So what exactly is Facebook Home? It’s described by Facebook CEO as a “collection of apps” and provides Facebook features for your home and lock screen. Currently available only on selected Android devices, the software is still in its beginning stages, but has gotten a lot of recognition both supportive and well, not so encouraging. My opinion? I think it has a lot of potential and is great for a frequent Facebook user.

What makes it different?

Two features that are notable on Home are the “Chat heads” and the “Cover feed”. If you’ve updated your Facebook app on your iPhone or Android, you may have noticed that chats now appear in the form of a circle with your friend’s photo. These are the “chat heads” and you can move them around the page.

On Home, you can move chat heads outside of the app and they will be present on any app you use – mail, Instagram, Google Maps – until you close them. The idea is that it makes it convenient to chat with your friends without having to leave the app itself. On Home, this feature also connects with your SMS texting, so it’s not limited to just Facebook Messenger.

The “Cover feed” replaces your lock and home screen. When you unlock your phone, you will essentially see your news feed, but it will take up your entire background. From here you can swipe left or right to see the latest updates from your Facebook friends, so it doesn’t resemble the generic News Feed that you see on the desktop or mobile version of Facebook. It’s visually based.

How can it benefit your business?

Although there is no record of businesses doing anything innovative on the new platform, there are ways it can benefit your business because of the strong emphasis on visuals.

The cover feed, like a news feed, displays updates from both friends and brand pages. Utilizing features within Facebook like Facebook Offers, Ads, or Check-Ins will help to spread the word about your company. When someone claims an offer, their friends will see that claim on their feed as well, which inevitably gets your company’s name out there.

As a business, utilizing this is simple – use more visuals and engage with your audience. Show a behind the scenes of the company, snap pictures if you’re company is at an event, invest in Facebook Ads so your company appears in people’s news feeds. In other words, get in their face, but without saying “Hey this is my business”. Getting more engagement will ensure that your post will appear across non-fans cover feeds as well simply because their friend liked or commented on your post.

Remember, this is still in its earlier stages so perhaps it will be optimized for businesses in the near future as it makes its way to more devices.  Currently Facebook Home is only available on the Samsung Galaxy 3, Note 2, and the 4. It’s also available the HTC One X , the HTC One X+, and the HTC First. The HTC First is the first phone to have Facebook Home pre-installed into the phone itself. The others have to download it from Google Play.

The good thing about Facebook Home is that it allows you to toggle between it taking over your home and lock screen or just having your usual home and lock screen. So you won’t be stuck with it if you don’t like it, and it is possible to turn it off just like you would do with any mobile app.

Actually, in recent studies Facebook Home has reached near 1 million downloads in nearly a month’s time (released April 12, 2013). So with that being said, I guess it is catching on for people. As an iPhone owner, I can’t utilize Home since it isn’t available on iOS and any word of a release date for iOS devices hasn’t been announced yet – Bummer.

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Once again, MSM DesignZ, Inc. has received recognition for our hard work. Earlier this week, we’ve received word of our placing in the 2013 Hermes Creative Awards competition and let’s just say that we were ecstatic. MSM DesignZ, Inc. earned a total of six awards this year – four Platinum Awards and two Gold Awards.

The Hermes Creative Awards is an international competition that recognizes outstanding work by creative professionals worldwide. The competition is funded and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP), which is also involved with other well known international competitions such as the AVA Digital Awards, which we also won awards for, and the MarCom Awards.

Our new website was recognized once again, and earned two Platinum Awards, the organization’s top honor, one for our actual website and another for our mobile website. Two of our clients, Meredith Hayman and The First Bank of Greenwich, also earn Platinum awards for their websites as well. Another two of our clients earned the Gold Award: 9 Lives for Women in the Social Media/Blog category and Burger Barn in the Design/Logo category.

There were over 5,600 entries from throughout the United States and internationally this year. About 15% of these entries won the Platinum Award, the organization’s top honor. About 19% were Gold winners, another great honor, and 11% were Honorable Mention winners.

