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Client Corner: The Business Environmental Resource Center (BERC)

Energy conservation, water conservation, solid waste reduction, green building, transportation and air quality and pollution prevention – our client BERC knows what it means to be “green”.

BERC, or The Business Environmental Resource Center, provides free consultation for businesses in need of environmental regulation advice, making BERC a unique government agency benefiting the environment.

“It’s rewarding getting to work with small businesses and offering services to them in a free and confidential manner,” June Livingston, BERC’s Division Supervisor, said.

Among BERC’s reputable work, they administrate the Sacramento Sustainable Business Program.

“We certify businesses and organizations that voluntarily adopt environmentally friendly practices,” Livingston said.

To become certified, a business must adopt environmentally friendly practices in energy conservation, water conservation, solid waste reduction, green building, transportation and air quality or pollution prevention.

Livingston noted that change is constant in government agencies.

“In our program we are always adapting and trying to find ways to do things better,” Livingston said.

In creating change for BERC, Uptown Studios designed a new BERC logo and a new logo for their Sustainable Business Program. Uptown Studios became a certified Sustainable Business in 2010 through BERC.

“This is one of the very best services provided to businesses at no charge – BERC really helped us to become more sustainable – AND it was free!” Tina Reynolds, Principal at Uptown Studios, said.

On September 17, BERC will be hosting the 2013 Sacramento Area Sustainable Business Awards. Use BERC’s checklist to see if your business qualifies as a sustainable business. Then fill out a nomination form by July 31 to become a certified sustainable business. Join BERC and Uptown Studios this month and “Go Green!”

by Hailey Vincent, Office Manager

Being “Greener”

Being “Greener”

By Tina Reynolds, Chief Juggler

When we talk about helping you to be green – we are REALLY talking about becoming “greener.” We are here to help you embrace new ideas and ways to create your marketing materials, and how to get them into the hands of your potential customers, funders and clients. Even at 100% digital marketing there is energy that is used on your own computers and on the site hosts that hold all your files for your websites. So becoming “greener” is what we strive for.


If you have decided that you must print something we are here to give you options on what that printed piece should be…

1. A letterfold brochure - a common marketing piece, used most often to get your information into the hands of those interested in your services or products. Perhaps you want to do a little analysis on your area – how many people are utilizing the web? Maybe it is time to cut down on the size of your brochure and use a post card – especially if you are hoping to drive people to your website to get the full picture of what you provide.

2. The letterhead - Uptown Studios printed some letterheads when we moved into our new office on Alhambra. We ordered 500 sheets and we have 300 sheets left – AND we have been here for seven years now. A true representation of how businesses operate is the number of letterheads that you print out. We now set up a Microsoft Word document with your letterhead set up, including a font to use for the body copy – do your letter than send it as a PDF to your client… so much easier than setting it up and printing it out. Save those letterheads – or don’t print any at all and force yourself to use PDFs all the time – and you will also save on envelopes and the postage attached to that.


3. Note Cards - I, personally, like the use of printed note cards. I use them when I want to let someone know “this is special” and meaningful. And they are hand written. A little printed material can go a long way when it used really well – like a hand written note.


4. Business Cards - Never going away – well, not for a long time – ok they will be around for a while longer, and I love them. I like the process of handing them to people when I meet them, it is part of the meeting process that is one-on-one and the best way to engage people.


Give them away freely and often. Business cards are still the best single marketing piece you can have!

Tweeting For a Cause

Tweeting For a Cause

By Kate Moore, Multimedia Director

Donate a Tweet or Share to Your Favorite Nonprofit!

We all have charities we support and donate time and money when we can, but one thing we can do everyday is to follow their pages and share their posts and events.
In a report by All Twitter, the value of a Facebook share is $14, a like is worth $8. On Twitter, a retweet is worth $5 and simple follow is valued at $2. These numbers are based on what advertisers are paying to promote these actions.
Follow and become a fan of your favorite nonprofits and make a weekly plan to share their events, like and comment on their posts. Engage with them using social media to help them on their mission to make the world a better place.
For more information on the Value of Social following: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/value-social-following_b19416

The Social Media Schedule

head shot of Hailey Vincent By Hailey Vincent, Office Manager/Executive Assistant

As you’ve been reading through our May posts about social media, we’ve come across the term “overwhelming.” As just recently starting some social media maintenance here at Uptown Studios, I can relate to that feeling of being overwhelmed by social media. While it can be hectic at first, some simple tools have been developed allowing you to schedule posts and tweets hours, days, weeks, months and even years out. Not only can these tools make social media less overwhelming, they also help to make social media how we like it here at Uptown Studios – easy, fun and popular!

