Weekly Round-Up: Social media engagement, a natural keyboard and Bristol to Brooklyn

Apple Day poster for Windmill City Farm

This week we've enjoyed some warm autumn sunshine and falling leaves, despite the occasional downpours. As the Wildscreen film festival ends today, more seasonal events are gearing up to take place, including a fun day of activities hosted by Windmill City Farm for National Apple Day. Also coming up next weekend is Bristol's Day of the Dead music and arts festival, happening in the amphitheatre, with fireworks and live music.

We've had a busy week in the office with meetings and networking lunches, as well as delivering A4 presentation folders to a client, and designing new flyers for the staff salary surveys company D3 Group. We've gone live with a teaser site for a great new environmentally friendly product from Ifore; if you are interested in rainwater recycling then watch this space.

For businesses using social media:

Does your business use social media? For companies yet to develop a strategy, it can be daunting thinking about how to generate engagement and converting social media engagement into sales. Here are some useful tips on how to approach selling, including being focused on solving problems for customers and the importance of connecting, engaging and really listening to your customers.


For Facebook specific tips on improving engagement, simple ideas such as keeping posts short, visual and well-timed can go a long way. If concerns arise when people start to 'unlike' your brand on Facebook, and it's not clear why they have opted out, these figures and suggestions offer some surprising insights into reasons for 'unliking', with helpful solutions; one of which is simply quality over quantity!

For some more advice on generating leads from your community and connections on social media, take a look at this article from Socialmouths, with ideas for Facebook, Twitter and blogging.And for one more lesson in how to successfully extend a brand to social media for a 360 degree experience, apparently we must look to Las Vegas!

Art, design and technology:

This week we've been noticing how established companies redesign their logos; Here sees some well known logos, but with one key difference- the font has been changed to Comic Sans (the notorious type face that designers love to hate). It's interesting to see how the perception of each logo changes with this one, outrageous alteration. 

 Oleg Tarasov's redesign of a well known logo

We were intrigued to see photos of this Japanese cuboid floating monolith; an unusual combination of aluminium and helium; a heavy floating object at over a ton, but strangely elegant.

The Natural Keyboard by Robbie Tilton, via Design Milk 

Our favorite office based design of the week is a keyboard- something we use everyday,a  fundamental and practical piece of equipment. This natural keyboard designed by Robbie Tilton goes against conventions of modern technology, opting for organic materials and a look that feels connected to nature.
We're always on the look out for new and ingenious apps, and we like the way this new app delivers news to the iPhone, going against the traditional structure.
Lastly, a Bristol based project focused on the best of the area's street art, music and film has flown over to New York for a project: take a look at From Bristol to Brooklyn.

If you've featured any news, articles, tips or ideas relating to social media, design and online marketing, please share them with us using the comments box below!








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