To put this into perspective, other participants who also won Platinum awards are well-known businesses and organizations, including some Fortune 500 companies! This includes (just to name a few) – NBC, Bloomberg, Con Ed, Best Buy, Mercedes-Benz, and even NASA! To be considered in the same standing as the companies mentioned is an honor and a great step for us moving forward.

We are only going to continue to grow and accomplish great things in the upcoming months ahead.

You can search for our name under the 2013 Platinum and Gold Winners section on the official Hermes Creative Awards website here.

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So, how can your business utilize the power of Pinterest?  Here are a few basic suggestions to get you started:

#1 – Lay Down A Game Plan

With the ability to pin just about anything and everything, starting and maintaining a Pinterest account can be very overwhelming.

First, and foremost, create your account profile.  It should include your logo, key words related to your business, and links to your website and affiliated social media channels.

Make it easy for people to pin things from your site!  Pinterest offers multiple free tools to make your website or blog Pin-easy.  Install them (Pin It button, Board widget, the Follow Me Button to include on your pages, e-mail footers, etc) to encourage people to follow and share your content.

Even if you are present on only one or two other social media sites integrate Pinterest with them.  Add Pin it buttons to your YouTube, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts and sound the Call-to-Action alarm to follow you on Pinterest.

As tempting as it is to start pinning and re-pinning everything in sight, you must take the time to consider how your boards will be organized to keep it from becoming a hodgepodge of (awesome) things.  Reflect on what you are trying to promote and plan your boards accordingly.  Boards should be consistent with their topic and category.  You want maneuvering through your boards to be seamless and engaging.  With so many boards to follow you need to ensure that you are providing quality content that will keep visitors on your boards.

#2 – Promote More Than Just Your Product

Pinterest is about more than individual products and interests; it is about the lifestyles they encompass. Do not solely self promote your products – pin content that portrays your businesses’ products, services, values, beliefs, and interests.   The idea is to create a presence that others relate to.

Make boards and pin things that relate to the lifestyle surrounding your products and services.  For example, a publishing house would pin things like quotes from their favorite authors, literary landmarks around the world, pictures of employees’ favorite places to read, etc; not just plugs for the titles they carry.

Give consumers an insight into the values and lifestyles that your business, and your employees, lives by.  A board including behind-the-scenes office hi-jinks or causes espoused by your business, such as fundraisers and charity events you have participated in, expand the conversation you have with consumers.  Usually limited to face-to-face interaction with a consumer, Pinterest opens the door for broadening the relationship with your consumer on a larger, yet intimate, scale.  Another good way to create a greater sense of community is to include pictures and quotes of people using your product or enjoying the service you provide.

Remember, Pinterest is a SOCIAL media platform, so be an active member of the community.  Follow other people, businesses, or individual boards.  Doing so will help you actively create a community of followers.

Balance content involving your products and services by showcasing those of others.  Promote people and businesses that you admire and respect by re-pinning and commenting on their pins.  In addition, track those that re-pin your content and make an effort to get to their boards and thank them!  It goes a long way and will increase traffic back to your own content.

#3 – Presence Is the Essence

Maintaining a presence on any social media site is like maintaining a garden.  As much as one would like to believe you can simply plant a few photos, sprinkle some quotes here and there, and let it all take root and manage itself, it doesn’t work that way.   Constant attention and maintenance is crucial to developing a bright, fresh presence in the community.  You must post original content that you truly believe in regularly, and comment often.

That is not to say that you should Pin-dump every opportunity you have.  Don’t spam your content – post a few photos every couple of days to stay fresh in the latest images category without overtly dominating any single category. This will help you from coming off as a dead-beat spammer.  Remember, your pin will be regularly cycled back to the top of the page as people re-pin your content, keeping it in view for many days.

With that goal in mind, it cannot be stressed enough to create and use as much original content as possible.   Do not use the same photo multiple times, even if it links to a different page.  Stock photos and popular images will cycle extremely quickly and few people will re-post the same image twice.  STAY FRESH!  Multiple tools exist to help you create original and eye-catching visuals and infographics, as well as measure the success rate of your pins.

