers everything that you need to take your online marketing and branding to the next level. Submit a request for quote or call us (770.783.0230) today to get started...

About the Author: Shafik Mansur is CEO and Director of Marketing of Redberry Services Redberry Designs. Redberry is an Agency that Shafik and his business partner, Jannice, created and is a specialized firm, Redberry Support Services, LLC in January of 2009 to provide small and midsize enterprises and entrepreneurs with web design, content marketing and web hosting. He is also an avid photographer and his local photographic work is featured at Noonday Photography. At Noonday Photography - Shafik delivers photo journalistic, artistic and beauty-inspired photos. Photographs natural in their beauty, framed masterfully, are art pieces that capture the magic of your day. Our photographer, with diverse experience in many photographic subjects, always provide a fresh take that takes the documenting of your events and projects to the next level. To learn more and to download FREE business tools and articles, as well as join their mailing list, visit the Redberry Services Redberry Designs website at http://www.redberryservices.com. You may print this article for personal use or republish it online only if it is left unaltered and in its entirety, including bylines, links and author information. Contact the author for all other permissions.

The Latest News on The Mash Up - Weekly Digest from Mashable

Tue, 01 May 2012 20:53:00 GMT

The Latest News on All Things Tech - Weekly Digest One

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 07:48:00 GMT

Facebook Looks to Rebrand News Feed Ads | Digital - Advertising Age

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:51:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

The name change is that users can already potentially see content from marketers that their friends had liked or commented on, as activity by Facebook friends is fodder for the news feed. The news-feed advertising will be labeled "featured" instead of "sponsored."

Facebook Looks to Rebrand News Feed Ads | Digital - Advertising Age

adage.com

Yesterday Facebook began placing ads in users' news feed, but is now calling them "featured" instead of "sponsored" posts.

Get Facebook Timeline Now!

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:45:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

I am still shocked about how few of my FB friends have added the new timeline profile to their page. So here is a link to the app so that you can add it if you haven't already. TIMELINE is now available to everyone! If you want to get it, Go to https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline & click the "Get Timeline" button.

Introducing Timeline
www.facebook.com
Timeline is the new Facebook profile. Tell your life story through photos, friendships and personal milestones like graduating or traveling to new places.

Introducing Timeline

www.facebook.com

Timeline is the new Facebook profile. Tell your life story through photos, friendships and personal milestones like graduating or traveling to new places.

End Piracy, Not Liberty – Google - Take a Stand Now!

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:04:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

Please sign this petition and let our congress know that they can not take away our rights on the internet...It is not just for rich corporations..Please take a stand!

End Piracy, Not Liberty – Google

www.google.com

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already opp...

Happy Holidays from Redberry Website Design

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 22:08:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

Happy Holidays!

Wishing a very safe and happy holiday season to our wonderful clients, family and friends.

New Video by Redberry Website Designs for Gary W. Chessman DPM, FACFAS

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:34:00 GMT

Redberry Website Designs releases a new promotional video for our client Gary W. Chessman DPM, FACFAS, Orlando Podiatric Surgeon.

With a video ad you can provide a testimonial and demonstrate your product or service in a compelling, easy to understand way. You can show, not just tell, your prospects exactly what makes your company, brand, product or service the better choice. Video marketing really brings your site up to date.

Adding a video promo to a web site has consistently shown to improve conversions. In fact, 80% of visitors will watch the ad and 52% of visitors take action, according to the Online Publishers Association. The reason why is clear… people learn more and retain more with multimedia.

Contact Redberry Website Designs to get your project stated today!

Redberry Atlanta Website Design Preview of Facebook Timeline

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:39:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

I had a chance to preview the coming Facebook Timeline feature last night and I am really excited about this! Very soon, users' profile pages will be presented differently. Instead of a list of recent activity with links to earlier posts, Timeline will condense users' recent and past posts, pictures and activities so that their entire history appears on one page. The format looks something like a scrapbook, with pictures and video displayed much larger than they are now. Users can see full galleries or hidden posts by simply hovering over points on a literal line. As a FB app deveIoper, I installed the preview app and this is what I am seeing.

Redberry Designs partners with you to make sure that the findability of your online business is pushed up to the top search engine ranking position. Contact our team to get your project started today! Click Here to Get a Quote Now!

About the Author: Jannice Boyd Almansur (http://www.jannice.info/) is Managing Director of Redberry Atlanta Website Designs. Redberry is an Agency that offers Branding, Website Development and Hosting Solutions and a full portfolio of business content marketing and brand identity solutions for small businesses. To learn more and to download FREE business tools and articles, as well as join their mailing list, visit the our BerryPatch Blog at http://www.redberrydesigns.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419 and Redberry Atlanta Website Design website at http://www.redberryatlantawebsitedesign.com. You may print this article for personal use or republish it online only if it is left unaltered and in its entirety, including bylines, links and author information. Contact the author for all other permissions.

My 3 Biggest Facebook Misconceptions...Are you guilty of any of these mistaken notions?

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:15:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

It is always surprising to me how many smaller brands and individuals using Facebook, still do not really get the point or perhaps just flat out miss some of the more nuanced impacts of this terrific tool. In the past few weeks alone, I have read posts from several of my Facebook friends stating that they were limiting their networks on Facebook. This struck me as ironic, because recently I have been working diligently to do just the opposite; broadening my network and moving from multiple "Sybil like" personalities by blending my various personalities on Facebook into just me . So here are my lessons learned from a failed approach.

Now for those of you who don't get the "Sybil" reference... Sybil is a 1976 drama film that originally aired as a made-for-television miniseries. It was based on the book of the same name. (just Google it) If you have not seen it, I highly suggest you rent this title for your next movie night. It is old but really well acted, or you may consider reading the book.

In the movie, the main character, Sybil Dorsett was suffering from dissociative identity disorder as a result of the psychological trauma she suffered as a child. In my case, it was just what seemed to be a reasonable assumption and tactic based on my professional corporate background and upbringing from parents who were small business owners in a small close-knit community. Sybil, with the help of her psychiatrist, gradually recalls the severe child abuse that led to the development of 16 different personalities. While I only segmented my Facebook personalities into three pages; equally as non-dramatic, my realization came the old fashioned way... Here is to trial and error...when you find something does not work, don't be afraid to try something else.

My Facebook Personalities:

Professional Jannice: Holds my corporate identity. This page showcases my past professional roles, current technical abilities, plays the intellectual and helps me pursue a corporate professional relationship with current clients, prospective clients, and past co-workers. Professional Jannice has a set avatar, and plays a part in branding my marketing company, it entertains with a whole host of other strangers that look good in cyberspace, but lack substance, they as well are basically using the same technique. Over time I discovered that they are all about what I call "me, me, me, marketing" because they have no real connection and only need each other to make an impression. They are lost in a sea of "it is all about me" messages.

Friends and Family Jannice: Casual, filled with the most real interactions, a place to really connect with family members many of whom I have not seen in years. Speaks in friendly voice, a very strong, sophisticated and mature personality who knows the people connected on the page, but is not interacting regularly because of having to spend so much time posting on the professional page to build up my start-up company. The real irony here is that this where the potential for the most support for both emotional and professional goals will come from.

Neighborhood Jannice: Connected to all of her neighbors and some folks that she has met at neighborhood parties. But like the friends and family page they are being neglected for the corporate page. Which is really too sad.

While I finally see that the benefits of having a single persona on Facebook truly out weigh the con's, it still does not negate all my original reasons for the segmenting in the first place. So I have decided that the superior approach is educating myself as well as those around me. Here is my attempt at just that. “What are the three biggest mistakes that I made in relation to my Facebook strategy? I am in the process of correcting mine... Are you willing to learn from my mistakes and re-think yours?”

Big misconception #1: Believing that your online conversational "posts" can be as candid as those in face to face one-on-one interactions.

Ok, so I admit that I did not actually make this mistake. In fact, I may have been on the other extreme of not sharing enough however part of my reasoning for my initial "Sybil Strategy", was that many of my family, friends and even some of my neighbors make this mistake often in their posts on Facebook. Let's face it, five years ago many of you had never even heard of Facebook as it was only launched in 2004. I would suggest that those who make this mistake are missing the point and more importantly the power of Facebook. It is not the equivalent of your personal inner circle, quite the opposite it is the one place where you can engage with all of your connections from your many different social communities. Everyone from your local minister, your child's school teacher, old classmates, new friends and even business prospects and clients.

It should be no secret that the majority of deep meaningful conversations still happen offline. I can't think of even one person that I have ever met that would get the family dressed and go to church on Sunday morning. Then shortly after the sermon starts or the choir starts singing would scream across the church horrible obscenities and accusations to their deadbeat ex. Or who would commence to berating their teenage child in the middle of the church. I can't even imagine a teenager that would have an open fight with their boyfriend or girlfriend in the middle of church. Not even one man or woman married or single that would pull out their wallets and begin sharing pictures of barely clothed women or men to everyone in the congregation. Well, wake up people! if you would not do in in front of your minister, mother, grandparents, children, boss, or anyone else, then don't do it on Facebook. After all it is just a giant interconnected database that stores your posts and updates forever and that if your privacy settings are not high enough, shares instantly every, word, picture, comment, like, connection or post that you make with everyone that knows you as well as everyone that is connected to your friends friends...Get it?

So, this is not intended to scare you away from Facebook, but to remind you that just like any powerful technology or tool we must learn to use it effectively for what it was intended to be used for.

Keep in mind that true personal and professional benefits can be achieved through the positive interactions that we make with our online connections on Facebook. Here are a few "must dos" when using Facebook to connect with your social communities:

Use the Facebook chat, messages and private video chats if you have to have a complex communication with someone. Remember that if the conversation is not appropriate for all audiences try to wait until you can meet the target face to face.
For those of you using your Facebook page for both personal and professional purposes, create a business page for your business and invite your friends to "like" your business page. On your personal Facebook page be considerate when posting topics that are promotional in nature, to make sure that the content can be enjoyed by all. One way to achieve this is to ask for input through polls or questions that allow everyone to share their opinion on the topic. On your business page consider using social media campaigns that interact directly with your friends to humanize your brand in ways that were never possible before.
When you invite new people to your page, try to stop by and make a personal post or message with them right away. Keep in mind that if you want people to interact with you, you must also interact with them.
Release post on a regular basis to develop a cohesive personality, and try to keep it positive or allow for and encourage conflicting view points.
If you must segment your friends on your page into categories, use the great tools available on the platform. Like "Lists", which allows you to create list such as co-workers, neighbors, clients, family etc. Once you create a list you have the power to choose who will see certain post on your wall. But I still advocate for an open policy of self moderation. In my opinion the best policy is that if you can't say it to everyone then you should not be saying in on Facebook.

Relationships online...image by Bryan Person

Some rights reserved by Image BryanPerson

Big misconception #2: Failing to think about what not to post on your Facebook page holistically

Another mistake many of us make is to view our content and posts through blinders (you know, those black things put on the sides of a horse’s eyes so they only look straight ahead). You need to think about your posts in terms of how it relates to and impacts all other aspects of your relationships, as well as your safety and that of your family.

According to Facebook, the company's unofficial mission is to make "the world more open and connected." But there are limits to how open you should be on Facebook and while you might enjoy sharing photos and status updates, there are some pieces of information you would do well never to share.

What NOT To Post On Facebook: 13 Things You Shouldn't Tell Your Facebook Friends

SOURCE: The Huffington Post Catharine Smith and Bianca Bosker First Posted: 11/1/10 10:14 AM ET Updated: 5/25/11 06:05 PM ET

Your Birth Date And Place: We all want to hear the many kind comments from Facebook well-wishers on your birthday, you should think twice before posting your full birthday. In revealing your exact birthday and your place of birth it is like handing over your financial security to thieves. as well researchers recently discovered that someone that is resourceful enough could reconstruct social security numbers using an individual's birthday and place of birth.

Suggestion: Rather than remove your birthday entirely, you could enter a date that's just a few days off from your real birthday.