Two great social media management platforms out there are Sprout Social and its free, less in-depth competition site, Hoot Suite . Both of these social media management platforms have the tools necessary to keep your social media needs easy and fun. One helpful feature of these tools is the ability to track engagement and interactions on your social media sites. Another great tool these platforms have is the ability to schedule posts in advance. You can easily use the publishing tool to write your Facebook posts or tweets, attach pictures, videos and links, and then pick a date and time, down to the minute, of when you want your posts or tweets to appear for the social media world to see!

If you are still just working on easing your way into the social media world and aren’t ready for any outside tools, Facebook has an easy to use feature that also allows you to schedule posts. When posting, look in the left corner of the posting box, click on the little clock icon and schedule away!

Now that we’ve overcome that overwhelming feeling of taking on social media, start exploring these new tools and get to scheduling!

 

Tina’s Two Bits

We had THREE new sites launch this week –  The Highlands Consulting Group, Safety Center and Carmichael Recreation and Park District. These sites were awesome projects that turned out great! See below for the some pictures of the completed sites!

screen shot of highlands

Highlands Consulting Group

 

screen shot of highlands

Safety Center

 

screen shot of carmichael

Carmichael Recreation and Park District

Client Corner: Triumph Cancer Foundation

 

Collaborative.

This is the keyword that comes to mind for Pam Whitehead, Founder and President of Triumph Cancer Foundation, when she thinks about working with the Uptown Studios Team.

“I always had a vision, but was never able to get it articulated properly until working with Uptown Studios,” she said during a phone interview.

This vision that Whitehead had was to capture the uniqueness and importance of Triumph Cancer Foundation through branding and a new and improved website.

Triumph Cancer Foundation is an admirable cancer treatment center that empowers cancer survivors through physical fitness. It is the only program of its kind in the metro area to help survivors after treatment, that is very dialed in to the individual participant, Whitehead said.

Triumph Cancer Foundation allows survivors to leave empowered and stronger.

“It allows participants to pay it forward. Triumph is a celebration of surviving cancer and becoming stronger than you were before,” she said.

Whitehead, a cancer survivor and long time advocate for the cancer community, started the first Triumph program in 2005. Triumph is offered at no cost to any adult cancer survivor as a 12-week strength and fitness program.

This remarkable program is designed to help survivors “take back their lives while exercising with a group of like-minded individuals,” according to the Triumph website.

In order to raise enough funds to put as many cancer survivors as possible through the Triumph program each year, Triumph puts on the annual Triumph Uncorked fundraiser. This fundraiser “drives home the importance of the Triumph program and raises awareness of what Triumph is doing in Sacramento,” Whitehead said.

Uptown Studios is leading the marketing committee for Triumph Uncorked  - this fun-filled evening will take place June 21 at 5:30 PM – 10:00 PM at Helwig Winery. Uptown Studios will be there and you should too! Don’t miss out on this wonderful event and make sure to get your tickets for a spectacular evening full of Jazz music, a picnic dinner, wine from Helwig winery and a silent auction all benefiting Triumph Cancer Foundation!

by Hailey Vincent, Office Manager

The Art of Social Media

The Art of Social Media

By Leidhra Johnson, Social Media Manager and Anton Weaver, Lead Designer

Social media can be a bit overwhelming if you’re not used to using it. So, to help ease the fear of the unknown, here are some simple setup tips to keep in mind when getting started… or when quickly going to your page after reading this and making some quick fixes:

  •  Facebook profile picture: Keep this a simple square version of your brand – the only time this should change is if you redesign your brand/logo.
  •  Facebook timeline cover photo: Make this a personality photo – share something that shows off the personality of your organization. This can be switched as often as you like – in fact, consistent rotation of this can be a great way to catch people’s eyes. Just remember to add a caption to this picture.
  • Twitter profile picture: Just like the Facebook profile picture, this should remain a square version of your logo.
  • Twitter header image: This is similar to the Facebook cover photo, but a little trickier. If you have a personality picture that isn’t too complicated to set behind text, we encourage using this. But with Twitter setting the white text of your bio over this image, it might be best to use a simple color gradient image that matches your brand – try pulling color scheme ideas from your website!
  • Twitter Background image: Again, this is a great chance to build brand consistency. A simple background image that matches your brand identity and personality can do a lot to make your Twitter page feel consistent with the rest of your channels Take advantage of this feature and get a custom background up on Twitter!