As mentioned above, have a regular and consistent presence on your boards – people expect comments and inquiries to be responded to.  It is a great way to show your consumer that you care about, and value, them and their time.

These suggestions outline the very basics of what it takes to create and organize an efficient and useful Pinterest account.  Many, and more resources, abound to help you create original and eye-catching content for your website, insure the credibility of your pins, and track and measure the success of your own Pinterest account.  A concise and incredibly useful article with additional information relating to using Pinterest for your business can be found here.

Source: MSM DesignZ, Inc. is a Westchester NY web design firm specializing in SEO, social media, web and graphic design and much more.

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Show Off A Bit
Blogging lets you demonstrate your knowledge about your industry. It gives clients or customers even more of a reason to trust you and that you know what you’re doing. Displaying this knowledge will help your company by attracting outsiders to check out not just your blog, but your website as well.

Ultimately you’ll be seen as someone who is reliable within their field and can be a trusted source of knowledge. As a company, you want to give your clients or customers that reassurance, that way they’ll not only use your services, but will spread the word about your company as well.

Builds Links
Within your blog posts you can reference outside links, whether it is your own website or a previous blog post. It’s also good to link back to other bloggers as that will build an online relationship. Of course, by adding outside bloggers, you’re hoping that they’ll return the favor – either in their own blog or even on social media sites.

Also, blogs are preferred by search engines like Google and are often utilized for SEO purposes. As most of us already know, SEO is the top way to get your company noticed in today’s world that thrives off of the internet.

Gives You a Voice
Having that extra presence never hurts, especially on an unlimited source like the internet.

Think about it, someone may come across your blog without having to see your website first, which is usually how it happens if one is searching primarily for blogs. The blog can help with announcing the latest news within your company, or can just be a space to put your own two cents about certain topics or trends related to your field. And since it’s your blog, you can pretty much say what you want, of course keeping it within reason.

The key with blogging is to develop quality, relevant content so readers will continue to return to read your next post. That is ultimately what will draw in an audience, and then you can focus on utilizing keywords for SEO and share your content on various social media platforms.

Does your company blog?

Source: MSM DesignZ, Inc. is a Westchester based NY web design firm specializing in SEO, social media, web and graphic design and much more.

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What does a UX design even do?
UX design is essentially the “look and feel” of a website or product. However, it goes beyond a merely attractive looking design. UX designers focus on how a user will feel using a specific product or in this case, your website. The emphasis is placed on empathy. What I mean is – put yourself in your audiences’ shoes and see how you feel navigating certain websites. Some, as we know, are just a pain with overwhelming designs and effects, while others are easy to use and often have a clean design.

UX design is sometimes overlooked when creating a website because well, we’re usually just focused on having something to showcase our company and forget about the actual viewers. Thing is, it’s essential to remember who you’re targeting because you want them to have a good experience upon visiting your site. If all goes well, they’ll revisit it and that is what you want… or is it? (Answer: Of course it is!)

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Operation PROM assists students in need by providing opportunity, mentoring, and even scholarships. They have grown from their starting point – providing free prom dresses and tuxedos – and expanded to collecting donations of all types of clothing and even school supplies. Operation PROM has helped thousands of students to celebrate that right of passage – prom. By making these resources available, students are able to attend their prom for little to no cost at all.

        (Operation Prom Founder, Noel D’Allacco on FOX Good Day NY)

This year, the organization’s mission is to fully fund the prom of Channel View School for Research in Queens, NY which was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. Operation PROM has several locations throughout the U.S. and has partnered up with several organizations. They also have a wide selection of proud sponsors, including Men’s Wearhouse, Bloomingdale’s, Westchester Gov,  and of course yours truly – MSM DesignZ.

MSM DesignZ created and currently manages the Operation PROM website, in addition to managing their overall online presence, including social media.

For more information about Operation PROM, visit their website.

