Yesterday I told you that you should get a Google+ page.  I told you I decided my customers need a Google+ page.  They are kicking and screaming, but I am taking them there anyway.

Today, I'll tell you why.

I set up a Google+ page for Dry Clean Delivery Inc. yesterday afternoon, and around 8:00 this morning, I posted a link to them on my personal Google+ page, mentioning their name in my post and linking to their spanking new Google+ page.

By 8:41, a stranger had posted on my comment with a question.

At 12:30 pm, I Googled "dry clean delivery, charlotte." In the search results, Dry Clean Delivery Inc. was the first paid link.  There were two more paid links. 

The very first UNPAID organic search result, was Dry Clean Delivery Inc.

QR codes are not seeing the rate of success I expected when they first hit the scene. I'm not surprised to see businesses using them poorly, however I am surprised to see a large group of people who still don't know what a QR code is.

QR codes are basically square images that, when scanned with a smart phone, will take you directly to a web page with information you are seeking at that point. QR codes should be helpful and rewarding to the customer while building brand awareness and revenue for the business.

I have been increasingly frustrated at the amount of QR codes being used improperly. It takes a little time to use a QR code and a person should be rewarded for the effort. Using the QR code takes a few minutes - you have to dig out the phone, slowly focus and take the photo of the code, then wait for your phone to get to the website. When you finally arrive, if the destination is disappointing, you probably won't want to bother with a QR code in the future, thus giving the QR codes a bad rap and tossing the baby out with the bathwater as grandma used to say.

From my experience, here are some good and bad uses of the QR code.

 

Sure.... your customers like you.

Your friends like you.

Your mom likes you.

But does Facebook like you?

Edgerank is Facebook's way of "liking" you.  Edgerank is a search ranking algorithm designed to help Facebook choose which posts should be placed on a person's feed.  

Creating a business page and updating your status does not necessarily mean all your fans will see that status update in their wall feed. The default view for all personal facebook accounts is the Top News view rather than the Most Recent view.  The Top News will show the updates that Facebook has determined the viewer is most interested in.

I had a problem appear this week that I've seen before, but couldn't remember the best resolution for it.  

If you don't setup your ImageCache Presets correctly, you sometimes get caught with black stripes down the sides of your images.   In my case, this was happening in a view used on the Tyler Brothers website, in this case the page for Youth and Children's Carhartt clothing.

The solution to the black stripes is to define your "canvas" color within your imagecache preset.   Here's what I believe to be the best way: 

First, install the ImageCache Actions module.  This module gives you a great number of options to transform your uploaded images.  

Then, add a Define Canvas action.  The position of this action is important.  In my case, it needs to go between the Scale and Crop actions.