Your Mother's Maiden Name: "Your mother’s maiden name is an especially valuable bit of information, not least since it’s often the answer to security questions on many sites," writes the New York Times. Credit card companies, your wireless service provider, and numerous other firms frequently rely on this tidbit to protect your personal information.

The Layout Of Your Home: Facebook users should never to post photos that reveal the layout of an apartment or home and the valuables therein.

Your Long Trips Away From Home: Don't post status updates that mention when you will be on extended periods away from home. When you broadcast your vacation dates, you might be telling untrustworthy Facebook "friends" that your house is empty and unwatched for long periods of time. " You may want to be more vague about actual dates and avoid specific times.

Your Short Trips Away From Home: Although new features like Facebook Places encourage you to check in during outings and broadcast your location (be it at a restaurant, park, or store), you might think twice even before sharing information about shorter departures from your home. "Don’t post messages such as 'out for a run' or 'at the mall shopping for my sweetie,'" Just keep in mind that many more eyes are on your post than you many think...

Your Inappropriate Photos: By now, nearly everyone knows that racy, illicit, or otherwise incriminating photos posted on Facebook can cost you a job (or worse). But even deleted photos could come back to haunt you. Experts have recently discovered that Facebook's servers can store deleted photos for an unspecified amount of time. "It's possible," according to Facebook, "that someone who previously had access to a photo and saved the direct URL from our content delivery network partner could still access the photo."

Confessionals: Flubbing on your tax returns? Can't stand your boss? Pulled a 'dine and dash?' Don't tell Facebook. The site's privacy settings allow you to control with whom you share certain information--for example, you can create a group that consists only of your closest friends--but, once posted, it can be hard to erase proof of your illicit or illegal activities, and difficult to keep it from spreading.

There are countless examples of workers getting fired for oversharing on Facebook, as well as many instances in which people have been arrested for information they shared on the social networking site.

Your Phone Number: Watch where you post your phone number. Include it in your profile and, depending on your privacy settings, even your most distant Facebook "friends" (think exes, elementary school contacts, friends-of-friends) might be able to access it and give you a ring. Sharing it with Facebook Pages can also get you in trouble. Developer Tom Scott created an app called Evil that displays phone numbers published anywhere on Facebook. According to Scott, "There are uncountable numbers of groups on Facebook called 'lost my phone!!!!! need ur numbers!!!!!' Most of them are marked as 'public', and a lot of folks don't understand what that means in Facebook's context -- to Facebook, 'public' means everyone in the world, whether they're a Facebook member or not."

Recently Facebook made all phone number listed on profiles visible in a contact/address book for each users profile. Here are the steps to remove your number so it will not be displayed. http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20090906-285/how-to-remove-your-phone-number-from-facebook/

Your 'Risky' Behavior: You take your classic Camaro out for street racing, soar above the hills in a hang glider, or smoke like a chimney? Insurers are increasingly turning to the web to figure out whether their applicants and customers are putting their lives or property at risk, according to Insure.com.

There have been additional reports that insurance companies may adjust users' premiums based what they post to Facebook. Given that criminals are turning to high-tech tools like Google Street View and Facebook to target victims, some say that they wouldn't be surprised if, as social media grow in popularity and more location-based applications come to fore, insurance providers consider these in their pricing of an individual's risk.

Your Profile On Public Search: Do you want your Facebook profile--even bare-bones information like your gender, name, and profile picture--appearing in a Google search? If not, you should should block your profile from appearing in search engine results. Consumer Reports advises that doing so will "help prevent strangers from accessing your page." To change this privacy setting, go to Privacy Settings under Account, then Sharing on Facebook.

Earlier last year my business partner published a really great article on how to manage your personal online image. In the industry we call it identity management. Read More >>Do You Need To Clean Up Your Act?

Bottom line: I want to think about safety on Facebook.

The Bad Communication Monster...by Doug Haslam

Big misconception #3: Trying to be a business brand before you can be a friend on Facebook.

This is a big one. It is the most significant lesson that I learned from trying to manage the many personalities of Jannice. By separating the many aspects of me, I could not truly be me, and because of that no one could truly get the opportunity to know me. Therefore, the only real way to connect on Facebook is to connect as you.

But what that does not mean is that you should loose any thread of privacy, tact, or modesty. From the "Sybil Strategy" the great take-away is to combine the very best parts of yourself all into one page and do not be afraid to share, reach out, comment, join in and connect often with the folks that are friends on your page.

When you’re just using Facebook for fun it seems like there's no harm in letting your hair down and diving in with all guards down, but keep in mind the church scenario that I described at the beginning of this article.

Always make sure that you take your personal and family's safety and security into consideration by getting the facts before you start inviting and sharing. I suggest that you develop a strategy. Yes, a deliberate strategy. Regardless of what that strategy is you need to make sure that you know exactly why you are on Facebook and what are your expectations.

Talking about strategy, always keep in mind that we are not a homogeneous society, this is especially true on Facebook. As you increase your friends from your original circle of friends and family, you will start to get the true benefit of Facebook. You will have the opportunity to connect with people from many different walks of life, and from all over the world with many different cultures. So just like you, they many have a strategy in being on Facebook, of which you will never know the true details. I say this to remind us that keeping your post from diving off into overly extreme topics or views. Trust me we all have them, but we don't all necessarily need to have them in writing for the world to see. Don't bland down your conversations so much that you become boring. Instead try posing more narrow topics as a question, invite people to join in and share their views. You never know you might learn something or become the teacher yourself.

If you are a business, or have like me decided to open your page up to both close friends, clients, family and really everyone, understand that social media content engagement doesn’t necessarily translate directly to sales conversions online or offline. The ROI or sales will likely not be immediate. If the audience consuming content is further up the purchase funnel, the goal of your social media engagement should be to make everyone aware of your existence. You need to be patient before they’ll be ready to move to consideration or business focused purchasing conversations. Content marketing and social media engagement strategy is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. The benefits of high quality content marketing through social media engagement are great but come over time and therefore should be evaluated over time. Please don't turn off your family, friends and true lifetime supporters, by being one tracked. This one has been a hard one for me, because it is so easy once you put on your business hat to be laser focused, but what I have come to understand is that your strategy on Facebook using an integrated personalities approach needs to be considerate of your social community as a whole. I now have responsibility to be a friend before I am a business person.

Conclusion

The world of social media engagement is always evolving. Regardless of you being or representing a brand yourself or just an individual trying to reach out to your social community; there’s a right way to do both branding online and socializing, and it’s all about the content. Provide people with smart, thoughtful, high quality content, embrace recommendations and favorable content created by third parties, make your communication two way by stopping by other's pages to say hi and visit, and above all be patient and you shall win the marathon with long-term advocates.

We would love to hear your comments, thoughts and answers to this post. Also if anyone has any additional questions or differing strategies that we have not thought of here please feel free to pose them here.

Is your small business ready for professional marketing, branding and website development project?

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:17:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

We have clients that have experienced anywhere from a 20% upwards to a 60% increase in sales based on the strategies we have implemented for them. If we had to point to the one factor that was consistent among the most successful of them, it would be the fact that they all have real tangible proven business plans. Redberry Website Design partners with small businesses to help them develop and execute their growth strategies. It has been our experience that our clients experience exceptional ROI relative to the investment required to retain our services. One of the biggest challenges that we face when developing a marketing, branding, and website development strategy for prospective clients, is their lack of business plans and concrete financial planning. So I pose this question to you... Are you managing your business for success? ...or is it a series of nebulous conversations, strategies and tactics. Here are some questions that you need to answer before attempting to either acquire outside investors or even before making your own capital investments in resource, services and capital.

Does your small business, organization or non-profit?

Prepare an annual budget?
Have financial statements audited or reviewed (not just compiled) by a CPA annually?
Have a mission and vision statement made known to your employees and customers?
Engage in planning beyond the current year?
Have an outside board of directors to help guide your company?
Have key performance indicators that are reviewed regularly?
Have a solid growth strategy?
Have necessary resources (people, money, etc.) to grow?
Have the desire, drive, and enthusiasm to grow and execute growth strategies?

We would love to hear your comments, thoughts and answers to these questions. Also if anyone has any additional questions that we have not thought of here please feel free to pose them here.

Best Strategies to Boost Your Online Visibility Using Video

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:41:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

Please click on the image to the left to get a downloadable PDF list of the top 10 places to post and host your videos and this poster.

Video is an excellent way to communicate your message in a dynamic interactive way.

Web Video is an excellent way to deliver your message and make a great impression and is one of the most effective methods of communicating your business essentials. Tell your story quickly, compellingly and relevantly! Online video adds a new dimension to content marketing enhancing your website and should be considered by any website owner who is serious about making their website effective and competitive.

Now that you have made the decision to post your video online. Here are our best strategies and tips designed to help you to be found online, presented in these three videos produced by the team here at Redberry Atlanta Website Design.

Get ready to discover how to take clear steps to boost your visibility online using video. Playlist: Segment 1, 2 and 3:

Summary of Segments:

Building Context

Summary of Building Context
Start with creating context for your post by giving the search engines what they need to understand your video content. And that is text that was written with these three keys in mind as they relate to the title, tags and description.

You will want to take some extra care to as you craft the title, tags and description.

Be very descriptive
Make them keyword rich
And keyword strategic

Apply these three keys to any content that you post online and you will be well on your way to creating the context and relevance that both your search engines and prospects require to find your videos online.

Make sure that you create the title and tags that give the most detail so that your topic is clear. Try researching your keywords before including them in your title and tags.

Distribution

In segment two, I cover distribution, which is very important. You can either do this yourself or if you have a large project to get out, Redberry Website Design can do this for you. Whether you do it yourself or have us do it for you, the principle is the same, you take your video and publish it to different sites such as Vimeo, Slideshare, YouTube. One thing to keep in mind about these sharing services is that they all have their own unique engaged audiences. (Please click on the image at the beginning of this post to get a downloadable PDF list of the top 10 places to post and host your videos and well as the poster.)

Once you have uploaded your video to the video hosting sites, you can then share them to variety of places. You can them embed them to your blog, other bloggers sites, your webpages, and social media pages.

Covered in this segment is the biggest take-way which is that your video builds web context by having linked it from the video hosting site to your website and to other sites which continues to build context to help search engines understand what the video is about. This is where the descriptive content you put in the title, tags and description really comes into play, but don't forget to also continue to build context when it comes to your blog and website. Don't just post the video by itself. Instead, make it part of an written article and create a compelling title, tags and include links to other related resources or web pages on your blog for the video.

At Redberry Website Design, we call this driving them back home... and is key to owning your own traffic.

Distribution on Facebook

Finally in segment 3, we have a specific conversation about how to use this video distribution technique for Facebook. Facebook is the one time that we recommend that you not embed your video to share it. You can of course link to a YouTube video on your Facebook wall, however a superior approach is to upload your videos directly to Facebook.

Here is why....

Facebook's EdgeRank algorithm determines what we see in the news feeds. For instance, it does not include your friends' latest accomplishments in Farmville that really does not make it into the top news that we see by default when we log into facebook. It selectively pulls out the most interesting things, and most important to you is that it gives video a little more weight. So if you upload a video directly to Facebook, it is going to get some extra visibility love from EdgeRank. and if your people are liking, sharing and commenting on your video and interacting with it. That is going to boost it even higher.

Now here is where something really awesome happens...

Imagine that you and I are friends on Facebook and I upload a video and you like it. The people who you are friends within your network are also going to see the fact that you liked that video, and they're going to see that video in their news feeds. Best of all there will be a "like" button to my video in your friend's news feed and you know what if your friend is into digital communications then I have just been introduced to them via you, now they have the opportunity to become a fan of my business page, because the invitation is embedded in that video. So there is a real tangible bonus when you upload video directly to Facebook.

So all of this is great, but please keep in mind that video is an excellent way to get relevant information to your audience, so make sure that your video has information that they want, like or will find interesting, and will want to share, like and engage. All content is not created equal, so try to make yours interesting and relevant for your target audience ...follow these steps and you will supercharge the online visibility of your video content.

Content Marketing and Small Businesses Win with Google's Latest Algorithm 'Panda'

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:49:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

This is great news for small businesses and content marketers. The team here at Redberry Website Design have been praising the value and benefits for small businesses to develop and implement a consistent high quality content marketing strategy.

