As you may have noticed, we have a whole new look here at Adcuda, and while we now feel like the prettiest, smartest little SEO company at the dance, let me tell you it wasn’t easy. I cannot begin to tell you the number of hours we spent planning and discussing this new direction. There were lots of late night conversations about color, navigation bars, center justification and there may have even been some talk of putting our beloved Content Director, Jason, in a bee costume for some video features. But more than anything we focused on the user experience.

What happens when a customer lands on our page?

Do they know what to do?

Did we provide them with the information they wanted?

Did we ask them to engage with us?

Did we ask them to do…well, anything?

The user experience is critical to having a site that is conversion-optimized, or rather a site that asks your customer to do something. That something could be to buy your really cool thing or request information or download a form. Your website needs to put it’s arm around your customer and guide them through.

Oh, you wanted information on how to better market your product and/or services online? No problem. Here is a quick bit of information on how Adcuda drives quality traffic to your website to gain new customers and how to keep ‘em once they get there.

Sound interesting? Want to know more? Hey, how lucky for you that there is a Read More button right there!

Once you click through, the user experience is, again, laid out in an easy, arm around the shoulder fashion, based on what you *ahem* our newest customer wants to know.

It’s not an easy task. We do this for our clients everyday and we still had to remind ourselves to step back, take the “I” and “Me” out of the design and build for the customer. Heck, they are the reason you have a website in the first place. Aren’t they?!

Oh, and by the way the bee costume could be easily found, so, maybe if you ask him really nicely Jason will do a vlog next week in said costume.

How to make Twitter really engaging: 1 lime, 2 ounces of Cachaça, lots of ice cubes, copious amounts of sugar, a muddler, and your Caipirnha is ready to go. This Brazilian gem is good for just about any occasion. Tweet about it, tweet while drinking one, drink one out of a glass in the shape of a Twitter bird, etc. However it’s accomplished, your Twitter profile will thank you for it.

According to an eMarketing report compiled from a Sysomos survey, Brazil has made a significant leap to become the second most popular destination for Twitter usage. Closing in at around 9% total usage, the Brazilian Twitter phenomenon rose from their previous ashes of 2% usage in a matter of 6 months. Compared with the dominant Twitter popularity in the United States comprising of almost 51%, the leap does not seem relevant on paper. Yet, consider that the U.K. is lagging behind Brazil and you can slowly see the relevance that a trend can have on either simple conversational tweets or marketing a siesta novelty such as a Caipirnha.

Let’s say you are opening up a Kansas City neighborhood bar and have the food, spirits, and guy-who-plays-guitar-on-Wednesdays covered. The food is your average pub essentials and the spirits themselves are pretty status quo as well. The crowds are pretty tame for the beginning months and you have run out of solutions on how to make specials enticing again. What to do?

Dust off that laptop and start chirping! By throwing yourself out there looking for that one drink to rule them all you come across a successful Caipirnha bartender in São Paulo. He tells you about the sweet goodness inside each drink, the powerful kick to jolt your customers onto the dance stage, the numerous nicks from cutting limes and the evil pains from lime juice seeping into those nicks. It’s all there for you. Aside from that message resonating with your bar, the recipe skyrockets to every bar owner engaged in Twitter. Whatever invention you can muster to bring in customers will create viral conversations inside and outside your establishment. A social marketing plan such as this one will give your business that added spice to become more desirable, more noticeable, and the freedom to seek out more interesting recipes from Brazil and beyond. Who knows, by the time you’ve gotten the recipe for a Caipirnha memorized, Japan’s Twitter marketing could present the next big Sake. You’ll never know until you get out there.

I was at the grocery store yesterday having an in-depth conversation with my 8-year-old son about what kind of “meat” must be in those jarred spaghetti sauces in the pasta aisle – you know the ones I’m talking about? How is that OK to just sit out on the shelf like that? What must be in there?

Anyway, in the middle of our speculation I registered the intercom saying from overhead something to the effect of, “…follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more deals – something, something, food.”

“Apparently, the grocery store has a fan page,” I told my son, and he chuckled a confused chuckle asking, “What?”

Mmm, so I stowed it away and after dinner remembered to look up Hy-Vee Incorporated’s Facebook page… juuust to see what kind of action was being dealt on, again, a grocery store fan page. At work we’re constantly talking with clients about how to use this whole social media thing to engage and draw in customers, and yes, we’ve had to get creative more than a couple times, so this intrigued me.

And there it was, Hy-Vee was putting on a clinic how to use Facebook as a marketing tool. There are videos, there are pictures from an event they sponsored, they’re a company with over 55,000 employees and they’re actually interacting with fans on their wall! Sure, there are a couple spots that could be better and/or updated, but I was happily surprised, so much so I joined their throng of followers… yes, I am now a fan of my grocery store.

Just last week good ol’ eMarketer released a report comprehensively and long-windedly titled the “Reasons for Friending or Following Companies Through Social Media According to U.S. Consumers, December 2009”.

As you can see from the report, though people are most interested in getting the first word on deals and specials, they’re also seeking a bit of that personal touch by getting a sneak peek at new products and services. So, what does a grocery store have to offer? Why, the aforementioned food preparation videos, a little interaction with the fans by answering questions – that personal touch that shows they’re listening to you.

I suppose the question now is: what’s your social media plan? Can you compete with your local grocer?

To keep ahead of the pack, you need to stay fresh and honor new trends. The latest up-and-coming email layout breaks every width-requirement known to email marketing and asks people to scroll to the right instead of down. In theory it is just the same: you’re moving and clicking your mouse, but the act of pressing the ‘Right’ arrow instead of the ‘Down’ takes some getting used to. As it’s unconventional, it feel’s a little ‘wrong’, but at the same time it catches you by surprise and therefore demands your attention. Below are some great examples of the possibilities available through the ‘Scroll Right’.

– Hint visually that there’s more if you scroll – LA Times is great because the ink blotch trails out from the right side, catches your eye, and asks you to look at the whole thing.

- After you visually hint, you need to make sure you give a reward. LA Times’ reward is the news, Hollister’s is the heavily textured photo of the jeans, EEC gives a $100 off their subscription