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I’m a big Instagram user mostly because I think it’s a cool way to share what’s going on in your life and is a breath of fresh air from reading statuses all the time. I actually just created my Vine account recently, and think it’s great for those who like to make things come to life. I’ve seen some pretty creative stuff on there like mini flipbooks or origami – all animated.

If you haven’t heard of Vine, it’s an app that allows users to record 6-second videos about, well, anything. I’ve seen inanimate objects moving from point a to b and drawings that comes to life. If you’re a public figure, you can also do a “day in the life of ___” to give followers an insight into your life. Vine is currently an age-restricted app, available to those older than 17 years old only. This is due to inappropriate videos found throughout the app. Vine is also currently available only to those on team iPhone.

Other recent apps assist us with everyday tasks like navigating, finding the latest news, or discovering new food spots.

Navigation
Waze is unlike typical GPS programs. Waze is real time traffic information posted by real people. This app will help you avoid traffic backups or accidents that other Waze users have seen or passed by, which is pretty cool in my opinion. I mean, how many times do we get stuck in traffic but we have no idea what’s holding everything up?

Music
My favorite is Shazam, which tells you what music is playing. Gone are those days where you have to Google the lyrics (that probably aren’t even accurate) just to find a song. Also, all of your “Shazammed” songs are stored as “tags” in the app, which is convenient when you’re listening to the radio for example. Other cool music apps are Spotify, which connects to the desktop software and Facebook, and of course, there’s the classic Pandora. Both are great for listening to you like and discovering songs based on what you already like.

Food
Grubhub and Seamless allow you to order food from nearby places AND have them delivered to you. How cool is that? If you want to try something new – Foursquare and Foodspotting are great apps to use for that. Not only will it show you nearby places, it will also provide you with reviews from other users so that you can have an idea of what to expect.

Daily Tasks
If you’re anything like me, you need to write down anything and everything just so that you won’t forget. Most smartphones come with a pre-installed notepad or reminder app, however if you want something a little more personal, Any.do is the way to go. It’s a task based app where you can list all of the things you need to do. They can be as general as “Organize room” or specified like “Pick up clothes from cleaners at 5pm”. Best part is the “Any.do moment” where the app goes through your list and you can change dates or cross them off as finished. Another task many of us do is gas up the car, and in these current times, many of us dread the day. But thanks to GasBuddy, it’s possible to find the cheapest gas around your current location.

With the number of apps growing on a daily basis, it’s impossible to cover them all in just one blog post. However, to give you an idea of what else is out there, you can find apps to help you with daily tasks, schedule or remind you of appointments, customize your news, and even remember where you parked your car. To find them, just check out the App Store, Google Play, or the Windows store to see which apps will work with your device.

What’s currently your favorite app?

Source: MSM DesignZ, Inc. is a Westchester based NY web design firm specializing in SEO, social media, web and graphic design and much more.

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You may have seen ads about creating your own website (sometimes for free), and it seems like a great idea, but we don’t recommend it. What’s happening is that developers are creating free or inexpensive templates, selling them to different “Create your own website” platforms and now they’re available for your use. You may be asking “Where is the bad in this?” and although it seems like a great – “Wow, I can create my own websites without shelling out so much money” – idea, truth is it’s a terrible move to make for your business.

Today, it’s essential for companies to have their own website because current and potential clients will visit your site at some point – guaranteed. But many of these same companies don’t want to bother with the hassle of reaching out to a third party to create and manage the site for them, so they take matters into their own hands, literally, and create their own website. The thought here is that they’ll bring in customers (leading to more money coming in) without having to pay a dime. Here are some of the major flaws that come with creating your own site.

Poor Design Choices
How many of you think that websites are easy to construct? (Hint: They’re not.)

The reality of web designing is, unless you’re trained in the art of design, you should not attempt to Do It Yourself. What will result is a poorly constructed, “cookie-cutter” website that looks pretty much like the other DIY sites. Yes, you can pick your own colors and add your own widgets, but even creating a proper color palette is a skill trained designers have an eye for.