We have repeatedly sang the praises of content marketing as being uniquely well suited to small businesses because it is budget friendly - does not take a large investment. In fact, many techniques are DIY; It also removes barriers between you and your community and is shared with friends, family, relatives, colleagues (your community). Being an expert resource within a niche (you do one thing and you do it well) meas that you have many great tips, insights and strategies to give to your prospective clients and existing customers.

Taking the steps to create, share and promote this information through your website's blog and other social media sites is the essence of content marketing and now Google is rewarding your efforts with higher authority search results. Take a moment to read this article below that I found today on HotFrog.com. The author has done a good job explaining exactly what the changes to the Google algorithm mean to all small businesses.

Google's latest major algorithm change puts emphasis on quality content

By Chris Lee

Google's recent 'Panda' update changed radically the way the world's most powerful search engine indexes and ranks websites. The good news is that Google now respects 'higher-quality content'; the question is just what does that mean for small and medium-sized businesses?

In April 2011, Google - the world's most influential search engine – amended the way it ranks websites in all English-speaking countries with an algorithm update called ' Panda '. Unless you follow search marketing blogs and news you may well have missed this story, but it is vitally important – and beneficial – to the online marketing of small and medium-sized businesses everywhere.

What Panda did was clamp down on so-called 'content farms', content-heavy sites that featured high up on search engines purely on the strength of their text-based content and links. Most of these easily-findable sites are designed to generate ad revenues from page views but the relevance of their content to the average surfer is often limited and leads them to leave the site to look elsewhere for what they really wanted to find. Sites regarded as content farms have seen their visibility hit significantly by Panda while other sites – particularly those with comments and interaction on them – saw their domain visibility increase. An early indication of the early winners and losers can be found on the Searchmetrics blog.

Panda: It's not all black and white

Many of the 'quality content' sites that saw their search engine visibility increase were newspapers' online editions. For marketers this is significant, as coverage from one of these sources will often include a link back to their company website, which post-Panda carries even more weight than before.

This is great news for marketers and their search engine optimization (SEO) strategies as it means that, so long as they continue to follow SEO best practice, they stand a better chance of their content being found on search engines. Marketers can continue doing what they should be doing anyway, which is creating compelling, optimized content that engages target audiences wherever they are in their buying cycle and that can be easily shared on social networks. Given that length of time people stay on a site is also taken into account, it is essential to draw readers further into the website with more intuitive and insightful content.

Perfect your content marketing strategies

Now that Google has done small and medium-sized businesses a favor by punishing content farms' visibility, organizations need to perfect their content marketing strategies to make the most of the changes.

This means not only creating great content - such as blog posts and how-to guides, video and audio content on your own website - but also seeding content around the Web to help it be seen and shared even more. This strategy should include things like posting presentations on Slideshare, uploading informative and shareable video content to video sites such as YouTube or Vimeo (which were classed as 'winners' post-Panda), and sharing content on social networks such as Twitter.

Organizations are often unaware of the great content they already have lying around in folders: presentations from events, reports, white papers. Why re-invent the wheel if you already have a stack of great intellectual property to share already? Think about an editorial calendar and creating content that matches the needs of your different demographic of target audience.

To be effective at SEO and content marketing in general, small and medium-sized businesses need to work out which keywords and phrases they need to focus on and generate relevant, compelling and easily-sharable content around those keywords and phrases. A basic introductory course from an SEO marketing specialist will be money well spent here if you're unsure how SEO works. If you're successful it will pay back in terms of search visibility, traffic and – ultimately – new business. Make sure you track the performance of your keywords on Google – as well as Bing and Yahoo – over time so that you can see which keywords and phrases you need to focus your content marketing on.

Marketing managers should familiarize themselves with Google's own guidelines on how to improve the search visibility of their own website. Google Panda has done small and medium-sized businesses everywhere a favor by punishing content farms, the challenge now is to create that great content that will make the most of the opportunity.

Disclaimer: The 'winners and losers' statistics blog was created by Searchmetrics, a client of the author.

Chris Lee is managing director of London-based online PR consultancy Planet Content . He is also a social media trainer , speaker and contributor to the University of Westminster's New Media Knowledge digital resource
Use this link to read the original post from HotFrog.com.>> http://www.hotfrog.com/sbh/guides/googles-algorithm-puts-emphasis-on-quality.aspx?m=56f19e38-7421-4d41-a7e0-2455dbd9e611

The Benefits of e-Newsletters for your Small Business Marketing

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:20:00 GMT

by Shafik Mansur

Redberry Website Design's client Sheila Simms Watson LM, CPM of Spirit of Life Traditional Midwifery ("The Miami Midwife") uses her quarterly e-newsletter to keep in contact with her many mommas that she has served as their homebirth midwife over the years and to share birth stories, celebrations and midwifery related news and events.

The speed and ease of e-newsletter or e-zine publishing allows a wonderful diversity of subject matter, format and style. e-newsletters are delivered to subscribed readers and can function as a magazine, discussion list, or they may be advisory, providing website or product updates to customers or visitors. Basically a newsletter can be whatever you and your subscribers need it to be!

Here are some of the major benefits of e-Newsletters according to business coach Evan Carmichael

Benefit #1: An e-Newsletter enhances your company’s reputation and increases lead generation.

Benefit #2: An e-Newsletter increases the lifetime value of your clients.

Benefit #3: An e-Newsletter is a very cost-efficient and cost-effective communication channel with your clients.

Benefit #4: An e-Newsletter leverages your marketing efforts.

Benefit #5: An e-Newsletter provides instantaneous trackable results.

Benefit #6: An e-Newsletter opens the opportunity for your clients to easily and immediately interact with you and for you to promote dialog with your clients.

Benefit #7: An e-Newsletter provides a higher response rate because it is being sent to a more receptive audience.

Benefit #8: An e-Newsletter is much more cost efficient than a printed newsletter because of the significant savings in time, printing and mailing costs.

Your customers and clients are the lifeblood of your business. What better way to stay in touch with your existing customers than through an e-newsletter? An e-newsletter allows you to add personal touches to your relationship and celebrate milestones, both your own and your client’s. In addition to furthering your relationship with your clients, an e-newsletter can also allow you to introduce new products, offer special sales or discounts to your existing client base, and encourage referrals.

You know your business inside and out. No one else knows more about this than you. You are the expert. Grow your relationship with your clients by sharing some of your knowledge and win over potential clients by showing you have the answer to their problems.

This is why at Redberry Website Design, we include an e-newsletter with our Pro bundled website and market strategy package so that you can obtain all these benefits for your business. Our personalized, professional, and branded electronic newsletter will allow you to promote your business with style by providing useful information that your newsletter subscribers want, need, and appreciate! Here are a few of the features that our e-newsletter product offers.

Send One-Off Emails
Setup Birthday Loyalty Campaigns, e.g. setup one campaign to automate saying happy birthday to your customers on their birthday
Setup Anniversary based campaigns, e.g. based on previous holiday purchase, automate reminder in 6-months or 12-months
Setup Multi-Part email newsletter series. E.g. Customer signs up and receives issue 1 on sign-up, issue 2 a few days later, issue 3 a few days after that and so forth
HTML or Text Emails (HTML emails contain text version also) Send a campaign to any customer group or your entire customer database
Preview your campaigns by emailing it to yourself or anyone else before finalizing

About the Author: Shafik Mansur is CEO and Director of Marketing of Redberry Services Redberry Designs. Redberry is an Agency that offers Branding, Website Development and Hosting Solutions and a full portfolio of business conversational marketing and brand identity solutions for small businesses. To learn more and to download FREE business tools and articles, as well as join their mailing list, visit the Redberry Services Redberry Designs website at http://www.redberryservices.com. You may print this article for personal use or republish it online only if it is left unaltered and in its entirety, including bylines, links and author information. Contact the author for all other permissions.

Happy Mother’s Day to all those great women that make us all possible…because of your love, devotion and sacrifice we flourish…

Sun, 08 May 2011 15:42:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

Who fed me from her gentle breast
And hushed me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.
~Ann Taylor

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts. ~Washington Irving

Enjoy your day and know that we love you always!

An Overview of Redberry Atlanta Website Design's Powerful Adobe Hosting Platform

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:22:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

HOSTING PLATFORM

We have combined a solution: ...that takes into consideration branding, marketing and providing more than just a website, but more so a full service hosting platform with a powerful completely integrated database, content management, e-commerce and email marketing solution.

We give you, the small business owner, the powerful tools to level the playing field, allowing you to compete with the big guys...We put you back in control of creating lasting success! More
Main Features: Our fully integrated system gives you the power of multiple software suites, easily controlled from one central interface. Managing your business has never been so simple! Learn More or view Full Features

Effective Video Promo Spots for your Small Business by Redberry Website Design

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 06:55:00 GMT

by Shafik Mansur

As part of Redberry Website Design's bundled website, marketing and hosting packages, we create a branded video to promote your business. These may involve onsite video shoots or we may simply use client provided images and audio depending on the package that you choose. Here is an example of a recent video that was produced by Redberry Website Design for Curtain Call Unlimited, Inc. and Juanita Richburg Seon. Curtain Call Unlimited, Inc. is a non-profit organization that serves to educate young people about Essential Media Literacy and Media Education Concepts. Curtain Call Unlimited, Inc.specializes in personal enrichment and media literacy training as well as providing outlets for the creativeness of the young people who receive the training.

Tell your compelling story, quickly and relevantly! Video is an excellent way to communicate your message in a dynamic interactive way. Web Video is an excellent way to deliver your message, make a great impression and is one of the most effective methods of communicating your business essentials. Online video adds a new dimension to content marketing enhancing your website by making it effective and competitive.

Redberry Website Design produced this video promo for Orlando Podiatric Surgeon Gary W. Chessman DPM, FACFAS as part of the website and online marketing project for OrlandoPodiatry.com.

For Sheila Simms Watson, Licensed Midwife at Spirit of Life Traditional Midwifery, Redberry Website Design created a promotional video that introduces this beloved Miami Midwife using a biographical approach with Sheila Simms Watson telling her personal story of how she became a midwife and what the art and tradition of midwifery means to her. This video has had over 2,300 views to date.

Here are 5 excellent ways to promote your business using video!

Record customer testimonials -

on videos and upload them to YouTube. Then tweet about these videos, or mention them on Facebook, to get people to see them. .

Create videos to answer

your customers‟ most frequently asked questions, including questions they should ask but possibly don't know to ask.

Does your company adhere to some painstaking quality control standards?

Show these extra steps on video. Even if your competitors follow the same processes, you will come to “own” the quality control standards with your videos.

The rule of thumb is

that when people see the steps you take to make a quality product, they place a higher value on it.

Demonstrate how your product is used.

Show it in action, show how easy it is to use or how it solves a problem. Don’t assume your customers already know all this.

Whether its subtly blended into your web pages, stand alone clips or a branded YouTube page, Redberry Designs video production team can help you make an impact. We film, edit and create fast downloading flash web video for websites.

Get your website project started today or call now 1-770-783-0230

Easy Steps to Setting Up and Using Windows Live Writer to Post to Your Redberry Website Design Platform Blog.

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:35:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

Using Windows Live Writer to post on the fly to your blog on the Redberry Website Design Blogging platform is a snap. Just follow these easy steps to first download Windows Live Writer then connect to your blog on the platform.

Step: 1 Download and Install Windows Live Writer

Use this link to access and download windows live writer. http://explore.live.com/windows-live-writer?os=other
Download the program
Once the install begins >> select windows live essentials 2011

Be patient the download will take about 5 or more minutes.

Once the program completes it will auto launch. It will ask you to create a Hotmail account. Just follow the steps and the system will create the account for you. Once you have your account allow the install to complete. You will have to close and re-launch Outlook.

Step: 2 Create a Hotmail Account and Launch Windows Live Writer

If the program does not launch automatically or take you to the set-up simply select your windows explorer (Short cut= Windows Key+E

In the search bar type “windows live writer” and the program will be found. Select it to launch the program.

