Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. The Social Business Revolution Daveed, like Internet Evolution Editor-in-Chief Mitch Wagner, thinks the idea of social business holds tremendous possibilities and is just getting started. Instead of simply using social networks to find new customers, a social business can find efficiencies in real-time collaboration, which breaks down physcial and organizational barriers. As Wagner writes, “Social business is much more than…
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Creating a Brand Online: Choosing a Creative Agency for Your Website
Trying to understand how your small business can become online friendly? This is the second article in our series “Creating a Brand Online”, where we provide straightforward advice for your small business as you create your online brand. Looking for an agency to design and develop your website is thought of as a stressful decision, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. Just like any other investment, it helps to be informed and have a clear sense of what makes different…
5 Digital Marketing Takeaways from PodCamp Toronto 2013
The Kobayashi Online team had a great time over the weekend at PodCamp Toronto, an annual “unconference” that brings together some of the city’s brightest minds in new media. Along with the other interactive sessions, we were especially excited to have our own Andy McIlwain present one of the stellar opening sessions. In this blog post, I’m going to recap some ideas that stood out in my mind from PodCamp both from the sessions and impromptu conversations. 1. Automating your…
Around the Office: QR Codes; Strategizing Facebook Graph Search; Opera’s Next Act, & More!
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. QR Codes on the Menu Caroline was inspired by the possibilities of QR codes when hearing about a sushi shop wraps their rolls with QR codes. Diners at Britain’s Moshi Moshi can scan their food with their phone for information on the sustainable fish they’re about to eat. We used QR codes to make the products…
Digital Marketing Trend: The Brand Film
Eschewing the restrictions of a slick, 30-second TV spot, brand films have emerged as a tasteful and compelling way to show what a brand is about. In contrast to a more straightforward commercial, a brand film can be thought of as a merging of a filmmaker’s vision and a brand’s core idea. Ideally, it bridges the division between art and commerce to establish a brand’s authenticity. One of the many notable brand films is Un Rendez Vous, which was directed by…
Around the Office: Peeking in on Vine; A Film on Viral Media; Sharing Secretly & More!
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. A Vine Hotline The makers of Twitter have devised a new social app called Vine which applies its predecessor’s length restrictions to mobile video clips. Just as Twitter is limited to 140 character Tweets, Vines are limited to six seconds or less, which many have found to inspire creativity. Andy has been kicking back and watching…
Creating a Brand Online: Using the Right Social Media for Your Brand
Trying to understand how your small business can become online friendly? This is the second article in our series “Creating a Brand Online”, where we provide straightforward advice for your small business as you create your online brand. Websites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have helped make the Internet a social place where people can connect, comment, and share. These “social networks” are the hubs where “social media” live, and they’re structured differently than old media like newspapers, TV and…
Around the Office: Great Collaborations, Automattic Acquisition, Native Advertising and More!
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. Being a Part of Great Collaborations A lot of people make the mistake of thinking they should take care of every element of a project, when they really would offer greater value to clients through collaboration with other specialists. Our friends (and collaborators) at Finesilver Design + Communications wrote a post on the power of great collaborations.…
Around the Office: I Spy at CES, Hashtag is the Word, A Toronto Symphony & More!
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. Future Spotting at CES We couldn’t help but pay attention to the new gadgetry unveiled at CES. Bored of his light and small phone, David was happy to hear about the new “Phablet” trend, which fuses a tablet and a phone into a device with about 5-inches of screen real estate. Andy dug some some Android…
Creating Your Brand Online: Defining Your Website Requirements
How can your small business become online friendly? This is the first post in our series “Creating a Brand Online”, where we provide straightforward advice for small businesses who are trying to understand how to translate their brand to the web. As your customers spend more and more time online each day, you can no longer afford to lack an online presence. But how to create an online presence isn’t always clear. Given the different methods and technologies available, you need to…