With professional design companies, they can pretty much bring your imagination to life since they are designing from scratch. Whether you knew this, or not, people can tell if your site was made using a DIY platform because well, it’ll look like you did it yourself. If you’re serious about making your company a success, throwing together a quick site just to obtain an internet presence can do more harm than good.

You Don’t Really Own The Site
Essentially, this website is not yours. Think of it as renting – You own the content, but you don’t actually own the site. If (for whatever reason) you want to switch platforms, you can’t take your entire existing site with you, just the content. Say you are using a template you chose (not created), and now you want to take it and bring it onto a different platform – Guess what? You can’t because that template is for that specific platform.

If your company’s branding is instilled in this template, you’re going to have to pay someone to redesign it on the platform you’re moving to, or settle with picking something else. There is no true freedom to do what you please here, and you’re limited to what’s available. Some services even charge a monthly fee to “keep your site online”. Business owners would pay that fee for years, but once they stop, the site comes down and there is nothing to show for that money spent. With a professional company, you OWN your website.

Poor Rankings
A URL is a great way to place keywords for your company when optimizing your website for SEO. However, unless you buy your own domain, you can’t possibly hope to rank. If your company is hosted under “business.freesite.com” it will rank under that free site first, which pushes you down in rankings. Let’s face it, proper SEO is how your company’s site will reach better rankings on search engines and it starts with a well designed website.

If you aren’t paying anything, chances are you have a “yourwebsite.subdomain.com” web address. Now ask yourself, does that look professional?

Bottom Line
Many of these sites don’t keep up with current design trends. If you want to stay competitive, your site must always be up-to-date. But if you’re still on the fence about consulting a professional designer, just think about the many tasks you trust only professionals to perform. You consult with doctors when you’re sick, you consult with a mechanic when your car breaks down, so why wouldn’t you consult with a designer for your website?

Professionals are trained in what they do, so let real designers do their job and save yourself from creating monstrosity on the web. Represent your company the right way with a well-designed website.

Source: MSM DesignZ, Inc. is a Westchester based NY web design firm specializing in SEO, social media, web and graphic design and much more.

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2013 is definitely kicking off in a positive manner for MSM DesignZ. Two weeks after successfully launching our new company website, V6: Rebirth of Slick, we were notified yesterday that we won four 2013 AVA Digital Awards! What was actually a last minute submission, turned out to be yet another rewarding milestone for us.

The AVA Digital Awards is an international competition that recognizes outstanding work by creative professionals involved in the concept, direction, design and production of digital communication. The competition is funded and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP), which is also involved with other well known competitions such as the Hermes Creative Awards and the MarCom Awards.

Our new website was recognized and earned a Platinum Award, the organization’s top honor. Two of our clients earned the Gold Award: MRG Productions in the Website/Professional Services category, and St. Francis De Sales School in the Pro Bono Category. In addition, there was an Honorable Mention in the Pro Bono category for our client, Operation Prom.

There were about 2,000 entries that were judged for the 2013 year and they came from all over the USA, Canada, and other countries around the world. Companies that entered were all digital professionals – video/film, web developers, advertising agencies, and independent creative professionals, among many more. Only 14% of entries won Platinum Awards and 17% won Gold Awards.

To put this into perspective (which we are still trying to wrap our minds around), other participants who also won Platinum awards are well-known businesses and organizations. This includes (just to name a few) – Nintendo of America, US Army, Intel, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, and even NASA! To be in this company for setting the industry standard in creativity is definitely an honor and huge step forward for MSM DesignZ.

We are thrilled to announce our future plans to enter the Hermes Creative Awards competition coming up next month. The Hermes Creative Award recognizes the concept, writing, and design work of marketing/communication programs, as well as print and A/V materials.

You can search for our name under the 2013 Platinum and Gold Winners section on the official AVA Digital Awards website here.

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Follow all or select specific boards that you’d like to follow.

MSM Pinterest Board

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