Because you already have a blog as part of your website on the Redberry Website Design platform you click Add blog account, and then follow the steps to set up your blog in Writer.

(This is the link to how to connect to the your blog on our system with windows live writer)

Step: 3 Set-up Your Redberry Website Design Platform Blog

Using Windows Live Writer for Blogs

Contents

[hide]

1 Configuring The Blog Account
2 Configuring FTP for Image Uploads
3 Working With Blog Posts
- 3.1 Opening, Editing and Deleting Posts
- 3.2 Creating A New Post
- 3.3 Draft and Published Posts
- 4 Supported API Capabilities

The system uses the Metaweblog API, allowing you to use a variety of third-party blogging clients to control your blog externally.

Configuring The Blog Account

Step 1: Select The Blog Service

Make sure you have your credentials for your an existing blog created in the Admin.

You will need the following Items:

remote posting URL for your blog to be added to this (http://mysite.com/MetaweblogAPI.ashx)
username and password you use to login to the Admin Console
root URL of your website
FTP Host Details: FTP hostname: and FTP host Username:

If it's your first time running Live Writer, it will automatically prompt you to create a new blog account, otherwise, open Windows Live Writer and select "Create new Blog Account."

The first window you should see will ask you which blog service you are using. Select "Other Blog Service" and click "Next"

Step 2: Enter Your Blog Details

Enter the web address of the blog, followed by the username and password you use to login to the Admin Console.

This is the web address of your blog: It should look something like this…

http://yourcompanyname.redberrydesigns.com/_blog/yourblogname

If you do not have this information you can contact Me or Shafik or pull up your blog in your browser and copy the full address. Make sure that you copy the main blog address not the address of a post or secondary page.

Your Username and password are the same as what you use to log-in to your website admin area. If you do not have those use the link above to contact us.

If you'd like Live Writer to remember your password, click "Remember Password."

Click "Next"

Step 3: Select The MetaWeblog API

Under "Select Blog Type", choose the "MetaWeblog API" and enter the following URL, substituting "http://mysite.com" with the root URL of your website.

http://mysite.com/MetaweblogAPI.ashx

Enter this in the

Remote posting URL for your blog

http://yourcompanyname.redberrydesigns.com/MetaweblogAPI.ashx

or http://yourwebsitedomainname.com/MetaweblogAPI.ashx

Click "Next"

Step 4: Do Not Load Blog Theme

Our Blog API does not yet support previewing of themes/templates.

When asked if you'd like Live Writer to detect your blog theme and create a temporary post, click "No"

Step 5: Assign A Blog Nickname - You're Finished

If you'd like to assign a blog nickname that will only appear in Live Writer, enter it here.

Click "Finish" and you're done.

Configuring FTP for Image Uploads

Live Writer can automatically resize, upload via FTP and then embed images in your blog posts. To set this up, go Blogs > Edit Blog Settings and then select the "Pictures" tab from the left.

Step 1: Select “Upload pictures to an FTP server” then click “Configure FTP…”

Step 2: Enter your FTP details as you would for any regular FTP client.

Under “Publish pictures into this folder”, type /blogimages - this will be the directory in which embedded images will be stored.

Provide the absolute URL of this directory under “URL of picture publishing folder”, ie. mysite.com/blogimages/

Step 3: Now, when you click "Insert Picture" from the Live Writer interface and insert an image from your local machine, this image will automatically be uploaded via FTP and embedded in the blog post upon publishing.

Step 4: Working With Blog Posts

Opening, Editing and Deleting Posts

Go File > Open, then select the name of your blog from the left sidebar to see a list of all existing blog posts.

From here, you can open, edit and delete existing posts.

Creating A New Post

To create a new post, go File >> New Post.

Draft and Published Posts

Save as draft: If you'd like to save a draft of your blog post in the system to work on at a later date, simply click "Post Draft To Blog" from the "Save Draft" drop-down menu.

This will store the draft blog post in the system, but set the release year to 9999 so it is not displayed on the live blog.

Clicking "Publish" will set the release date to the current day, making it live.

Publish (makes post live): Clicking "Publish" will make the current post live on the front end of your blog.

A challenge to all business owners.

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:03:00 GMT

by Shafik Mansur

I came across a blog post today that was reflecting on the increased competition for your customer or prospects' attention that was the subject of a recent post by Jay Baer. Jay’s premise is that through channels like e-mail marketing and social media, we now compete with everybody, even globally. He states that "consumer interactions with companies are jumbled together like a real-time gumbo" and to be heard and recognized, we have to be mindful of the quality of each email and status update.

We also have to strive to convey our unique brand differentiation. To know and communicate what sets us apart from our competition.

For your company, can you complete this sentence: "Only we … "?

This is a challenge, and it is obvious that if you cannot, you’re likely destined to a lifetime of competing based on gimmicks, coupons and shouting louder than the other guy.

However, if you can find that wisdom, the social web will allow you to amplify that message and tell your story in a remarkable and exciting way.

So with that in mind, Jannice and I sat down to really define succinctly and effectively what makes Redberry Website Designs different from the competition. After an hour of brain storming, we ended up with three full sentences and six bullet points that we both agreed with. We broke for dinner and then returned to do some real hard editing. We cut and moved, trimmed and sliced all our words and thoughts then melded them together to craft this sentence that we believe answers the question...

"At Redberry Website Designs...Only we offer small businesses a professional web presence featuring a custom website design delivered with search engine optimized content, a uniquely branded corporate identity, social media engagement, local search optimization, search engine ranking and a branded video ad spot all hosted on a platform providing a fully integrated database, email marketing and unlimited eCommerce capacity supported by Redberry's ongoing maintenance at one low price and completed as one project."

We would love to hear your sentence that tells why your company is different from the competition and what is your unique value proposition. Take the challenge and post your comments.

Shafik

Redberry Website Design provides online business solutions for small businesses, not just websites. Because we understand that the purpose of the website and even more so, your online branding and social media strategy is to introduce, reinforce and establish the credibility of you, your company and message, we offer a custom all inclusive website design, branding, social media marketing and maintenance package. Call us now at 770.783.0230 or click here to start your project today.

Small business Continues to Embrace Social Media

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:41:00 GMT

by Shafik Mansur

According to a recent survey by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland's ,

many small businesses are increasing investments in digital channels such as social media, search, and online advertising,

http://www.networksolutions.com/smallbusiness/small-business-success-index-highlights/

According to a recent survey by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland's ,

many small businesses are increasing investments in digital channels such as social media, search, and online advertising,

http://www.networksolutions.com/smallbusiness/small-business-success-index-highlights/

According to a recent survey by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business, many small businesses are increasing investments in digital channels such as social media, search, and online advertising, http://www.networksolutions.com/smallbusiness/small-business-success-index-highlights/

Technology investments on the rise. One way that small businesses responded to improving sales last year was to return to investing in technology. The perceived importance of internet business solutions (IBS) such as websites grew in the past six months; 42 percent consider IBS’ highly important to their success, compared to only 33 percent back in June. The adoption of internet business solutions hit a low point in June, likely a result of recession-related cost cutting, but they surged back the second half of 2010. Over half of small businesses (56 percent) now have websites, up from 46 percent a year ago. Social media is now used by almost a third of small businesses (31 percent), up from 24 percent a year ago and 12 percent two years ago.

Over a quarter (27 percent) of small businesses have a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan, up from 19 percent a year ago. The only internet business solution in the survey that dropped is the purchase of online advertising in directories, a category that may be affected by the ability to use SEO and social media to find customers without spending. However, many small businesses plan to add online directory ads in the future.

The role of having an online presence in a small business has changed over time. The online channel is more important than a year ago as a way of generating leads for new customers, playing a primary role in this activity for 30 percent of businesses and a secondary role for another 16 percent. While websites are critical for small businesses, 55 percent update their sites less frequently than once a month, and 26 percent update them no more than once a year.

Small business continues to embrace social media. There is almost universal awareness among small business owners of Facebook and Twitter, while half are aware of LinkedIn. The most commonly used social media sites are Facebook (used by 27 percent of all small businesses) and LinkedIn (18 percent). The growth in social media is not cutting into investments in company websites, and is actually contributing to their expansion; 62 percent of social media users feel their use of this medium has no effect on their web investments, while 27 percent believe it will result in greater spending (only 9 percent would spend less or forgo their website).

Small businesses are still grappling with how to get the most out of social media, not surprising because so many users are “newbies.” Owners more often feel that their use of social media has fallen short of expectations (36 percent) than exceeded their expectations (9 percent), and this gap has increased over past survey waves. The main accomplishments from using social media include: staying engaged with customers, developing higher awareness of the company, and identifying and attracting new customers. When asked about their experiences to date with this medium, 63 percent of owners feel it has helped make their customers more loyal, but 56 percent feel it has taken up more time than they expected. Summing up the bottom-line, 25 percent of small business owners estimate that their investment in social media has made a profit while 15 percent estimate they have lost money; the remainder (46 percent) feel they broke even.

Owners are learning to deploy social media in a mobile context. Of those who use social media already, 47 percent use social media to send text messages to customers, while the same share (47 percent) use their mobile devices to respond to other people’s comments on social media sites.

Redberry Atlanta Website Design provides online business solutions for small businesses, not just websites. Because we understand that the purpose of the website and even more so, your online branding and social media strategy is to introduce, reinforce and establish the credibility of you, your company and message, we offer a custom all inclusive website design, branding, social media marketing and maintenance package. Call us now at 770.783.0230 or click here to start your project today.

About the Author: Shafik Mansur is CEO and Director of Marketing of Redberry Services and Redberry Designs. Redberry is an Agency that offers Branding, Website Development and Hosting Solutions and a full portfolio of business conversational marketing and brand identity solutions for small businesses. To learn more and to download FREE business tools and articles, as well as join their mailing list, visit the Redberry Services or Redberry Designs website at http://www.redberryservices.com. You may print this article for personal use or republish it online only if it is left unaltered and in its entirety, including bylines, links and author information. Contact the author for all other permissions.

5 Tips for Writing Web Content

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:09:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

I came across this article on one of my favorite blogs, and wanted to share it with my clients and readers. The post addresses a topic that is something that I have had countless conversations about with you all.

In fact it was the topic of a recent speech that I gave at my Toastmasters' club. The introduction went something like this..."I find myself in constant battle with my clients trying to get them to commit, execute and follow-through on writing blog content for their sites. Some of the most common oppositions are that they do not have time, they are not writers, they sell widgets and widgets are not sexy or interesting enough to write about....and so on and so on. Oh yea, and my all time favorite objection "silence"! The phone line goes quiet and I can only imagine their glazed over expressions or the “deer in the headlights” look of utter fear. Needless to say no matter how I try, they are just are not getting it." ; Good evening fellow Toastmasters, friends and guest...

The speech was one of my typical attempts to provide valuable information, so I know that everyone gets my point or I at least hope that you all get that having a content rich blog and articles hosted on your own website domain is one of the most superior search engine optimization (SEO), Website Copywriting, Keyword Rich website content development strategies for small business owners...yada, yada, yada, and so on and so on...ok so enough already...

Here is an article that so eloquently addresses this issue and specifically the issue of "sell widgets and widgets are not sexy or interesting enough to write about". I would love to hear your feedback... Enjoy!

5 Content Strategies for Boring Brands

“If people aren’t talking about you, they’re not talking about you for a reason. And the reason isn’t that they dislike you. They’re not talking about you because you’re boring.” ~ Seth Godin

The formidable challenge for marketers of boring brands is that you have to present content that is remarkable and interesting even when your product—on the face of it—is not.

So, how should you get people to take interest in a boring brand?

The key is in distinctive presentation. Every brand has a unique story about its origin, its people and its experience. The solution is to find an authentic theme, apply creative imagination and tell your story in a way that will attract and retain people’s attention. What was widely perceived to be boring could become inspiring or at least interesting to a group of people.

Let’s face it. Boring products solve legitimate problems. QuickBooks, toilet paper and dentures fulfill a need just as much as, if not more than, smart phones, cool music and fashionable clothes. If your brand is one that solves a problem but doesn’t easily spark the imagination, here are five strategies you can use to attract attention.

