Search engine optimization — SEO — may seem like alchemy to the uninitiated. But there is a science to it. Search engines reward pages with the right combination of ranking factors, or “signals.” SEO is about ensuring your content generates the right type of signals.

Our chart below summarizes the major factors to focus on for search engine ranking success (and thanks to Column Five Media, for the infographic design).

The Search Engine Land Guide To SEO explains factors in more depth…click here to learn more…

AS Designs proudly announces the development and launch of QuickEventz™.com.  QuickEventz.com is a FREE, all-inclusive, map-based community calendar, providing a central site for finding events, fairs, festivals, sports, fundraisers, showings and other community events that are happening in a local area.  The goals of QuickEventz.com are to bring people together, and make it quick and easy for visitors and locals alike to attend events they enjoy as well as help make events successful.

“As a schoolteacher and community member, I have always wanted to have a fast way to find out what is going on in my neighborhood,” says QuickEventz.com founder Patty Gutzeit. “With this website and, soon a mobile app, I can find and share the community events I want to see and participate in.”

Developed by AS Designs & Services LLC

Created by, AS Designs & Services, this new website makes it easy to discover what’s happening in a local community, all mapped out using Google Maps.

“Working with Ian and his team has been a great experience for everyone on the Quick Eventz team,” Patty said. “It’s very satisfying to have an idea come into existence that can be such a great resource for the community.”

Posting Is Free and Easy

Listing an event takes less than 60 seconds using the QuickEventz.com easy-to-fill-out forms. Events are categorized making them convenient for users to search.  Categories include culture, art, music, food, sports, festivals, garage sales, auctions, and more.  Organizers who have multiple or ongoing events should contact QuickEventz.com about bulk uploads.

Social Sharing and Advertising

QuickEventz.com offers a variety of tools to promote events including social media options (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), an event promotion tips/tricks blog (www.QETips.com), as well as a paid advertising option.  Successful event promotion benefits all site visitors.   QuickEventz.com is committed to supporting their user base in promoting successful, and well-attended events.

For more information www.quickeventz.com.

Screen Captures:

• educator and marketer, Cymber Quinn
• social media expert, Taryn Fowler
• ASDS pooh-bah, Ian Hatch.

This video covers the entire marketing cycle and how Social Media fits into the big marketing mix. We briefly touch on the differences between Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and more.

Best of all, you’ll learn how a surfing Easter Bunny got 19,000 likes.

We welcome your questions and comments here on our Web Development Blog, Facebook, Google+ or Twitter pages, and look forward to seeing you at our next class soon.

Mahalo to all participants for making this a fun class.

In 2008, Element Media, Inc. and the Pacific Edge Magazine staff developed the idea for the Annual Pacific Edge Magazine Business Achievement Awards to recognize the outstanding accomplishments, dedication and innovation of the local business community.  They created ten awards that are most reflective of the magazine’s values and features.

The Best Social Media Campaign category is described as: Social media has changed marketing in business and has become an integral part of a company’s communications strategy. Nominees in this category have utilized these tools successfully and tracked the impact of social media marketing on the growth of their business.

ASDS nominated our client Lava Lava Beach Club for their fairly new and wildly successful social media campaign.  To our surprise and delight ASDS was chosen as a finalist alongside Aston Hotels & Resorts and W.M. Keck Observatory.  ASDS’s Taryn Fowler who lives on Oahu got to attend the event with her husband Steven and represent our company.  In the end, W.M. Keck Observatory took the win for Best Social Media Campaign.

This is what Taryn had to say about the event:

“Steve and I were honored and thrilled to get to represent A.S. Designs as a finalist for Best Social Media Campaign!  It is great to be recognized for our company’s hard work and success with our eMarketing clients like Lava Lava Beach Club.  The event was filled with smart, innovative professionals who are really making a difference in our local communities.  

And even though we didn’t win, it was really special to be acknowledged as a leader in our industry among such an impressive crowd. Coincidentally, my personal friend Mae Russell from Aston Hotels and Resorts was also a finalist in our category, and I was pretty floored to be up against such a large corporate company! Either of our companies didn’t win, but we had a great time joking about it.  

I enjoy working at ASDS, and  my fearless boss-leader Ian Hatch is a pleasure to work for.  Ian not only leads a cutting edge company, but does it with integrity and really works hard to please clients, as well as show appreciation to his employees.  Our company is always growing, learning, and changing with the technology waves, I can’t wait to see what the future holds for ASDS! “   

Special thanks to Pacific Edge Magazine, Aston Hotels & Resorts, and W.M. Keck Observatory.