Now that you know WHAT to put in each of these sections, Anton, our lead designer, is going to give you some tips on how to create these images…

 

Anton Weaver, Lead Designer

The world of social media brings a new set of rules to the way we communicate and graphic design is no exception. Here at Uptown Studios we are always striving to maximize our clients’ social media impact and part of my job as a graphic designer is to understand the rules and best practices of what goes into making great social media images.
Many of the social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn allow you to customize your profile with images which span a variety of sizes. For example Twitter allows for a background image, a profile image and header image. Each has their own pixel size and best use. It can be a little daunting at times, trying to remember what is what. However, (and many of you savvy’er social media folks may know this already) you can type “twitter image sizes,” or “Facebook image sizes,” into a Google search and get back some very useful templates which give pixel by pixel dimensions for just about every image for every social media channel out there! Here’s a good one that I’ve used: http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/12/complete-image-size-chart-for-facebook-twitter-pinterest-youtube-other-social-networks.html
Here’s a good one for Twitter backgrounds which can be especially tricky since their backgrounds are positioned at top left (0,0) meaning that if you have too much artwork displayed on the left it could get covered over by your content area.
Many of the best practices associated with social media channel customization are straight forward like using a horizontal image image for your Facebook timeline photo rather than a vertical one since this image ratio is set much wider than tall. Also noting the position of the profile image which overlaps the timeline photo.
Also, always check each social media Channels’ “help,” or “support” section for their rules and regulations.

 

Tina’s Two Bits

Uptown Studios is celebrating a very special event this weekend. Our very own Art & Web Director, Cris Weber is getting married tomorrow! A big Congratulations to Cris from all of us here at Uptown Studios!

Time To Get Social

Time To Get Social

By Leidhra Johnson, Social Media Manager

We’re talking social media this month at Uptown Studios… Well, in all fairness, we are always talking about social media here, but May in particular is focused on all things social media.

Today I am going to focus on what to post to build engagement. While I do agree that you should post quality over quantity, I also believe as human beings, we crave and appreciate consistency. SO, I recommend striving for one post a day, 4-7 days a week. Is that too much? It might seem like it at first, but your posts don’t all have to be directly about your organization…

Try to break your posts into thirds:

  • 1/3 directly related to your organization
  • 1/3 related to your field
  • 1/3 just because it’s worth sharing -maybe there’s a great local event going on that, while it has nothing to do with your organization, you feel it is worth sharing

 

In addition to breaking your posts up into thirds, remember that people are often using mobile devices to access the web and social media – keep your posts simple and try to include a video or photo. Videos are a great way to share a message without boring people with too much text. And, with platforms like Twitter limiting your character length, a video can be a useful way to share a message that would surpass 140 characters if written out. Photos are also a great way to get people to stop scrolling and take a look at your post. You don’t have to be a videographer or photographer to share videos and photos, so don’t spend too much time worrying about how professional or artsy it looks, instead ask yourself “does this photo or video clearly tell or enhance my story?” If the answer is yes, then share it.

Remember, social media is fun and often forgiving – so get out there and get social!

 

Tina’s Two Bits

May marks Bike Month and the entire crew at Uptown Studios is committed to riding our bikes to work as much as possible. Expect to see me out and about on my black cruiser – If you swing by we have a Bike Midtown bumper sticker for you. We are all signed up at http://www.mayisbikemonth.com, if you don’t have a team to join – please join the Uptown Studios team. Ride your bike.


We launched two sites this past week – check out http://ontrackconsulting.org and Asian Pacific Community Counseling - http://apccounseling.org. Creating a brand new website is like birthing a new project – Happy Birthday ONTRACK and APCC!

- http://ontrackconsulting.org

- http://apccounseling.org

How to Create a Cool PDF with Video!