Come to the rescue

Just like good brands, good content solves problems. Boring brands have the same opportunity as everyone to share information that improves customers’ lives or helps them to do their jobs better.

Roberts and Durkee knows this. In 2008, this run-of-the-mill law firm used content marketing to become the de facto consumer advocate for victims of the Chinese drywall problem that hit the US market toward the middle of the decade.

They created a website/blog called chinesedrywallproblem.com to help thousands of Florida homeowners whose homes were built with toxic drywall. The website provided pertinent information such as how to identify contaminated drywall, the toxins’ health implications, and the victims’ legal rights. This content strategy established Roberts and Durkee as the expert in Chinese drywall problems and resulted in tremendous business opportunities for the firm.

To create content that solves problems, ask yourself:

What kinds of emergencies are happening in my community?
Are there particular groups in need of someone to speak up for them?
How can I create content that helps them resolve these problems?

Reach out to your community

If your product does not generate excitement, create content that showcases your readers’ lifestyles, interests and passions instead. Focus your content on the consumer rather than the product and encourage conversations that resonate with your community.

Procter & Gamble – the makers of Gillette razors, Head & Shoulders shampoo and other everyday brands – createdManOfTheHouse.com as “the real man’s magazine,” packed with compelling advice on guy-to-guy topics such as money, careers, gadgets, parenting and, of course, sex.

The site specifically targets young dads and connects with them via Facebook and Twitter as well. By December 2010, manofthehouse.com attracted over half a million unique visitors per month.

To reach your community with your content, ask yourself:

Who do I want to attract?
What is their lifestyle?
What are their interests and preferences?
How can I provide a forum for them to discuss these issues in a conversational, entertaining fashion?

Do something completely unexpected

No matter what kind of product or service you offer, there’s no reason for a boring presentation. Any product can be showcased in a way that is interesting, appealing, even surprising!

Agilent Technologies produces measurement instruments that help scientists, researchers and engineers measure variables in chemical analysis, life sciences and electronics. Ho hum, right? On the contrary.

Going completely against type, Agilent resisted the typical dry technicalities in favor of the truly unexpected: a puppet show. The highly engaging Agilent Puppet Chemistry is so far removed from the company’s brand image, it immediately captures interest.

Want to go against the grain?

Brainstorm a list of adjectives that describe your company and then research their opposites. For example if your organization has a serious, demanding and dull environment, you could research ideas that are entertaining, relaxing and fresh. Then create a mix of content that matches those ideas and presents your company in a totally unexpected way.

Play to your strengths

A lot of people equate content with writing. But writing (blogs, e-books, white papers, books, etc.) is just one way to create content – and it’s not for everyone.

No one knows this better than Gary Vaynerchuk, founder of Wine Library TV. Gary, by his own admission, couldn’t write to save his life. So he doesn’t. He video blogs…and he does it extremely well.

His very informal yet highly energetic style, frequently described as an unpretentious, gonzo approach to wine appreciation, offers a stark contrast to everyone else’s dry, conservative approach to wine culture. Most wine bloggers simply publish a written article and then wait for visitors to subscribe. Gary, on the other hand, loves the camera, is passionate about wine and comes across like a familiar dinner guest, relaxing in your living room.

To play to your own strengths, ask yourself:

How do you prefer to express yourself? If you enjoy being in front of the camera, try video blogging and inject your own personality into the content. If you prefer to look people in the eye and feed off of their energy, speaking engagements or training opportunities might be your vehicle.
Do people easily recognize your gifts or talents? Perhaps you’ve been told that you have a ‘golden voice’ or a ‘way with words.’ Maybe they’re onto something. Explore your talents and find a complementary outlet to express them.

Encourage people to talk…about anything

Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research Analyst and co-author of Groundswell, recommends that boring brands encourage people to talk–even if it isn’t about the brand itself. By borrowing a relevant topic and encouraging conversations about it, boring brands become part of the conversation.

Social media presents the perfect opportunity to apply this “borrowed relevance,” as Bernoff calls it, because conversations are already taking place there that are not product-centric, pushy or self-promotional.

A good example is Liberty Tax, a tax service franchise (yawn)…with a Facebook audience of over 6,000 people! A quick look at their Wall reveals how they use a variety of tactics to engage their customers and create a lively atmosphere. They discuss Groupon deals, hold photo contests, show appreciation to different members of the community (teachers, policemen and firefighters, etc.), and so on. They also make taxes fun (no, really!) by giving away free tax apps, and offering advice and tips on little-known tax credits, refunds, etc.

Without a doubt, distinctive presentation is the key to a boring brand’s problems. But it is not without its stresses. Breaking away from the comfort zone is risky and may open you up to criticism. I think Barry Gibbons, former CEO of Burger King, hit the nail on the head when he said: “Ho-hum. We swim in an ocean of ho-hum, and I’m going to fight it. I’m going to die fighting it.” If Burger King recognizes the importance of distinction, I think lesser-known brands ought to be taking notes.

Over to you: Are you fighting against being boring? What strategies have you employed?

Source: Author: Patricia Redsicker -March 17, 2011 Patricia Redsicker is owner of WordView Editing a copywriting and social media consultancy in the Baltimore area. http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/03/boring-brands-content-strategies/

Guaranteed strategy to increase your website rankings.

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:12:00 GMT

by Shafik Mansur -

A blog attracts both new visitors and search engines to your site. Providing fresh content on your blog can increase the frequency of search engine spider visits and this promotes the ranking of your site in search results as an authoritative web site. The higher your site ranks in searches, the more likely qualified potential customers are to visit it and make a purchase or engage your services. Your blog simply makes your website easier to find. Your content in the blog is there to attract, acquire and engage customers. Here is a guaranteed approach to using keywords properly to increase search engine rankings of your website.

Your blog posts should not only be relevant to your business’ products, services or industry, they should make ample use of the important keywords that people associate with your business. A keyword is a word or phrase that relates to your niche. These keywords are used to search for your business on the internet. Google, for example, even provides tools to allow you to determine the best keywords related to your products or services.

These words should then be generously incorporated into your blog posts in a natural density that is both readable and logical. The subjects of your blog posts can be taken directly from your top keywords. In addition, by working your location or business name into the blog post text, this will provide clear associations of your keywords to your location and/or business to the search engines.

Avoid over use of keywords by writing for humans. The complex algorithms that search engines use to rank sites have evolved to the point that simple keyword stuffing is considered an unethical practice because what you actually do is use the keyword in question throughout the text suspiciously often. Having in mind that the recommended keyword density is from 3 to 7%, anything above this, say 10% density starts to look very much like keyword stuffing and it is likely that will not get unnoticed by search engines. A text with 10% keyword density can hardly make sense, if read by a human. Google some time ago imposed a penalty for web pages that are keyword-stuffed and over-optimized in general; will result in lowered rankings. As long as your blog posts are written for humans to read and understand, then you should have little concern over possible ranking penalties for using keywords in your posts. A good rule though is to keep your keyword density around 2%. That percentage is for each keyword or phrase, not for all the keywords you might have in that post. If your keyword density is too high it can appear to the search engines that you are keyword stuffing. With the Google keyword tool, you can enter a few key phrases from your blog post and find out which terms are being searched, then nudge your post in that direction … go on, try it. It’s fun. There also is a tutorial to help you figure out how to use this tool and you can find it here.

Portfolio - RedberryDesigns.com

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:43:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

Whew...Shafik and I have been working on our portfolio and updating some social media pages for our business. We are amazed at how much work we did in 2010 and how many new Redberry Designs creations exist because of that work. Please take a moment to visit our new portfolio... if you know anyone that needs a fresh look for 2011 please share it with them as well... http://www.redberrydesigns.com/

Findability! It's all about building a resource rich community...

Redberry Designs is an agency specializing in Online Marketing Solutions, Brand Identity Consulting and Website Design and Hosting for Small Businesses. Website design, development and content marketing is all about developing compelling brand messages that resonate with the target market and ideal clients and is most effective when used strategically and incorporated into the fabric of your business. Creating effective conversational based content and encouraging client engagement through the use of social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Buzz etc.), online public relations, online community platforms and emerging web technologies is part of Redberry Designs' commitment to the sustainable success of small businesses.

Use this link to check out my Google profile portfolio... A Google profile is very effective way to organically promote your businesses...contact a Redberry Designs team member to learn more about other ways we can help you optimize your findability! Contact Us Now!

CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING IS NOT...

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:39:00 GMT

CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING IS NOT...

by Jannice Almansur -

Not a substitute for high quality products and services. Companies with less-than-stellar reputations can converse with consumers and the mere act of conversing will fool some of them some of the time, but such engagement realistically has little tangible impact if consumers are not satisfied with what you are selling them.

Consumer perception is based primarily on the quality of the products and services you provide and improving those things is often not easy for companies. If you are not providing your current clients with a quality interaction with your products, services or support then this approach may not be the best option for you unless you are trying to get honest feedback to fix your issues. Expect not to be able to ensure the conversation is one-way or the other, you cannot control the feedback, that’s a risk you take when you open your company up to negative feedback & truly understand the importance of the word ‘social’ in social media. Best practices around customer interactions are the only route for success with conversational marketing.

Conversational marketing is not...

Not marketing through interrupting (i.e. Viral Marketing, Spam, Banner Ads, Pay-Per-Click Marketing)

We are all aware of the annoying series of advertisements that we must endure when we do not have TIVO, or the 20 seconds of ads that precede that latest viral video that you are trying to watch, or the flashing banner ad for insurance or mortgages on the site you are visiting. Marketing through interruption is the advertising concept that says put the brand and message everywhere, on buses, on television and radio commercials, on blimps over football stadiums, in glossy full page magazine ads and on t-shirts and other swag. It is the marketing equivalent of "Shock and Awe". It does not seek to build relationships, it does not look to understand the customer's true needs outside of focus groups and psychometric data-mining nor does it care about how much you may dislike it or wish it to stop. It is increasingly brash, loud and obnoxious, like a stalkerish masher in a singles bar as the night nears last call. Consumers seek any method available to shut it TIVO, by averting their eyes and attention away or by simply tuning it out.

Conversational marketing is not...

Not about driving streams of unqualified traffic to your website

Rather than trying to generate huge streams of traffic to your site, whether unqualified or not, in the hopes that some visitors will stay long enough to perhaps click a link and purchase a product, subscribe to your newsletter or engage your services, Conversational Marketing seeks to attract the correct target for your specific products, services or expertise and instead focuses on fulfilling their needs. The concept of marketing by real-time two way interactions allows you to capitalize on your expertise and passion about your subject. Instead of spending your time trying to attract clients by shouting at them with ads, you can engage them by providing what they need most...Help to get something done and education on how to do something, or even just by entertaining then or engaging them in relevant topical events.

Conversational marketing is not...

Not accumulation marketing

Conversational marketing is research, discovery, planning, strategy and implementation. This means that it is not a quick fix. You need to be in it for the long haul. With the exception of those of you that consider "Writer", "Video Producer", or "Spoken Word Artist" your profession, it will not be easy, but it will be worth it in the long-run. Through this approach you will build a portfolio of "Brand Assets" that would be the envy of any Fortune 500 company, but they will be uniquely yours...uniquely your story.

Conversational marketing is not...

It is not an excuse to continue to engage via unsuitable marketing techniques.

Poor product and customer support will cause some social media contact points to be used as the best place for consumers to share bad customer experiences.

Conversational marketing is not...

Not overly generalized

The process and results delivered are your unique prospective on topics and information of interest to your audience. So you should not be talking about puppies when you are an expert on roofing, foundations and house framing. First while everyone loves puppies, you need to respect your audience's time by giving them exactly what they are looking for without unrelated fluff. Next the key to success this marketing approach is providing valuable content that educates, answers questions or entertains. So, keep specific and keep in on topic.

Conversational marketing is not...