Towards the end of the class, one student asked the obvious question: “Why is it called ‘social’ media?” Truthfully, I answered, it is such a part of my day that I wasn’t really sure. So I went to find out.

Old School Media – 19th and 20th centuries

In the Old School media model, information was doled out to the population by powerful authority figures, who told you want they wanted you to hear. There wasn’t a way to easily respond (other than to buy the product), and it was next to impossible to find and connect with other like-minded people.

Information flowed one way. Advertising was crafted to reach the widest audience, and the lowest common denominator.

Social Media – 21st century

In the Social Media model, information now runs both ways between the authority source and the reader. This ability to communicate directly and immediately with the source of news is a major change in the way information gets handled. Because of its direct, one-to-many-and-back-again method, it’s called “social.”

But more than that, social media allows information to run around the authority source. And whole conversations about any topic can be discussed directly among all the constituents, regardless of their physical location.

The Cost of Social Media

In the Old School methods, we had to craft messages for the masses. You never knew who was going to see your message and it needed to be generic enough to make it worth the cost of producing and distributing it.

Now, Social Media is essentially free, and not only can we afford to pick a niche and fulfill it, we will be able to find the people who want this niche.

Building Tribes

In short, we will begin to build tribes. Fortunately, the concept of tribes is as old as humanity, so we aren’t completely re-inventing communications. We are implementing the next incarnation of tribes, facilitated by social media – Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and others.

Here’s a great TED Talk about how media has evolved from Old School to being social. We would love to hear your comments or experiences with social media.

This red carpet gala highlights the impressive achievements of Hawai’i’s leading companies, business professionals, non-profit organizations and outstanding K-12 educators.

This year AS Designs & Services was named as one of the Top Three Finalists for the Best Social Media Campaign for our work with Lava Lava Beach Club. We are very grateful to the Lava Lava Beach Club crew for helping make this a successful campaign.

Thank you to Pacific Edge Magazine for awarding us this high achievement.

http://www.pacificedgeawards.com

We’ll introduce you to

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google+
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Instagram
• Yelp and more
• How these outlets integrate and relate to “The Big Picture”

Where
AS Designs & Services offices
308 Kamehameha Ave., Suite 115  |  Map

When
April 30, 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Who
Anyone who wants to learn the basics of social media for business and internet marketing.

Cost: Free

Your Instructors: Cymber Lily Quinn, Ian Hatch, Taryn Wong Fowler – AS Designs & Services

To register for this class, please go to our Workshop Registration Page >>

* NOTE:  We will be broadcasting this workshop LIVE to the web.  You can watch and/or participate from your computer if you are unable to come in person.
Please register for more instructions.
Workshop Registration >>

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I used to read “Love You Forever” to both of my girls when they were little. Even thinking about it today, I still get choked up. It’s really a heartfelt story.  What I remember the most about it is that it uses imagery to tell a very significant story (as with most children’s books). The story is about a mother’s unconditional love for her son; and then chronicles her son’s life growing to an adult and starting his own family. The sad conclusion shows how he reciprocates his love to his mother who has grown to be an elderly woman. There are just a few sentences on each page but the story and illustration is powerful and you can even follow along without even reading the text.

This is how you should start thinking about your content strategy. Visual storytelling is certainly top of mind for marketers today; and with the rise of Instagram, Pinterest, Vine and Facebook’s recent Timeline redesign, it’s even more important today. But telling your brand story is more than just adding an image to each Facebook post or taking advantage of the news cycle and creating real time content like Oreo. The ability to tell visual stories requires a significant amount of planning and collaboration with internal teams (creative, brand, content); which means you need to deploy a social business strategy that delivers this effectively..

I came across this Slideshare presentation by Stefanos Karagos and had to share it. It’s one of the better presentations I have seen lately and illustrates my point exactly. I read through each slide and knew exactly what Karagos was saying as if he were presenting it directly to me.

Author: Michael Brito

Michael Brito is a Guest Contributor to the HootSuite blog, vice president at Edelman Digital (HootSuite’s PR firm) and the author of Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media in Your Organization. For additional insight, follow his blogBritopian.com

This post was originally published here: http://blog.hootsuite.com/content-strategy-like-childrens-book/

Developed by “yours truly” The AS Designs & Services NEW Mobile Application Development Team, the new app allows renters to see what listings Day-Lum has available at any given time. These are the same listings that are available on Day-Lum’s rental web site.

“We love the new app,” says Nancy Cabral, owner of Day-Lum Rentals. “We are thrilled to be able to give the properties we manage much greater exposure and accessibility to all potential clients around the world via our new Day-Lum app!”