How to Create a Cool PDF with Video!

By Kate Moore, Multimedia Director

Adding a video to your PDF is easy using Acrobat Pro. Simply go to the tools bar and select content then, multimedia video.

Draw a rectangle where you want your video to appear and then select the video that you want to place. Acrobat supportsFLV, F4V, MP3, SWF and other video encoded as H.264.

Select your video and then select the snap to content proportions so it shows inside your rectangle.

Next, click the advanced options and select how your video will play. You can choose that the video will play automatically when the page is opened or choose for it to play when the video is clicked. You can also have the video pop out in a larger window or stay within the page when it plays.

You can create a poster image that shows up prior to playing the video or you can let Acrobat select the first frame of the video to appear instead.

Go to the controls section to create a control panel that will appear on top of the video with almost any combination of play, stop, forward, rewind, seek, mute and volume. Remember to click the auto-hide on the controls so it will disappear when the mouse moves off the video area.

Your playback controls can match the look of your PDF by selecting any color you choose. You can also control the opacity.

Click the OK button and your video is ready to view in your PDF. Save it and share with the world.

Have fun and let us know if we can help you with your next project!

Posting Videos is Easy and Fun!

Posting Videos is Easy and Fun!

By Brent Stromberg, Web Manager

WordPress is one of the most popular website platforms because of its huge community, customizability and ease of use. Almost any average internet use can build a website with rich, dynamic content. But sometimes creating a text only blog post or page simply won’t cut it. I mean, why write in 500 words when a 30 second video could do the same thing? (Don’t point out the irony in that statement, I saw it as soon as I typed it).

Posting a video to your WordPress site is an awesome way to add content to your site in a really fun way. And thanks to services like YouTube and Vimeo, it couldn’t be easier. To add video to an existing post or page from YouTube, navigate to the desired videos URL. Below the video are some sharing options.

1. Click on the ‘Share’ button
2. Click on the ‘Embed’ button
3. Choose a size for your video

  • a. There are some preset sizes to choose from
  • b. Or you can choose your own custom size. Choose a width and YouTube will automatically fill in the height for you (or vice versa)

4. Select any of the additional options from the check boxes below

A computer screenshot of how to embed a video using YouTube

5. Copy and paste the embed code into your post or page

A computer screenshot of how to embed a video using YouTube

A computer screenshot of how to embed a video using YouTube

And thats it! Be sure to preview your post or page to be sure it displays how you intended, and then once you are satisfied click ‘Publish’.

Now if only I had recorded a video on how to do this I could have saved myself about 500 words.

The Power of Video

The Power of Video

By Kate Moore, Multimedia Director

Businesses and nonprofit organizations are creating videos to open hearts, minds and wallets. They can build their brand by creating a video that captures who they are and the passion behind what they do.

Great videos are emotionally engaging, creating a connection between the viewer that is personal. Joining in a hearty laugh, a warm hug or
sharing the joy of success. Evoking emotion can help drive people to take action.

When working on a video for a client, we have a discussion to talk about their vision, message and deadline. Depending on the scope of the project, we write scripts, hire actors, create graphics, select music, powder noses, direct, shoot and edit the final video.  It is one of the things I love about my job is when a client has approved their video and it goes out to the world for the first time.

All of an organization’s videos don’t have to be professional or complex. Most phones have a high-definition video camera and with the right app, you can upload it to your own free video channel.  Capture your staff at work, a happy client or a funny moment. You can post video clips directly to your social media channels and even live-stream events.

The power of video is available to everyone – what are you going to do with it?

Check out our YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/uptownstudios

Give us a call if you need some help on your next video project.

 

TINA’S TWO BITS

We completed a few projects for some pretty cool clients this week. First, we launched DDSO.org new site and it is so much easier to find them and get right to the page you need. See below the before and after shots of their site. We worked closely with Yvonne Soto, one great woman, changing the world.

BEFORE

 

AFTER

 

Also, in full swing is the City of Sacramento Recycling and Solid Waste Division campaign that we have been working with them on for the past three months. Did you know that your trash and recycling pick up days will be changing? Take a look at the great little calendar we created for them.

 

 

Whether it’s design, web, video, social media or print – Uptown Studios has the crew to help you!

tina@uptownstudios.net