Not ego-driven (Me, Me, Me marketing) - Gimmicks - "get anything quick" schemes

Don't be so inwardly focused that you forget that it is also about content that starts with you giving them resources! Just keep in mind that it is not marketing through interruption, it is about providing value and don't be afraid to promote others who have valuable information that your audience will appreciate knowing about. Content sharing is a great opportunity to showcase other great vendors, because you are only as good as your resources, if you have great contacts with other businesses that offer services that compliment and partner well with yours and your audiences needs, it is a great win for you and them!

Conversational Marketing Is... Learn more

CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING IS...

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:42:00 GMT

CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING IS...

by Jannice Almansur -

Uniquely well suited to small businesses budget friendly - does not take a large investment in fact many techniques are DYI. Removes barrios between you and your community. It is with friends, family, relatives, colleagues (your community). Being an expert resource within a niche (you do one thing and you do it well).

Conversational marketing is...

Marketing via online social media sites

No cost for entry (they are free...sign-up and get started today)
Topical relevant (extreme growth in user subscriptions: multi generational, ethnic, gender)
Most relevant and popular (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogs i.e. Blogger and Word Press)
Easy to use no special skills required
Real-time - interactions (two-way communication) A two-way interaction
No location barriers
Helps you drive qualified traffic back to your website.

Conversational marketing is...

Affordable and powerful with real measurable outcomes

As smaller organizations that do not have huge budgets that they can just throw money at every approach out there and see what sticks, it needs to be an effective budget friendly approach. Even choosing to work with a professional company to set-up sites, develop and manage strategy and maintain communities are affordable to most small budgets. If you can't currently make investments, DIY options are plentiful, there is information everywhere on the web to help with most aspects of getting your business on the right track.

Conversational marketing is...

Helpful, educational, entertaining, relevant (timely)

The concept of marketing by real time two-way interactions allows you to capitalize on your expertise and passion about your subject. Instead of spending your time trying to attract clients by shouting at them with ads, you can engage them by providing what they need most...Help to get something done and education on how to do something, or even just by entertaining them or engaging them in relevant topical events.

Conversational marketing is...

Smart and requires planning and strategy

Conversational marketing is research, discovery, planning, strategy and implementation. This means that it is not a quick fix. You need to be in it for the long haul. With the exception of those of you that consider "Writer", "Video Producer", or "Spoken Word Artist" your profession, it will not be easy, but it will be worth it in the long run. Through this approach you will build a portfolio of "Brand Assets" that would be the envy of any Fortune 500 company, but they will be uniquely yours...uniquely your story.

Conversational marketing is...

Very specific and targeted to your ideal clients

Once you get clear on who is your ideal client, what they want or need, and how you can fill that need, then fulfill that gap with the information, resources, tips, tricks and how to's...In a word "content", then you will have under your control the most powerful marketing approach of the 21st century.

Conversational Marketing Is Not... Learn more

Happy New Year

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 06:25:00 GMT

To our wonderful clients, dear friends and family...best wishes for an prosperous and rewarding new year....

Latest Video Production by Redberry Designs - My Journey into Midwifery

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:44:00 GMT

by Shafik Mansur -

As part of the Redberry Designs process for developing content for your website project, we often create videos as a very effective medium for conveying and promoting your message, products or services. For Miami midwife Sheila Simms Watson, we created a video that told her personal story of how she became a midwife. Using her existing bio that was on her old site, we broke it up into about 30 one to two sentence tracks in a script format and simply had her read the text out loud. We utilized AudioAcrobat's conference line feature for Sheila to call in and record the script at her convenience. Once the completed audio file was downloaded, we used Adobe® Soundbooth® to separate the file into individual tracks, trimming dead air and removing false starts. The edited tracks were then reassembled into one audio file and the sound quality enhanced.

In conjunction with the website development of Spirit of Life Midwifery by Redberry Designs, we had accumulated many images and videos from Sheila of her mothers, babies and births. We selected the ones that we felt best conveyed the emotion and tone of the video subject and then created our video using Adobe® AfterEffects® and PremierPro®. Here is the finished product. My Journey into Midwifery.

Click here to visit Sheila's Spirit of Life Midwifery Facebook page to see how Sheila has leveraged this video content to create buzz around her business and stay top of mind in her existing community. Provide high quality niche resonating content and they will share. Here is a screenshot of Sheila's Facebook page showing the shares and wonderful comments made by her friends and fans after they viewed her video.

Featured Article: Do You Need To Clean Up Your Act?

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:46:00 GMT

by Shafik Mansur -

“Unless you are a trust fund baby, or maybe a honey badger, you probably care very much what people think about you and the impression that you make when people meet you.„

You may be a well respected professional in your community, a college student nearing graduation or perhaps a small business owner trying to grow your business and network, your future success is very likely going to be influenced to a large degree by those immediate impressions that prospective customers or employers have when they interview you or inquire about your services or product.

Finely crafted resumés and well polished LinkedIn pages are very important, but what do you look like on Facebook? or in a Google search? Have you been tagged in photos on your friends’ pages at a party where things may have gotten a bit wild? Are there posts directly attributable to you that reveal your intense dislike for another person or company? Or perhaps you have been active in web forums posting on controversial topics? Are there photos or even videos of you that show you in a less than professional manner?

In the increasing flurry of participation in social media, and the often unrestrained sharing of personal information, photos, videos, thoughts, reactions and general commentary, some people are forgetting one critical thing…what happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet.

Just about everything that you blog about, comment on, or post online lingers in digital vaults ready to reemerge at the command of the correct search term! A recent survey by CareerBuilder.com shows that 53% of employers use social networking sites to screen candidates as part of the hiring process. You can rest assured that your customers and clients are doing the same before engaging you and your services and products.

Now, before panic sets in, there are steps that you can take to remove the unsavory items that people may be finding and there are methods to reduce the chances of again being victim of a bad online reputation. In short, you need to clean up your act using the three step process of Repair, Restrict and Replace.

First things first, do a simple Google search for your name with quotation marks at the beginning and end to restrict the search parameters to just your name. Then try searches using any easily identifiable user names that would be a quick match for your real name. Do the same using Bing and Yahoo searches as well. If there are any questionable or negative results about you coming up in searches, then you start the first step which is repair.

Repair...

If the items are coming from your own social media pages then it is simply a matter of deleting them at the source. Be aware that this will not make the items disappear from the search engines’ caches immediately. It can actually take weeks and sometimes months before search results are updated after the offending image or questionable posts have been deleted.

Now if you are finding images, posts and references on other people’s pages, then you will need to make contact with the person that has posted the items or has administrative control over the content and request that it be removed. If you have difficulties with this, there are legal actions that can be taken to force the removal of unauthorized photos or content from other person’s sites.

You should also do searches within the social networking sites that you are active on to scan for any posts, images or references there. You may also need to take a hard look at the “friends” that you may have on your pages and whether their own public images or content might be detrimental to your goals. While you can control what you are putting out so far as your personal image, you cannot control what others are doing. Sometimes difficult decisions have to be made about removing people from your social media pages unless you have effectively segregated your networks into private and public groups.

My niece who is now a few years into her corporate career was shocked when a Google search revealed her full name on several posts on some of her relatives and friends' Myspace pages and her pictures had been tagged there with her name. While there was no harmful information directly about my niece on these pages, her friends' Myspace pages were quite an affront to decency in terms of lewd graphic content and degrading depictions of women. Her full name and her own pictures were coming up in searches and linking directly back to the other parties' pages. The sad part was that due to her lack of understanding of the power of personal branding at that time, there was no other information being found in searches that reflected her true identity, professional credentials or professional image.

Fortunately, she was able to have her name removed from the offending pages. She then deleted all the content and personal information off her own forgotten Myspace page, then she deleted that account. In short, it is a good idea to use an alias for your private social networking pages where only those people whom you know well can be part of the conversations and where your privacy settings are on high to prevent these occurrences. In addition, be aware of how others may judge you based on your friends and acquaintances even if they are just online friends.

Restrict

So now that you have completed the repair process, you take steps to prevent unwanted personal content from reaching the search engines again. This is the restrict phase. The goal here is to prevent having to do another big clean up in the future. All social media sites provide varying levels of privacy controls to restrict what information is being made public or available for searching.

Your goal is not to make yourself invisible, but rather to restrict what can be seen publicly by other parties and who can post on your pages. Once your clean up has been completed, you should lock down your privacy settings on Facebook, MySpace or other social media sites that you use to prevent image tagging by others and having your wall posts unrestricted. You may wish to restrict some photos to only friends, while leaving others open for the public. The desired outcome is to allow searchers to see that you are a normal, interesting, well rounded person with friends and activities, not some Unibomber crackpot or a exhibitionist barfly.

Replace

The final step is replace, here you are going to take a very strategic effort to replace all the images and online content that you have now removed with fresh new digital content that reflects your personal brand, that image of you that you want the world to see and the one that will make you the successful person that you want to be. This is a really important stage and one that should be done whether you had to repair or not, and it’s also the part that I enjoy the most when working with our clients at Redberry Designs, because you are going to be getting pictures taken, you will be making videos, writing about yourself and creating that dynamic online persona that reflects the image that you want the world to see.

You have to take the reins and show the search engines who you are. You will first go and get your own web domain in your own name, then proceed to register your own Facebook name, your own Twitter name, YouTube channel name, LinkedIn name…etc.
Then create a Google profile that highlights you, your skills, talents, professional achievements and then link all of your new social media networking sites and your "repaired" pages to your new Google profile.
Point your new web domain name to your Google profile or to the publically accessible Social Media page that best provides a complete reference, such as your LinkedIn account.
Post your new professional images on new Flickr, Picassa and Photobucket accounts taking care to tag each picture with your name.
Upload your new videos to YouTube also making sure that they are tagged with your name, and post your new articles on your new personal blog.

In no time at all, sometimes within a matter of an hour depending on the site you are posting to, the search engines will begin finding all the new content now online and those potential clients, customers, employers and even dates! will start seeing what you want them to see about you. Continue to check the progress of your clean up act every couple of days. You will have now effectively cleaned up your act using the three step process of Repair, Restrict and Replace.

About the Author: Shafik Mansur is CEO and Director of Marketing of Redberry Services and Redberry Designs. Redberry is an Agency that offers Branding, Website Development and Hosting Solutions and a full portfolio of business conversational marketing and brand identity solutions for small businesses. To learn more and to download FREE business tools and articles, as well as join their mailing list, visit the Redberry Services or Redberry Designs website at http://www.redberryservices.com. You may print this article for personal use or republish it online only if it is left unaltered and in its entirety, including bylines, links and author information. Contact the author for all other permissions.

HOW TO: Share your content in real-time

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 02:02:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

Adapted from: an article written by Liz Metcalfe and adapted from an original piece from Microsoft Home Magazine.

Sharing a great story, resource, tip or how to article with your clients and community has never been easier.

by Jannice Almansur

Thanks to a growing number of blogging, photo-sharing, and social networking websites, such as Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Your Own Blog on Your Own Redberry Online Business Solution website, clients, prospects, friends and family no longer have to wait until you get home to hear about your tips and resources. Video on creating blogs on Redberry Design...

Free and easy

Most social networking sites are free and easy to use. Some, such as Facebook and Twitter, enable you to tell your friends what you're doing, Facebook allows up to 200 photos per album and unlimited number of albums, and you can blog about your adventures. Your status is instantly shared on your wall to let friends know you've recently updated your space.

Others, such as Flickr, Picasa, Panoramio, and Photobucket, specialize in hosting photo or video galleries and slide shows. Your Redberry website allows you to post unlimited amount of video via embed codes. This is another great way to post your photos, share stories, and keep everyone up-to-date on your activities. Users can have multiple blogs and journals, upload unlimited photos, and pass on their individual URL to friends who can check on their site any time they want via RSS feeds.

"The quickness and ease is excellent," says Shafik Mansur, whose Over In Noonday personal blog is a great way for him to share his eclectic tastes on many topics from food, photography to music and the local history of the Noonday area. "It changes the prospective," he says. "People have already seen where you've been and the conversation (when you see them next) starts from that."

User-friendly

When you're on the road, traveling through different countries or soaking up the sun or just conducting your daily errands and client appointments, it has become common for you to take tons of photos and then share them with clients, friends and family. On these user friendly sharing sites technical issues are uncommon and are so user-friendly, you don't need to be a computer whiz to use them.