Map-Based Rental Listings
The easy-to-use intuitive interface works like most other iPhone and iPad apps. Users touch the screen to view the rental listings in various different ways. An interactive map of the area shows push-pins that allow the user to click and see more information about a particular unit.

The Day-Lum Rental app also shows listing by the newest addition. In just a few moments, users can check to see what’s new on the market.

Makes Searching Easier

“Like most renters, we juggled the newspaper, CraigsList and a map. It was time-consuming to coordinate all that info and go looking for a rental,” says early adopter and Hamakua resident, Bob Conn. “With the Day-Lum Rental app, we had all their rentals in our iPhone. It was easy to look at a lot more properties in one trip.”

Future Improvements
In this first version of the Day-Lum Rental app, users can look at the Newest Listings, All Listings, Listings by Town, and Listing on a map. In future versions, users will be able to search by numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms, rent price, pet acceptance, and other options.

About Day-Lum Rentals & Management, Inc.

Day-Lum Rentals is the largest property management company on Hawai’i Island, providing the best service in residential, commercial, and association management in East Hawaii, along the Hamakua Coast and throughout Hilo, Puna and Volcano.

Our residential real estate-for-rent includes apartments, as well as one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom homes, oceanfront condominiums, and country ranches. Our commercial properties include office, retail, industrial, and
 medical office space. With 28 years in business, the helpful staff at Day-Lum Rentals in downtown Hilo will help you with all of your residential, association and commercial real estate needs.

www.Day-LumRentals.com

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Social media is not going away and for businesses it is not good strategy to simply ignore this communication tool. You wouldn’t ignore your telephone would you? Nope. So why would you ignore the most rapidly growing communication method – a method that allows your customers to not only connect with you, but to connect with others? Simply put, businesses who want to be around in 5-10 years must start engaging in social media and figuring out how to use it as an effective communication tool and marketing medium.

Many small and mid-sized businesses have set up a social presence. They have presences on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and possibly even YouTube. But it’s obvious that many of these businesses do not have the time or the knowledge to utilize these tools effectively in their marketing.

Does this scenario sound like you? If so, outsourcing may be the right choice.  Last week, we led you through how to make this decision.

If you decide outsourcing is right for you the next big step is hiring the right company to outsource to. Selecting someone to represent your brand is a big deal, and it should not be taken lightly. So how can you pick a social media/ digital marketing agency that is right for your company? Here are some pointers:

1. Experience - It is essential that when hiring someone to represent your brand you select someone who specializes in social media. This can be tricky as often many companies tack social media services onto their list of services. Oftentimes the same person doing SEO, content marketing, email marketing, and other tasks is also doing social media. Each of these areas is a specialty and to really know your stuff you need to be focused on one area. Look for experts who specialize in their own area – so your social media manager is not your SEO manager, and so on and so forth – they work together but each uses their own level of expertise to your advantage. Not to mention, this means more brainpower is devoted to their specific tasks!

2. Cost- You need daily activity on different social channels. But what does that mean? I am amazed at the number of companies that charge a very small fee to post daily – what does that mean? If they are posting only one thing and not talking to the community or interacting then your success is going to be minimal. Social media is more about interaction and constant community-building than the outright posts that push your message. It takes time to build lists, talk to people and keep a community going. Make sure you know exactly what is promised in that daily posting, and remember: You get what you pay for.

3. Strategy - Do you have one? You should. If a consultant or company is willing to take over your social media without some basic strategy and goals outlined I would question their approach. How will they know who to connect with, what to talk about and what to post and share? Your overall strategy for social media needs to be setup before you begin your outsourcing efforts. Or you should have the company doing your outsourcing setup a strategy that works for your budget, company etc. The level of strategy and cost can vary and will based on your business, budget, etc.

A beginning social media strategy can run from $1000-$3000 and usually incorporates a bit of integration into other marketing. Advanced strategy with research into competitors, audience evaluation, integration into business marketing plans etc. can run from $6000 upwards. It really depends on the business, their needs and budget.

4. Editorial Calendar – Your company should have a basic editorial/marketing calendar in place before hiring someone to outsource. This is something that guides all your efforts – but is especially important for social media and online marketing. If you do not have one in place and the company does not suggest creating one or indicate it as a valuable piece for your success, I would question their effectiveness as a social media management company. It’s a great thing to add to your checklist when talking to potential candidates.

5. Oversight of accounts - Look for a terrific team of community managers who are highly skilled and continuously trained. Be sure their work is monitored and tracked by both a social media manager and director which is how we assure quality work.

The original version of this article is posted at http://socialnicole.com/outsourcing-tips/.