Category Archives: Facebook Marketing

The Complete Social Media Image Size Cheat Sheet: [Infographic]

It’s a lot of pressure to stay active across every social media platform, and it can be hard to keep up with the latest trends and techniques. But like it or not, social media is here to stay. And entrepreneurs, business people, marketers, and others with a message to get out are taking notice. Why? Social media can be an enormously useful tool in the business world. You can boost brand recognition and loyalty, connect with potential or current customers, advertise products and ...

(Q) How often Should I Post on Social Media?

Social currency is an important metric when it comes to promoting your brand. Your likes, followers, pins, and posts all say a lot about your success, and the more engagement on your social platforms, the more likely you are to pull in clients. But how do you maximize engagement and get the most people to see your content? While there is no perfect answer, there are a few things you can do to optimize your social media strategy. Timing Is Everything Understanding when to utilize each of ...

On Creative Leadership

I have spent nearly a decade experimenting with a single goal in mind: to create scalable, predictably insightful, inspirational environments. I have led creative teams in these environments, and I’m currently doing it as the Director of Web Interface and Development at Astonish (a digital marketing company in Rhode Island, US). It hasn’t been easy, because forcing inspiration is impossible. You have to use finesse and let it come to you. What follows is what I’ve found to help my team ...

Analyzing Network Characteristics Using JavaScript And The DOM, Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, we had a look at how the underlying protocols of the Web work, and how we can use JavaScript to estimate their performance characteristics. In this second part, we’ll look at DNS, IPv6 and the new W3C specification for the NavigationTiming API. DNS Explained Every device attached to the Internet is identified by a numeric address known as an IP address. The two forms of IP addresses seen on the open Internet are IPv4, which is a 32-bit number often represented as a ...

Part 1: Mojo Motors Responsive Redesign With Fireworks: UX And Interaction Design

Thanks to strong mobile Web adoption worldwide, we have seen the launch of even more responsive designs in 2012 and 2013. Most of these have been in the publishing category, but lately we are starting to see complex transactional websites, such as Currys UK, take a brave step into this new world. For very well thought out reasons, Mojo Motors (a startup created in 2010 to provide shoppers with a better way to buy used cars) also just launched the first responsive website in the automotive ...

Designing For Digital Products

In digital culture, we are beginning to think of our output as products and of our clients as users. “Products” might be websites, apps or communities, and they might be created by startups, agencies or a couple of people at a hackathon. This shift mainly means that we have gotten serious about asking how to better serve users, which reflects a significant change in the designer’s skill set. Designers will use the same tools they have always used, but they are now responsible for more ...

Semantic CSS With Intelligent Selectors

“Form ever follows function. This is the law.” So said the architect and “father of skyscrapers” Louis Sullivan. For architects not wishing to crush hundreds of innocent people under the weight of a colossal building, this rule of thumb is pretty good. In design, you should always lead with function, and allow form to emerge as a result. If you were to lead with form, making your skyscraper look pretty would be easier, but at the cost of producing something pretty dangerous. So much ...

Key Ingredients To Make Your App Go Viral

A viral app is the highest achievement on iTunes and Google Play. It’s an app that customers eagerly share across the Internet, through social networks, email, and word of mouth. It’s like rocket fuel, and it is the best case scenario for an app developer because word of mouth is far more powerful than any paid advertising. Ad clutter is everywhere, and people just ignore it. No one trusts ads, and they cost too much for developers anyway. But humans have shared stories since we’ve been ...

InDesign Scripts And Plugins To Speed Up Your Work

Few applications feel as complete as Adobe’s InDesign. First released in 1999 as a direct attack against the then-industry standard, Quark, the page-layout application has been made faster and more feature-rich with each iteration. But even the best applications lack some features. Luckily, Adobe realized this some years ago and opened the doors to allow designers to expand this beloved set of tools through plugins. Many designers don’t realize how powerful InDesign can be, especially ...

Introducing Jelly Navigation Menu: When Canvas Meets PaperJS

It’s our great pleasure to support active members of the Web design and development community. Today, we’re proud to present the Jelly Navigation Menu that shows the power of PaperJS and TweenJS when used together. This article is yet another golden nugget of our series of various tools, libraries and techniques that we’ve published here on Smashing Magazine: LiveStyle, PrefixFree, Foundation, Sisyphus.js, GuideGuide, Gridpak, JS Bin and CSSComb. — Ed. There is no ...