What you will need:

A digital camera or camera phone
A computer (either your own laptop, or a computer located in a hotel, library, cyber café, any computer with internet access—the options are increasing daily)
A media card reader, if your laptop doesn't have one
You might also want to keep a car battery charger and AC adaptor for your charger, if you use rechargeable batteries.

There are also apps that allow you to share your text and photo posts from cell phones directly to Facebook,Twitter and other social media sites. Facebook mobile is a valuable resource to share post to other websites or even directly to your own. Use this link to learn more about Facebook Mobile. Windows Live also allows you to e-send blog entries and photos right from your cell phone to your Redberry Designs website blog address, from anywhere in the world where your phone has Internet access. Your friends and family just have to check your Windows Live Space to see exactly what you're up to—as you're doing it!

It can be helpful to have a Wi-Fi phone for easy access to the Web when you can't get to an Internet café. I had a Hewlett-Packard iPAQ camera phone with Wi-Fi capability that allowed me to access the Internet anywhere I could find a wireless signal. During my trip to Europe, I even found free Wi-Fi hotspots at inexpensive hostels.

Photo-editing on the fly

If you want to modify images, there's a wide range of photo-editing software to choose from. Windows Photo Gallery comes free with the Windows 7 and Windows Vista operating systems. Its Auto Adjust feature can automatically lighten and sharpen a too-dark photograph with just one click. You can also fix red eye, crop photos, and change color photos to beautiful black and whites—with just a few clicks of your mouse.

If the computer you're using doesn't have Windows 7 or Windows Vista installed, you can also use online photo-editing services at sites like Phixr, GIFworks, or Picnik to make quick changes. The Microsoft Professional Photography site is an excellent source for additional information.

Microsoft Research has been working on some cutting-edge editing software that takes your photography to the next level. Microsoft Photosynth transforms regular digital photos into three-dimensional, 360-degree experiences that change the way you experience and share photos. Photo collages celebrate important events and themes, and Microsoft AutoCollage lets you create a unique memento to print or e–mail to your family and friends.

Where to find wireless access

Web access is available pretty well everywhere these days. Most hotels and cruise ships offer wireless services that allow you to access the Internet from a laptop in your room. If you don't want to pack your laptop, many provide Internet facilities with computers.

Free Wi-Fi is available at many cafés and some restaurants, including many Starbucks and McDonald's locations. If your laptop has a wireless card, just click your wireless icon and ask for a display of available wireless networks. You can find a directory of free Wi-Fi locations on the Wi-Fi FreeSpot Web site. While Wi-Fi hotspots provide a valuable service, it's important to keep security in mind when accessing any Wi-Fi network. Wireless networks range from paid services, such as T-Mobile or Boingo, to free connections at your local coffee shop or library, but they all have one thing in common—they're all open networks that are vulnerable to security breaches. And that means it's up to you to protect the data on your PC. Get 7 tips for working securely from wireless hotspots.

On my road trips, I favored full-out Internet facilities, which provided computers and even webcams. Full-size keyboards are definitely more comfortable than cell phone keyboards. Sites like EasyInternetCafé provide links to Internet cafes in several cities. Simply search for your city and get a map and contact info for the closest café.

When booking your hotel or other lodging, you might want to ask about Internet access. "An Wifi Internet connection is part of my criteria when I book a hotel," Shafik says. Technology has helped make travel a shared experience. Not only can you send e–mail to family members back home—you can show them what you're up to at any given moment, and where you're off to next. For many people, it adds a new and exciting dimension to getting things done and to working and traveling remotely.

About the Author: Jannice Boyd Almansur is CEO and Managing Director of Redberry Services and Redberry Designs. Redberry is an Agency that offers Branding, Website Development and Hosting Solutions and a full portfolio of business conversational marketing and brand identity solutions for small businesses. To learn more and to download FREE business tools and articles, as well as join their mailing list, visit the Redberry Services or Redberry Designs website at http://www.redberryservices.com. You may print this article for personal use or republish it online only if it is left unaltered and in its entirety, including bylines, links and author information. Contact the author for all other permissions.

The Growth of the Internet

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 06:34:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

It's all about the 4C's...Content - Credibility - Conversion - Customer - Taking a closer look at the First C - Content Part 1

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:49:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

The website is the center of your branding, marketing and advertising activities, with your social media, product packaging, and sales promotional pages acting as reflections of your brand. Your site is where you direct customers, partners and prospects to give them an introduction to you, your services and products and the standards of quality and service they can expect from your relationship.

It's all about the 4C's...Content - Credibility - Conversion - Customer, so let's take a closer look at the first C - Content.

This is one of my favorite sections of the valuable 4C's conversation, because if you do not get anything else out of it you need to get this part!

The truth about the web - If you are not really ready to brand yourself properly on the Internet then it is probably better that you stay off of it until you are ready to do it right because...

A professionally branded website needs to tie in and integrate seamlessly with your business growth and marketing goals. Because as I have told my clients many times before you, your produces and your services are your true brand, you need to be diligent not to muddy and ruin your brand by putting yourself and your business out on the web improperly.

Redberry Designs provides our clients with websites that are fully integrated on the right business platform to contribute to their success... It's All About the 4C's... The 4C's explain how your website should work with your business and if it does not, then you really should not be doing it at all...

It needs to be...Fresh and Updated

It needs to have a...Clear Message

It needs to be...Creditable

The web is a visual medium!!

We have all universally had this experience...and so have your potential prospects.

You land on a website of someone or something that you are trying to learn more about either to purchase a product, service or get information from an expert.

First impressions - when you land on the page if it does not look right, not quite laid out right, graphics are off, unprofessional, not clean, crisp or clear...You get a negative gut reaction from the visual messages that this site conveys...

Now imagine for a moment that this is your site that we just landed on from our search that is triggers a thoughts of "red flags", or "questions of legitimacy", "lack of credibility" or even "questions of integrity"....Now what do you think this person's reaction will be? Yes, you are right first if you said that "you have lost every opportunity to ever do any business with this customer forever." They will leave quickly and never return and might even advise their friends and colleagues of the same.

Anyway who could blame them for that reaction, because unfortunately there are a lot of shady people in this online "playground". So the take-away here is that you need to make sure whatever you are putting out there as your content is well branded and lends to your credibility. You want to be sure that those prospects and customers that land on your site have the instant feeling that "Yes, I am in the right place! I found the right people to help me"... Oh and of course you reinforce this when they call you by providing your consistently great customer service.... So you have a vision for your future, but is that vision infused into your website as well your online business strategy? Well it should be! Website design begins with great content and ends with satisfied customers.

Win #1 Good content addresses your customers’ information needs!
- Many people still believe that building a website is a static medium. That you just put it out there then forget it. But the truth and what they are missing is that 90+ percent of the web users of today are searching for content. Whether it is to make a buying decision, to get information on a specific topic that they find of interest, or just to be entertained, they are looking for good, fresh and valuable content.

Win #2 Search engines and "Social Media Mavens" love fresh, high quality content.
- This is all about helping your Search Engine Ranking efforts. It is true that the search engines will "crawl" your site again and again devouring fresh high quality content. And the same can be said about "Social Media Mavens". They are that set of Internet users who have not touched a "phone book" or "Yellow-Pages business listings book" in years and may not even know what I am referring to as a business listings book.
- Win #3 achieving the first two wins ensure you own your traffic. "If you don’t own your traffic, you don’t own your online business."

What does owning your traffic really mean?

Well, owning your traffic means that through a combination of things like your articles and blog postings, content from your social media sites and email newsletters, you are putting out valuable free content to your audience that establishes your business as a credible authority.

Giving things like for example

ü "How-tos"

ü Product Reviews

ü Latest Tips

ü History-Of

ü Customer Interviews

For an example we had a client who had been a lingerie buyer for many years for a major retail chain. She had started a lingerie business selling out of her home to her friends, was ready to take her business to the next level. She approached us to design a lingerie site for her. In our process of developing her branding and marketing strategy we suggested that she provide her online customers with how-to articles and post on a blog from her site. This turned out to be a really big win for her that she had not really thought of before. By putting out how-to information for mothers in a certain age group who may have teen and pre-teen daughters who are buying certain types of lingerie for the first time and giving them information on how to determine the proper bra fit and what styles of undergarment are best paired with what clothing to achieve popular looks. This is just an example of the types of information that you can provide that set you up as a creditable authority within your field.

Tying social media pages into website content strategy

Here are my top three tips on the best way to make your social media sites work with your website and overall online marketing strategy. This is what we have found works with all of our customers regardless of the industry, product or service that they are offering.

Tip#1: It's all about "Building a Community" and keeping them engaged!

The website tools of a well developed online community strategy are...

ü Blogs

ü Forums

ü Journals

ü Comments sections

ü FAQs

ü Newsletters

ü Secure Zones

ü Podcasts

ü Videos

Use these tools to make it social! Don't let your business be left behind. Keep your audience up to date on your business, trends in your services, new developments, how to tricks and tips and industry updates.

Tip#2: Take advantage of the whole social media revolution going on in the web today!

Create a space for you to engage your audience where they are spending an increasing amount of their time with the things, people and places that are important in their lives.

If you have not already done so...Create a Facebook page today and use it. Let me give you something to think about.

Facebook is a social networking website launched in February 2004

The website currently has more than 400 million active users worldwide.

Tip#3:Always lead them back home.

Yes engage them where they are, but make sure that you are leading them back home (to your website). Remember that owning your traffic means that you own your online business. Simply put, use your social media sites and really any external website as a tool to drive traffic back to you own website. The Redberry Designs hosting solution has a powerful blog and forum built right into our platform. This allows our clients to keep all the search engine optimization (SEO) created from posting on the blog and forums on their site. So we advise our clients to post a great article on their blog, and then share the link to that article to their social media sites. That way when someone engages to post they are led back to the website; where you have an opportunity for them to see all of your products and services in a single visit, so now you own your own traffic.

So to sum it all up, when we are talking about great content it is the combination of using your articles and blog posts, your content from your social media sites, and email newsletters in a way that keeps you fresh and top of mind, keeps your relevant with what is actually going on the world at large.

It is all about content that starts with you giving them resources! Just keep in mind that it is not marketing through interruption, it is about providing value and don't be afraid to promote others who have valuable information that your audience will appreciate knowing about. Content sharing is a great opportunity to showcase other great vendors, because you are only as good as your resources, if you have great contacts with other businesses that offer services that compliment and partner well with yours and your audiences needs, it is a great win for you and them!

Just keep this in mind...

The original assumptions that Online Business Goals and Brand Strategies can be developed after success is achieved are no longer valid; due to the size and complexity of the marketplace. The business model of today requires that even small operators implement coherent future minded online and branding standards in order to achieve any level of sustainable success.

About the Author: Jannice Boyd Almansur is CEO and Managing Director of Redberry Services and Redberry Designs. Redberry is an Agency that offers Branding, Website Development and Hosting Solutions and a full portfolio of business conversational marketing and brand identity solutions for small businesses. To learn more and to download FREE business tools and articles, as well as join their mailing list, visit the Redberry Services or Redberry Designs website at http://www.redberryservices.com. You may print this article for personal use or republish it online only if it is left unaltered and in its entirety, including bylines, links and author information. Contact the author for all other permissions.

Conversational Marketing by Jannice Almansur

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 06:36:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

Jannice Almansur of Redberry Designs discusses new trends and methods in marketing and the move from interruption marketing to conversation marketing, niche marketing and content marketing that are uniquely well-suited for small business.

Qualities of A Great About Page for Your Blog

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 06:37:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

1. Has your truly unique personality all over it

2. Tells your story in an engaging way

3. Accurately sets your readers expectations

Your “About” page should highlight your distinct personality, share a quick story or two about yourself and what readers can expect in the future from your updates.

What is an “About Page”?

An ”About Page” is a single page of the blog devoted to telling readers a little bit about yourself and the topics you’ll be covering on your blog.

Your “About Page” gives readers a contextual reference point and quickly tells them if this a topic that they will enjoy learning more and engaging with you on. This way readers make a choice to participate or not.

The key is finding your voice! When you tell your story you also need to bring the reader along. Just think about it this way. The stories that really get your attention are those told in an interesting way. This can be challenging when writing, but through the use of vividly robust words and descriptions you can make your stories come alive and resonate with the reader.

Share your back-story!

Your readers will appreciate learning about why you took to blogging in the first place. So don’t hold back tell your unique story and let them see behind the curtain.

Happy Blogging!

20 Fabulous Ideas for Great Face To Face Meetings

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 06:39:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

Article below reposted from CMI Blog:

20 Ways to Deliver Content that Engages at Face-to-Face Meetings

By JOHN NAWN | Published: JULY 8, 2010

First, what do we know about how adults learn in order to deliver content that engages them?

Today’s meeting attendees are:

Self-directed: Involve them in the learning process
Knowledgeable: Leverage their experience
Goal-oriented: Define clear objective and outcomes
Relevancy-oriented: Learning must be applicable to their work
Internally motivated: Relate learning to their interests.

Given these characteristics, it’s no wonder that the traditional ‘sage from the stage’ lecture format used in most meetings is no longer cutting it. Today’s attendees are looking for a more immersive meeting experience and following are 20 ideas for delivering one.

Appreciative Inquiry: A process for approaching change from a holistic framework using three core phases: discovery, dream, and design.

Body Voting: For any size group, ask individuals to stand or sit based on their answers to questions.

Buzz Group: A small group (the buzz group) breaks off from a larger group in order to generate ideas to take back to the larger group for disucssion or decision making.

Case Study: An in-depth investigation of a single individual, group, or event to explore causation in order to find underlying principles.

Critical Incident: The telling of an individual experience (a critical incident) in story format, which is analyzed for its significant contribution to an activity or phenomenon.

Fishbowl: A small group discussion or demonstration observed by a larger, surrounding group. Open fishbowls have an open chair available for audience members to cycle in and out of the conversation. Closed fishbowls don’t allow for substitutions but the entire group can be replaced by another.

Graphic Recording: A visual record of an event using images, symbols and words. Great for summarizing conversations and connections.

Ignite: Similar to Pecha-Kucha (see below) except using 15 slides for 20 seconds per slide. (5:00 minutes total)

Jigsaw: A small group technique where participants are paired with experts to learn a subset of material and then rejoin the group as instructor on the subset material.

Mashups: Like it’s musical roots implies, a collection of seemingly randon people and their ideas making beautiful conversation together.

Mini-Lecture or Lecturette: An abbreviated presentation, sometimes followed by a facilitated discussion for the remainder of time alloted.

Open Space: A flexible format focused on an important purpose or task, but beginning without any formal agenda, beyond the overall purpose or theme.

Pecha Kucha: A fast-paced, fun presentation using 20 sides for 20 seconds per slide. (6:40 minutes total)

Poster Session: A presentation of peer-reviewed research information with an academic or professional focus. Prominent at scientific or medical conferences.

Simulated Encounter: An experiential format designed to represent real-life scenarios like a sales call or customer service interaction.

Spectrogram: An interactive exercise which highlights the range of perspectives in a group. A facilitator asks a question and participants line up along a continum.

StorySLAMs: Like a poetry slam but no rhyming required. Topics can be open or themed. (5 minutes per story)

Tweettups: Sometimes planned, sometimes spontaneous group meetings, think ‘Happy Hour’ for the Twitterati. Invite and R.S.V.P. via Twitter only.

Unconference: A facilitated, participant-driven conference format centered around a theme or purpose.

World Café: A conversational process based on established design principles.

Each of these presentation formats are designed to increase engagement and foster a greater sense of community among your attendees. And who can argue with that?

So when it comes to a content delivery strategy for your conference, meeting or event, keep these design principles in mind:

Promote interactivity: Active learners retain more and apply more of what they learn to their jobs. Stop lecturing to your attendees. Get them more engaged with each other using a wider variety of presentation formats.

Create (more) informal learning opportunities: Research shows that approximately 80% of what we know we acquire through informal learning opportunities, not formal training programs. Don’t leave this to chance at your meeting via coffee breaks, luncheons, or social hours. Create contests, challenges, or assignments, complete with goals and objectives, which your attendees will want to participate in. They’ll leave better prepared to implement the new ideas they’ve been exposed to.

Empower PowerPoint: A tool’s utility is only as good as its user’s ability. If you must use a presentation tool, give more thought to what you’re trying to communicate and how best to do so. For some fresh perspectives on presenting ideas or data, see http://www.presentationzen.com/ and http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/.

Google Challenges Bing's Photosynth; Adds User Photos to Street View

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 06:25:00 GMT

by Shafik Mansur -

Google Street View has made a few headlines at RWW lately - once for getting itself into hot water in Europe and once, notably, for bringing Street View's photo-tour features into retail outlets... read more h ttp://networkedblogs.com/p28699795

BerryPatch

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 05:45:00 GMT

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Welcome to Redberry Designs' Berrypatch Blog!

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:50:00 GMT

Redberry Support Services, LLC offers clients a professional office assistant service that operates with consistent quality control and client care as directed by our management team. Most importantly, our professionals customize services to meet the objectives and goals of each individual client.Supporting small business owners, by giving them more time to do what they are passionate about – Our goal is to give back to our clients some of the precious time to improve their lives and grow their businesses.

Feel free to grab a cup of tea and a cookie, put your feet up and take a look around. You'll find heaps of great content and information about my business, and there's plenty of goodies.

I hope you enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think!

“Center of The Universe“ Syndrome?

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:42:00 GMT

by Jannice Almansur -

“Center of The Universe“ Syndrome?

The diagnosis: Center of the Universe syndrome, an overwhelming sense that all responsibilities revolve around you and land on your shoulders. Symptoms include an all-the-time feeling of being bogged down with so many “must dos” that there’s no time for “want-to-dos.” The malady eats away at energy like a low-grade fever or a dull, achy pain.

The cure: Delegate, delegate, delegate! Just because you are feeling overwhelmed and are beginning to shutdown, will not make the root causes of the issues disappear. As a business owner or professional you need to know when it is time to delegate.

Steve Chalke offers a check list of things to consider for delegation:

Delegate things you are good at
Delegate things you are bad at
Delegate work which will provide experience
Seek opportunities to reinforce talents
Delegate routine decisions Take 10 minutes to think of 5 things you could delegate tomorrow using these categories.

– The Teal Trust, http://www.teal.org.uk/et/page7.htm

Some leaders find it very difficult to relinquish control especially if it is something that directly affects customer relations or the bottom line. If you find though that you consistently work longer hours than your support staff and can’t keep on top of your prime responsibilities it is time to look at how much (or how little) you are delegating. The small business owners and independent contractors find that the need to relinquish tasks to a support person becomes critical to the health of both their businesses and their work-life balance (personal lives). No one wants to take the out–of-whack universe syndrome home with them each night. Outsourcing your business operations work to a business support service makes it very easy to get just the amount of support you need without the expense of costly in-house staff. A strong office or business support service will have systematic processes and offerings, and are in a position to more truly serve client needs and expectations. When researching who to make your office support partner, use these guidelines:

What is their standard turnaround time? Because some projects may require more or less time, make sure that they are flexible enough to allow for unforeseen obstacles.
Do they offer complementary consultations? This allows you to get to know them better as well for them to learn your expectations. Here is a list of suggested questions for you to ask during a consultation:
What was your background prior to providing these services?
What positions have you held?
How many years of corporate office level experience do you have?
How would you rate your skill level (you might ask this in reference to certain skills or software competencies relative to the services you need)?
What is their communication policy? How and how often will they communicate with you? Will they email you project status reports? Basically, you want to make sure that they are flexible enough to allow you to feel comfortable knowing that your project is receiving the level of attention that, if you had the time, you would provide yourself.
Most of these services require some sort of monthly retainer contract. You need to make sure that you understand what you will be getting each month for this service. Make sure that they clearly explain how they bill for hours; what tasks are performed; and what happens if the task exceeds the contracted time. Will they inform you that your billing is exceeding your monthly invoice prior to completing the service?

You’re the captain of your dream, you have the power to sail it to success or capsize it with fear. The fear of handing over the details of your vision to someone else can be palpable, but in the end, the tendency to overload undermines progress and leads to anger and resentment, and self doubt, then ultimately failure. “True, balanced people learn to prioritize,” says Alan Loy McGinnis in his book, ‘The Balanced Life: Achieving Success in Work and Love’. Realign where you are spending your time and renew your commitment to growing your business. Making a sales call or completing a service for one of your clients is what you love, so why are you spending most of your time updating websites, creating print media, setting up HR files or making the countless calls it takes to produce an effective meeting or event.

About the Author: Jannice Boyd Almansur is CEO and Managing Director of Redberry Support Services, LLC. To learn more about RBSS and the full portfolio of business support services that they provide or to download FREE business tools and articles, as well as to join the RBSS mailing list, visit the Redberry Support Services, LLC website at http://www.redberrydesigns.com or http://www.redberryservices.com. You may print this article for personal use or republish it online only if it is left unaltered and in its entirety, including bylines, links and author information. Contact the author for all other permissions.

Portfolio

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 03:46:00 GMT

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A few words about Redberry Services

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:36:00 GMT

Redberry Services is an agency built out of a passion for making our clients the best that they can be. We are not a template mill nor are we driven by self promotion. We do not believe in the me, me, me marketing that alot of folks practice in the online social media marketing space.

We are small, but we are equally very high touch. We care too much about getting it right to worry about fads. The work matters to us and we are not strangers to working hard for our clients. We do the heavy lifting so that you can do your core business. Our folks don't fit the mold; we are creating our own way each day. We're thinkers driven by action. We are what every small business owner needs in order to compete. Our agency specializes in research, discovery, action, and implementation. We are not trying to change you only shine a bright light on your positive features. Like any lover of art would, we are bringing to bear the creativity; technology and strategic marketing supported by a world class platform all delivered in a complete partnership driven online business solution.

www.RedberryServices.com | www.RedberryDesigns.com

Why We Blog?

Simply because we have so much to say...We are discovering so much new information every day, that even we find it hard to keep up with it all. So we know that our clients will find the resources we provide here helpful in making sense of it all. We specialize in working with small business owners, who have an overwhelming need for high quality professional marketing and branding solutions that are budget friendly.

Every day we monitor the many channels out there with excellent and valuable content, then consolidate the best of these messages and break them down into easily understandable tips, resources and how-tos. So when we say that we do the heavy lifting for you, this is an example of what we are talking about. Our value to our clients, and really to anyone that comes in contact with us is our ability to listen, comprehend, quickly find resources that support your needs and to act as a guide in implementation. Our gift to ourselves is being a gift to others. Here in the "Berry Patch" blog we share resources and information on everything from marketing, branding, online presence development and management, social media, and website strategies that are uniquely well suited for small businesses.

Why We are in Business?

Shafik Mansur is my husband and business partner. We started this agency out of a desire to make a difference in and to connect with our local area. He has always had an excellent eye for new trends in art, music and is a historian with a love of great music and languages.

I, on the other hand, tend to be a consummate workaholic. I truly get excited by creating a great plan, laying out a project and strategic plan. It may sound a little odd to others, but to each his own. Our concept for Redberry Designs and Redberry Services is all-about providing a comprehensive solution for small businesses. In many ways we want to provide for our clients the affordable high quality solutions that we had wished were available to us as a small business owners.

So here we have combined a solution that takes into consideration branding, marketing and providing more that just a website, but more so a full service hosting platform with a powerful completely integrated database, content management, eCommerce and email marketing solution. We give you as a small business operator the powerful tools to level the playing field, allowing you to compete with the big guys...We put you back in control of creating lasting success!


	Redberry Support Services, LLC offers clients a professional office assistant service that operates with consistent quality control and client care as directed by our management team. Most importantly, our professionals customize services to meet the objectives and goals of each individual client.Supporting small business owners, by giving them more time to do what they are passionate about – Our goal is to give back to our clients some of the precious time to improve their lives and grow their businesses.